“Eat a lot of pie so it doesn’t look ridiculous how many leftovers there are?” I murmured back and he grinned.

“Scout’s honor, darlin’. I’ll do my best to have your back.”

I returned his grin and whispered, “Thanks.”

The door opened and Jill was there.

A year and a half older than Brock, her hair had started to silver and she let it go at that. She got her mom’s eyes, both her parents’ height (like all her siblings), wasn’t pleasantly rounded like Laura but fit in a sturdy way. She’d been with her partner, Fritz, for twenty years, they’d never married, and they had two daughters named Kalie and Kellie, aged, respectively, eighteen and sixteen.

I’d been around Jill three times because she came with Laura and/or Fern to my bakery but I had yet to meet Fritz, Kalie, or Kellie. To add to that, Austin, Laura’s husband and Levi, Brock’s brother, would be new additions to my ever-expanding Lucas social network.

In other words, regardless of the fact that I knew some of them, I didn’t know others so I was more than a little bit nervous, thus my going overboard on dessert.

“Hey, guys. Welcome to the madhouse,” she greeted, pushing open the storm door and holding it, whereupon Joel and Rex carefully scuttled in sideways, giving their aunt their greetings then disappeared into the house.

Jill’s eyes went to her brother.

Then she asked quietly, “How’d you talk the Wicked Witch of the Rockies into relinquishing her offspring for a family holiday?”

“I didn’t. Tess provided distraction for me in the front while I penetrated the house through a basement window and the boys and I escaped out back. She still doesn’t know they’re gone.”

Brock said this as we both slipped by her and into the house but I did it smiling because my man was funny.

Jill closed the door and looked at me muttering, “I wish.”

Brock finally spoke the truth. “It was my turn, Jill.”

“The other story is better,” Jill said as she guided us toward the kitchen, and when we hit it, I noticed what a madhouse it was.

Fern lived in a two-bedroom bungalow with a finished basement in the out, out, outskirts of Washington Park. In other words, she was in my ’hood, though I lived close to Reiver’s Bar and Grill so I was officially in the ’hood while Fern was arguably in it.