But I was a mother, and as removed from my children as I was, I knew them.

Something else was happening.

Until my last breath I wanted them to feel I was their safe harbor.

I just wanted to know, if that’s why they needed me, what I was harboring them from.

Mickey drove to my place, hit the garage door opener and drove right in. I sat beside him, taking my mind from my thoughts by thinking my house was perfect. In that moment, I was thinking that because it had a two-car garage as well as a smaller one-car one next to it that you could get to with its own opener and through a door from the bigger one to the smaller one inside.

The one-car one was perfect for my Mercedes.

The Rover and my son’s Civic got the big one.

See?

Perfect.

He parked. We got out. We went in.

I was wandering to the kitchen, flipping on the pendant lights, asking Mickey, “Do you want a beer?” when the doorbell rang.

I stopped and looked to it.

Mickey, a few paces behind me, had also stopped and he was twisted to it.

The outdoor light was on and I knew the body shaded in the glass.

Conrad.

What was he doing here at this hour?

Or at all?

“Shit, that’s Conrad,” I whispered.

Mickey stayed twisted toward the door, but slowly, his head turned to me.

I caught his look, which meant I caught my breath, and that was unfortunate because I had to focus on breathing and was too late in acting.

This meant Mickey was swiftly prowling toward the door before I got my body to move and my mouth to call, “Mickey, let me.”

He stopped at the door, aimed that dangerous look at me and said one word.

“No.”

Then he turned back to the door, unlocked it and threw it open.

I was five feet away but had a good view of Conrad on my doorstep scowling up at Mickey.

“You do not get to do this,” Mickey growled as I got to him, pressed to the side of his back and put a hand to its small.

Before I could say a word, Conrad looked to me.

“Call your Neanderthal off, Amelia.”

Mickey went solid beside me and I was right there with him.

“Don’t speak about Mickey that way,” I snapped.

“Why?” Conrad bit back. “You felt free to aim your venom at Martine.”

“Yeah, but she isn’t fuckin’ me with your ring on her finger. You got no leg to stand on with that one so get past it, asshole,” Mickey ground out.

Conrad turned angry eyes to Mickey. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”