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  But Vi on his couch, he realized for the first time he could remember, it was good being home.

  “Is most of your work out there?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Why didn’t you move out there?”

  “’Cause LA is insanity, filled with fruits and nuts. Indiana is sanity, meat and potatoes. I’m a meat and potatoes man.”

  She’d watched his mouth while he talked then her eyes came to his when she said, “Yeah, fruits and nuts are good on occasion, but you need meat and potatoes.”

  He smiled at her, she smiled back then she lifted up her head to kiss him gently which was good, saved him the trouble of bending his head to do the same.

  Then a phone rang and her head went back to the couch but twisted to the side.

  “That’s my cell,” she told him.

  Cal reached out an arm, grabbed her shorts and dragged them across the floor then he pulled her cell out. He looked at it and the display said “Sam’s cell.”

  “Sam,” he told her, her eyes got big, she snatched the phone out of his hand, slid it open and put it to her ear.

  “Sam!” she cried loudly. “What’s up, baby brother?”

  The brother. The brother she obviously cared about because she was still lying under him, his dick inside her and she seemed to have forgotten.

  He slid out, her chin dipped, her face grew soft and her lips parted and he grinned at her because all of that told him he’d reminded her and she liked him where he was.

  “What?” she said into the phone distractedly. “Sorry, yeah, I’m here.”

  Cal moved down her body, pulling her tank up under her tits and then he put his mouth to her ribs.

  Her fingers slid into his hair.

  “What?” she asked again, his mouth moved down further and she said, “Yeah, things are good. You?” He circled her navel with his tongue, she sucked in her stomach and her breath and she said, her voice sounding choked, “Can you hang on a second?” She tugged at his hair and he lifted his head to see she had her hand curled over the phone and it was away from her face. “Stop it, Joe.”

  “You taste good, buddy.”

  Her eyes got wide then they narrowed and she hissed, “Stop.”

  He slid down further, to between her legs, she scrambled up to get away and he caught her hips, yanking her under him while surging up and covering her with his body.

  He put his mouth to hers and he whispered, “All right baby, I’ll stop.”

  “Thank you,” she snapped, her eyes still narrow, he grinned at her again and she put the phone back to her ear. “I’m back,” she said and looked at him. “No, it’s nothing, just an annoying neighbor.” Cal laughed softly and shoved his face in her neck so he could run his mouth along her skin. “What?” she asked. “No joke!” she cried. “Yes, definitely, absolutely.” She was silent a second then asked, “Mel too? Oh, Sam, the girls’ll be thrilled to bits.” Another pause and then, “How long?” His head came up, he shifted a bit to the side, settling on an elbow in the couch to watch her talk while he righted his jeans and she said, “That’s all?” Her eyes came to him and she went on. “Well, we’ll take it, even if it’s only a weekend.” Another pause then, “Yes.” Another pause. “You got it, I’ll definitely make it. Kate’ll be beside herself, she hasn’t had my seafood risotto in ages. Anything else you want?” She listened, her face changed, her eyes went unfocused and a look settled on her features, affection, plain as day, she loved her brother it was obvious she didn’t try to hide it and she said, “Yeah, we can do family time, you bet.”

  Cal found his hand moving toward her face then it cupped her jaw, his thumb moving out to stroke her cheekbone and he watched her eyes shift to him, that love still shining there and that contraction hit him in the left of his chest again, this time stronger than before, nearly painful. She focused on him but that look didn’t move from her face.

  “Yeah, we’ll see you then,” she whispered, her eyes still on Cal. “Can’t wait, Sam.” She paused to listen then said, “Me too, love you… my love to Mel. Bye.”

  She slid the phone shut and Cal asked, “Let me guess, your brother’s comin’ to town?”

  A smile split her face and she nodded. “Him and his girlfriend, Mel. Next weekend.”

  “Good news, buddy.”

  “Definitely.”

  She reached down, nabbed her panties from the floor and he slid to the side as she lifted her legs then her hips as she yanked them on. The minute her legs settled back to the couch, he rolled his lower body over hers again and her eyes came to his face.

