But now the initiation was complete.

And she knew it.

This was why she didn’t let him clean her up after he uncuffed her.

She just snuggled into him after he rolled them back and forth until he got the covers over them and the lamps out.

The Christmas lights were illuminating the room and Dapper Dan could be heard softly snoring when Addie mumbled, “It actually was a merry Christmas.”

He pulled her closer. “Yeah.”

She melted into him but only for a few beats before her body started shaking.

“What?” he asked.

Her body started shaking more.

So he repeated, “Adeline, what?”

She lifted her head and looked at him through the glow of outside lights.

“Face fucking, normal fucking, ass fucking. Christmas Toby and Addie style,” she forced out, then shoved her face in his chest and started giggling.

He sifted his fingers in her hair and smiled at the ceiling.

 

By noon the next day, her bracelet was ordered.

He paid for expedited shipping.

This meant his woman was wearing it before the new year.

So really it was then the initiation was complete.

She was his.

And he was hers.

Soft Leather and Smooth Whiskey

Toby

HE WAS SURPRISED, after Addie told him about what happened in the parking lot at the Mart, when three days after Christmas he heard Johnny’s quiet whistle.

Toby pulled his head out from under the hood of the car he was working on and looked to his brother, who was staring out their bay at the Gamble Garage in town.

He moved to Johnny’s side and saw their mother strolling toward them, a cautious look on her face.

She was sixty-one.

Watching her approach, if he had to call it, he’d say tops, fifty, but only because she hadn’t dyed her hair.

Whatever life she’d lived, she hadn’t done without moisturizer.

He got close to his brother because, until right then, Johnny hadn’t seen her yet.

“You good, brother?” he asked under his breath.

“Yeah,” Johnny replied.

“Boys,” she lifted both her hands when she was almost to them, “please, hear me out.”

“Tomorrow,” Johnny grunted, and she stopped dead. “The mill. Five thirty.”

Her face brightened.

Right.

He could see it.

He could see Lance Gamble being drowned by that light.

“Is your fiancée going to be there?” she asked Johnny eagerly.

“No, she is not,” Johnny replied definitively.

They’d talked. All four of them. This was the decision they’d made.

Their women weren’t exactly in agreement, but neither were the men.

Margot wanted it.

So it was going to happen.

“Okay, then just you boys. Just my boys,” she said swiftly.

Fuck.

He was gonna hurl.

Neither Johnny nor Toby said anything.

They also didn’t move.

Fortunately, this time she got the hint.

“Right. Five thirty. At the mill. Tomorrow. I’ll see you there,” she said.

“Yeah,” Johnny grunted.

Toby said nothing.

She started backing away and her attention turned to Toby.

“Please tell Adeline thank you and I’m sorry that I—”

“You approach her again, tomorrow’s off,” Toby declared, and she stopped. “You’re not getting this because Addie put in a word for you. You’re gettin’ this only because Margot wants us to listen to you. You don’t get near Addie, Eliza, and you absolutely do not ever approach Margot. You understand that?”

She appeared stunned. “Margot wants—?”

“This is not question and answer time. Tomorrow is question and answer time,” Toby told her. “And that would be us asking the questions and you answering. You get me,” he jerked a thumb at his brother, “and Johnny. That’s all you get. Now, do you understand that?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Tomorrow,” he forced out.

“Okay, Tobias. Tomorrow.” Her eyes moved to Johnny. “Johnathon.”

Johnny said nothing, though he jerked up his chin.

She kept backing away and gave them a small wave before she turned and walked away.

Neither man waved back.

“Gotta call Addie,” Toby muttered, returning to the engine of the car and digging in the back pocket of his coveralls for his phone.

“Gotta call Iz,” Johnny muttered, moving to rest a thigh against the fender.

His woman was at a cash register at the Mart, so he had to leave a message.

Johnny talked longer, but not very long. Izzy was the director of a department at work. She had year-end stuff she needed to do and had taken a few days off before Christmas. So she was busy.

The minute Johnny got off the phone, though, Toby set his socket wrench aside and got out from under the hood.

“You okay?” he asked his brother.

“Yup,” Johnny answered.

“I can see it,” Toby said. “Dad all in for that.”

“Yup.”

“Explains some things,” Toby muttered, looking toward the open bay.

“Yup,” Johnny agreed.

He turned his attention back to Johnny. “Addie told me she said it was about her parents.”

“You said.”

“And I don’t give a shit.”

Johnny held his eyes a beat.

Then he said, “Yup.”

“This is for Margot.”

“You have the reaction you want, Tobe,” Johnny said. “I’m not gonna big-brother your ass into anything. Not again, but not about this shit.”

“I just wanna warn you, that’s where I’m at.”

“My mind isn’t much more open than yours,” Johnny replied. “Especially not with her ambushin’ you and Addie. She couldn’t know that play was gonna force Margot and Dave to share something with us before they were ready. But that’s what happens when you pull shit like that and don’t let the people you’re pullin’ it on have a say in how it goes down. But what if she has other kids, Toby? What if we have sisters and brothers? Ones she didn’t leave.”

“Then I feel sorry for them.”

“And if we wanna know them, we might have to put up with her.”

Fuck.

Great.

He blew out a breath.

Johnny changed the subject.

“Addie resign?”

“Yeah. Talked her into givin’ ’em just the two weeks so she has a week off to go shoppin’ for clothes and just chill before she has to start. She can’t take vacation until after six months, so she saw the wisdom of that.”

“You got her to go far, fast,” Johnny remarked, knowing all about Addie’s independent streak, and not just what Toby told him.

“I think it had somethin’ to do with that crib Margot helped me pick out.”

Johnny grinned at him.

Toby grinned back.

He felt it fade before he said, “It’s all about Margot. Everything’s good. Sierra’s whatever she is. Addie’s got a job she’s excited about. It pays better. She knows where I’m at with her so the shit I do for her and give to her and Brooks, I feel she considers it now all in the family. Her ex is a ghost and I don’t think that’s gonna change, so when the time comes for me to adopt Brooks, that’s gonna be a pain in the ass, finding his ass. But life is settled. Except Margot.”