“You girls need to go upstairs and get ready for bed.” Elise looked at the girls with a smile. “I’ll be up in ten minutes to read a story, so pick one.”

“Good night, Brody!” Rennie bounced over and gave him a hug, followed by Nina.

“Night, you two. Thanks for hanging out with me and your mom tonight.”

Rennie fluttered her lashes at him, and both girls giggled as they ran upstairs.

“She’s something else. Amazing kid you’ve got there.” He looked up and caught the pride on her face.

“I don’t really have much to do with it. She’s been this way since the moment she came into the world. I’m lucky to have her.”

“You want to talk about that call today?” He watched her carefully, not wanting to push too hard.

“I need to deal with them first. I can’t unpack that wound just now.” She put her hands on her hips, and he saw the cracks in her façade.

“I’ll be down in a few minutes, if you want to wait around. I can’t, well, I don’t think tonight is the night for anything naked.” She quirked up a smile. “But your company is nice and I like to look at you.”

He laughed. “I’ll be here. Unless you need my help up there?”

“Nah. They’ll be hard enough to wrestle down. In fact, I’m guessing they’ll be up most of the night.”

“Okay then. I’ll be here.”

“Help yourself to whatever.”

He watched her leave the room and liked what he saw. A lot.

“Oh man, I’m so full I may have to be rolled back to my house,” he said after she came back down half an hour later. He’d made himself another root beer float and settled in on her very comfortable couch.

“I’ve got strong arms, I’ll roll you.” She tossed herself next to him, putting her feet up on the low table. He reached out and grabbed her feet, pulling them into his lap, starting to massage them. “Oh, you don’t want that.” She tried to pull back, but he held on.

“Oh, but I do. Woman, you do for people over and over. Let me do for you.”

“Dancers have horribly ugly feet.” She blushed.

“You have no idea what ugly is. Believe me. You’re fine. Are the girls okay?”

She rolled her eyes, but let him work, even arching and groaning when he kneaded her insteps.

“I figured they’d be awake all night, but they’re both conked out. I guess the game and the pizza and all that running around they did ran ’em down. The silence is so lovely.”

“I like your voice.”

“Thank you. You know, you give really wonderful compliments. As it happens, I like yours. It’s like a hot toddy after being out in the snow for an hour. Warm and sinful, and it makes me all melty inside.”

“Damn, now that is probably the most awesome compliment I’ve ever received.”

She blushed. “Why tattooing? What made you do it?”

“I’ve always loved to draw, and for a time I was big into animation. I was headed to art school, but life threw me into another direction and I had to get a job. A friend of mine had a tattoo shop, and he hired me on to clean up the place at night and help out with whatever they needed. The hours were good, he let me work around when Adrian and Erin were in school. It really didn’t take me that long to realize tattooing was an art and to get into it. Ron, the guy who owned the shop and pretty much taught me everything I know, let me apprentice. I was good at it right away. Probably because I was too stupid to be worried I wouldn’t be.”

“Or maybe, Brody Brown, perhaps you accepted it the way you accept that you’re good at just about everything else I’ve seen you do. Some people are gifted. It’s okay to be proud of that.”

That struck deep in a place he seldom delved into. He took care of others. He was proud of Erin and Adrian and celebrated all their successes. But sometimes . . . sometimes he forgot he had his own accomplishments worthy of praise. And it was quite often Erin or Adrian who reminded him.

Interesting. Now it was Brody who blushed. Elise liked that, liked that she had looked long and hard enough and she’d glimpsed some secret part of him.

“Anyway, it went pretty quickly from there. Within five years I had my own shop when the owner sold to me. He’s living in Hawaii now, surfing and watching hot chicks in bikinis all day. He deserves it. Believed in me when no one else wanted to take on an eighteen-year-old raising two siblings.”

“I’ve seen your work on Erin. She showed me the tree of life on her back. It’s amazing. You’re really talented.”

“I do okay, yeah. That one is special to me, of course. It started with small stuff and kept growing until it took up her entire back and we wrapped it around her hips too.”

“Covers her scars, but memorializes what happened to her too. It’s a positive thing.”

He sighed. “I hope so. She’s had a lot to deal with. More than anyone should. I expect, given the shadow in your eyes, you know a little bit about dealing with things.”

She shrugged. “It’s amazing how one bad choice can snowball into something you can’t stop until it ends horribly. But it’s over and I survived. Rennie is relatively untouched by it although she does go to play therapy once a month.”

“What happened, Elise? Obviously it was her father, right?”

Swallowing hard, she nodded. She kept her voice low, mindful of Rennie asleep upstairs. “I’m not the only one with a story like this. I’m not a special snowflake. My ex-husband was an abusive, mentally-ill junkie. Thank God he was in jail for most of my pregnancy with Rennie.”