“No, but still,” Josie returned. “I’m sure Amelia would prefer not to be reminded.”
“It’s okay,” I cut in. “You’re both right. Heck, if Mickey has his kids, they’re all together before school for Auden to take them and after school when they come back and we’re almost always having dinner together.”
“Families under one roof, your room a mile away from their wing of that place, means you’ll finally get laid,” Alyssa remarked.
This was a bonus.
Mickey and I had hit a dry patch because, me having my kids full-time, he couldn’t spend the night and I couldn’t either.
This meant no nights.
And no mornings.
He was gearing up to quit Ralph and keeping his regularly crazy schedule so there wasn’t time for us to meet somewhere to have quickies. And even though I was supposed to leave the kids behind and go to the locker room for fight night, every Saturday all the kids had come, Pippa, Ash, Auden and Cillian, even bringing their friends, and it wasn’t easy keeping a huge crew away from the cool dad who’d just won his fight. And, of course, my kids were with me so he couldn’t come over and fuck me on the dining room table.
This meant no sex but a lot of phone sex, which Mickey did really well.
But it wasn’t the real thing.
Thus, my guess, Mickey pushing the blending of families under one roof.
The last of the variety of reasons.
And another good one for me.
I was still nervous.
“Yeah, definite bonus,” I said to Alyssa.
“Amelia,” Josie called me.
I looked to her.
“I had no mother and a terrible father,” she told me. “All I had was my Gran. So I can say with some authority that if kids have two moms or two dads, all who care a great deal and want more than anything for those children to be happy, this is not a bad thing.”
She was very right.
And there it was. Just what I needed.
“Thanks, Josie,” I whispered.
“Don’t mention it,” she replied.
“Now that Amelia’s sorted, we gotta talk,” Alyssa announced, eyes to my nails, but I had a feeling she was talking to Josie. I would know this to be true when she went on, “Sofie told her dad and me last night that Conner invited her down to Boston for the weekend. You know I’m as liberal minded as the best of them, but no way in fuck her father or me are lettin’ her go spend the weekend with her college boyfriend.”
I listened to Josie whole-heartedly agreeing and I was there. I wasn’t far away. They’d helped work the things out that were taking control of my thoughts.
But I listened to them thinking La Jolla was one of the most amazing places on earth. It was beautiful and the weather was divine.
However, in all the time I’d spent there, outside of my children, I’d never gotten anything I needed.
No, I’d needed to move all the way across the country to a small town in Maine to find what I needed.
And I’d done that.
So finally, after forty-seven years, the Calway heiress didn’t want for anything.
On this thought, there was movement the like it would take your attention at the windows in front of Maude’s House of Beauty. Josie and Alyssa stopped talking as all eyes went there.
When they did, we saw a woman with long, thick auburn hair pulled back by one of those wide, wooly headbands that kept your ears warm. She also had on a puffy vest over an attractive turtleneck, a great pair of jeans that did wonderful things for her behind and a fabulous pair of high-heeled boots.
She’d whipped around and her rosy-cheeked face was screwed up in adorable anger as she jabbed her pointed finger at someone and shouted, “You no longer know me, Coert!”
At that moment, the handsome sheriff I’d seen at the town council meeting (a friend of Mickey’s I had not yet met) came walking into view. He stopped, planted his hands on jeans-clad hips, his profile was supremely annoyed, and he said something that only could be heard as a deep murmur.
“Kiss my ass!” she shouted, turned with her rich, beautiful auburn hair flying and flounced off.
Coert didn’t move, just stood there with hands on hips, muscle flexing in his jaw, watching where she went before he turned and prowled the other way.
Alyssa instantly snapped her head back to us.
“You know about that?” she asked Josie.
“No,” Josie answered.
Alyssa looked to me. “You know about that?”
“Nope,” I answered.
Her eyes drifted back to the windows. “We gotta find out about that.”
“Yep,” Josie and I both said at the same time.
We looked at each other, Alyssa looked to me, and we all burst out laughing.
Doing it, I knew I was right.
The Calway heiress finally had everything she needed.
* * * * *
Mickey wandered in from my bathroom while I was sitting in bed screwing the cap back on my moisturizer.
I turned my eyes to him and smiled.
My kids in the house. His kids in the house. And Mickey, his pajama bottoms, his chest and all the rest of him in my bedroom with me.
Happy.
“Hey,” I called. “Went good tonight.”
It did. I’d had nothing to worry about. The kids were like they were when they were hanging at my bar eating my baked goods or shuffling around Mickey’s kitchen making dinner.
His eyes came to me and I saw they were distracted, but he answered, “Yeah.”
It was then I noticed that he’d walked in but he didn’t continue walking in. He was one step into the room and not moving.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
His head gave a slight jerk and he focused on me.
“Yeah,” he repeated.
I studied him and from my study, I was forced to push, “You sure?”
“Yep,” he muttered, moving around the bed to his side.
I shifted my lower body to pull the covers out from under me. I unfolded and yanked them over me as Mickey pulled his side back and slid in.
I rolled to face him.
He rolled to face me and got up on an elbow. “Cill and Auden are in Auden’s room playin’ some game. Think the girls are out, but my kids are in new beds. May take them time to settle. Until I know they’re down, not gonna fuck you, babe.”
I agreed because this was always our way when we were at his house, but the deadpan way he shared this made me uneasy.
“All right, honey,” I whispered.
He dropped to his back then twisted to reach to his light.
It went out.