She held my eyes and asked, “Will you tell Dad?”

I took a deep breath and answered, “No. But saying that, you have to know I’ll guide you the way he’d want it to go and that is that you go there only when you’re ready, when you’re a lot older and when you’re certain you care deeply for the person you’re with.”

“I care deeply for Fin,” she told me.

“I know you do,” I said gently. “But, honestly, honey, now is not the time for you to be doing those things. Now is the time for you to have fun with your boyfriend, enjoy kissing and making out and let that other stuff happen later. It’s confusing and I can say that it is even now, at my age. So at your age, it’s way too much.”

She studied me for long moments. Then she nodded.

“Is that your promise?” I asked.

She again studied me. Then she again nodded and said softly, “Yes, Dusty. That’s my promise.”

Thank you, God.

“Good,” I whispered.

She looked to the door then to me.

“Really, Fin threw down with No for me?”

It was my turn to nod.

Her lips quirked into that mini-smile again.

“So, you’re good to go downstairs and make hamburgers,” I said quietly.

Her mini-smile went full.

“I gotta get some ibuprofen first,” she told me.

“Right,” I whispered. Then I reached out, curled my fingers around her hand that was wrapped around her calves and I gave her a squeeze. “Love you, Reesee, no joke. I do. I love you, girl, and when you love one of your girls, you’re always there for her. So know this as fact, I’m always here for you, yeah?”

Her eyes got bright but she pressed her lips together and nodded.

I gave her another squeeze and nodded back.

Then I said, “Get your pills. See you downstairs.”

“Okay, Dusty.”

I grinned at her. Then I got up off the bed and walked out of her room.

Right, there it was. That was done. That didn’t go too badly. I thought I did okay.

And I hoped to God she kept her promise.

This was what I was thinking when I walked into the kitchen to see No forming hamburgers. Seeing that, I did something I’d never done with No. I had no idea how he’d react or if it was right. But I did it anyway.

I walked up behind him, leaned around him and kissed his cheek. He jumped and his eyes came to me filled with surprise.

“She’s okay,” I said softly. “You might wanna apologize but she’s all right.”

He looked down at the hamburger meat and muttered, “I’m a dick.”

“You acted like one but you aren’t one. Stuff happens, honey, when we’re angry. Learn from it, make amends, get on with it and don’t do it again. Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he mumbled to the hamburger meat.

I lifted a hand and wrapped my fingers around his wrist then I gave No a squeeze. I made no further deal of it. I let him go and went in search of my man and my nephew.

Mike was sitting on the couch, one hand curled around a beer, the fingers of the other rubbing Layla’s head that was resting jowls to his thigh. Fin was sitting opposite him on the sectional, no beer, he was leaned forward to the coffee table with a book open and a hand wrapped around a pencil scribbling in a notebook.

Both of their eyes came to me.

“She’s cool,” I muttered.

Fin studied me then looked back to his books. Mike studied me then jerked his head to the couch beside him, nonverbally ordering me to take a load off.

I rounded the couch and took a load off.

Then I took Mike’s beer from him and downed a gulp as I leaned into his side.

Mike wrapped an arm around my shoulders and shouted, “No! When you get your hands cleaned of that meat, bring Dusty a beer, yeah?”

“Yeah Dad!” No shouted back.

“I’ll get it!” Rees shouted from what sounded like the hall.

I grinned at the TV.

Mike quit rubbing Layla, took the beer I confiscated then took a pull.

Then he handed it back to me and went back to rubbing Layla who, throughout his movements, followed them with blinking eyes but she didn’t lift her jaw from his thigh.

I trained my eyes back to the TV and didn’t move them even when I heard Mike mutter, “Thank you, Angel,” with an accompanying arm squeeze.

“No problem,” I muttered back.

“Here’s your beer, Dusty,” Rees said, I turned to her and saw her extending a bottle to me.

“Thanks, Reesee,” I replied, handed Mike’s off to him and took it.

Her eyes went to Fin and they were hesitant but she was determined.

I knew this when she gamely powered through her embarrassment, decided to pretend the whole incident didn’t happen and announced, “Fin, I’ll go grab my books after I help out No.”

Fin grinned at her and muttered, “Whatever, babe.”

She grinned back.

Then she turned on her foot, her thick, shining hair flying and walk-skipped down the hall.

All was well in teenage world.

