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  He collected all the greasy rags, wiped down and organized the tools per Antony’s instructions. When he heard a loud screech of tires right outside the garage, he tried to focus as his body processed the carbs from lunch and headed into sleep mode.

  Antony stuck his head out of the office door at the sound, his dark eyes angry, until he saw Rosalee jump out of her rattletrap SUV, leaving the engine running and the door open. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Aiden dropped the rags and headed toward the open bay door, heart speeding up, making his head hurt again.

  “He’s gone,” the woman yelped.

  Antony caught her arms.

  “Who’s gone? Calm down, Rosie. Tell me what happened.”

  “Calm down? Are you crazy? It’s Jeffrey, he ran away from the day care!” She whipped her head around and caught Aiden’s eye, stopping him dead in his tracks. “He kept talking about you and the garage, so I thought…I thought…oh, shit.” She seemed to collapse in on herself. Antony grabbed her and held tight, burying his nose in her hair.

  “We haven’t seen him all day.” Aiden moved closer to the two of them, still tingling from the expression on her face.

  Get a grip. She’s your brother’s woman.

  Antony flinched at the sound of Aiden’s voice. He held onto Rosalee’s arms and spoke to Aiden while keeping his gaze fixed on the hysterical woman in front of him.

  “Call the cops. Ask for Mark and tell him to get over here.”

  Aiden nodded, thanking the gods of small-town life for the ability to “call the cops” and request a specific officer. Mark Garnet had graduated with Antony and Paul, and was also a member of that same state champ basketball team. He’d gone to cop school or whatever one does for that, and now served as second in charge of the local police department.

  Once Mark showed up, word had spread and a small army of people was combing the streets for Jeffrey. Aiden had been instructed to stay at the garage in case he showed up there.

  Antony left, driving Rosalee’s SUV, and headed for his place since Jeffrey loved his horses and the pond. Aiden truly hoped the kid had not taken it in his four-year-old head to walk out the country road that far.

  He sat, gripping his fourth, or maybe fifth soda of the day, as the waning daylight dimmed the office. Running away from home had been his own specialty, usually to escape torture from Dominic. He never went far though, hoping someone—preferably Antony—would figure out he’d retreated to one of his usual hidey-holes, and come get him. Which is how things went down, but for one time.

  A shiver shot down his spine at that memory. He got up and paced the floor, checking his phone and adding more acid to his burbling stomach. When the phone buzzed, he nearly dropped it.

  “Aiden, did they find him yet?” his mother asked. She sounded calm, which helped cool his anxiety.

  “Not that I know of. I’m sitting at the garage, in case he shows up here.”

  “Well, keep me posted.” She hung up without waiting for a reply. She could be like that, un-chatty to the point of brusque. But she’d absorbed her fair share of offspring-induced trauma, including runaway moments. Aiden took a deep breath and flipped on the small television in the corner of the office. He settled on the couch and tried to find something other than a baseball game.

  His dreams were a tumble of water, bourbon, and the sweet thighs of Tricia. Just as he’d relived the horror of being discovered naked, covered in bug bites and God knows what else, he jerked awake, slumped over, and drooling on the couch’s arm. He sat, wiping his eyes and coming to terms with the level of dark in the room then scrabbled around for his phone. Which he found on the floor, deader than the proverbial doornail.

  “Shit. Fuck. Hell,” he muttered, rising and groaning at the aches and pains running up and down his body. When he heard something way out of place, he froze, hands on his lower back. He turned off the TV and walked toward the office door, squinting into the gloom.

  The sound hit his ear again—a sort of shuffling, a soft clank then a distinct, childish giggle. Not wanting to scare the kid to death, he cleared his throat, hoping that would make his presence known. The sounds stopped. He flooded the garage with obnoxious light from a single bulb.

  “Ow, shit!” He draped an arm over his eyes when pain shot through his skull.

  “Shit. Shit. Shit,” the small voice echoed back to him. Aiden waited for more. “You snore,” Jeffrey said, emerging from behind a stack of tires.

  Aiden blew out a breath and grabbed his phone, cursing again when he remembered its dead battery status. He frowned down at the filthy boy, who smiled up at him angelically. Aiden experienced a quick jolt of remorse for his parents just then, acknowledging what he’d subjected them to all the times he’d run away.

