“She wants to be tied to you,” Mrs. Heely replied. She was not teasing, so he felt that hit his chest, and it was also warm. “She wants you to have all the things you didn’t. She wants to give them to you personally. She wants it herself, but she wants it more for you.”

Joker stood still and said nothing.

But he thought that what Mrs. Heely didn’t say was what Carissa really wanted.

She wanted to heal him.

And to do that, she was using family.

Maybe he needed to let her off the hook on that and let her know that was already done.

“You like her?” he asked quietly.

“There’s nothing not to like. I will say that I was uncertain when you shared at her age she’d had a child and had already been divorced. But seeing her with you, her son, she hasn’t told me her story, but I can well imagine. Before we learn what’s right, we put our trust in the wrong people, and it’s never good to start life’s adventures, especially important ones like marriage, when we’re too young even to know ourselves. But she’s bounced back from that very well, I think.”

“She has,” Joker agreed.

“Smart enough not to give up… on a variety of things… as well as find help.”

Joker got what she was saying so he grinned.

Mrs. Heely put a hand light to his chest. “I like her for you. I like the way you are with her. You seem happy.”

“I am, Mrs. Heely,” he confirmed.

He could swear he saw her eyes twinkle as she said, “Who would have thought my Carson Steele would catch butterflies.”

That was when Joker threw his head back and laughed.

Mrs. Heely laughed with him.

When they quit doing that, he got her safe inside and walked to his truck, knowing that Bertie was watching because he could see her at her window.

When he got back to Carissa’s house he found her in Travis’s room, her son in her arms, his PJs on. She was cooing and swaying as she paced the room. Travis had his hands around his bottle with her spotting him, his eyes drooping.

Joker rested against the jamb and watched, thinking she needed a rocking chair in that room and deciding to get her one.

When Carissa turned his way, she saw him, and that was when she gave it to him again.

Soft face. Warm eyes. Lips pursed. Blowing him a kiss.

He took it with a chin lift then walked out and left her to have some time with her boy.

When she had Travis down, she came out and spent some time stretched on the couch with her other boy.

He fiddled with her hair, his eyes on the TV, feeling her weight, her soft tits pressed to his side.

He gave it time.