“What are the best ones?” she asked me.

“The wild ones. You let them get it out of their system and you get them when they’re tame. That can be the best,” I told her, and Benny’s arm got tight, but this time it didn’t loosen.

“Tame doesn’t sound fun,” Keira noted. Cal sighed audibly and I smiled, but only so I wouldn’t laugh.

Cal had his hands full with this one and I thought that was hilarious.

“It’s not tame tame, it’s the good kind of tame,” I explained. She looked confused, so I went on. “I’m just sayin’, listen to Cal. You might not get it ’cause you’re young, but you’ll learn. And he’s tryin’ to make sure when you learn, it isn’t the hard way.”

“Right,” Keira whispered, eyeing me, eyeing Cal, and sucking my womanly wisdom in like a sponge.

“So,” Kate said, and I looked to her. “It’s like Joe bein’ the Lone Wolf, and Mawdy and us gettin’ in there, and he’s still hot and cool, but he’s got us.”

“Something like that,” I replied, smiling back at her.

“The Lone Wolf?” Benny asked.

“Shut it,” Cal growled.

I giggled again.

“What are we talking about?” Theresa asked, and I looked over the back of the couch to see her and Violet joining us.

“Something we’re not talkin’ about anymore,” Cal answered.

I gave Vi a big smile as Kate exited the couch to go sit on the floor with her sister so Theresa could sit in the corner. Violet scrunched next to me.

The minute she did, she grabbed my hand and held on.

I rested our hands on my thigh and held on tighter.

“I made cannoli and Benny bought enough donuts for an army. Anyone in the mood for something sweet?” Theresa asked.

“Me!” Keira cried.

“Totally!” Kate exclaimed, already getting back to her feet.

Theresa, barely just sitting down, got back up. “Let’s go make coffee and get something sweet.”

“I could use some coffee and somethin’ sweet,” Vinnie Senior muttered, hefting himself out of the recliner and following them.

“Ben, a word,” Cal said.

I felt Benny tense against me. I looked at him to see he was giving a hard look to his cousin. Then he looked to me and that look softened.

“Be back, cara,” he said quietly.

“Right,” I replied.

He carefully shifted from beside me and got to his feet.

The men left and I looked to Vi.

“Do you know what that’s about?” I asked.

Violet was looking over the couch, watching the men depart, but at my question, her eyes came to me. “Joe obviously has something on his mind. Unfortunately, he hasn’t shared with me what it is.”

I looked over the couch and saw that whatever it was took them out to the front stoop. In other words, where no one could listen in.

I turned my gaze back to Violet. “Is everything cool?”

She nodded. “Police found the carnage Hart left in his lake house. He shot you. Both Joe and Benny’s guns were registered. The cops were in the know we’d been kidnapped, and they knew all about Hart and his obsession with me. So, to end, they didn’t press charges against Joe for blowin’ a hole in his head. And, obviously you know, the same with Benny for shooting him in the stomach.”

I knew all that. Sal had explained it to me in the hospital.

So I clarified, “No, what I mean is, you, the girls, the drama.” I leaned closer. “They’re beautiful, Vi,” I said softly. “So sweet. Amazing. But they seem—”

She gave my hand a squeeze. “They lost their dad, their uncle, and almost me and Joe to Daniel Hart. They latch on to family, having lost all that. Joe and I are keepin’ an eye on it, but I reckon it’s better they latch on to love rather than acting out.”

“You’d be right about that,” I replied.

She tipped her head to the side as she lifted her eyebrows up. “You and Benny?”

“Long story,” I muttered, and she grinned.

“You two look good together.”

I caught her eyes direct. “I looked good together with his brother too.”

She held my gaze for long seconds before she asked cautiously, “Do you like him?”

“He’s the commissioner of the local Little League.”

Her lips twitched and she murmured, “You like him.”

“He’s also my dead boyfriend’s brother,” I noted for the fucking gazillionth time in three days.

She assessed my face and remarked, “I’m sensing you don’t wanna talk about this.”

“Since Ben made it clear what he was thinking about this, it’s pretty much the only thing I think about, we talk about, and I talk about with other people. So yeah, I could use a break.”

Violet nodded. “Right. So you ever need to talk it through with someone who’ll just listen, or you ever need to talk anything through with someone who’ll just listen, or you ever just want to shoot the breeze, you call me. Okay?”