  “Uncool, Jeff.” He crouched down so they were on eye level. “Really not a good idea to scare your mom like that. Do you know how many people are out trying to find you right now?”

  Jeffrey avoided his gaze while Aiden studied him from head to toe, seeking blood or obvious injury. A sturdy little carbon copy of Jeffery’s dad, Paul, dressed in jeans and a Cincinnati Reds T-shirt, covered in grease and a layer of dirt, met his eyes, tears sliding through the muck on his face.

  “I’m sorry.” He dropped onto his butt.

  “Come on, let’s clean you up. Looks like you had a pretty wild time on the lam.” When Jeff latched onto him and held tight, it surprised him how natural it seemed. Aiden had always been the one seeking comfort, never the giver of it. He patted the little boy’s back as he made his way to the office. “I gotta call your mom.”

  “Antony’s gonna be mad at me,” he mumbled into Aiden’s neck.

  “Yeah, but he’ll get over it. Once he knows you’re okay. He used to find me when I’d run away, too.”

  Jeffrey raised his tear and snot-streaked face from Aiden’s shoulder. “You runned away, too? Today?” His blue eyes brightened at the concept that someone else might be in trouble besides him.

  “No, not today, dude. A long time ago, back when I was your size. Go in there.” He pointed to the bathroom. “Use the soap in the bottle and scrub your hands and face so your mom doesn’t think you’re hurt or anything. I’ll call her.”

  Aiden grabbed the office land line and dialed Antony’s number from memory. He waved Jeff toward the bathroom and dropped into the desk chair, relief filling his chest.

  When the SUV screeched back into the garage’s empty lot, he had Jeffrey mostly tidied up and munching on chips from the vending machine. He sat perched on Aiden’s lap, watching the Reds game, but he tensed up and dropped the chips at the sound of his mother yelling his name. Aiden poked his shoulder.

  “Go on, little man. You gotta face the mom-music on this one.”

  Jeffrey sighed and jumped to the floor. Rosalee scooped him up, covered his face with kisses then set him down, keeping his arms in a tight grip. Antony remained beside her. But his gaze rested on Aiden’s.

  “Takes one to know one, eh, punk?” He moved past the mother-son reunion and flopped onto the couch. “Jesus, but that sucked.” He glanced over at Rosalee, who alternated between kissing and shaking her son. Aiden sensed the general anxiety level in the room lessen ever so slightly.

  “Yeah, but it’s okay now. You knew it would be.”

  Antony sighed. Guilt flooded Aiden’s chest at the worry in his brother’s eyes.

  “All I could picture was that one time…that van where we found you.” Antony leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes trained at the floor. Aiden gulped. He remembered that time, too—the last time he’d run away and been scooped up by some drifter on his way through Lucasville. Aiden matched Antony’s stance and bumped his shoulder.

  “And that worked out fine.”

  “Only because of sheer, dumb luck. God help me if you hadn’t known how to scream so loud the crossing guard heard you….”

  “Yeah, well…yeah.” Aiden got to his feet, unwilling to revisit that particular nightmare. Antony glared at him
a moment, then flopped back on the couch. Jeffrey came over to stand in front of him, his huge blue eyes solemn and watery.

  “Jeffrey is sorry.”

  Antony ruffled his hair. “I’m glad you’re okay. Were you in the garage the whole time?”

  Jeffrey shot a glance over Antony’s shoulder at Aiden, who shook his head and mouthed the word “no” at him. That would really piss Antony off if he suspected that Jeffrey had been hanging around in here the whole time.

  “No,” he parroted to Antony. “Jeffrey wants Mommy.”

  “First Jeffrey needs to help clean up a mess he made with Antony’s tools.” Aiden took his hand and led him out to the brightly lit garage again. He glanced back just as Rosalee ran to Antony, letting him enfold her in his arms. Sighing, Aiden crouched to be on eye level with Jeffrey again.

  “Show me where you hid. You know, in case I need to use it someday.”

