There was a moment of silence, a muttered, “Fuck,” from Brock and my eyes went to the living room half a second before a woman appeared at the foot of the stairs to the kitchen.

And one look at her was like a sock to the stomach.

She was utterly, top-to-toe, the definition of beautiful.

Shining, healthy, long blonde hair. Fabulous bone structure. Perfectly symmetrical features. Intriguingly shaped bedroom eyes. Cheekbones to die for. Tall and rake thin. Slim-fitting, stylish sweater, two-hundred-dollar jeans, seven-hundred-dollar boots and fifteen-hundred-dollar handbag.

And she had extraordinarily beautiful hands tipped with perfect, crimson fingernails.

She looked like she walked out of the pages of a celebrity magazine.

And she was Brock’s ex-wife.

Her striking, angry, venom-spewing eyes leveled on me and she demanded to know, “Who are you?”

I opened my mouth to answer but Brock entered my vision and he spoke before me.

“This is Tess, Olivia, and seriously, this is not fuckin’ cool,” he snarled.

“Tess?” she asked, eyes on me then they cut to Brock. “Tess?”

“Maybe you’ll do me a favor and go outside for your tantrum instead of havin’ it in front of my boys and my woman.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong thing to say.

I knew this when she hissed, “Your woman?”

“Jesus, Olivia, can we fuckin’ go outside?” Brock asked.

“No we fucking can’t!” she shrieked.

And that was it for me.

“Okay, boys,” I said softly, putting down my pastry bag, “do me a favor and get your coats. Let’s take a walk around the block.”

“Don’t you take my sons anywhere,” Olivia lashed out, her arm coming up so she could jab a finger at me.

“Take them, Tess,” Brock growled.

“Up boys, let’s go,” I whispered as they seemed planted to their stools.

“Don’t you dare walk out of this house with my children!” Olivia shouted.

“Go, Tess,” Brock barked.

“Guys,” I called, rounding the counter, “up. Let’s go.”

“We have problems if that woman takes my sons out of this house,” Olivia threatened Brock.

“You steppin’ into my house, we already had problems, Olivia,” Brock fired back.

“What’s going on?” I heard and Olivia and Brock both looked to the door as I tried to place the voice that was vaguely familiar and couldn’t until Joel spoke.

“Grandpa,” he whispered.

Boy, Cob Lucas had interesting timing.

“What’s going on, Cob, is that I’m here to pick up my sons and Slim won’t release them,” Olivia informed her ex-father-in-law at the same time she crossed her arms on her chest, hitched a hip, and put out a foot.

“Well, I’ll be,” the invisible Cob replied. “I musta got somethin’ messed up. I thought you picked the boys up at five. That’s why I stopped by, to see my grandsons. Did I lose two hours somewhere?”