That was so nice, I grinned at her, declaring, “I just knew you were the shit.”

She grinned back and replied, “I knew you were the shit when you jimmied up that window so we could escape.”

I shrugged. “Figured Hart was shooting people in the other room, it was time for us to take a stroll.”

She started giggling and through it said, “You were so right.”

I started giggling too and we did this for a while until we both sobered, our eyes glued to each other’s, our hands clutching tight.

“You’re up, talking, you look gorgeous, but are you sleeping? Dealing? Healing?” Vi asked in a whisper.

“One good thing about Benny throwing down with me is that I haven’t really had a chance to have a proper freak out about that whole thing with Hart. But we’re here, he’s not, so it all worked out in the end.”

“Yeah,” she agreed.

“You?” I asked.

“I have Joe,” she answered, and I smiled. She had Cal. Cal had her. And obviously, that was all she needed.

“You’re good for him,” I told her.

“He’s good for me,” she told me.

Excellent response.

“He loves your girls,” I told her.

“They adore him,” she told me.

Another excellent response.

“Thanks for making him happy,” I whispered.

“That, honey, is not a hardship,” she whispered back.

We smiled at each other again. Then, being women and thus, prone to do crazy shit for no reason whatsoever, we burst out laughing.

***

Hours later, when everyone was gone, I walked out of the bathroom in another one of Gina’s sexy-cute nightgowns to see Benny with bare feet, in his t-shirt and jeans, stretched out on the bed.

His eyes came to me, dropped to my body, and he muttered, “Jesus.”

That made me feel awesome and irked me at the same time.

“You could avoid the torture by watchin’ TV downstairs,” I remarked.

His eyes lifted to mine. “I could.”

That was all he said.

I sighed, went to the robe at the foot of the bed, shrugged it on, tied the belt, and climbed into bed.

Benny was in that bed and I should be throwing a conniption about it, but I needed to climb in. It had been a big day with lots of hugging, moving around, and sitting up. It felt good to do it. It felt better I made it through. It wasn’t too much too soon, but that didn’t mean I didn’t need to take a load off.

I turned my eyes to the TV to see Benny scrolling through the guide like a man would stand in front of a refrigerator—that was, not paying a whole lot of attention, not knowing what he wanted, not liking what he saw, and willing to do it for the next half an hour, thinking something would magically appear that would ease a craving.

“What’d you talk about with Cal?” I asked.

“He wanted to make sure you were good,” Ben answered, eyes to the TV.

“He could have asked me,” I pointed out, eyes to Ben.

“He didn’t. He asked me,” Ben told me what I already knew.

“Did this require you being on the front stoop where no one could hear?” I pushed.

“Yep, since it happened on the front stoop where no one could hear,” Ben stated, and that didn’t feel awesome. It just irked me.

“Benny!” I snapped, and he looked at me.

“Ask what you wanna ask, baby,” he said gently, reading me and knowing I was beating around the bush.

So I quit beating around the bush.

“Cal doesn’t seem to have a problem with the idea of you and me,” I noted.

“He doesn’t, since he’s told me, repeatedly, after that shit went down with Hart, to get my head outta my ass and sort out you and me.”

My mouth dropped open.

I snapped it shut to declare, “There isn’t a ‘you and me.’”

His eyes did a sweep of me in his bed, they came to rest on mine, and he said quietly, “Babe.”

Shit.

“We’re talkin’ about this tomorrow,” he reminded me. “Right now, I can tell you had a big day and you need to kick back.”

He wasn’t wrong about that. What he was was attentive, noticing it.

Another good thing about Benny.

“Come here,” he ordered.

“I’m good here,” I said, turning my eyes to the TV.

“Frankie, come here,” he repeated.

I looked to him. “I’m good here, Benny.”

“Babe,” he stated firmly, but said no more.

“I’m comfy.”

“Come here,” he said yet again.

“Ben, I’m fine where I am.”

“Come here.”

My eyes narrowed. “Seriously?”

“Francesca, come…here.”

“Are you gonna repeat it until I do it?” I snapped.

“Yes,” he replied.

“You’re annoying,” I told him.

“Come here.”

“Now you’re more annoying.”

“Come here.”

I glared at him as I informed him, “I really wanna hit you with a pillow right now.”