She tried to take her hand back but he wasn’t having that either. Fuck Howard Jr. and his bullshit. He had no right to make any of his children feel this way.

“I need my hands!”

“Why?”

“Why?” An edge of irritation had pushed all the sorrow from her tone.

Asa smiled. “Yes. Why?”

“Because you’re going to make me cry and I want to cover my face. But now I’m just annoyed, which is probably what you planned to start with.”

He snorted. “You’re super smart.”

“Oh my god! You do a PJ impression?” She grinned and it was like winning the lottery. That was far better than seeing her on the verge of tears because someone valued her enough to want to protect her. He didn’t want her tears. He wanted her joy. That’s what love was, and he wished her father understood that.

“Duke says he’d give it a seven and a half. We had a competition. I won fifty bucks.” They’d both laughed their asses off. Duke had adopted PJ as the little sister he never had, and he seemed to have subtly campaigned on her behalf with their circle and in the industry enough to have really mattered. People respected Duke, so if he liked someone, it was taken as a good sign.

It also meant Duke teased her just like he did Asa. Well, not exactly the same, but the tone and affection were.

“Oh my god. I’m going to blush so hard the next time I see him,” she said through laughter.

“I have others. Most of them I don’t share because they’re usually sounds you make when I do something you like,” Asa said. “You know how much I love your noises.”

“I can demonstrate for you and we can do a comparison.”

“Yes.”

“Right on.” She’d done a perfect impression of Duke’s signature expression.

“Holy shit! How long have you been sandbagging that?”

“When I first met Duke it was at the track, like a year or so before I met you. I think you all had just decided to do some sponsorship of a local driver and he was up checking things out. Anyway, he just cracked me up with that beard of his. He had these purple boots,” PJ said.

“Jesus, the Godzilla boots? He got those in Turkey off a street vendor. I’ve tried to kill them but they always make their way back to him, like Christine.”

“Wow, so I already think you’re the hottest man alive and you bust out a Stephen King reference. How can you continue to be so fucking sexy?”

No one gave compliments like PJ did. She had this way of seeing people always at an angle that surprised him and frequently touched him deeply. Each one was a little gift made just for him and no one else in the world.

It made him feel lucky.

At first it had been a struggle to allow himself to want her. But there had been no way around it because they had amazing chemistry. And then she’d been there in his life. Working at the shop, and then once he’d kissed her it had been a hard road to allow himself to need her. To accept that he needed her.

She was inside the walls he’d built as a kid to protect his heart, and she never did any damage. Even when he fucked up she let him work his way back to her. He did the work, even if he sometimes just didn’t know what the hell he was doing.

Penelope Jean was worth the struggle. Worth the time to open up to. Because she understood him. She saw all of him and accepted it.

And because she had a magnificently sexy temper.

As he drove, Asa let it wash over him.

He knew what it was to be in love. Like full-tilt, how the hell could I have thought anything else before this was love–type stuff.

He’d never thought he’d have that tenderness as well as the heat and excitement. It was something he hadn’t even imagined, much less known to want. But now that it was in his life he’d protect it.

“We should read The Stand and then watch all the versions of it on DVD. That would be awesome.”

“We can do that in Vancouver. Read before we go up and then watch all the miniseries while we’re there.”

“All right. I’m totally up for that.”

Asa spoke again. “You were talking about the Godzilla boots.”

“Purple boots at a reception full of guys like Jay.” She snorted. “Duke’s at the bar, in line next to me. The dude in front of us turns around, sees me, and starts coming on to me. He’s drunk and I’m ignoring him. And then. He gives me the finger guns. Pew. Pew. Finger. Guns. I die that he did this in a non-ironic fashion. He’s clearly not going to go away so I say, ‘Really, finger guns? Does that ever work for you?’ ”

Asa burst out laughing, so glad she was cheering up.

“This awesome dude who’d been next to me in purple boots with green lizards on them tips his chin my way, wearing a smartass grin. And he goes, ‘Right on.’ ” Again, she said it exactly like his friend did. “It still makes me laugh, probably because he was already so tipsy and he’s naturally surfer-dude laid-back, which I didn’t know at the time. But I love it when he says that. If you can do me, I can do Duke. Wait. That sounded wrong.”

He tried not to speed too much but it still felt like forever to get from the restaurant to his place.

Once he got off the freeway she made an exasperated sound and pulled her chirping phone from her bag. “It’s Julie,” PJ said to Asa before she answered. “Hey. Mom okay?”

Of course she worried about her mother when it should have been the other way around. He found it hard to imagine his mother ever tolerating someone saying such a thing to any of her kids without drawing blood. He didn’t much like PJ’s family right then. From where he stood, it sure seemed like most of them hadn’t backed her up much in the past when it came to this shit from Howard. Aside from having an actual job and not being in prison, he parented a hell of a lot like Asa’s father.