I pressed my lips together since he was so pissed he was the definition of pissed and I didn’t want to make him more pissed. Actually, I didn’t want to be there at all while they faced off but unfortunately my pottery was not making itself and, unlike the other beings with only two legs that were in the barn with me, I had to be there. Still, I slowly shook my head.

Mike’s eyes cut back to Audrey but spoke to me, “’Course not. How would you?” Then he spoke to Audrey, “You don’t have her numbers. But town talk, you know she’s a Holliday. You know where the farm is. And you know she’s workin’ it. So you show. Puttin’ her on the spot for whatever shit you mean to shovel, makin’ her eat it when my woman’s got a vast amount of shit already on her fuckin’ plate.”

And that was when Audrey lost it.

She planted her hands on her hips, leaned forward and snapped, “She does exist for me, Mike. I can’t get away from her,” she unplanted one hand and threw it out to me before continuing. “Rees talks about her all the time. Jonas even talks about her all the time. Dusty has horses. Dusty rode one into the backyard. Dusty has a pretty laugh. Dusty has a pretty voice. Dusty always wears cool clothes. Dusty all the time. They see Dusty more than they see me. And they obviously talk to Dusty more than they do me since they have a lot more opportunity seeing as now she’s living with you and, incidentally, them. So when I want to do something special for my son for his birthday, I have to go to Dusty to find out what that is.”

Mike froze, I froze and Audrey stood there, her chest rising and falling visibly.

I suspected Mike was frozen for the same reason I was. I was surprised. Shocked, actually. This was not what I was expecting. Not at all. And what it was, was sad in the variety of ways that word could be used.

When no one spoke, Audrey broke the silence.

“So, as you can see, this isn’t easy for me. I’m trying to be a good mother and I have to go to my ex-husband’s girlfriend to find out what I should do for my son for his birthday since the thing I thought he would like, having his family all together for dinner, I’m not allowed to do.”

This was the wrong thing to say. She’d gained some amount of high ground but with that, she lost it instantly.

And Mike jumped right on it.

“Oh no, do not hand me that shit,” he growled.

“Is it not true?” she asked.

“You bought that,” he reminded her.

“And I’m paying,” she fired back. “Boy, Mike, am I paying.”

Mike opened his mouth to speak but I butted in and I did it quickly.

“He doesn’t care.”

Both Mike and Audrey looked at me but my eyes were on Audrey.

“No,” I started to explain. “He doesn’t care. Take him to Frank’s. Take him to The Station. Order in Reggie’s and rent movies. You live in Indy now, take him somewhere new and fun. He doesn’t care. He loves you. He believes you’re a good Mom deep down already. Anything you do to prove that belief right, he’ll love. So bake him one of your great cakes that even Mike says are the bomb, do something out of the ordinary but fun and spend time with him. That’s all you have to do.”

Audrey held my eyes. Then I watched her take in a deep breath.

Then she stated, “But it needs to be special.”

“Special is always the people you do stuff with, it’s never actually the stuff you do,” I replied. “But if you want to make an effort, the person to ask is not me, not Mike but Rees. She knows her brother better than any of us do. And she’ll be happy he has something he wants so she’ll also be happy to tell you.”

She continued to hold my eyes, I watched her take in another deep breath, this one deeper and I would know why when she admitted, “Rees and I don’t get along all that great.”

“A good way to rectify that is to communicate with her,” I stated. “And a good thing to communicate about is doing something nice for her brother. You follow that through, she sees she can trust you, you’re one step closer.”

She again held my eyes. Then she nodded and looked to her feet.

“You got what you need?” Mike asked derisively and her eyes shot to him.

“Yes,” she whispered then looked at me, took in another deep breath and forced out a, “Thank you.”

“Good,” Mike stated instantly. “Now you’re done and this shit is never gonna happen again. We clear?”

Her eyes were back to Mike, she took him in for long moments then she nodded.

He jerked his head to the farm doors and told her something she knew.

“Your Mercedes is fifty feet away and your ass needs to be in it.”

She closed her eyes and turned her head to me before she opened them. I saw she was conflicted. I saw she was angry. And I saw she was hurt.

Shit.

“I’m sorry I disturbed you,” she said quietly.

“You did. It’s done. Now go,” Mike stated and I bit back words to tell him to give her a break.

I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to tell her it was okay because it wasn’t. Yet it was, since it was for No and not to cause trouble.

Shit!

She pulled in yet another breath. Then she nodded once to me, her eyes skimmed through Mike and then she walked on her high-heeled pumps toward the barn doors.

I watched as Mike shifted so he’d have a better view. Then I watched as Mike stood, long legs planted, arms crossed on his chest, as he watched out the barn doors what I figured was Audrey getting into her car and driving away. This took a while then he turned and prowled to me.

“You okay?” he asked when he got close.

“Better than you,” I said softly.

He studied me then he muttered, “Sorry about that, Angel.”

“In the end, nothing to apologize for and it’s not for you to apologize anyway. If I gave her the minute she asked for, I could have said what I needed to say and she’d be on her way.”

“She’s full of shit and she’s playin’ games,” Mike replied and I kept my peace.

I didn’t know her. He did. But she genuinely, if surprisingly and somewhat pathetically, wanted help.

“It’s over. Let’s move on,” I suggested, still talking softly.

He studied me again.

Then he asked, “Your shit crated?”

