Yesterday, he’d overheard her address one of her callers as Mark. Before that, it had been Brad. Same old April. Same old hard-on whenever he got near her. Even so, he wanted to make love with her again. He wanted to excavate her layers and discover where her strength came from.

He had meetings in New York and intended to ask her to watch Riley for a few days while he was gone. He trusted her with his kid. The person he didn’t trust her with was himself.

Someone started pounding on the door as Dean headed back downstairs from his shower. He pulled it open and saw Nita Garrison standing there. Behind her, a dusty black sedan pulled away. He turned toward the kitchen. “Blue, you’ve got company.”

Nita smacked him in the knee with her cane, and he automatically stepped back, which opened up a hole big enough for her to slip through. Blue emerged from the kitchen, followed by a trail of great cooking smells. “Oh, God, no,” she moaned as she spotted Nita.

“You left your shoes on the stairs,” Nita said accusingly. “I tripped over them and fell all the way to the bottom. I’m lucky I didn’t break my neck.”

“I didn’t leave my shoes on the stairs, and you didn’t fall. How did you get here?”

“That fool Chauncey Crole. He spit out the window the whole way.” She sniffed the air. “I smell fried chicken. You never fix fried chicken for me.”

“That’s because I can’t find a place to hide the ground glass.”

Nita sucked on her teeth, then whacked him in the shin again for laughing. “I need to sit down. I have bruises everywhere from that fall.”

Riley popped in from the kitchen, Puffy trotting behind her. “Hi, Mrs. Garrison. I practiced with the book today.”

“Go get it and let me see. But first, find me a comfortable chair. I took a terrible fall today.”

“There’s one in the living room. I’ll show you.” Riley led her away.

Blue rubbed the back of her hand over a dab of flour on her cheek. She didn’t quite look at him. “I’d better ask April to set another place at the table.”

“That woman is not eating dinner with us,” he said.

“Then you figure out how to get rid of her. Believe me, it’s harder than you think.”