Holy fuck!

He felt his gut start to get lighter.

“And?” Brock repeated.

“I’m going.”

Brock said nothing more but he did this because he was expending a great deal of effort not to smile.

She waited for a response.

Brock still said nothing.

She sighed then stated, “Obviously, I’ll expect the boys out for a couple of weeks during the summer and alternating Christmases.”

Brock fought back another grin.

Losing the boys alternating Christmases would suck. Having them the vast majority of the time and losing Olivia three quarters of a continent away would not.

“Have your attorney contact my attorney,” he told her.

“No, have your attorney contact my attorney.”

Whatever.

“You got it,” he told her and she blinked.

Then she asked, “Will you tell them?”

Christ. Fucking bitch.

“No,” he answered.

“Slim –” she started.

Brock sat up in his chair but did not get up, just kept his eyes on her saying, “Olivia, honest to God, don’t. Nothing you could say will make me do your dirty work. They’re your sons, you’re movin’ most a country away from them. This is your decision, this is your consequence. Listen to me, serious to God, for once in your life, listen to me. I am done dealin’ with your consequences, I am done dealin’ with your shit and I am done dealin’ with you. You’re my kids’ Mom, that’s all you are, nothin’ more. I do you no favors; you are not in my life at all except when I have to deal with you through them. Please, God, give me one thing in our miserable history and get that through your fuckin’ head.”

She turned her eyes to Mitch and remarked, “Always so charming.”

Lawson strangled down a bark of laughter and this was because Lawson was around before she got her talons in another man and let him loose so Lawson knew all about Olivia and Lawson, being sharp as a tack, didn’t like her much. That was to say, not at all. And Mitch Lawson was a good guy but not good enough not to advise his partner, repeatedly, to be a lot less charming than he was to Olivia which was not charming at all so that was saying something.

Brock sighed.

Olivia’s eyes cut back to him. “Fine,” she snapped. “I’ll tell them.” And she said this like she was doing him a favor.

Brock didn’t reply.

She crossed her arms on her chest and held his eyes.

Brock said not a word.

She tapped her foot.

Brock finally spoke. “We done?”

“Don’t you have anything to say?” she asked, flipping out a hand.

“Like what?”


“I don’t know,” she answered. “Something. I’m moving to Maine, for God’s sake.”

“And?” he asked.

“And?” she asked back.

Brock sighed again.

“Slim, we were married and in each others’ lives for over a decade and you’ve got nothing to say after I just told you I’m moving away?”

“Bon voyage,” Brock muttered, Mitch tried to strangle down another bark of laughter, failed and quickly knifed out of his chair and headed toward the hall.

Olivia’s face got red.

“Nice,” she hissed, gave him a long glare, turned on her high heel and marched her bony ass out.

He didn’t watch.

He turned to his desk, instantly grabbed his phone, flipped it open and hit buttons without looking at them because he’d memorized them.

She answered on the second ring.

“Sweetness,” he said the minute Tess finished her greeting, “you are not gonna believe the surprise birthday present I just got.”

* * * * *

“Brock, honey?” Tess said in his ear as he walked through the backdoor into their kitchen.

After they finally got Rex’s room sorted, he sorted the one car garage in the back that was old, had no garage door opener and thus Tess didn’t use it and parked on the street. And he sorted it as in he had it scraped and a massive two car garage built in its place. He did this because he was not a big fan of scraping ice off his windshield. He also did this because he was less of a fan of Tess doing it so he did it for her and since he didn’t like doing it on his own fucking truck, he didn’t like adding her car. And, lastly, he did it because it was a fuck of a lot safer for her to drive into a garage that had a door to a fenced backyard that had motion sensor lights that lit up the backyard from both garage and house the instant she exited the garage, something else he installed.

This took up a fair amount of the backyard.

Tess didn’t say a word. Somehow, she sensed when something was important to him and she didn’t argue. Ever.

He liked this. He also liked that she didn’t make a big fucking deal about stupid shit like him (or his boys) drinking from the milk jug. If it mattered to her, she had a quiet word with him (or his boys). If she could find a fix without having her quiet word, she did. Case in point, they each got their own milk jug, she wrote their names on them in magic marker before putting them in the fridge.

