“You don’t know that.”

“No, I don’t. But trust me, Grandpa Tommy is the kind of guy who death follows around. He has a knack for turning people into something they hate or getting them killed. I think he did both to your dad. And Junior was too scared of Pop to get out like I did.”

“You made your point. Still doesn’t make you surrogate father of the year, Uncle Nicky,” she said and stormed from the car.

One thing about raising a hearing-impaired teenager was that, when they ignored you, there was no amount of yelling you could do to get through to them. But from what he had been told by the other guys on the job, most teenagers were like that anyway.

Nic grabbed his gear and a big white box out of the trunk and followed her inside the secure entryway of the City of Henderson Emergency Services Facility. From here, they had to be buzzed inside and clear security. He knew the woman on guard duty well.

“Come on, darling,” he said. “We’re freezing out here.”

Over the intercom, Betty—a sixty-eight-year-old African-American grandmother—said, “Freezing. Ha. This is Nevada. What is it out there, 117 degrees? And you can save that darling crap.”

“You’d miss it if I stopped. Now, are you going to let us in?”

“I see the way you look at me,” Betty said. “It’s sinful.”

Nic laughed, and then looking straight at the security camera, he said, “Would you open up already. Some of us have to work today.”

“You men are all the same,” she said, and the door buzzed open.

As they came through security, to where Betty stood guard behind a reception desk, Nic was about to ask a favor from the grandmother when the most gorgeous blonde woman Nic had ever seen walked around the corner.

Most single twenty-eight-year-old men who drove Maseratis would have probably loved to have been greeted by someone like Bristol Whelan. The reason such a radiant beauty didn’t set Nic’s heart on fire was that he had already dated her, bought a ring for her, and messily broken up with her.

Bristol stopped short, tensed up, and seemed to be telling herself that she was a beautiful, confident professional, or something of that nature. Nic had been the one always whispering those kinds of encouragements in her ear, before the breakup. Despite her good looks, she was very insecure about herself. And very jealous. Of everyone. She was probably jealous of Betty. Still, that wasn’t why they had separated. The jealousy he could have forgiven. Everyone had faults. But the one thing that had clinched it for Nic was the constant tension between Bristol and LJ.

The two most important ladies in his life were constantly at odds, and the three of them had never felt like a family together. And LJ was a part of him now. He had to not only think of what was best for himself, but also what was best for her. The woman he married would not only be his wife, but also LJ’s mom, and he knew that Bristol would never be able to fill those shoes.