“You’re right, and you didn’t do that and that’s good.”

“I didn’t because you had me.”

“You didn’t because you’re Toby.”

“No, Addie, I didn’t,” his hand on my jaw pulled me up to my toes, “because you had me.”

I loved he thought that.

However . . .

“That was all you, baby,” I said gently.

“It was me because I have you. Toby of a year ago would have torn into her. Your Toby does not give that first shit outside the fact I don’t want her bothering Johnny and Izzy, and I seriously do not want her anywhere near Margot.”

I slid my hands up his back. “You’ve always been this Toby.”

“No, I’m only this Toby with my Addie. I’m a better man around you. I’m a better man for you. I don’t care if that sounds like it’s from a movie. As you say, romancelandia. It’s just fuckin’ true.”

God.

I totally, absolutely and completely loved it that he thought that.

“Honey,” I breathed.

He bent his head and kissed me.

He lifted it when he was done.

“I wanna fuck you, do it hard, and do it right now. But Johnny’s gonna call if she shows, and I don’t wanna be buried deep in you and get that kind of call from my brother and not have my head with him.”

That was disappointing.

But understandable.

So I nodded and said, “But let’s go to bed. You wanna take up another glass of bourbon?”

“Only warmth I need is my Addie.”

God, I loved him.

I moved my arms from around his back to around his shoulders, pressed my face in his neck, pushed close and held him in a tight hug.

“I’ll take tomorrow off,” I told him.

He gave me a squeeze I read as he wanted my attention, so I pulled away to give it to him.

“You can’t do that,” he said when he caught my gaze. “Marlon’s probably already called your references, but if he hasn’t and he calls Michael, and Michael tells him you bailed on the busiest day of the year, that won’t be good. You haven’t accepted the offer yet, so nothing is official. And she doesn’t get to fuck our shit and interfere with our lives. We got a plan. We stick with that plan as best we can. Hopefully, she’ll go away. If she doesn’t, we’ll deal.”

I did not like this.

I did not like not being able to be free to be there for him the next day if he needed me.

But I had the sense he needed normalcy.

So I agreed.

“Okay, honey.”

“Now let’s go to bed.”

“I need to run out to the truck and get my purse. I left it there.”

He shook his head then tipped his beard to the stairs. “Go up. Get ready for bed. I need to pull the truck in anyway. I’ll grab it.”

“Okay.”

He bent his head to touch his mouth to mine before he let me go and walked to the door to the garage.

I did not go up and get ready for bed.

That woman was out there, and I’d seen her drive away.

But I was not taking any chances.

I put the bourbon away, rinsed his glass and put it in the dishwasher, then walked to the door he’d disappeared through, opened it, stood in it and watched him pull his truck in.

I hit the garage door button when he cut the ignition.

He got out with my purse and moved to me.

I didn’t get out of his way when he stopped before he made it to me.

“Forrester Girl. All in for the ones you love, you just can’t help yourself, can you?” he asked.

I shook my head.

His expression changed.

I held my breath.

“Love the fuck out of you, Addie.”

“Love the fuck out of you too, Toby,” I replied, then reached a hand his way. “Now let’s go to bed.”

He came forward.

He took my hand.

And we went to bed.

 

I had head bowed to my phone and was hoofing it to my car the next evening when it happened.

“Adeline?”

My head came up, it was filled with the fact that I’d had four phone calls, one leaving a voicemail, all from Izzy starting at around eleven that morning, the last one coming in at five.

As I’d worried, the day had been insane. One of the temp cashiers didn’t show so we were a lane down and it didn’t slow all day.

I was exhausted. Toby slept fitfully, and because he did, I did the same.

I’d managed to get a twenty-minute break for lunch, and saw Izzy’s calls and got her message of, “Addie, as soon as you can, call me.”

I’d phoned her, but she didn’t pick up. I left my own message, but she didn’t call back before Michael was begging me to get back to my register, bribing me to take a short lunch and no breaks, and doing this with a one-hundred-and-fifty-dollar bonus.

I had to leave my phone in my locker.

Though I’d done that only after calling Toby, and him not picking up, so I left him a voicemail too, and a text, telling him he was on my mind and I hoped he was okay.

Toby had not called or texted back.

I’d only had a smidge of time with Toby that morning seeing as he was taking a shower and I was making spinach filling.

Though, in accordance with his wish not to let Sierra mess with our plans, he’d reminded me to call Perry and he stuck close when I did that.

It took approximately thirty seconds, considering Perry’s cell was no longer in service.

This kind of worried me, since he didn’t have an address the last I’d known of him, considering the fact I was no longer paying his rent, and now I had no number to contact him, and he was a dick, but he still was my son’s father.

But I had other, more pressing things on my mind.

I’d deal with that later.

Toby had kissed me quickly before he took off to meet Johnny and I’d wished him good luck.

His mind was somewhere else, and that was understandable.

Seeing as his mind was on the woman that was right then standing, blocking my driver’s side door, calling my name.

“I have fifteen people at my house right now, Sierra, I don’t have time for this,” I told her.

She completely ignored me.

“I need to speak with you. I need you to convince Tobias and Johnathan to talk to me,” she pleaded.

I stopped, phone in hand, two feet from her, and glared at her. “It’s Christmas Eve. I’ve been working all day. I’ve had people at my house for an hour eating hors d’oeuvres. If I’m lucky, they’ll stay another hour before we’re off for dinner. I need to get home, shower, slap on makeup, change, be with my kid, my man and my family. In other words, again, I don’t have time for this. Please move.”

“I didn’t have a happy home. I didn’t have good parents,” she said hurriedly, again totally freaking ignoring me. “And not your normal, run-of-the-mill, they-don’t-get-me bad parents. It was awful at home. Terrible.”

In the lights in the parking lot of Matlock Mart, I could see confirmed what I suspected last night.

She was a beauty.

An enduring beauty.

She probably was seriously something in her heyday.

But even now she was spectacular.

Gallingly, this reminded me of my mother.