Love and fear fueled his parents’ fight, and it ended in a closed bedroom door and the three of them turning up the television so they couldn’t hear their parents making up.

The rules set by their father were simple. “Don’t hit girls. Ever! Defend yourself against boys, but never throw the first punch. If you see a woman getting hit, or someone weaker getting ganged up on and you don’t step in, you’ll have me to deal with.” Their father had a badge that said he was licensed to protect and to serve, but he told them both that they didn’t need permission to do the right thing.

Colin understood the anger coursing through his brother. He felt it, too. Only his brother seemed to have a thing for Erin, and that was making this even harder.

“Talk me down, brother,” Matt told him.

“Let’s walk further up the creek.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

“Why isn’t Parker with you?”

Colin was starting to think his mom wanted to see his girlfriend more than she wanted to see him.

“It’s raining,” he told her.

Matt had his usual position on the couch with their dad watching a game. “Parker is afraid she’s going to melt,” Matt teased.

“She doesn’t like leaving her house when it’s raining. She’s too afraid she won’t get back in,” Colin explained. He’d spent a half an hour on the phone with her the night before trying to talk her into dinner with his family. She wouldn’t have it.

“Does the wash flood that much?” Nora asked.

“It does.”

The sound of the front door slamming was familiar. Grace walked in, her tennis shoes squeaking on the tile floor. “Sorry I’m late. People don’t know how to drive in this town with a little rain.”

“And you do?” Matt teased.

Grace whacked him on the back of his head, kissed their father, and then turned to Colin and their mom. While she was hugging him, she asked, “Where’s Parker?”

“She melts,” Matt and their father said at the same time.

Grace caught Colin’s eye roll. “Everything okay with you two?”

“Couldn’t be better.” If he were honest, he’d like it if she were a bit more accessible.

“I know that look,” Grace said.

“What look?”

She waved a finger in his face. “That one. Where something is eating at you but you’re keeping it in.”

“Nothing is eating at me.” He sat on a high stool at the kitchen island and popped a chip in his mouth.

His mom stood quietly behind the counter cutting vegetables for the salad.

Grace stared at him, saying nothing.

Even the commentary from the sports bar section of the house was silent.

“I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve gotten Parker off her property since we’ve been dating,” he told them. “It doesn’t matter how much I assure her that I can get her back in and that there isn’t anything she can do to stop the mountain from sliding off and into her yard, she won’t leave.”

“She’s scared,” Grace said.

“I get that. I just wish she’d believe in me.”

His mom picked up the cutting mat filled with food and dumped it in a bowl. “I don’t think this has anything to do with you.”

“I want it to. I want her to know she can count on me.”

Grace grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. “You can’t tell a woman that, you have to prove it over time. Especially with someone like Parker. She’s like a single mom. She has the house, the kids, the responsibilities, and no man to help with any of it. She’s been doing it on her own her way, and so far it’s worked.”

“That’s just it. She doesn’t have to do it all alone. I’m around.”

Grace shook her head. “You’re dating, Colin. Not married. Women are alone until they’re not. We start depending on a man and that’s when they disappear and leave us floating in the water without a life preserver.”

Seemed like Grace just tossed a suitcase of her own baggage out there for everyone to see.

“And that right there is why I won’t date single moms.” Matt had moved off the couch to join the conversation.

Their dad turned down the volume on the TV.

“The older you get, the less of a chance you’re going to find a woman without kids of her own,” Nora told him.

Matt reached into the chip bowl. “It’s like you always said. Don’t date someone you can’t see yourself falling in love with.”

“I said that in reference to profession. I dated your father and spent thirty years worried he wouldn’t come home from work.”

“I came home every night,” Emmitt told her.

None of them brought up the time he’d taken the spill on the motorcycle and was in the hospital for two weeks.

“And if I remember right, I told you that when you started to date that flight attendant.”

Colin remembered her. “The blonde.” She was model hot and knew it.

Matt smiled. “She was fun.”

Grace nudged Matt and brought him back to the conversation. “The point is . . . blondie would have been off all over the world, and your jealous personality would have gone crazy over that.”

“Your sister’s right,” Emmitt said from the couch.

“I’m not that bad.”

Colin grinned. “You’re not going to win that argument.”

Matt waved a chip in the air. “How did this conversation get turned onto me? This is about Parker and Colin.”

“Parker isn’t a flight attendant, or a cop.”

“Or a single mom,” Grace added.

“She might as well be,” Matt said.

Colin shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. I’d date her anyway.”

“Then be patient with her,” his mom told him. “She’s been through a lot. She’ll let you know when she needs you to step in. Just be there when she does.”

“I think we all need to park our cars on the other side of the wash tonight.” Parker dangled her car keys in her hand.

The app Colin had shown her was displaying orange and red bands in the storm headed their way. With her job on the line, she wasn’t about to miss work because her car wouldn’t pass over the wash.

Austin and Mallory were sharing dish duty since Parker had cooked. “My keys are on the desk in my room,” Austin told her.

“I’ll move mine once I’m done.”

Parker retrieved her brother’s keys and grabbed a sweater. It hadn’t started to rain yet, but it was still cold.

She drove his car to the other side of the wash and parked it outside of the gate and out of the danger zone. His car was way too low to the street to manage going over any rocks. Her and Mallory’s cars could take a little more abuse. She locked the car tight and took note of her neighbors who had done the same thing. Pitch-black and quiet, the night held an ominous feeling that something was coming. The air smelled like rain.

Parker enjoyed the quiet as she walked back to the house. She opened the gate in a locked position and grabbed a garbage can and laid it down next to the motor that ran the gate. She hoped her effort would deflect mud and rocks that would likely wash down Sutter Canyon during the night. Either way, she was doing whatever she could to avoid an expense later on. She propped the “Authorized Personnel Only” sign on one side of her driveway, and the “No Trespassing” sign on the other.