Typically I would have just brushed it off, told him it was my problem and that I would handle it. I was the big brother, the protector, but I was starting to see that all the things I had used to define myself for so long needed to be tweaked, needed to be redefined, as life moved forward, as I wasn’t the same guy I had been when we were kids.

“Nobody seems to know where the punk with the grudge is at. Torch and the club said he has connections, could be armed, and he is good and pissed that picking that fight with me got him eighty-sixed. They want me to watch my back, and Torch was concerned that with all the stuff going on up here, I might not be able to give the situation the attention it deserves.” I tapped my temple with two fingers and he frowned at me.

“Are you? Okay to keep an eye on yourself, I mean?”

“I think so. Protecting myself and survival is second nature to me.”

“If you need anything from me, from the guys, you know all you have to do is ask, right?”

“I know. Just keep an eye on my girl. I don’t want her to worry, not with the baby and not with her acting all twisted up over that e-mail from her ex.”

I saw Rule’s pale eyes go diamond hard and his tattooed hands curled into fists on the top of the bar.

“That asshole had the nerve to e-mail her after all this time?”

I dipped my chin in agreement and cocked my elbows to lean back against the bar. I didn’t want to appear too eager to hear what he had to say about Cora’s ex, but information was power, and the more I had the more I could break through that shroud of fear I saw in her multihued gaze every time I brought up the L-word.

“I guess his old lady was stepping out on him with another one of the artists at the shop. He apparently had a revelation that all the crap he shoveled Cora’s way might just have made him a douche bag, so now he’s all fired up to make amends. She says it’s all water under the bridge, but sometimes she shuts up and I can tell she’s somewhere else, but she doesn’t say anything to me about it.”

He let loose a litany of swearwords and his hands clenched and unclenched.

“That guy did a number on her, Rome.” He sighed and motioned for Asa to bring him another beer. “When Phil came back to the shop after going to New York and told us we were getting a new shop manager, none of us knew how to take it. But then Cora showed up and it was clear she needed someone to save her. She was wasting away. I mean she is tiny as it is, but she obviously wasn’t eating, wasn’t sleeping. She was quiet, withdrawn. We tried to joke with her, tried to shake her out of it, but nothing worked. She was heartbroken. I’ve never seen anything like it. She wasn’t just some chick that was sad because she got dumped … she was dying from it.” He blew out a breath and slowly shook his head from side to side.

“Rowdy always said she took it so hard because her dad was always gone and Jimmy was her only constant in life. I don’t know if that’s the case, but I do know that guy hurt her in a way I would like to skin him alive and let fire ants eat him from the inside out just to teach him a lesson. No man should do that to a woman that loves him, even if he isn’t in love with her anymore.”

I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t like the sound of any of that at all.

“What snapped her out of it? What kept her from just fading away?”

His mouth turned into a wry grin and he bit down on his lip ring. “Remy died.”

I blinked in surprise.

“Remy died and I went off the deep end and she waded in to save me. She was so focused on me and my mess I think she forgot that she was suffering herself. Day by day she got better and held on to me with both hands. I was operating from a really bad place, but I stayed just on this side of redeemable because of Cora. She’s more than a big-sister figure, she’s my voice of reason.”

I barked out a laugh. “Tinker Bell.”

“Definitely Tinker Bell, but a Tinker Bell that can flay you with her sharp-ass tongue and put you in your place with a simple look. Don’t let that guy get his hooks back into her, Rome. That’s bad news all around.”

I grunted. “You’ve met Cora, Rule. She’s going to do whatever it is she’s going to do. All I can do is hope what we have going for us is enough to make him getting anything into her an option that isn’t on the table.”

We shared a knowing look.

“Sucks.”

“Definitely sucks.”

We lapsed into an uncomfortable silence as the jukebox shifted from the Rolling Stones to the Clash. I walked back behind the bar to help Asa with the dishes and to have something to do with my hands.

“You like it here, Rome? You want to stay here and run this place or are you just doing it because you don’t know what else to do?”

