“I’m making a calendar about that eye roll,” I shared.
Another eye roll.
I nearly started laughing.
I didn’t only because he teased, “Absent-minded professor?You’re such a goof.”
“What?”I asked.“You’re going to be a professor.”
He leaned against the island in a casual way that had oneeffect on high school girls, that effect something I refused to think about,and another effect on his mother.This effect pushing me to think about thosehigh school girls and how I once was one and I caught the eye of a certainhandsome, popular boy who had command of his body at a young age, a kind smile,a great sense of humor, and an amazing streak of loyalty, which ended up withme being Liam’s momma.
“I’m going to be a lawyer, then a senator,” Liam stated.
I tried not to quell my son’s ambitions.In fact, theopposite.
But I was a paralegal.Before that, I was a court reporter.I had a lot of experience with the legal system.And I didn’t keep a databaseor anything, but off the cuff, I felt I could say with a good deal of authoritythat five-sixths of attorneys were pure a-holes.
I didn’t want my son to become an a-hole.
I opened my mouth to share (again) he couldteachlaw, this being a prelude to rehashing our conversation from that morning tomake sure the decision he’d made was one he wanted to move forward on, when thedoorbell rang.
“I’ll get it,” Liam said, moving that way.
I tamped down my fear of my son opening the front door.Hewas tall and athletic.He was sixteen, not six.It wasn’t like our doorbellrang fifty times a day, but this also was far from the first time he’d answeredit.And we lived in a nice neighborhood.
Even so, he would always be a little boy to me.It was mylot as a mother, the worry, the drive to protect, even though now, my sonthought that last part was his job.
And this was the problem.Liam was a little boy to me, buthe was something else in reality, and he needed me to trust him to find his waywith that.
Ugh.
I needed to buy him a car.
I put the forks on a spoon rest and was about to put the topback on the slow cooker so the meat could cook in its juices and barbeque saucefor a while when I heard Liam’s tentative, “Mom.”
I looked up.
And I saw the man standing with him.Bushy gray beard, longgray hair pulled back in a braid, rolled bandana around his forehead, blackleather vest over a long-sleeved Harley tee and jeans.
Duke.
I hadn’t seen Duke in…
“Honey.”His gravelly voice rolled my way, that one wordmaking fear grab hold of the entire length of my spine.“It’s Darius.”
The tone of his voice, the look on his face, the earth fellfrom under my feet.
Because Darius was my son’s father.
And he was the love of my life.
But my boy had never met him.
Chapter One
The Boxer
Rock Chick Rewind
