“Therefore you told Gran this and she believed in your vision.”

Jake smiled again. “Yeah. She believed in my vision, Slick. Told me, I leverage the gym, she’d give me the rest of the money and, I could make a go of The Circus, pay her back along the way. Obviously I said no.”

She straightened and leaned toward him, sounding surprised when she asked, “You said no?”

“I said no,” he confirmed. “Taking pity money from an eighty-six year old lady?” He shook his head.

“But you eventually took the money,” she noted.

Jake nodded.

“I took the money. I said no about a hundred times first. The good part about this was, she was interested in me, she liked me, I liked her, and she kept at me. In this time, she met the kids, got involved in our lives, we liked her there, we kept her and she kept us. Eventually, she wore me down. I took the money, got a loan on the gym seein’ as I owned the building outright. I closed The Circus down for two months, me and some buddies fixed it up, reopened, paid Lydie back within a year. Paid off the loan on the gym within three. Got myself a four-bedroom house where my kids all have their own rooms. Life changed. Quit sucking. Got good. And Lydie was the catalyst for all that.”

“And that’s how you met,” she said softly.

“That’s how we met,” he replied just as softly.

She was still talking soft when she said, “I’m glad she was there for you, Jake.”

“I am too, honey.”

He watched her turn her head to the view before she said to it, “I just don’t understand how she could be so involved in your life, your children’s lives, and she never introduced any of you to me.”

This was the sticky part.

And it was a fucked up move, he knew it, but she was suffering so Jake waded into the mire.

He would deal with the blowback when, but hopefully only if it happened.

“Babe, she was all about you when you’d come to visit,” Jake told her and she looked back to him.

“Pardon?”

“She talked about you all the time. Thought the world of you. And when you’d come for a visit, she’d get real excited. She couldn’t wait. Not hard to see she missed you when you were gone and she missed you bad. So, my guess, when she had you, she didn’t want to share you.”

“We went to parties and I saw her other friends all the time,” she returned.

“Yeah, but I’m not exactly in her age group and my family isn’t exactly in her social set. We’re not invited to play bridge and we don’t go to church socials.”

“This is true,” she murmured.

“And I know from what she told me after you were gone that she did not live her life on the go, socializing rabidly like she always did until she couldn’t do it anymore. When you were here, she took a break. She gave her time to you and sucked all of yours in that she could get.”

This brought on silence until she broke it, saying quietly, “We consumed each other.”

“Come again?” he asked.

She looked again to the window. “When we were together, we consumed each other. I thought it was just me missing Gran. When I was with her, I took every moment I could get with her and in this house. Committing it to memory. I did that even before…” She trailed off then began again. “I did it even when I was a little girl. I loved being with her and I loved being with her in this house.”

“So maybe that’s why we didn’t meet.”

She looked back at him. “You and your children are not bridge cronies, Jake, but you meant the world to her too. I know this to be true. She has your picture on her nightstand.”

Jake had no reply to that.

Strike that.

He had one. He just couldn’t give it to her.

Not now.

“I could see, in the beginning maybe. But seven years?” she asked.

He bent a knee, leaned deep and stretched a hand out, catching hers. “I have no answers for you, baby,” he told her gently, none of these words sitting well because they meant he’d lied to her gently. “And, it sucks but she’s gone. This is clearly fuckin’ with your head but you gotta let it go because with her gone, you’re never gonna get those answers. Just settle in that it was whatever it was and she made it so we have each other now.”

“We have each other now,” she whispered.

“Yeah.”

Her hand turned in his so she could curl her fingers around and she held tight.

And when she did, she held his eyes and kept whispering. “I’m glad, Jake.”

He held her back just as tight. “Me too, honey.”

She gave him a small smile.

And on that, Jake decided it was time to go. Her in this mood made him want to find creative ways to guide her out of it and he knew which way that creativity would go.

He was not Boston Stone.

In the beginning, the minute he saw her in her big black hat and big black shades at the funeral, he’d felt the urge, definitely. A woman like that, few men wouldn’t.

