“Okay, what have you heard?” I leaned back in my chair as she plopped her butt right on my desk. The gossip wasn’t something I’d missed while I was at college, but Thea was someone I’d longed for every day at Rutgers.

“I know that I was dropping Jacob off at preschool and some of the other moms had a few fascinating stories about a very hot, very tattooed, very Daniels-looking man stopping in at the gas station before heading up the mountain. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, now, would you?” Her blue eyes sparkled as she tilted her head.

“Why on earth would I know who stops in for gas?”

“Oh, come on. Julie Hall was dropping off Sawyer before heading to the hospital, and she said—”

My cell phone alerted me to another entry, and a quick peek showed my mother walking in.

Work from home, they said. It’ll be fun and productive, they said.

“Mom! Boundaries!” I called down the hall.

“Thea! How lovely to see you.” Mom ignored my comment, her perky grin sending warning signals down my spine. What was she up to now?

“Mom, seriously? I thought we had the whole ‘the key is only for emergencies’ discussion?” Moving back last year had definitely challenged my mom’s hovering nature, but I knew she did it out of love. She was in her element with someone to fuss over, and lately that someone was me.

“Well, you get so grouchy when I interrupt your work, so I figured I’d just let myself in and see if you were here before bugging you.”

I wasn’t touching the lack of logic in that statement with a ten-foot pole. “Right. Mom, what’s up? I know you didn’t drive all the way up here to see if I was home. You could have done that with a phone call.”

She shifted an overstuffed canvas tote on her shoulder. “Is it a crime to want to see my daughter? I mean, you were gone for four years, and I feel like I’m still getting used to having you back. I love having both my girls home again.” Her tone was so exaggerated that I nearly choked on the syrupy sweetness of it. “But I do need a favor from one of you.”

“We both know that Charity is asleep, so out with it!” I demanded with a laugh. No doubt my older sister had gone back to bed after taking Rose to school. She usually worked the closing shift at her bar, since she lived right above it.