  “He close to your folks?” Cal found himself asking and then watched as she burst out laughing. His question was so hilarious, she rolled into him, sliding her arms around him, holding on as her body shook with laughter at the same time she shoved her face in his chest.

  “Vi,” he called.

  She pulled her face away and tipped her head back.

  “That was funny.”

  “I could tell.”

  She grinned at him. “The answer is no, Sam is not close to my parents. Neither of us are. Me because I got pregnant at seventeen and married the baby’s father after which they disowned me. I think it was less me getting pregnant and more me getting pregnant by Tim. Tim was not my mother’s idea of a perfect match. Tim’s Dad was a fireman, his Mom a nursing assistant. My Dad was an officer at a bank and my Mom was, and still is, a lady who lunched.”

  This surprised him. There was nothing about her that hinted she came from money.

  “Sam was a hellion,” she went on. “He started rebelling when he was about five and didn’t stop until a few years after he met Mel and she had enough time to calm him down. Still, my transgression was apparently worse than Sam’s gazillion fuck ups so, after I screwed up so royally according to Mom and she turned her back on me, she made it her mission to stay in Sam’s life. He puts up with it, mostly because he gets on with Dad. She does it, I reckon, because she’s not stupid and she knows when she’s slobbering in her jell-o she’ll need someone to come and visit her so she’ll have someone to bitch to.”

  Cal looked down at her and found his mind moving to her at seventeen, pregnant and probably scared out of her fucking mind and her mother turning her back on her.

  Then his mind moved to the woman lying on his couch who dressed like she dressed, worked like she worked, made a house like she did and created and raised two girls like hers, now carrying on alone. He couldn’t believe any mother wouldn’t be proud of all of that.

  “Musta been hard, buddy,” he said softly and her head tilted to the side.

  “What?”

  “Makin’ a life at seventeen.”

  She shook her head, her eyes drifted and her face grew soft when she said, “Tim’s folks weren’t like my folks.” She looked back at him and continued. “They loved him, they loved me, they thought we did the right thing, just too soon. They took me in when my parents kicked me out. We got married in their backyard, sweetest wedding you’ve ever seen.” Her voice got quiet when she said, “His Mom did that.” Her face was still soft with the memories as she went on. “We moved into their garage while Tim went to college. They’d done it up as a TV room and changed it to a bedroom so we could move in, helped me, helped Tim, took care of Kate, the whole shebang. A couple years later, they even built on a big addition at the back where they had their own bedroom, bathroom and living room and pretty much gave us the rest of the house. We didn’t move out until a couple of years after Keira was born. Tim had finished school, was in uniform and, by then, we had a down payment for a house. We moved in down the block from them. They were pretty much in our lives almost daily since I found out I was pregnant.”

  Although Cal was relieved she hadn’t had it rough after her parents kicked her out, he didn’t want to talk about this, about her husband, about her life and memories that made her voice go quiet and her face get soft.

  Even not wanting it, he still asked, “You still close
to them?”

  She swallowed and sadness swept the softness from her face. She looked like she looked when he first met her, a look he hadn’t seen in awhile, a look he didn’t like. She missed them being down the street but, mostly, she missed her old life.

  “They call, the girls especially, a couple of times a week,” she answered. “I talked to them a lot when we first moved, but not so often now that I’m working full-time. So, no, we’re not close anymore. I’m not fired up to go to Chicago and they aren’t big on travelling so they’ve visited only twice.”

  “Chicago’s only four hours away,” Cal pointed out.

  “Chicago is where Daniel Hart lives.”

  “I wasn’t talkin’ ‘bout you goin’ there, buddy.”

  She shook her head. “They go to Florida once a year, Joe. Two weeks. In January. They stopped by on their way there and back. That’s all they do. They’re both still working, both full-time and they’re just not like that. They stick to their ‘hood, what they know. They were relieved when Tim and I moved down the block instead of further away. Even fifteen minutes would be out of their comfort zone unless Tim went to go get them. It’s not so much his Dad, it’s his Mom. She’s quiet, really shy, she likes what she knows, the rest I think scares her.”

