“You cared about her that much to do what you did for others. It was you doing it, putting yourself out there. But it was how you felt about her that pushed you to do it and she was the kind of person who made you feel that deeply so she gets that part. She died tragically but her death meant something to the futures of a lot of other people and that’s beautiful.”

“I never thought of it like that,” he said quietly.

“Well, start,” I ordered.

He looked into my eyes a moment, then started chuckling.

“Shit, babe, when’d you start gettin’ bossy?”

“Christmas. It does shit to people,” I answered and his chuckling got louder.

Then he asked, “We done pourin’ out our hearts?”

“For now,” I replied and he smiled again.

His smile faded, a warm, sultry feeling filled the room, his eyes dropped to my mouth and his fingers pressed into my neck.

Then he muttered, “All right, then let’s go to bed.”

I stared into quicksilver eyes that were staring at my mouth. The eyes of the man who loved me. The eyes of a wild, rough, beautiful man who I knew but the proof had just been laid out for me felt exceptionally deeply and had an endless capacity for loyalty. And I didn’t protest.

Not that I was going to anyway.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Unexpected Company

One month later…

IT WAS SATURDAY and Brock had just gone out for a run, his weekend with his boys having been interrupted by them being invited to a party that they were at right this moment. He was set to return, shower then take off and get them and I wasn’t going to see him again until Sunday night as he intended to have “a talk” with them (in quotes because it was going to be heavy) about all that was going down.

While he was gone, I was putzing around in my kitchen.

It was my first full day off since two weeks before Christmas because Tessa’s Cakes had been a madhouse and it was all hands on deck.

The good news about this was, I could afford more nighties.

The other good news about this was, when I pulled myself out of bed every day and dragged my ass home every night arriving late, exhausted, only to face Christmas crap (cards, wrapping presents I ducked out from work to buy or ran around the malls to get on the way home—we’ll just say my Christmas spirit took a hit), Brock didn’t like it much and told his mother about it. So of course she told her daughters about it.