  Chapter Six

  Rosalee gazed out the kitchen window into the deep darkness of the night. The sounds she understood, the familiar, comforting ones from her childhood and her teen years growing up in the country on the edge of city surrounded her. Frogs singing, crickets chirping, the gentle snort of horses, all wafted in on the breeze lifting the curtain and soothing the chafed skin on her face.

  A moth fluttered against the screen, catching her gaze. Mesmerized, she kept watching it. Her addled brain told her to flip off the light over the sink so the thing would give up and fly away, but her body stayed frozen, waiting.

  But for what?

  After the day’s trauma, she’d taken Jeffrey to his grandmother’s—Paul’s mother’s house, and had every plan to stay there with them, until the woman had shoved her out the door right into Antony’s chest. He’d been standing behind her, waiting, his dark gaze somber as Jeffrey collapsed into his grandmother’s arms.

  Rosalee closed her eyes tight, making pinpricks of light and color dance behind her lids. Whenever she did that, she saw him—Paul, her boyfriend, her lover, her husband. The man she still mourned and who appeared to her daily, wrapped up in the skin of their son who looked at her with his father’s eyes, smiling his father’s smile.

  She lowered her face to the cool surface of the table. The bourbon and rocks Antony had poured for her sat untouched, the ice slowly melting and diluting the rich amber color.

  Never, ever in a million years would she forget the moment when the daycare lady had rushed out of her house and screamed that Jeffrey must have crawled out of the window during nap time and bolted into the Saturday afternoon sunlight. It would remain etched onto her memory banks forever, like the one when two uniformed officers had appeared at her door to tell her that Paul had been incinerated by a bomb six weeks before she’d given birth. A tear ran down Rosalee’s face, stinging her skin chafed raw from sun, wind, and hours of tears.

  She and Paul had waited to have a family, figuring he would be done after three tours in the Middle East. And he would have been, if the commander of his squadron had not stepped on an IED in Afghanistan. The man had been Paul’s mentor for years, grooming him to take over after he retired, which he’d been within twelve weeks of reaching when he’d been reduced to vapor on the side of some godforsaken road in that fucked-up country—the same country where Paul rushed off to, eager to fill the commander’s shoes, promoted, proud, and about to be a father.

  She straightened, wiping her eyes, cursing under her breath. The bourbon went fast, smooth and straight to her head, making her blink back more tears. Sensing movement in the kitchen doorway, she rose and met Antony’s dark gaze.

  She took him in, letting her gaze start at his bare feet then move up his long, jeans-clad legs, taking in his UK basketball-logoed T-shirt, across the wide expanse of his shoulders. Smiling when she reached his Love-family signature square jaw, full lips, and dark eyes. A lick of relief crossed her consciousness. Antony had been Paul’s best friend their whole lives. She’d known the Love family since forever. Before losing her fight with cancer, Rosie’s mother had been Lindsay Love’s canasta-playing, horse-riding friend. It seemed natural for Antony to be so integral to her life after Paul’s sudden and tragic absence. And now, he represented something more, yet not, at the same time.

  She shut her eyes tight until her head hurt. Anything to drive out the vision that had imprinted in her mind since the second she’d realized Aiden had come back to the fold. God help her, she’d probably babysat him at some point or another. But the sight of him had hit her in the gut, between the eyes, and a few other unmentionable places all at once that afternoon she’d convinced Antony to take pity on him and help him out.

  She jumped when Antony’s arms encircled her. Trembling in her knees, pounding in her head, the tight grip anxiety had had on her for so long today, all combined to make her shiver, want to scream, and run away from him. He’d been such a stalwart companion, had taken good care of her house, her car, her kid. But yet he’d never, in four years, gone further than a kiss, or once, when they’d drunk too much beer a party, a little mutual masturbation, which had lead to the most awkward morning after she’d ever experienced.

  Wrapping her arms around his waist, she let him hold her, taking in long breaths of him—the deeply ingrained odors of gasoline and oil, leather and sweat, now tinged with the sweet essence of bourbon. He shifted, his usual maneuver when he got aroused by a hug or a kiss from her. Instead of stepping away out of deference to the physical distance he maintained, she pressed closer to him. As she sighed and turned her face up to his, she forced images of Aiden’s dancing hazel eyes and mischievous grin out of her head.