This way, she could give him (and his boys) sweet mostly all the time.

And she did.

It made for a beautiful life.

For him.

And his boys.

“Babe, I’m in the house, you don’t have to call me,” he said into the phone, smiling because she had to be there somewhere too. He was meeting her and the boys there and they were going out to dinner with his family at The Spaghetti Factory.

“Um… well, I’m not in the house, I’m at the hospital.”

Brock stopped dead, his eyes, unseeing, on a fancy-ass cake stand on the corner of the counter that held the remains of his birthday cake that had been nearly decimated by him and his boys that morning.


She went on quickly, “I’m okay, the boys are okay, it’s just Lenore. She’s kind of…” she paused, “not okay. She went into labor about three hours ago. Levi got her to the hospital and was separated from her because he was told both mother and child are in distress.”

Fuck.

Fuck!

He did the calculations in his head and came up with an unhappy number.

Lenore, who became his sister-in-law three weeks before Christmas and not because she was pregnant but because Levi loved her, the baby was just good news on top of good news, was only six months pregnant.

“Which hospital?” he asked.

“St. Joe’s,” she answered.

“I’m on my way,” he stated, turning back to the door. “The boys with you?”

“No, I called Dade. He went to get them at school. They’re at his house helping him with Grady, Dylan and Ellie.”

Even though many would think it was fucked, Dade McManus had slid into their lives naturally and this was because Tess made that happen. He was a good addition because he was a good man, he loved Brock’s boys and he adored Tess. Brock grew to like him, grew to respect him and he’d earned that back from McManus. This worked, how, he had no clue, but it did and Brock was glad that it did. As far as he was concerned, anyone who loved his boys and adored his wife was welcome in their lives so Brock welcomed him. And, just then, he was happier than usual that he did.

“Right.” He was out the door and locking it.

“Baby,” she whispered in his ear.

“Yeah?”

“Hurry.”

Fuck.

* * * * *

When Brock arrived in the waiting room at St. Joe’s, Levi was sitting with his elbows to his knees, his torso bent double, his fingers laced at the back of his head.

Brock’s eyes slid through his wife, his sisters, his mother and his brothers-in-law as he walked to Levi.

None of their faces were happy birthday faces.

Then he crouched down in front of his brother.

“Brother,” he murmured, Levi’s hands unlaced and just his head came up.

“Slim,” Levi whispered. “Fuck, Slim.”

Brock’s arm moved out, his hand curling around the back of his brother’s head.

“Keep it together,” he whispered.

“Fucked it up with her, she was in and outta my life for three years before –”

“Get that out of your head.”

“Never made it official, never made it permanent, she came to Thanksgiving on a fucking rotation. Had a girl at Easter, a different one at Fourth of July, she was due up.” He paused then the next two words came out tortured. “Due… up. ”

Brock squeezed his brother’s neck. “Levi, get it outta your fuckin’ head.”

Levi held his eyes.

Then he whispered, “Under my nose, at the tips of my fingers, never saw her, never felt her, what she was givin’ me not until Tess pointed it out and I opened my fuckin’ eyes.”

“Brother, keep it together.”

Again, Levi held his eyes.

Brock returned the gesture, keeping his hand on his brother’s neck.


Then he said, “She’s in there, I’m out here. Nothin’ I can do. She’s battlin’ and there’s not one fuckin’ thing I can do.” He swallowed then asked, “This what you felt like when Tess was taken?”

Brock had told Levi what had happened and where he had to force himself to be in order not to fuck up and do something stupid. For once, his brother kept that knowledge to himself.

The only people that knew the full penance he was forced to pay for fucking up with Josiah Burkett were his colleagues, Levi and Tess, the last being brutal penance in itself.

“In a way, I reckon… yeah,” Brock answered.

“Brother,” Levi whispered, that one word saying one hundred more.

Brock didn’t reply.

Levi sucked in breath.

Then he sat up, Brock’s hand dropped and he straightened out of his crouch. His eyes went to Tess. Hers were bright at the rims with tears. She sucked in her lips before she let them go and gave him a trembling smile.