Audrey held my eyes. Then I watched her take in a deep breath.

Then she stated, “But it needs to be special.”

“Special is always the people you do stuff with, it’s never actually the stuff you do,” I replied. “But if you want to make an effort, the person to ask is not me, not Mike but Rees. She knows her brother better than any of us do. And she’ll be happy he has something he wants so she’ll also be happy to tell you.”

She continued to hold my eyes, I watched her take in another deep breath, this one deeper and I would know why when she admitted, “Rees and I don’t get along all that great.”

“A good way to rectify that is to communicate with her,” I stated. “And a good thing to communicate about is doing something nice for her brother. You follow that through, she sees she can trust you, you’re one step closer.”

She again held my eyes. Then she nodded and looked to her feet.

“You got what you need?” Mike asked derisively and her eyes shot to him.

“Yes,” she whispered then looked at me, took in another deep breath and forced out a, “Thank you.”

“Good,” Mike stated instantly. “Now you’re done and this shit is never gonna happen again. We clear?”

Her eyes were back to Mike, she took him in for long moments then she nodded.

He jerked his head to the farm doors and told her something she knew.

“Your Mercedes is fifty feet away and your ass needs to be in it.”

She closed her eyes and turned her head to me before she opened them. I saw she was conflicted. I saw she was angry. And I saw she was hurt.

Shit.

“I’m sorry I disturbed you,” she said quietly.

“You did. It’s done. Now go,” Mike stated and I bit back words to tell him to give her a break.

I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to tell her it was okay because it wasn’t. Yet it was, since it was for No and not to cause trouble.

Shit!

She pulled in yet another breath. Then she nodded once to me, her eyes skimmed through Mike and then she walked on her high-heeled pumps toward the barn doors.

I watched as Mike shifted so he’d have a better view. Then I watched as Mike stood, long legs planted, arms crossed on his chest, as he watched out the barn doors what I figured was Audrey getting into her car and driving away. This took a while then he turned and prowled to me.

“You okay?” he asked when he got close.

“Better than you,” I said softly.

He studied me then he muttered, “Sorry about that, Angel.”

“In the end, nothing to apologize for and it’s not for you to apologize anyway. If I gave her the minute she asked for, I could have said what I needed to say and she’d be on her way.”

“She’s full of shit and she’s playin’ games,” Mike replied and I kept my peace.

I didn’t know her. He did. But she genuinely, if surprisingly and somewhat pathetically, wanted help.

“It’s over. Let’s move on,” I suggested, still talking softly.

He studied me again.

Then he asked, “Your shit crated?”

I nodded.

“We’re back. No’s at the house jammin’ on his new bass. Rees is sayin’ hi to your mother. Reesee and I are here to see if you need any help.”

There it was. I knew my man wouldn’t hold a grudge.

“A bass,” I whispered. “Cool gift, Dad.”

Mike’s lips twitched.

“I’m good, honey,” I told him. “All the grunt work’s done but I’ll probably be at my wheel a while then I have a couple of pieces to glaze and put in the kiln. It automatically ramps and I can get them out tomorrow.”

His brows drew together. “Ramps?”

“The pieces need to fire at different temperatures, slow start then lots of heat then cool down. It takes a while but my kiln does it automatically. I leave it. Mom checks it before she goes to bed. I come back tomorrow and voila! Pottery.”

His lips twitched again.

I liked that, the fact he showed to help and I thought both said a lot about him after the way we left it that morning.

So I decided to address the big, pink elephant in the barn.

And I did this by whispering, “I was out of line this morning.”

Mike held my eyes but said nothing.

I kept talking. “We’ll talk again when the ranch is rented.”

He said something then.

And what he said was, “All you gotta say, sweetheart. That’s done.”

God, I loved this man.

Sure, he got his way but I’d been thinking about it (a whole lot) all day. He had been right and I had been stubborn. He felt I’d made a sacrifice for him and he felt that deeply. This wasn’t something I didn’t know. He’d already shared it with me. He also wanted to take care of me. He didn’t close the door on the discussion. He just delayed it at the same time he was looking out for me. And he was right. I had a house I wasn’t living in that I was paying for, a business I couldn’t give my full attention to and if I was honest, I needed the help.

And further, Mike was Mike. He didn’t hide who he was or what he was like. And part of that was he looked after the people he loved. He didn’t do it because he had to. He did it because that was who he was. And one of those people was me.

So it was no skin off my nose.

And that was done.

So I moved on.

“You have a good day with the kids?”

“Yeah. You have a good day with your Mom?”

“Yes, after Fin laid it out for Rhonda, which was upsetting.”

I watched Mike’s face grow alert. “What?”

“I asked her to help. She said she wasn’t feeling up to it. I pressed. Fin and Kirb showed while this was happening. Kirb tried to protect his Mom. Fin lost his patience. It was coming, I knew it. Outside of thinking about how things went down with you this morning, all day I’ve also been thinking about whether I should have tried to stop Fin from gutting his mother. What I’ve come up with was that she needed some tough love. The problem with that is, it didn’t work. She didn’t help and, except this morning, I haven’t seen her all day.”

“Fuck,” he muttered.

“That says it all,” I muttered back.

“Way he acts, sometimes forget Fin’s just a kid,” Mike said. “He’s got too much to deal with.”

That sure was the truth.

“Agreed.”