This was often their tactic.

“As long as they aren’t close to somethin’ that can hurt them or somethin’ breakable, we let ’em duke it out,” Tack had told me.

I wasn’t certain this was an optimal parental choice but I’d never seen bikers raised from womb to badass. It was probably good they knew their way around a slug fest from a young age.

Needless to say, Tack had told Tyra about Hop and me, and Tyra had wasted no time phoning me. We had a conversation that was uncomfortable for both of us, since she’d shared the BeeBee information and I hadn’t shared anything at all. I’d had to explain, without giving away too much of Hop’s business he didn’t want spread around, that she’d been mistaken. He didn’t cheat, he’d been on a break. Then I’d used Hop’s words to tell her what he and I had was “real”; figuring she’d lived in the biker world longer than me, she would understand.

She did but she was my best friend. I knew she’d want physical evidence.

So of course she told me she, Tack, and the boys were coming for dinner. “So I can see for myself that this is all good.”

Considering the fact that they’d walked up to my back door when Hop was laying a hot and heavy one on me in the kitchen—so hot and heavy we hadn’t heard their SUV parking in my back drive—Tyra got an eyeful of how good it was.

So did Tack, Ride, and Cut, with Rider not thinking much of what he’d seen, something which he shared upon entering by yelling at me, “That’s gross! Mister Hop had his tongue in your mouth!” After which he instantly turned to his father and kept yelling, “You do that to Mom too and it’s sick!”

Hop chuckled.

Ty-Ty gazed at her son with a smile twitching at her mouth.

Tack didn’t miss a beat and muttered, “I’ll remind you of those words when we have our first pregnancy scare.”

To this Hop chuckled more. I joined in but Tyra cut narrowed eyes to her man while Rider looked confused and Cut shouted, “La-La, I want blue Powerade! Now!”

I set the kids up with Powerade. The men got beers and firmly planted themselves in the living room, not in my family room, which was too close to the kitchen and thus might mean they’d be called on to do something like open jars or chop onions. Tyra and I got down to cooking.

“So, let me get this straight. The bondsman accepted an out-of-state cosigner. Your mom was released. She went home and tossed all your dad’s shit out on the lawn and called a locksmith. He got released from the hospital, came home and couldn’t get into the house but found his crap in the yard and a note on the door telling him she was going to clean him out during the divorce proceedings. The police were called again when he kept pounding on the door and shouting. He was told to find elsewhere to stay. Your mom asked your sister to find her an AA meeting. And you’re in love with Hopper Kincaid,” Tyra stated and I smiled at her.

“That about sums it up,” I confirmed.

“Holy crap,” she replied.

“I know,” I agreed then went on. “Wish I was there when she was tossing all dad’s stuff on the lawn. Lis was. My sister is all over this. She’s liking a jailbird mom with a backbone so she’s decided she’s talking to Mom again and dragging her husband Bart along with her. So they were there when Mom was doing an extreme clean of the house. Bart thought it was a scream and took all Dad’s pictures of him with senators and congressmen off the wall of his study and flung them out the window. Lis said she wanted to throw stuff too but she was laughing too hard, and by the time she got herself together, they’d already taken care of business.”

“That’s crazy, Lanie,” Tyra told me.

“That’s the Heron Family, Ty-Ty. If there’s a statement to be made, you might as well do it with flair.”

She started giggling and I did it right along with her.

She sobered and caught my eye. “You okay with all this?”

I looked back down to the mushrooms I was slicing. “Yeah.” I pressed my lips together then turned to her and said softly, “Especially the AA part.”

“You think she means it?” Tyra asked.

“I think she’s never, not once, not even back in the day when Lis told them she didn’t want to speak to either of them until Mom sorted herself out, admitted she had a problem. They say admitting it is a not only the first step but the most important one so, yeah. I think she means it.”

“Happy for you,” she told me.

“Me too,” I replied and watched her eyes slide to the living room and back to me.

“How happy should I be for you?”

I understood what she was asking so I gave it to her.

“He’s gentle. He’s understanding. He’s proved over and over he has my back. He’s mellow, which is good to come home to when my mind is a mess and work is crazy. His kids are great, they like me, and I love watching him with them. He sang ‘You’ll Accomp’ny Me’ to me at a biker bar. And he loves me.”

Her eyes shot up at Hop singing to me and she breathed, “No joke? He sang to you?”

