But there were no romantic feelings between Graham and me. No fluttering stomach or racing heart. No heat racing through my veins or deep, secret ache.

Everything I felt in Deacon’s presence, and the reason I only imagined the man sitting in front of me when I texted Stranger.

It didn’t matter that I knew it wasn’t Deacon; that wouldn’t stop me from wishing that he could be the kind of guy to say those things to me.

Again, Grey was probably onto something: romance novels were ruining the way I viewed men and relationships.

“Deacon, Graham’s done that forever. So has Knox. So did you until you started hating me.”

He leaned over the center console and gripped my chin in his fingers, and brought our faces so close that I was silently begging for him to close the rest of the distance between us. To press his mouth to mine and make me forget everything about this morning except the way he made me feel.

“For my sanity, and for the sake of our friendship, don’t let Graham kiss you again.” He passed his lips across mine in a kiss so soft, I wasn’t sure it happened at all. “Say ‘okay.’ ”

“Okay.”

He smiled against my lips, and whispered, “You’re late.” His deep laugh filled the car as I scrambled to get out of it, and his voice followed me out. “I’ll be here when you get off.”

I paused from shutting the door; an ominous feeling slid through my veins like ice. I turned my head slowly to look back at him, and asked, “Promise?”

“Where else would I be, Charlie Girl?” Deacon shot me a look that seemed to stop everything. Time, sound, my heart.

My breath caught in my throat, and a chill spread over my skin like a lover’s caress. I wanted to experience the feeling again and again.

Awareness came flooding back in with a rush, and I hurried to memorize the set of his eyes and his smile. Because I knew . . . I knew a look like that, I wanted to remember forever.

Chapter Fifteen

Charlie

June 24, 2016

I WATCHED KEITH from across the table at Bonfire, the grill in Thatch, my smile impossibly wide as he recounted his version of what had gone down today—complete with use of the Force, since he was, of course, Darth Vader.

He couldn’t go into the hearing unprotected against the ladybug judge, after all.

And I didn’t care.

I didn’t care if he wanted to be Darth Vader or Iron Man or Captain America or Wolverine. He could be whoever he wanted, fight whatever ladybugs he encountered.

Keith was officially mine.

The judge had barely asked more than a handful of questions, and had only glanced at the proof that I’d actually done all that he’d asked. He’d mostly relied on Grey and Jagger’s word, and had talked to Keith without any of us in the room.

Again, I didn’t care.

I had broken down outside the courthouse, tears of joy unlike anything I’d ever experienced streaming down my face, and hadn’t let go of Keith until Jagger had forced me to stand up and walk to my car.

Even then I’d carried Keith, not willing to let him go yet.

Keith had smiled the cheesiest smile and patted my cheek. “Silly Mommy. You’ve always been my mommy!” he’d said after he’d climbed into his booster seat.

“See?” Grey had asked softly from behind me. “Some papers and a judge’s signature never meant anything to him.”

I didn’t know if anyone would be able to understand the significance of today for me, but that was okay, because it wasn’t for them. It was for Keith and me.

As Jagger and Grey pointed out, I had mostly raised Keith. Something I would always be grateful for. But they still didn’t know what I’d gone through. They didn’t know the extent of what Mom had said to make me give up custody. They didn’t know that my mom had often threatened me with taking Keith and running away.

Jagger had thought he was keeping our mother’s true nature from me.

Grey thought she was keeping how evil our mother was from her children.

I’d thought I was keeping Mom’s sick, twisted mind from Jagger.

She hadn’t ever fooled any of us. She’d just fooled us into believing that each of us was the only one who knew what she really was.

After two years of living in fear for that I would wake up and my son would be gone, and knowing I wouldn’t be able to do anything because he wasn’t mine on paper, and then having a judge tell me that I wasn’t fit to have custody transferred to me, the fear that he could disappear at any time never left.

It didn’t matter that I knew Jagger and Grey would never do something like that to me . . . mothers have irrational thoughts when people try to keep them from their children.

But that was all over now.

Keith made a noise as if his lightsaber was powering down, and took an exaggerated breath. “Safe from the ladybugs.”

“Whew, buddy. I don’t know if we would have made it out of there without you.”

He nodded seriously. “Good thing I’m Darf Vaber.”

“Yeah, good thing. If you would’ve woken up as Magneto, we might still be trapped.”

Keith gasped wildly, and my chest shook with my restrained laughter. “Mandeeto! Mommy! Ladybugs control metal! Mandeeto is a ladybug!”

I drew in a shocked breath and let my face fall as I glanced warily at the table. “Oh no,” I breathed, and slowly reached toward the spoon that lay forgotten next to his bowl of soupy ice cream. Lifting the spoon, I looked into Keith’s worried eyes, and whispered, “We need to leave before the ladybugs come after us.”

He nodded vigorously, and I hurried to grab cash out of my wallet. As soon as I had it placed within the billfold, I took Keith’s hand and helped him slide out of the booth, then pretended to run out of the restaurant with him.

I didn’t care about the strange looks or laughs from the people inside—this was the best day of my life.

I slowed Keith down when we got into the parking lot, then helped him get into my new car so we could head for Jagger’s.

Yeah, I’d done that too.

After Deacon and his dad had done everything they could to get my car to run for more than a few minutes at a time, I’d let Deacon take me to look at cars earlier that week.

It was a mid-size SUV that had great gas mileage and didn’t make me want to die when I looked at the price. And most of all, Keith loved it and my mechanic had approved.