Courtney coughed over a laugh as she continued to set the table.

“I already got a request not to tattoo my face from Courtney, so we can skip this.” Asa attempted to project some order, but as usual they all ignored him.

“No, ma’am. I think Asa is very handsome.” PJ and his mother looked him over and he sighed. PJ smiled and was so pretty he couldn’t help but smile back. “I saw the pictures of him with barely any hair at all when he was in the military. He was handsome then too. But I think the piercing and the tattoos and the hair give him a whole different type of good looks. He’s very fierce. But he’s that way in general, isn’t he? He gets a look on his face when he’s working on a car.” She mimicked his expression and his mother burst out laughing.

“He got that look even when he was a baby.” Her face went wistful for a moment. “When he’s trying to exert control over something or someone, trying to learn something new or that sort of thing, he gets that face. He’s a very serious boy.”

“Definitely. Smart too. Creative. Handsome. He works hard. He didn’t dump me after he met my family. You did an amazing job raising a good man.”

Pat beamed at PJ and then over to Asa and finally to Courtney. “You were right. She gets him.”

Asa winked at PJ, flattered, flustered, touched that she’d see him the way she did.

“Asa, put the tamales on the platter. PJ, put the rice in the bowl on the counter.”

His mother headed to the table after she’d put out a pitcher of iced tea. Asa and PJ moved around each other in the kitchen in an easy rhythm after all the times they’d made dinner together.

He paused to kiss her. Just a quick peck and she smiled. Bending a little more, he took a deep breath and let her scent settle.

He was happy.

“Watch it, mister. I have food in my hands. You distract me too much,” PJ teased.

“I’d apologize, but I’m not sorry for stealing a kiss.” He indicated she head out to the table with the rice, and he followed with the tamales.

They settled, filling plates as they continued to talk. It was just like any other family dinner. Just like that, PJ had been welcomed at their table the same way Duke and Mick and Courtney’s friends had. His mother had treated her like family.

And PJ had responded like family.

It didn’t freak him out. He liked it. Liked how she fit into his life, liked how she made the effort to be with him the way she did, even with something as normal as hanging with his mom and sister.

He charged forward in his life. It’s how he operated. He knew she was different, knew this thing between him and PJ was the real deal. The certainty of it was automatic, like breathing. He’d been missing this connection, though he hadn’t had any real sense of just what it was before she’d come along.

His mom looked at him from her place at the head of the table and smiled. He’d presented PJ and she’d approved, and it didn’t matter that he was thirty-seven years old and a grown-ass man. It meant something that his mother liked the woman he loved.

From then on, Asa knew his mother would include PJ when she thought of family. She’d be welcome – and expected – at family dinners and events. He probably should have told PJ that to start with. He grinned.

PJ eyed him warily and he found that pleased him. He liked to keep her on her toes.

After dinner, she helped clean up without having to be asked. She made his mom laugh. She and Courtney seemed to get on well too. The marked difference between this dinner and the one he’d had with her family was something he knew PJ hadn’t missed.

He couldn’t shield her heart from people she so desperately wanted to approve of her. But he was damned glad he could be part of the positive side of her life. Glad that he could love her and protect her as much as possible in the face of this bull with her father.

Chapter Twenty-four

Asa came in just as she was unzipping the overalls she used while doing details work. She folded them, putting them in her duffel.

“I like this direction.” He waggled his brows at her. “We should take this to your place. Or my place. Or any place.”

“I’m having lunch with Julie and my brothers, remember?” PJ shook her hair out after she’d freed it from the bandana she’d had covering it.

He watched as she put on lipstick and changed from her work boots into flats.

“Since I can’t take you anywhere and have my way with you, I’ll let you know I’ll be here until about four, then heading to the track for a while.”

She tiptoed up to kiss him quickly. “Have fun.”

“Come out when you finish.”

“You need time with your friends without me.”

“What do you think I do all goddamn day? I work with them. They’re dirty and greasy and they smell bad. You, by comparison, are dirty but in the good way, not greasy, and you smell really good.”

How it was that he managed to be so bossy and sexy at the same time, she didn’t know. It was a potent brew she could not resist. She shook her head as she grinned. “You’re so grumpy when you don’t get your way.”

“It seems pretty obvious, then, that in order to keep me cheerful you just do as I ask.” His frown was more of a glower, but when he sent it her way, it was toothless. When it came to PJ, Asa was a marshmallow and she knew it. He’d draw blood to protect her, but he put a hell of a lot of effort into making her happy.