“Who’s a beautiful girl?” she cooed at Blondie and Blondie replied by tagging the length of Rocky’s jaw with her tongue.

Raquel laughed, the sound hitting him like a bullet to the gut.

Worse.

And he knew just how much f**king pain that could cause.

At his end, he clipped, “Raquel, what are you doing here?”

He sounded annoyed because he meant to and he was.

Her head came around, tilted back to look up at him and she muttered, “Right.” She gave Blondie one last rub and straightened, turning to him. “Leg of lamb,” she finished ridiculously.

“What?” Layne asked.

“Leg of lamb,” she repeated. “Dad won one in a poker game.”

Jesus, only Dave would accept a leg of lamb as a bet in a poker game. All three Merricks were nuts, in their own way. Or, they had been, eighteen years ago. He had no idea if Rocky was still a nut but he knew Dave and Merry were.

Layne gave slight shakes of his head then asked, “So?”

“He asked me to find a recipe; he’s never cooked a leg of lamb. I haven’t either but I found one, it’s Greek. He wants you and the boys to come over for dinner tonight.” She stopped and he didn’t speak so she went on. “It’s a big leg of lamb.”

She was, essentially, asking him to a dinner she was cooking.

Layne wondered if he was hallucinating again. Maybe he was in a coma and the last six weeks, and those dreams, were all some coma-induced fantasy.

No, if he was having a fantasy, Jasper would have been jolted out of being an ass**le kid when his father took three bullets instead of becoming more of an ass**le kid.

It was then Layne noticed Blondie was staring at him, need in her eyes. She wanted to get fed.

Layne turned and headed to the pantry.

Raquel spoke to his back. “We’re thinking six thirty. The boys’ll be done with football practice then, they can get home and showered. But we can do later if you want.”

He didn’t speak. He went into the pantry, nabbed a can of dog food and came out. He heard the shower had gone off so he walked to the foot of the stairs, ignoring the fact that Rocky was now standing at the island, hand light on the counter, hip resting against the side.

He yelled up the stairs, “Tripp, if your brother isn’t up, get him up. I want to hear the shower. Two minutes.”

“Right, Dad,” Tripp yelled back down.

Layne headed to the dog bowl wondering how he could get out of leg of lamb. He picked up the dog bowl and Blondie crowded him, shaking with excitement. He lifted the tab, pulled the lid off the can, reaching to yank a clean spoon out of the dish drainer. He gouged into the food and was about to plop it into the bowl when he heard Rocky speak.

“What are you doing?”

He twisted his torso to look at her. His eyes went to her face, her eyes were on the dog bowl.

“Feeding the dog,” Layne pointed out the obvious.

Her gaze lifted to his and she looked disgusted.

Then she moved, pushing away from the counter, she came at him. She got close as he watched and didn’t move.

She grabbed the bowl and went to the sink, explaining softly, “Even puppies need clean dishes.”

He felt his mouth get tight and it got tighter when she dug into the sink and he saw her pink-tipped fingernails, perfectly manicured, the nails not long and sharp but shortish and squared off, looking classy, stylish, yet she didn’t hesitate in digging through dirty dishes. She found a dishcloth and turned on the water to rinse it out.

“Raquel –” he started but her head turned to him.

“The shower isn’t on, Layne,” she said quietly.

He cocked his head to the side and listened.

It wasn’t.

Fuck.

He watched as she rinsed out the cloth, dropped it into the bowl and reached for the dishwashing liquid at the back of the sink then he put down the dog food.

She wanted to clean Blondie’s bowl? He’d let her. Blondie didn’t give a f**k. He looked down at his son’s dog seeing he was wrong. She did give a f**k. A clean bowl meant an unnecessary delay in breakfast.

Layne sighed then he moved away and walked up the stairs to see Tripp coming out of his brother’s bedroom. He was wearing jeans and nothing else, his hair wet and spiking out everywhere. Layne had no idea if this was the style he was going with that day or if it was just wet and spiking out everywhere. Tripp changed hairstyles like women changed shoes.

“He doesn’t want to get up,” Tripp told his Dad.

“Finish getting ready, Pal. I’ll get him,” Layne told his son and walked to Jasper’s room.

Jasper had gotten up, Layne knew, but he’d gone back to bed. Layne knew this because the overhead light was out.

He walked to Jasper’s dresser and tagged his son’s car keys. When he’d turned sixteen the year before, Layne had given him a 2007 Dodge Charger, red, with a black racing stripe and spoiler. It was a sweet ride. It had bought Layne forty-eight hours of Jasper liking him.

“Jasper, you’re up and in the shower in two minutes or I call school, say you’re sick, then call Coach and say you feel so shit, you can’t play Friday’s game.” Then he left the room and made certain he jiggled the keys as he walked out.

Layne went to his own room, tossed the keys on his dresser, opened a drawer and grabbed a gray t-shirt. He pulled it on and down over his blue with burgundy stripes pajama bottoms. Melody had bought those for him last Christmas, along with three other pairs. Said, since his sons were living with him, he needed to sleep in something other than nothing, which was how he usually slept.

Melody.

He hadn’t thought of her in weeks.

Now, he thought of her. He thought of giving her a call. If Layne gave her a call, she’d take vacation and come to town. Melody was in town, Layne wouldn’t have sex dreams about Rocky. Melody might not be as good as Rocky had been, or as good as Rocky was in those dreams, but she was far from bad.

He grabbed Jasper’s car keys and was relieved to hear the shower going as he went back downstairs. When he got to the kitchen, Blondie’s face was in her bowl and Rocky was leaning against a counter, one arm wrapped around her middle, the elbow of the other arm resting on her wrist, a coffee cup held up.

He stopped dead and stared at her.

“You should keep your mugs over the coffeepot,” she informed him. “Makes more sense not to have to walk across the kitchen to get a mug.”

He felt his eyes narrow.

He was about to ask if she was shitting him, coming to his house first thing in the morning, asking him and his sons to dinner, feeding his dog, helping herself to coffee and telling him where to keep his mugs but he didn’t get the chance. Her arms moved, she twisted to grab a mug and then she twisted back to hand it to him.