Then again, he’d felt the urge long before that seeing her pictures, reading her letters, listening to Lydie talk about her.

He didn’t know about the will at the funeral but he knew where Lydie was leaning, what she wanted. She never said it flat out but that didn’t mean she didn’t make the message abundantly clear and she did this repeatedly.

But Jake didn’t figure Josie would want anything to do with a guy like him.

He knew differently in the parking lot at the club when he let her off the hook, telling her his tastes for women leaned elsewhere.

He didn’t lie. He liked big hair. He liked big tits. And he didn’t mind his women showing skin.

That said, he also liked ass and legs and curves in all the right places and high heels and melodic voices and thick blonde hair and big blue eyes and pretty much everything that made up her package.

She’d surprised him by exposing she’d go there.

She said he wasn’t her thing but he knew she lied.

But now was not the time for her to make those decisions. She lost the only person she was close to on this earth—he knew not only a grandmother but a savior. And he sensed she was at a crossroads. He’d be a dick to make a play while the first was fresh and the last was uncertain.

He’d wait.

She’d told him at dinner her shit for brains boss was not likely to show for at least three weeks, maybe longer.

So he had three weeks to get in there and during that time, he’d go gently.

So fucking her on the window seat in the room where she told stories to her recently deceased grandmother when she was a kid was not the way to go.

“I got furniture to move tomorrow, honey, so I best be hittin’ the road so I can hit the sack.”

Her hand flexed in his like she didn’t want to let him go and he liked that.

But she said, “All right, Jake.”

He downed the rest of his Scotch then got up, pulling her out of the seat.

She made it without taking a tumble. Then again, her feet were bare.

He held her hand down the spiral staircase, thanking fuck the thing was wide so he could do it, and he held her hand all the way to the front door.

He kept hold of it as he put his glass on a table at the side of the door, took hers and set it beside his. He also kept hold of it even as he slid his other one from the side of her neck to the back and pulled her forward, leaning in.

Then he kissed her forehead and moved back an inch to catch her eyes.

“Another good night, Slick.”

“Yes,” she agreed breathily, her eyes holding his and hers were not hiding the fact she didn’t want him to walk out the door.

Yeah.

He was her thing.

He wouldn’t have guessed it. Wouldn’t even think it was possible. Spent years not thinking it was possible.

But yesterday, she let him in. Calling him when a new wave of grief poured over her and he knew she did that shit the instant it happened with the way her voice sounded on her message and even later, when he called her back.

He just had to glide the rest of the way in, slow and easy. For her. For him. For his kids.

Like Lydie wanted.

Precisely like Lydie wanted.

“Sleep tight, baby,” he murmured.

“You too, Jake.”

He grinned at her and squeezed her with both hands.

Then he let her go, opened the door and walked out, ordering, “Lock this behind me.”

“Of course,” she replied to his back. Then she called, “Goodnight.”

He turned at the door of his truck and gave her a low wave and a smile.

She waved back.

Then she stepped back, closed the door and she was gone.

* * * * *

Jake heard the TV when he came into the kitchen from the garage.

He threw his keys on the counter and was shrugging off his suit jacket when Conner came in.

His eyes went to his boy.

“What’s her curfew?”

“It’s Saturday, Dad. We got until midnight.”

He bunched his jacket in a fist, walking further into the room and asked, “How many sundaes did Ethan eat?”

Conner grinned. “Three.”

“Terrific,” Jake muttered.

Conner leaned against the island and his grin died. “Just sayin’, Amber was a total bitch all night to everybody.”

Time to get her ass back to Josie. She might not have been sunshine and light after the last time she was with Josie, but at least that bought them having her quiet and reflective for a day or two.

“I’ll have a word.”

“Have twelve,” Conner replied. “Ellie got fed up with it. Told me she wanted me to take her home. Took a lot to talk her out of it.”

Jake wished he hadn’t. That would mean they’d make out and whatever the fuck they were doing in Conner’s car, not on Jake’s couch.