“It was for Tabby as well as all womankind,” I corrected.

“So noted,” Tack muttered, lips twitching.

“But mostly, it was for Tabby.”

Tack’s eyes got sweeter and softer and his hand fisted in my hair.

Then he asked quietly, “You wanna move in with me?”

“Yeah,” I answered immediately.

“You attached to your house?”

“No.”

“Good, we’ll get you a car that does good in snow and move you up here.”

“Okay.”

“Start plannin’ that huge-ass wedding, baby. We need to get hitched. Rush is gonna be gone in a year. We need a baby in the house.”

At that, my belly melted.

“Okay,” I breathed.

“I hit the heart of you yet?” Tack asked.

“Close,” I whispered.

“Tastes sweet,” he whispered back and I felt my eyes get wet.

“Yeah,” I agreed quietly, “it does.”

I watched up close as Tack’s eyes heated then his hand at my head pulled me even closer and then we were making out.

This was what we were doing when we heard Rush say loudly, “Cool. You’re goin’ at it. After that fight last night, didn’t know what I’d come up to.”

Tack’s hand released my head and both of us looked over the backs of our chairs to see Rush in cutoff sweats, exposing a teenage boy-man body which laid testimony to part of the reason why he was a successful serial dater and his coffee mug joining us. I pulled in a calming breath and tamped down my mortification of getting caught making out as Rush pulled up a chair on the other side of his Dad and collapsed into it.

“I’m sorry you heard that, Rush,” I told him, he turned to me and grinned.

“You say f**k when you’re pissed nearly as much as Mom does,” he informed me.

Great.

“Though, you don’t throw shit or grab knives,” he muttered then his eyes slid to his Dad. “Bet that’s a relief.”

Tack chuckled.

Chuckled!

“Knives?” I breathed.

“Long story,” Tack replied.

“Or, stories,” Rush clarified.

“Naomi wielded a knife on you?” I asked Tack.

“Knivezzzz, plural,” Rush answered.

“Holy crap,” I whispered.

“Right, quit freakin’ out Tyra,” Tack muttered. “Your sister up?”

“She will be, she smells bacon fryin’ and knows pancakes are comin’,” Rush threw out his thinly veiled request for his father to start cracking on breakfast.

“I’m not sure, honey,” I put in. “She had a rough night.”

“Uh, Tyra, you’ve eaten Dad’s pancakes. Rough night, wild night, hell night, you get up for Dad’s pancakes.”

I suspected this was true.

“Go check on her,” Tack ordered.

“A man takes a load off and right away, he’s ordered to put one back on,” Rush groused as he got to his feet.

“Boy, you just been sleepin’,” Tack returned.

“Whatever,” Rush murmured, humor in his voice as he slid inside.

If Tabby was up, I had little time.

Even if she wasn’t, Rush would be back soon so I still had little time.

So I didn’t delay in throwing it out there.

“Can I talk to her first?”

Tack looked hard at me. “You want to?”

“I think…” I hesitated then answered, “Yes, I want to.”

“You think what?”

I took in breath.

Then I told him, “I think, if I’m going to be around, that I broke her trust last night. And I think, since I am going to be around, I shouldn’t delay in getting it back.”

“How’d you break her trust?”

“She didn’t want to make it a big deal. I went off half-cocked and made it a big deal.”

“You’re a big girl, babe, and you get to make those decisions. She’s sixteen. She don’t get that yet nor does she get to be pissed at the decisions you make.”

“She gets whatever she wants, Tack. It’s her emotions and unless they’re handled with care, since she’s feeling a lot of them, it’s clear most of them are no good, she’s acting on them and not in good ways, that cycle won’t be broken unless they are. Her emotions handled with care, I mean. Not to mention, I don’t think she has a woman she trusts, she was giving that to me, I took it away and I have to give it back.”

“You got a plan of attack?” he asked.

“No, I’m going to wing it,” I answered.

“Then yeah, you talk but I’m here. So’s Rush. Sortin’ Tab’s shit is a family thing,” he declared and I sucked in a sharp breath.

A family thing.

“Red?”

“I waited a long time,” I whispered.

“For what?” he asked.

“For you.”

I watched a shadow darken his face.

“You do not get to do that shit,” he growled and I blinked.

“What?”

“Make me wanna pick you up, carry you to my bed and f**k you hard to show my appreciation for bein’ so damn sweet I got a toothache, a f**kin’ toothache I f**kin’ like when I got pancakes to make and a daughter’s shit to sort.”

“Oh,” I whispered.

“Fuck, I’m not even close.”

“To what?”

“The heart of you. You run so f**kin’ deep, I’ll never get there.”

God.

“Lookin’ forward to a lifetime of diggin’, babe.”

God!

“Now you’re being sweet,” I accused, my voice wobbly.

“Used to it yet?”

“No.”

“You got a lifetime to get there too.”

Seriously.

I could take no more.

“Shut up.”

“I will, you kiss me.”

“Rush and/or Tabby might be here any minute.”

“I didn’t tell you to go down on me.”

My eyes narrowed and I couldn’t see it but even I knew it was ominously.

“Tack!”

“Kiss me, Red.”

“Tack!”

“Fuck it,” he muttered, shifted, leaned into me, hooked me at the back of my head and then he kissed me.

I was sitting in my chair, tingling from top-to-toe and Tack was moving into the house with both of our mugs to refill as Rush slid by him to come out, muttering, “She’s gettin’ up.”