Rule’s question made me take a second and think of an answer that worked.

“A little bit of both. I like it here; I like the clientele and the regulars, I like that I get to make my own hours and that I put this place back together board by board. But I don’t have a clue what’s next for me, what I should or shouldn’t be doing with all the years of training I have. For now this feels right and I can’t ask for more than that.”

“Whatever you do, whoever you want to be in the long run, Rome, I am so fucking glad you came back home in one piece. I missed you, we missed you. Even when you were being a royal pain in the ass. Knowing you’re here, that I can call you, that you have my back even when you’re pissed at me, you don’t understand how much I need that.”

And there it was. My brother still needed me. Yes, he had Shaw to take care of him. Yes, he had become enough of a badass, and enough of an adult to protect himself from most things, but he still needed me to have his back. He needed me to be the guy who looked at him and always saw the guy who lived his life on his own terms, made his own rules, and didn’t judge him for it. That was a redefinition of my relationship with my brother I had no trouble filling. I was working my way toward that with my parents as well. I was starting to figure out I could just be Rome, nothing more and nothing less.

“I missed your punk ass, too, and I am sincerely sorry it took me such a long time to get my head out of my ass.”

He nodded, finished his beer, and went home to his girl. It was an interesting evening, to say the least, and after the cryptic warning from Torch and the club, I stayed until closing with Asa and watched him leave with not one but two of the pretty coeds. I wanted to make sure everyone got out of the parking lot safe and sound and that no one was lurking around. The guy had game like I had never seen before and I probably would have felt a twinge of jealousy had I not been going to my house, where a very sexy pixie was no doubt passed out in my bed, where she waited for me to get home.

Nash’s muscle car was gone when I got to the Victorian, but the Cooper was parked in its spot. I was getting tired of playing ring-around-the-apartments with her. I wanted one place to call our own, but after Rule’s revelations about her and her ex tonight, I was starting to wonder if her inability to meet me in the middle on a place had more behind it. I grabbed a beer out of the fridge and thought I would snag a shower and crawl into bed next to her, but when I pushed open the door to my room, I was surprised to find the light on the nightstand on and the bed empty. I frowned and set the beer down while kicking off my boots and pulling my shirt off over my head.

I was worried that maybe she wasn’t feeling so great. So far she had been lucky and morning sickness wasn’t something she really had to deal with unless she got superemotional. She was tired a lot and hadn’t asked me to go get her pickles and ice cream in the middle of the night or anything, so I just assumed it would be smooth sailing for the duration of her pregnancy. I tapped on the door with a knuckle and called her name.

“You all right, Half-Pint?”

The knob turned easily under my hand and I walked in the bathroom. She was naked, all tattooed and bejeweled skin, staring in the big mirror that hung over the vanity. Her blond hair was sticking up all over her head like she had been woken from sleep by something and she was biting down on her lower lip. She was perfect. Everything about her was just absolutely fucking perfect. I braced my arms over my head on the doorframe and watched her watch me. Her eyes did that slow roll over my chest, across my stomach, and stopped on the front of my pants the way she liked to do. I needed to remember to always come home and take my shirt off … it really did make it hard for her to think.

“Look.” She turned to face me, and I think she wanted me to look at something besides her perky breasts and the delicate junction between her legs, but I was a guy and she was naked, so she was out of luck.

“Look at what?” I wanted to snatch her up and take her to bed. I wanted to lick every single one of those jewels that decorated her rib cage and trace the line of the lilies all the way up her side with my teeth.

“Look at our baby.” She flattened both her hands on the very slight swell in her stomach. She was so tiny that the barest bulge did indeed have her looking more rounded out than she had a day or so ago. She was just too cute with those big eyes so full of wonder. “I passed out a few hours ago and rolled over on my stomach, which sucks when you aren’t there to act as a pillow, by the way, when this woke me up. I’ve never had a belly in my life and now I do and there is a supersmall person in there. It’s unbelievable.” She just sounded in awe, and I wouldn’t have traded this moment for all the assuredness or foresight in the entire world.