  This, Cal did not get. He couldn’t say he knew much about families since his had died with his mother but he spent enough time with Uncle Vinnie, Aunt Theresa and their kids Vinnie Junior, Carmela, Benny and Manny to know they were loud and in your business even if your business was six states away. Carmela had moved with her husband to California and Vinnie Senior and Aunt Theresa used every excuse they could to visit her. When Carm’s first kid lost his first tooth, they got on a fucking plane.

  And they’d taken him on when his mother died. Even before that, they were down from Chicago visiting, Vinnie Senior was close to his sister, he didn’t like to be away from her long. But when Cal’s Mom died and they cottoned on to the state of his Dad, their visits were more frequent and, eventually, they’d come, get him and take him to Chicago. Vinnie Senior, with Vinnie Junior in the car, driving down on a Friday to pick him up for the weekend, bringing him back on a Sunday so he’d be home before he had to go back to school.

  “Is, um…” she hesitated, he focused on her, she bit her lip and asked, “Your family close?”

  “Mom and Dad are dead,” he told her and he listened to her suck in a soft breath.

  “Really?”

  “Yep.”

  “Joe,” she whispered.

  He couldn’t handle that, hearing the sadness in her voice when she said his name. He couldn’t handle it because he didn’t fucking like it.

  He sat up suddenly, taking her with him and planting her astride him then he slid his hands over her ass and changed the subject.

  “Not gonna get your garage door fixed hangin’ on my couch.”

  She put her hands to his neck and studied his face. Then her thumb came out and stroked the underside of his jaw.

  “Yeah,” she said softly, letting it go and he decided he liked that, Vi reading his face and knowing she should let it go then she asked, “But could I ask you a favor?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Will you talk to Sam?”

  He felt his body get tight and his hands flexed into the flesh of her ass.

  He did not want to talk to her brother.

  She was working her way under his skin. Every day, she got in deeper, even when she wasn’t with him. He’d be working a job, sitting in a meeting and he’d wonder what she was doing, if she was working, what she was wearing, where her kids were, if they were safe. He wondered if Dane was keeping his fucking teenage kid’s hands off Kate and thinking he’d break his neck if he wasn’t. He wondered if Keira was friendly to everyone like she was friendly to him and hoping to Christ she didn’t strike up a conversation with some sick fuck pedophile whose neck he’d also have to break if he fucked with Keira.

  These were not Cal’s usual trains of thought.

  And it was worse at night, trying to get to sleep, he thought of Vi in other ways, her hands, her mouth, her smell. Christ, some nights, she was so real in his thoughts, he could smell her hair on his pillow, feel her ass in his hands like it was right then, hear her saying his name, feel her body heavy in sleep against his side.

  When he heard Keira’s far away scream and Kate’s yell and the fear in Vi’s voice, he’d nearly come out of his skin being so far away and powerless to step in if something was going down. And he couldn’t remember the last time he was as pissed as when he heard it was Kenzie doing the hang ups, shit in his life affecting hers and, again, he was so far away, on the fucking phone and she was dealing with it with Colt.

  He didn’t like this, any of this.

  His life was steady before Vi. He liked that.

  “Joe,” she called when he didn’t answer and he focused on her. “Forget I said anything. You don’t have to.”

  He didn’t want to but he knew he was going to.

  And that was the fuck of it.

  “What do you want me to talk to him about?”

  “It’s just that…” she started to move from him and muttered, “forget it, it’s no big thing.”

  His hands went from her ass, lifted, crossed and slid around so he could lock her in his arms.

  “What do you want?”

  “I…” she started then stopped, looking away and biting her lip.

  “Baby, for fuck’s sake –”

  Her eyes snapped back to his and she said, “He’s snoopin’ around Hart.”

  Cal’s arms convulsed as a very bad feeling soured his gut.

  “What?”