I looked to Fin to see him gazing down the hall, his lips twitching. Then his eyes went back to the coffee table.

God, I loved my nephew.

Mike’s arm gave me another squeeze.

Layla groaned and settled on her belly on the floor.

I tucked my feet under me, leaned deeper into my man, took a pull off my fresh one and zoned out with my eyes on the TV while I waited for hamburgers.

* * *

I jerked awake with a start as I felt Mike’s body leave the curve of mine. With more opportunities, we were experimenting with new sleeping positions and we’d been spooning. Personally, I didn’t care how we slept just as long as we cuddled while doing it. Since every position we’d come up with involved cuddling, it was obvious Mike felt the same.

I often sensed Mike wake in the night and it woke me because his body was always pressed to mine or mine to his in one way or another. And, in addition to the first time he did it, Mike had left me in the night once to do a walkthrough of the house. This had been Sunday night, the first night I slept under his roof when his kids were doing the same. Understandable seeing as he loved us all and our change in circumstances would put him on edge.

But now I sensed something was wrong.

I would know I was right when Mike rolled back into me, grabbed my hand and pressed my fingers around what felt like his phone.

“Call nine-one-one, now,” he whispered in my ear, his quiet voice urgent and I felt my body go tight but Mike was out of bed like a shot.

I rolled, looking at his shadow in the dark and feeling the bed move as Layla shifted up and jumped off.

Then I heard the sounds a gun made on TV or in the movies when someone was fiddling with it.

Oh God.

“Mike?” I whispered.

“Nine-one-one,” he returned quietly. “Now, Dusty.”

I randomly hit a button on his phone and the keypad fortunately lit up. Then with a trembling hand, my thumb moved over it, doing as Mike asked.

“You stay in here, girl.” I heard Mike whisper and my eyes went to the doors to see the shadow of one open and close and I knew Mike left Layla behind.

I put the phone to my ear and heard, “…one, what’s your emergency?”

“This is Dusty Holliday. I’m at three-three-two-one-seven Crescent at The Creekview. My boyfriend told me to call you. He’s Lieutenant Mike Haines of the Brownsburg Police Department. He just left the room with his weapon. He didn’t explain why but I think you should send someone.”

“Repeat your name and address please,” she requested.

“Dusty Holliday. I’m at the home of Lieutenant Mike Haines, three-three-two-one-seven Crescent.”

“Please stay on the line with me, Dusty. I’m sending a unit. Do you hear anything?”

I sat in bed trembling and the only thing I heard was Layla’s dog tags jingling. I could see her shadow pacing to Mike’s side of the bed and back to the door then again and again. She wanted out. She was worried. She wanted me to get off my ass and open the door so she could have her Dad’s back.

Shit!

“No,” I answered the operator. “But I’m not the only one in the house. Mike’s two kids are here.”

“Right. Stay on the line, Dusty. The call has gone to dispatch. They’ll send a unit.”

“Okay.”

“Where are you?”

“In the bedroom.”

“Stay there, okay?”

“Okay,” I whispered, staring at the door, wanting to go to the kids, listening hard, breathing harder.

I must have done this a long time because the operator called, “You with me, Dusty?”

“Yes.”

“I have confirmation a unit is en route.”

“How long?” I asked.

“They’ll be…”

I heard the front door open and movement downstairs. It was faraway, indistinct but there was a thud then murmuring.

Instinctively, I threw back the covers and slid out of bed, my heart hammering, whispering, “Someone’s in the house.”

“Stay where you are, Dusty, a unit is en route.”

“I have two kids in this house!” I snapped, rushing toward the doors, Layla at my heels.

“Dusty, stay where you are.”

“They’re sleeping.”

“Dusty –”

“They don’t know anything’s going on,” I hissed, hearing murmurings coming up from downstairs, the living room, right under Mike’s room. Deep voices, male, low. I pressed my lips together.

“Dusty, stay right where you are. The unit will be there in two minutes.”

Oh God. Oh God. It took less than two minutes to walk up the fucking stairs and get to one of the kids!

Holding the phone to my ear, using my leg to keep Layla back, I opened the door and slid out, closing it quickly behind me and closing Layla in. I hustled down the hall, my mind searching what I knew of the upstairs. Except for some pens and pencils in Mike’s office which I might be able to jab in someone’s neck or something, I had no weapon.