  “I need you,” she whispered before rising up on her toes and covering his lips with hers. She would admit that she was sick of just kissing him. They were like immature teenagers sometimes, groping but never going “all the way.” Anger flushed just beneath the horny roiling through her brain to heat her skin. Antony tensed at first, but opened his mouth, meeting her halfway. His hands roamed, clutched her hair then let go, and drifted back down to grab her ass.

  She gasped when his lips trailed down her neck. The night noises encased them as the breeze lifted the edges of her hair. Rosalee sensed the raw, animal need just under Antony’s skin, about to engulf them both. He yanked her shirt up, ripped her bra into two pieces, and dropped them into the chair she’d vacated. His breathing rasped in her ears and his hands shook as they cupped her breasts. She buried her fingers in his hair, relishing the almost forgotten, but perfect sensation of a man’s lips, tongue, and teeth on her flesh.

  He moaned into her skin as she held him close, her desire ramping to a near-unbearable level. Eager to taste him, feel his bare skin next to hers, she shoved his shirt up as tears ran down her face. Tears of what, she had no idea, but the second she had the shirt off and could admire the incredible terrain of his firm torso, he grabbed her shoulders then her hands.

  “Stop. Just…don’t.” His voice sounded hoarse, strange, and unhappy.

  Rosalee blinked in confusion. She tried to pull her hands free, but he tightened his grip.

  “I can’t do this.” The words came out pinched through his clenched jaws. A drumbeat pounded at her temples. “I can’t do this,” he repeated in a whisper, putting her knuckles to his lips then letting her go. They faced each other, naked from the waist up, separated by a few actual inches, and miles of rough emotional terrain.

  She touched his dark jaw, willing him to be calm. When she passed her thumb over his lips, he shut his eyes. She sensed him shaking. With a concerted effort not to yell in frustration, she stepped closer, letting their skin touch then went up on her tiptoes again, placing her lips next to his.

  “It’s okay, Antony. I want it. You do, too.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, letting him feel her, loving the warmth and comfort of his body against hers. “Relax.”

  “You don’t understand.” He stepped away, his gaze full of a strange combination of lust and fury.

  “I understand one thing right now.”
Taking his hand, she tried to pull him toward the kitchen door. He resisted, which lit a match to her smoldering anger. “You have to let her go, Antony. We are—” She stopped, honestly unsure what came after that.

  They were meant to be together. The whole town assumed it. Jeffrey liked him. Antony had become an crucial part of their daily lives and had been nearly from the moment her son had been born. Antony had given her space for a while, provided a shoulder to cry on, a pair of hands to fix things, mow grass, repair her car. His mother treated her like a daughter-in-law. His brothers….

  Rosalee sucked in a breath as the harsh and vivid image of Aiden Love swam in front of her vision, choking her. Just as she opened her mouth to tell Antony to do something to dispel the alarming fantasy about his brother, he laid a kiss on her that took her breath away.

  He scooped her up and carried her to his bedroom, never taking his lips off hers, or giving her the option to tell him to leave her to her tumbled thoughts and illicit urges. Dropping her on the bed, he yanked her jeans and panties down and off then stepped back, looking like he would just as soon devour her as anything. His dark eyes flashed, reflecting something she’d never seen before, ever. Her skin tingled and she licked her lips, never more ready for this moment—even as she berated herself for being such a craven cougar over Aiden.

  “I need this, too, Rosie.” He unbuckled his belt slowly, not taking his eyes off hers. She moved back onto the pillows watching as he tugged the leather from the denim loops of his jeans and let it dangle from his large hand. Then, in an instant, his shoulders slumped, and he couched down to his ankles.

  She scooted to the edge of the bed and touched his bare shoulder. The odd combination of terror and desire filling his huge brown eyes confused and infuriated her.

  “I can’t let myself feel it again. I won’t go there. It killed me, Rosie. Made me weak and turned me into…I….”

  “I don’t need you to feel it here.” She placed her trembling hand over his heart, which pounded under her fingers. Then she trailed them down the perfection of his lightly furred torso. “That’s not necessary tonight.” When she got to her feet, he pressed his face into her belly, hanging onto her as if she were a lifeboat. “Stand up, Antony.”