Okay, it wasn’t a robe but it hid more than most robes and if I saw one of the boys, I could hightail it back to the bedroom and put on clothes.

I rolled back the cuffs then I walked out to the landing.

Then I stopped dead when I heard Brock’s clipped, “Jesus, she’s in the next f**kin’ room, brother.”

To that I heard the whispered, but still loud angry words, “So?” Then, “Fuck, Slim, this is the same damned shit as with Bree.”

Levi.

But who was Bree?

“Leave it,” Brock growled.

“Honest to God you think I’m gonna leave it? You think I’m gonna stand aside, keep my f**kin’ mouth shut and watch you slide over the edge again, tied to another woman with a mountain of problems you think you can fix?”

I sucked in a silent breath and put my hand to the wall.

“Levi –”

“No, Slim, f**kin’ no. You need me to spell it out? I will. Bree got raped, that was tough man, you know I know it. It was ugly, it was brutal, f**k, Slim, it was me who went with you to visit her in the hospital and I saw her, Slim, I f**kin’ saw her messed up, jaw wired, teeth gone, eyes swollen shut, bones broken, same as you. Then you go gung ho, nearly losin’ your job, I might add, pullin’ out all the stops to take that motherfucker down. I get that too. Then she finds her way to deal and she does it usin’ a needle. She checks way the f**k out before she injected too much of that poison and finally checks out. What do you do when your ex-fuckin’-girlfriend overdoses? You leave The Force and take a job with the f**king Drug Enforcement Agency and no one f**kin’ sees you. You’re undercover, livin’ with the scum of the earth on some wild ass crusade to turn back time and bring Bree back. Well, man, you can’t do that. It isn’t Bree’s ass hangin’ out there ‘cause she’s dead. It’s yours. Mom, Jill and Laura, and I’ll admit, me, we all lost sleep with you doin’ that job, wonderin’ when the call would come.”

“Well, now you don’t have to lose sleep, Levi,” Brock said low.

“No, now we don’t. ‘Cause sweet Tess and her cakes are in your life now.”

I moved closer to the wall of the landing and tried not to hyperventilate.

“Careful,” Brock snarled.

“Careful?” Levi asked. “Not even for your own f**kin’ wife, and I will give it to you, I wouldn’t do shit for that bitch either, but not for your own f**kin’ boys did you leave that job but Tessa O’Hara with her haunted eyes walks into your life and what do you do?” A pause then, “No, your answer will be bullshit so don’t even say it because I know because you told Laurie and Laurie told me that you knew before you even approached her to see if she’d accept you back in her life that you looked for a way out of the DEA so you could concentrate on her and give her what you didn’t give Olivia and you couldn’t give Bree seein’ as the bitch essentially killed herself and took her time doin’ it.”

My heart started thumping and me legs started trembling.

Levi kept talking. “And not only that, you lived in your goddamned place since Olivia took your ass to the cleaners but all of a sudden,” another pause where I visualized him throwing out an arm, “here you are in a sweet condo that sweet Tessa of Tessa’s Cakes would find more agreeable. So now you’re a homicide detective with a middleclass condo and five months ago you were an agent for the DEA with a death wish but at least you had a f**kin’

mission and all that is for her. Fuck, I’m lookin’ at my brother in his f**kin’ kitchen with new f**kin’ dishtowels and I don’t even know who the f**k he is because he’s losin’ all that he is, again, for another, lost, haunted soul with a great pair of tits.”

And that was when I moved because it came over me. I didn’t know what it was because I’d never felt it before, nothing like it. But it was there and I had no control of my actions.

I just moved.

And I did it quickly.

So I forged through the abrasive atmosphere of the Lucas brothers’ mood and in the middle of Brock growling something low in response, I ran down the stairs, took three long strides and then ran up the steps to the kitchen.

Brock’s eyes came to me, his mouth snapped shut and Levi turned in the direction of his brother’s stare.

I ignored Levi and launched right in.

“I don’t believe you,” I hissed at Brock.

“Tess –”

I shook my head and made it to him, planting both hands in his chest, I gave him a shove; he went back on a foot, his head jerking in surprise as his hands came up and clamped on my wrists.

I got close and went up on my toes to get in his face and snap, “I told you I didn’t want you to change for me.”

His face went soft and he whispered, “Baby –”

“No,” I shook my head again, tried to yank my wrists out of his hold, failed and gave up.

“I don’t need you to be anything but what you are. Hell, when I fell in love with you I didn’t even know your…” I got closer to his face, “Fucking…” I got even closer, “Name. ”

He let my wrists go but only for his arms to fix around me, I pulled at them but he held tight, murmuring, “Tess, darlin’ –”

“Unh-unh, no way, Brock. I don’t need a nice apartment where I don’t take my life in my hands walking up the rusty, rickety staircase to get to it. Don’t you see? I’d walk through fire if you were what I was walking to.”

“Fucking hell,” Levi breathed and I watched Brock do a slow blink but I was in another zone, totally in pissed off la-la land and there was no going back.

“If you had a dangerous job that took you away from me, it would suck and I’ll admit, I would hate it because I had three months without you and that was enough. But if it meant something to you, I’d suck it up, I’d deal, because I’d know you were doing something you believed in and you’d eventually come back to me so that would be enough for me.”

His arms separated, grew tighter, gathering me closer, his eyes so warm they were liquid mercury and he whispered, “Baby –”

“You can be Brock, you can be Jake, you could call yourself Errol f**king Flynn and I wouldn’t care because, bottom line, you’d be the man for me. I know from knowing a bad one, the worst, I know a good man when I see him and it’s important to me to let him be just who he is, not what he thinks I want him to be.”