Page 100 of Rock Chick Bonus Tracks

Even with the warning.

They’d had a good run. Nothing like this had happened in a long while.

Though, if it was going to happen, he would have thought at least it’d start with a shot across the bow.

Not a hammering on the door the first day the girls were back with their mother.

Or…not day.

Evening, seeing as he and Shirleen were in his kitchen making dinner together.

No one should bother you at dinnertime.

Not even your crazy ex-wife.

Shirleen looked to him, and considering she worked in a place where she knew the protocol for a lockdown when someone was armed and intent to breach the office (he knew all about it because he read it in those books, but she did confirm it), she was conditioned to reacting to a different kind of danger than he was about to face.

And that was her response to the hammering.

“Yvonne,” he explained.

“Oowee,” she mumbled, her beautiful, tawny eyes growing large.

He’d told her about Judith’s warning. She hadn’t said much, although her eyes had blazed with hellfire. She reined that in and just commiserated. This wasn’t her way to share he was on his own, it was his cross to bear. It was her way to share she was as powerless to stop Yvonne as he was, so there wasn’t much to say.

The hammering kept happening.

Those gorgeous eyes grew larger.

Moses got close and put his lips to hers. “I’ll take care of it.”

“You need backup, I know a man who has grenades,” she offered, and close up, he could see the warmth in her eyes, the humor, but also the concern.

And it was then he knew he was in love with this woman.

He let that feeling settle in him, and somehow, the pounding at the door muted, everything around them grew hazy, and it was him and Shirleen in this world, and no other.

Moses snapped out of it when she tipped her head to the side and her gaze grew questioning.

“Keep Tex on standby,” he joked, feeling her strength seep into him, and something more.

It wasn’t that she was a survivor, but she was giving that to him too.

It was in her eyes. He realized it had been for a while.

She felt like he did.

Suddenly, he didn’t give two shits Yvonne was at the door, except the part where he had to leave Shirleen to go deal with her.

“Gotcha,” she replied, and that word was a little breathy.

But even so, with Shirleen, she might be joking as well, or she might call Tex when he went downstairs to the front door.

With regret, he left her and did that, opened it enough to stand in it, keeping his hand on the knob on the inside.

“I really thought we were done with this shit, Yvonne.”

“It’s my understanding you introduced our daughters to another woman.”

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