I nodded.

“We’re back. No’s at the house jammin’ on his new bass. Rees is sayin’ hi to your mother. Reesee and I are here to see if you need any help.”

There it was. I knew my man wouldn’t hold a grudge.

 “A bass,” I whispered. “Cool gift, Dad.”

Mike’s lips twitched.

“I’m good, honey,” I told him. “All the grunt work’s done but I’ll probably be at my wheel a while then I have a couple of pieces to glaze and put in the kiln. It automatically ramps and I can get them out tomorrow.”

His brows drew together. “Ramps?”

“The pieces need to fire at different temperatures, slow start then lots of heat then cool down. It takes a while but my kiln does it automatically. I leave it. Mom checks it before she goes to bed. I come back tomorrow and voila! Pottery.”

His lips twitched again.

I liked that, the fact he showed to help and I thought both said a lot about him after the way we left it that morning.

So I decided to address the big, pink elephant in the barn.

And I did this by whispering, “I was out of line this morning.”

Mike held my eyes but said nothing.

I kept talking. “We’ll talk again when the ranch is rented.”

He said something then.

And what he said was, “All you gotta say, sweetheart. That’s done.”

God, I loved this man.

Sure, he got his way but I’d been thinking about it (a whole lot) all day. He had been right and I had been stubborn. He felt I’d made a sacrifice for him and he felt that deeply. This wasn’t something I didn’t know. He’d already shared it with me. He also wanted to take care of me. He didn’t close the door on the discussion. He just delayed it at the same time he was looking out for me. And he was right. I had a house I wasn’t living in that I was paying for, a business I couldn’t give my full attention to and if I was honest, I needed the help.

And further, Mike was Mike. He didn’t hide who he was or what he was like. And part of that was he looked after the people he loved. He didn’t do it because he had to. He did it because that was who he was. And one of those people was me.

So it was no skin off my nose.

And that was done.

So I moved on.

“You have a good day with the kids?”

“Yeah. You have a good day with your Mom?”

“Yes, after Fin laid it out for Rhonda, which was upsetting.”

I watched Mike’s face grow alert. “What?”

“I asked her to help. She said she wasn’t feeling up to it. I pressed. Fin and Kirb showed while this was happening. Kirb tried to protect his Mom. Fin lost his patience. It was coming, I knew it. Outside of thinking about how things went down with you this morning, all day I’ve also been thinking about whether I should have tried to stop Fin from gutting his mother. What I’ve come up with was that she needed some tough love. The problem with that is, it didn’t work. She didn’t help and, except this morning, I haven’t seen her all day.”

“Fuck,” he muttered.

“That says it all,” I muttered back.

“Way he acts, sometimes forget Fin’s just a kid,” Mike said. “He’s got too much to deal with.”

That sure was the truth.

“Agreed.”

Mike studied my face and clearly read my concern.

“It’ll make him the man he’ll become,” Mike told me gently.

“Thinking he’s already that man, babe,” I said softly. “And that man is d…o…n…e done with Rhonda being what he calls a zombie.”

“He called her a zombie?”

“That and told her the way she was behaving meant that he not only lost a Dad but he lost a Mom. He also shared Darrin had no control over him leaving them but she does.”

Mike winced to something that was definitely wince-worthy then he tipped his head to the side. “You want me to talk to him?”

“Yes,” I answered instantly. “I want him to know he’s understood and he’s not having these feelings all by himself. But I briefed Dad about it. They came back for lunch but I only saw them go into the house. Let me talk to Dad to see where he got with Fin. Then I’ll let you know.”

“Right,” Mike murmured, his eyes dropped to my wheel then came back to me and he grinned. “Seen Ghost?”

I didn’t know what he was talking about.

“Sorry?”

“The movie Ghost,” he explained and I then knew what he was talking about so I grinned back.

“Yeah,” I whispered.

“Yeah,” he whispered back and his grin became a smile.

My mind was pleasantly occupied with visions of Mike and me acting out one specific scene from that movie when he got close, bent to me and touched his lips to mine.

He pulled away an inch and said, “Come home soon’s you can.”

I nodded.

“Love you, Angel.”

“You too, honey.”

He grinned again, lifted up, kissed the top of my hair and I watched him walk away.

There it was. That was it. A busy day with a lot of shitty parts and one lip touch from Mike and it was all better.

I reached down, turned on my wheel and got busy so I could get home as soon as I could.

* * *

Mike kissed my earlobe, pulled out and rolled off of me and out of bed. He tugged the covers over me as I tried to regulate my heartbeat.

Like this morning, not a double (alas) but a near simultaneous orgasm.

Unlike this morning, I got to play with Mike.

It was glorious.

Yes, sex with Mike just kept getting better and better.

I watched him walk to the bathroom then minutes later I watched him walk out with a wet cloth. He joined me and bed, his hand with the cloth between my legs as his lips brushed mine, my cheekbones, my nose, my eyes.

He bent and kissed my throat when he finished, got out of bed and headed back to the bathroom.

I watched again.

Then he came back, tagging my panties and nightgown from the floor. He handed them to me and I shimmied the panties up and pulled my nightie over my head as Mike yanked up his pajama bottoms. Tying the drawstring, he went to the doors and let Layla in.

She ran toward the bed, jumped up, came right to me and I reached out to give her head a rubdown.

As I did, she licked my wrist.