I felt Jake lean in and kiss the top of my head before he let me go and moved away.

I felt this as I heard Mickey say, “Right, Josephine. Later, babe.”

“Later, Mickey.” I lowered my voice. “And I’m sorry.”

His voice was lower too, sweet, and there was a smile in it when he replied, “Don’t be. I didn’t get a catch but you got one. Don’t read shit into his history. Jake’s a good guy. The best. He’s just had shit taste in women. Until now.”

Very sweet.

And obviously a good friend.

“Thank you, Mickey.”

“You bet, honey. Later.”

“Later.”

I disconnected to see Jake had his head in his very large, high quality fridge (Sub-Zero! Lavender House needed one of those) and he was now on his phone.

“Amber, babe, haven’t heard a word from you in a while. Check in with your old man so he doesn’t have to start calling hospitals. And just in case this is incentive, I’m makin’ tacos, nuking some Ro-Tel dip and Josie’s over here for the day. You haul your ass back here, bring the Taylors.”

He disconnected, shoved the phone in his back pocket, came out of the refrigerator with a box and a package of ground beef and before the fridge closed on him, he tipped his head back and shouted at the ceiling, “Con! Kitchen! Don’t give a shit who you’re talkin’ to, come say hi to Josie!”

“I could go to his room, knock and say hello to him,” I noted. “Ethan showed me his closed door.”

“We got company, my kids come and say hello,” Jake replied and I couldn’t argue that because not greeting visitors was rude. I didn’t say anything, however, because I saw the rectangular yellow box he got out of the fridge had the large words “Velveeta” written across it.

I pressed my lips together.

Ethan came flying into the room, shouting, “Ro-Tel dip!”

“You’re on dip duty, bud,” Jake told him and without hesitation, Ethan dashed to the pantry, throwing open the door and disappearing inside.

“Can I do something?” I asked.

“Relax, tuck in when it’s done and be amazed,” Jake answered and I smiled at him, amused at his quip.

He smiled back.

When he did, I decided that that smile, his humor, being in his attractive kitchen that he’d renovated himself and being in it with an exuberant Ethan who came out of the pantry with a tin of something was worth tolerating ludicrously protective and preposterously overbearing.

Most definitely.

On this thought, Conner walked in.

“Hey, Josie,” he greeted with a distracted smile at me and in much the same way (with obvious differences) as his father, with casual affection he came right up to me, touched my arm and dipped down to kiss my cheek.

He then turned to his dad.

“Yo, Dad.”

Jake was dumping ground beef into a skillet at the stove (it was a Wolf, not an Aga—still, most assuredly not something to sneeze at) but he turned to Conner and replied, “Con.”

Then his eyes narrowed on his son.

Conner moved to the pantry asking, “Do we need refried beans?”

“Yeah, and you can get ‘em lettin’ me in on why you got that look on your face,” Jake replied.

Apparently undisturbed that I was in attendance, Conner readily shared, “Called Ellie twice today. Left two messages. She hasn’t called back.”

“Uh-oh,” Ethan muttered, cutting what appeared to be a rather gooey brick of cheese that was much the color of the alarming tub filled with the substance in which he’d dipped his pretzel bites into at the mall.

Jake now had a wooden spoon in hand, but both hands on his hips and he was perhaps the only male in the universe who could look commanding and charismatic standing at a stove holding a wooden spoon.

He also had his eyes to his son.

“You end things with Kaylee last night?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah,” Conner answered, his voice telling the tale that this was not an enjoyable event.

It was undoubted that Jake heard his son’s tone and this was likely why he let it go and instead queried, “Ellie know she’s the one?”

“Told her a week ago, Dad,” Conner stated, using a can opener on a can of refried beans.

At this, Ethan muttered, “Righteous.”

Jake ignored his youngest son and inquired of his eldest, “You think Mia’s still givin’ her shit?”

Conner gave his dad a look, a look that said Mia was indeed still giving poor Ellie shit.

Not good news.

“She goes to church Sunday mornings, Con,” Jake reminded his boy.

“At nine. It’s nearly noon. She’s been home for almost two hours,” Conner replied.

Jake had no response to that.

“Is Zoey gone?” Ethan entered the conversation.

“Just got off the phone with her,” Conner murmured.

I bit my lip.

Jake looked at me.

I stopped biting my lip and stretched my lower one out to communicate my nonsensical “eek!” which, albeit nonsensical, I still felt said a great many things.

At seeing my gesture, Jake dropped his head and grinned at his stocking feet.

He understood the great many things I’d said.

“Josie?” Conner called and I quickly rearranged my face and looked to him. “You’re a chick,” he declared when I did.

I knew intuitively this wasn’t starting very well.

“I am, indeed, Conner,” I confirmed unnecessarily.

“What’s her gig?” he asked.

Yes, this was not going in a comfortable direction.

All three Spear men turned their eyes to me.

“I’m afraid I don’t know her well enough to answer that, sweetheart,” I said gently.

“She always picks up when I call or calls back when she can after she gets my message,” he told me.

And it kept trundling down that prickly path.

It was then a question that Jake had asked me over a week ago came back and I asked it of Conner.

“How real can you take it?”

“I dig her, a lot,” Conner answered, unlike me, obviously understanding the question straight away. “She’s sweet. She’s really freaking pretty. She’s cool. Eath likes her. Dad likes her. Even Amber likes her when Amber’s not being a pain in the ass. And I like the way she looks at me and how I feel when I’m with her.”

That was quite forthcoming.

And very sweet.

“In other words, you don’t want to lose her,” I deduced.

