“You don’t have a chef? Or a housekeeper?” That surprised Eli. The house was very large, and it was rumored Emma had a difficult time carrying her last baby.

“I hire people all the time. Emma fires them. Well, she’s too sweet to fire anyone, but she refuses to allow anyone else to cook the children’s meals or mine. We have people come in a couple of times a week to do the bulk of the cleaning, but that’s about all I can get away with. The woman isn’t the least bit afraid of me.”

Jake said the last as if he’d failed miserably. Eli hid his grin. Jake, like Eli, needed control, especially around those he loved, yet he didn’t sound too upset that Emma wanted to run her household.

Eli was surprised that Emma insisted on doing the cooking for her family. He liked that. He liked that it mattered to her, and he could see Jake liked it as well. Jake looked like a happy man, and when he rested his gaze on his wife, the dark, intense look of love and possession was starkly there on his usually expressionless face.

“We’re lucky men,” Eli observed. “Catarina likes to cook for me as well. Here’s to our women and the way they care for us.” He tapped the long neck of Jake’s beer bottle with his own.

Jake smiled at him. “I like that your woman cooks. They’ve been talking nonstop about recipes and brands of pots and pans and now stoves for the last hour. Emma sounds happy.”

“I’ve been taking notes,” Eli admitted, with a small grin. “I don’t forget much, and when it comes to something Cat wants, I especially pay attention. She wants that stove. She’s mentioned it a few times now.”

Jake burst out laughing. “I knew you’d be ordering her that stove.”

“She wants it, she gets it.”

“You’ve got it bad, Eli.”

“You have no idea,” he admitted, surprised that it didn’t matter that Jake knew that Catarina had somehow become his world.

The smile faded from Jake’s face and he looked toward the kitchen. “Emma is my life. Without her, I’ve got nothing. I would kill to protect her, and I have. I understand the concept of giving her whatever she wants because in return she gives me everything. It isn’t easy for women to live with men like us, Eli. Your woman is fragile right now. I can see that. She’s just learning what shifters are and what drives them. I run roughshod over Emma at times and she handles it because she knows how.”