She dipped her face closer to his and kept talking.

“I’m a witchy woman, a rock ’n’ roll gypsy who’s all about embroidered jackets and nut clusters and the joy of knowing my son saying ‘sissis’ is him trying to say Christmas, and sleeping beside a man who’s not afraid to fuck me hard or joke about sex stores.”

“I’m not joking about sex stores,” he thought it important to inform her, and that bought him a beaming smile which was also something he’d never seen.

In his arms, he had Addie unleashed.

And it, too, was stunning.

“I love that even more, Toby.”

“And I love that you’re finding the way to you, honey.”

“I have you to thank for it.”

Hell no.

She wasn’t going to do that.

“That’s not on me, that’s all yours, Adeline.”

“And that’s what I love. That you’d think that, when I would have worked today if you hadn’t been open about your priorities and made me think. I would have missed a day where parts of it will fade from memory, but every year that wreath will be somewhere in my home for Christmas, so it’ll never go away. You did that, Toby. You reminded me what’s important. I’ll always have that reminder. And I thank you for it.”

“I’ll accept gratitude for that, baby.”

Her fingers found the end of his beard and she tugged it as she bent to touch her lips to his.

She lifted her head and remarked, “Your issue with women drivers is probably about Margot.”

He was so down with the warmth and goodness of where they were, her shift in gears was hard to follow.

“Uh . . . sorry?”

“Deanna tells me she’s a menace on the roads.”

“She’s not a menace. She’s a catastrophe. If I didn’t think she’d disown me, I’d turn her into the DMV. And I’d have done that when I was thirteen.”

Addie grinned and nodded. “So that’s probably why you don’t like women drivers. At some time when you were a kid, she freaked you with her driving and you transferred that to all of womankind.”

“No,” he said slowly. “I don’t like women drivers because I was in the passenger seat of a vehicle with a woman I was dating up in Alaska, and when I told her I didn’t want her spending the night, she lost her mind and control of the car, which after she screamed at me for a stretch of five miles, she wrapped around a tree.”

Addie’s frame went solid on top of him.

“I got a concussion and broke my clavicle and was off work so long, they put me on half-pay and I nearly had to ask my dad to send money so I could cover my rent.”

“Shit, Toby,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I was a logger. Every day was a physical day, but that day had been worse. It was her birthday, or I wouldn’t have gone out at all. I wasn’t in the mood. She’d decided what she wanted for her birthday present and she wasn’t pleased she wasn’t gonna get it. She shared that by getting hysterical because she wasn’t gonna get laid and then giving me a hospital stay.”

“Not every woman is going to do that, and I certainly wouldn’t with my son in the car.”

“Once bitten, twice shy,” he murmured.

“Why didn’t you mention this before?”

“Because we were goin’ to a Christmas Fair and it wasn’t time to land the heavy on you, and honestly, I was yankin’ your chain, mostly about the only-riding-with-a-guy stuff because you’re fun to tease.”

She gave him a little smile before she said softly, “God, that must have been terrifying.”

“Sittin’ there with her shrieking and swervin’ everywhere and goin’ way too fast, and her not listening to me begging her to calm the fuck down, so not having any control over any of that, my life in her hands, yeah. It was pretty fuckin’ frightening.”

Addie stroked his beard. “I’m sorry that happened to you, honey.”

“Worst part, it fucked her up,” he told her. “She had a skull fracture, think she broke all of her ribs, her arm. I came to, turned my head, saw the state of her, blood all over. So much I thought she was dead.”

“God, baby,” she breathed.

“She wasn’t. But gripping the steering wheel before impact with the adrenaline spike, she did some kind of damage to the nerves in her arms that couldn’t be fixed. She could barely squeeze a ball, that never got better, and she blamed me.”

Her head jerked. “She blamed you?”

“Said I made her angry, and because I did the accident was my fault.”

“That’s insane,” she snapped.

He shrugged.

“It’s insane, Toby,” she stated firmly.

He gave her a squeeze. “I know it was, Addie. I’m not shouldering that blame. I’m also not hip to get in a car, any car, with anyone, where I’m not drivin’. Dave. Johnny. I’m good. Anyone else, I want control.”

She nodded. “I see that.”

He studied her closely as he said carefully, “She was not the first or the last dose of crazy I have in my history.”

“Well, you met Perry, so I bet I beat you,” she mumbled.

“One of my girlfriends stole my truck because I shared with her I didn’t want to marry her, not after actually asking her to marry me, which I didn’t, and I wasn’t even thinking about it. But because she decided that was going to happen and she rented some hall for our reception. She took my truck because she was gonna sell it since she reckoned I owed her the deposit she wasn’t gonna get back.”

Addie stared down at him, her lips barely moving when she said, “Holy shit.”

“Yeah. Then there was the woman who told me I got her pregnant, even though I’ve always been all about the condom, and as far as I knew, one never broke. By the time she told me this shit, she was nearly due. But when the kid came out black, and she’s white, and as you know, so am I, I didn’t bother asking for a DNA test. She knew the kind of guy I was and that I’d be into having a kid, maybe even if it wasn’t mine, so she was hedging her bets. But after he came out, I knew she just wanted my money. The kid was cute as fuck, but his mother was a user and a scammer, and she kept trying, carrying on about how she didn’t know, but the jig was up. I walked away. Fortunately, she was smart enough not to push it, and I never saw her again.”

“Okay, maybe you win,” she said quietly.

“And you’ve seen firsthand what a winner Jocelyn is.”

She rolled her eyes.

“What I’m tryin’ to say is my history with women has been rocky, that’s on me and you gotta know I get that,” he admitted. “But because I do, in the end, I’m gonna get it right.”

Addie assumed a confused look. “How’s it on you?”

“Just like my dad, until you, my choices weren’t sterling.”

Unexpectedly, and instantly, she got pissed.

Also instantly, she explained why.

“Well, you know, when Perry asked me to marry him, he told me he loved me, his world revolved around me and he couldn’t think of a life without me. He didn’t tell me that would wane once we decided to start a family or that he’d eventually quit the band, sit on the couch all day, not look for a job and bang some woman who was not me in a bed I bought. And I’m sorry, but none of that is on me. I loved him. I trusted him. I believed in him. And he fucked me over.”