“In other words, yeah. I don’t,” Conner affirmed.

I moved to the island where both Jake’s sons were and laid a hand on it, my eyes to Conner the whole time. When I got there, still going gently, I gave him real.

“At the game, you were lovely with her. Very attentive. Protective,” I told him.

I liked the way his expression changed, showing satisfaction not only that I noted he was this way but that he gave those things to Ellie.

Unfortunately, I had more to say.

“However, it does not feel good to be one in many. Although she’s made the cut, which I will share now with your best interests at heart, that is not the terminology to use when referring to whether or not you wish to carry on a relationship, she could still be smarting about that. But I believe it’s likely Mia. She’s afraid of her and girls can be quite unpleasant. She’ll find her times to be this way to Ellie when you’re not around. Ellie knows this. So I advise you give it a bit of time and if she doesn’t call you back, you call her again. If she still doesn’t answer, seek her out.”

“I’ll do that,” Conner muttered. Then louder, he asked, “Should I lay shit out with Mia?”

“Have you not already done that?” I asked back.

“I told her to lay off and I’d be pissed if she didn’t.”

“And if you get pissed that she doesn’t, what do you intend to do?”

Conner said nothing and I knew why.

He was too much of his father’s son to hurt her in any real way so his getting pissed was no threat and Mia knew this.

“As that’s the case, if she still intends to harm Ellie, since she’s not frightened of your anger, she’ll do something to harm Ellie.”

Conner immediately looked concerned. “Shit, should I go over to her house now?”

“Give her the chance to call you back,” Jake put in at this juncture. “A coupla hours. Then call her and, like Josie said, go over there if she doesn’t answer.”

Conner didn’t look like he liked doing it but he nodded to his father.

My phone still in my hand rang.

I looked down at it and saw it said “Unknown Caller,” but the area code on the number was local.

This concerned me, as it was a possibility Henry was staying somewhere close and could be using the hotel phone to call me, though I didn’t know why he wouldn’t use his mobile if he rang.

Even concerned it might be Henry, I took the call and put the phone to my ear.

“This is Josephine.”

“Josie, girl, you…are…legend!” a female voice shrieked in my ear.

I narrowed my eyes at the black granite of Jake’s island. “Pardon?”

“Babelicious, I heard about last night,” the woman stated.

It came to me it was Alyssa right before she kept speaking.

“You rock. You roll. You got it good and from what I hear, gave it better. Girl, I wanna be you when I grow up, walkin’ into the arena, pure class, your shit so doesn’t stink, and then you give Jake the business in the locker room and walk out with head held high on your fancy-assed heels. You’re so the fucking bomb, you’d level Hiroshima again if you visited.”

“Um…” I mumbled but got nothing else out. Not that I knew what to say to her highly unusual compliments delivered with extreme enthusiasm.

“Ohmigod!” she shrieked. “I so hope Donna hears about this. That bitch is a stupid bitch. I mean, hello! Wake up and look at the near-to teen wolf you got in your bed. He may look a little like Jake Spear of twenty years ago but he is not Jake Spear of twenty years ago. You let Jake go, bitch, you’re never gettin’ him back no matter how many boy-men you bang.”

This was extremely insightful.

Before I could share that or, perhaps, walk out of the room, as it was likely, with the direction the mostly one-sided conversation was moving, I should take this call privately, she kept going.

“And who wants a twenty-something? Is she high? Every woman knows they gotta get a man who’s sowed his wild oats and, she’s lucky, he’ll have sowed his wild oats with her. She let that shit go and now she’s grasping at it to get it back ‘cause she knows no way Jake’s gonna go there with her because Jake suffers no fool and that bitch, lettin’ him go, is all kinds a fool.”

She took in a breath so deep, I heard her inhaling it over the phone and I thought I’d get a word in edgewise but I wasn’t fast enough.

“And don’t get me started on the way she is with her kids. My head might explode.”

This, too, I agreed with her on.

“Indeed,” I got in.

“You bet your ass, indeed,” she replied, sounding like she was doing it through laughter. “Now, babe, my shop isn’t open on Mondays but I’m opening the joint and givin’ you a mani-pedi tomorrow just because you’re the shit and already so legend that if I tell all my girls that the class-act who’s banging The Truck is a client, everyone will want to go there.”

Oh dear.

“But trust me, these lips aren’t loose,” she continued, again before I could utter a noise. “Don’t even think they are. Junior likes his BJs tight so I don’t ever go there. Come in at three. It’s called Maude’s House of Beauty. It was my mom’s before me. She’s Maude. Obviously, I’m not. We’ll go for a drink after I sort you out and that way I can be home in time to feed Junior and the hooligans I pushed out for him and you can get to Jake and rock his world.”

“I’m afraid I can’t,” I told her and I was actually quite disappointed I couldn’t. “I’ll have Ethan.”

“That’s cool. We’ll drop Eath with my Bryant. They’re buds. My girl Sofie will look after them.”

“I think I need to clear this with Jake and, well… Ethan,” I said.

“You with the big man now?” she asked.

I kept my eyes resolutely to the island and answered, “Yes.”

“Course you are,” she hooted. “So ask. I’ll wait.”

I drew in a breath then said, “Please hold on.”

“I’ll be here,” she replied.

I looked up to see Jake had eyes to me but a spoon to the browning hamburger meat.

“This is Alyssa. She says that her girl Sofie can watch after Ethan while I—”

“Yes!” Ethan broke in. “Can I go to Bryant’s after school tomorrow, Dad? Can I? Hunh?”