I shook my head. “No joke.”

“Tack told me he used to be in a band. Is he good?”

I smiled. “He’s a rock star.”

“I mean, is he good when you aren’t looking through love glasses,” she teased and I locked eyes with her.

“He should never have given it up. He’s phenomenal,” I stated firmly.

“Wow,” she whispered.

“You don’t know wow until you’ve seen Hopper onstage with a microphone and a guitar. Then you’ll know wow.”

Tyra grinned.

I went back to slicing mushrooms.

“ ‘You’ll Accomp’ny Me?’ ” she asked quietly.

I looked back at her. “It was the best moment of my life until he said last night, ‘Do you have any fuckin’ clue how much I love you?’ ”

Her eyes got big.

“Wow,” she repeated.

“Yes. Now that was wow.” I pulled in a deep breath and turned to her. “He’s mine. I’m terrified. Love hasn’t gone real well for me. He gets that. He’s patient. We fight. It hurts. But somehow, after each fight, we come out stronger.”

“If it’s right, that’s how it works,” Tyra shared.

“I’m getting that now.”

“I wish you would have told me,” she said carefully and I shook my head.

“I don’t know how it happened, Ty-Ty. I don’t know what I saw that led me to him but I’m glad I followed my gut and my heart because it was Hop I needed to guide me through letting the past go. It couldn’t be you. I was blaming myself for you getting hurt. It had to be someone else and there isn’t anyone in my life, even my sister, who could do it with the tenderness and understanding Hop gave me.”

Her eyes got bright but her lips smiled and she again said, “Wow.”

“Absolutely,” I replied. “Wow.”

My phone rang.

Rider shouted, “Mom! Cut poked me in the eye!”

I grabbed my phone as Tack called, “Boy, get your butt over here. You know, the rare happens and your mother’s in the kitchen, you don’t disturb her.”

Tyra rolled her eyes at me and headed to the living room.

I put my phone to my ear. “Hey.”

“You’re banging a biker?”

It was Elvira.

“Elvira—” I began only to be cut off.

“Okay, I been around those hot boys and I got me a fine piece of goodness in my bed but that don’t mean I don’t notice the goodness all around me when I’m on Chaos. So I get you, goin’ there with a brother. What I don’t get is your two sisters sat there, eatin’ up tasty morsels about your man, and you just stood there like a deer caught in headlights and didn’t say shit?”

“Elvira—” I tried but failed.

“Tyra called me, told me she got the wrong end of the stick and shared Hop was on a break with his ex-bitch when he was doin’ the nasty with a biker groupie. Still, girl, what the fuck?”

“Well—”

“I knew he was a good guy. I can sniff ’em out. The assholes. He didn’t smell like no asshole. So it threw me for a loop, thinkin’ he was a cheater. Thought my radar had gone screwy. Good to know I still got it goin’ on.”

“I’m glad that—”

“But you standin’ there, not sayin’ a word? Girl, you crazy?”

“Actually, yes,” I got out.

“Yeah, you are. Always knew that. Don’t know why I’m askin’,” she took a breath then changed subjects. “Chaos bonded out your mom?”

“Yeah. She’s good.”

“Sistah,” she drew this word out, “you’ve had a helluva day,” she declared and she was not wrong. I heard her shout, “What?” Then nothing, then, “Be right there, baby.” She came back to me. “Date night. Movie, dinner and a little somethin’ somethin’. Pray for me that work doesn’t call him in the middle of our entrée. That happens a lot and it never fails to shit me but what am I gonna do? My man serves and protects. It’s my sacrifice for the population of Denver.”

I grinned at my phone. “I’m praying.”

“Good,” she stated, then, “You happy?”

“Yeah, Elvira, I’m happy.”

“Good,” she whispered. “Finally.”

She was right about that.

Then I heard her shout, “Keep your pants on!” And back to me, “Gotta go. I’m pourin’ martinis in you sometime next week. I want it all but only the PG=rated parts. I do not want to know what that ’tache feels like on your skin.”

Even if she did, I wouldn’t share that.

That was all for me.

She continued, “It’ll give me ideas, and it’ll mean I can’t come over for dinner with you and Hop the week after next ’cause I won’t be able to look him in the eye if I know what that ’tache feels like on my skin. I’ll text you with a night Malik and I can make it. I’m ordering your fried chicken and pecan pie so be prepared.”