  “Sam, he’s snoopin’ around Hart. I don’t know what he’s doing but he was close to Tim and he’s close to me and what happened to Tim and after to me hit him hard. He’s –”

  Cal cut her off. “That’s whacked.”

  Her body jerked then she said, “I know, but –”

  “It’s not only whacked, it’s stupid.”

  This time her body tightened in his arms and her eyes narrowed.

  “He’s not stupid, he’s my brother and he’s –”

  “Stickin’ his nose in shit he shouldn’t. Jesus, Vi, Hart’ll chew him up and spit him out.”

  He fucked up, he knew it the second her face twisted with pain and her body wrenched, her hands going from his neck to his chest to push away.

  He let her go but twisted so she landed on her back and he landed on her.

  “Buddy –”

  “I know that, Joe,” she interrupted on a whisper. “I know exactly what Hart will do.”

  “I know you do,” Cal whispered back.

  “That’s why I want you to talk to Sam. That’s the favor. I want you to tell him to stop, explain things to him. Get him to let the cops deal with it.”

  “He’s here, you set up the meet, I’ll have a word,” Cal said immediately.

  Her chin jerked then she blinked.

  “What?”

  “When he’s here, you set it up, I’ll have a word.”

  She stared at him a second as if she’d never seen him before.

  Then she breathed, “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  He felt her body relax under him and her arm slid around him, her other hand gliding up his neck and into his hair as her leg moved from under him to wrap around his thigh.

  “Thanks, Joe.”

  He knew it the minute she spoke. He knew that was all he needed, those two soft words with her limbs wrapped around him and, God help him, he’d do anything for her.

  Jesus, he was fucked.

  “Need to see to your garage,” he told her.

  He was leaving her arms after he fucked her on his couch and listened to her sharing her life with him so he could fix her garage door opener.

  Yes, fucked.

  “Okay,” she whispered.

  He lifted up, pulling her up with him. He waited until she yanked up her shorts a
nd retied her ponytail and together they walked over to her house, Vi going to her yard, Cal going to her garage.

  Twenty minutes later, he was in his truck heading to the hardware store, buying her a new garage door opener.

  * * * * *

  Cal watched the Fiesta pull into the drive.

  Kate had barely come to a stop when Keira was out the door and running at him, her hair flying, her arms wheeling like she’d run to her mother at Colt and Feb’s barbeque.

  “Joe!” she screeched.

  He was on a ladder in Vi’s garage, installing the new garage door opener and he looked down at Vi’s daughter who’d come to a halt by the ladder and was smiling up at him. Doing this, he was thinking the only sound better than hearing Vi say his name was hearing Keira say it.

  “Hey girl.”

  “I’m gettin’ a dog!” she announced.

  Cal dropped his arms and asked, “What kind?”

  “American husky.”

  “Good breed,” Cal said even though he had no clue whether that was true or not.

  “I know!” she yelled as if he wasn’t right there in front of him. “I’ve been looking them up on the internet.” She got up on her toes and whispered loudly, “Though, it says they bark a lot. I haven’t told Mom that part yet.”

  “Hey Joe,” Kate said, joining their party.

  “Kate.”

  Her eyes were on the opening to the garage then they came to him and she remarked, “You got the door open.”

  Cal didn’t respond as the door was open so he didn’t think she needed an answer.

  “When we moved here, Mom spent, like, forever tryin’ to get that door open,” Kate told him.

  “Yeah?” Cal asked, lifting his arms, tipping his head back and going back to the opener.

  “What’re you doin’?” Keira asked and Cal looked through his arms to Keira.

  “Installin’ a new garage door opener.”

  Keira and Kate looked at each other. Keira grinned big. Kate’s eyes came back to him and she looked thoughtful.

  “That’s cool, Joe,” she said softly, her eyes going to the ceiling then she looked at him and finished, “thanks.”

  “Please tell me you left enough clothes and shoes at the mall for the rest of the population of Indianapolis to buy so people aren’t walkin’ around in tatty, non-designer clothes they got at Goodwill,” Vi joked, walking up to them and Cal dropped his arms again.