Addie and Toby style.

This meaning not to the strains of Bing.

But to Rammstein.

I’d done it.

What Izzy had done.

I’d worked hard.

And built the life I wanted for me.

So, it was a work in progress.

But so far, it was working for me.

Seriously.

“Jesus, shit.”

The words were said and then I felt the mood in the cab turn oppressive right before Toby braked to a halt almost at the end of his drive.

“Jesus, shit,” he repeated.

I stopped gazing out the side window, ensconced in my happy thoughts on my way to imminent orgasms, and looked to him.

He was staring out the windshield.

I turned that way.

There was a car in his drive. A sedan. I couldn’t tell the color, but it was dark.

A woman was standing outside it.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“Jesus, fucking shit,” Toby rumbled.

“Baby, who . . . is . . . that?”

“I’m not sure. Haven’t seen her since I was three. But I think that’s my mother.”

My head snapped around to look out the windshield.

Jesus.

Fucking.

Shit.

Moonlight and Motor Oil

Addie

THE WOMAN HAD parked in front of Toby’s side of the garage, which meant he couldn’t roll in and shut her out.

I didn’t get the chance to advise him to slam it in reverse and peel away.

He drove forward and parked on my side of the garage.

His seatbelt was off and he was knifing out before I could blink.

Which meant I scrambled to get my seatbelt off and jump out so I could get to him.

Shit.

I didn’t know what to do, and I didn’t have the time to make up my mind. She’d walked to the trunk of her car and Toby was already squared off against her.

Thus I had no choice.

I did the only thing I could do.

I rushed to him, burrowed under his arm until he was forced to put it around me, plastered my front to his side, wrapped my arms around his middle.

And I stuck.

“Tobias—” she started.

“This is not happening,” he rumbled so low, it wasn’t a growl, it was a roll of muted thunder.

“Tobias, please,” she begged, leaning slightly toward him.

I looked at her.

And I saw it.

I got it.

Or some of it.

A thick head of what I suspected, as we only had the moonlight, white-gray hair that was long and falling down in soft waves that hung past her shoulders. Tall and slender, even willowy, and I could see that regardless of the fact she was wearing a female version of a bulky peacoat.

Both fabulous.

Same with her face.

Perfectly proportioned feminine features that would not only turn a man’s eye but capture his mind and his heart and not let go.

She looked like a mature model. Like she could walk right into a Viagra ad and have half the male membership of AARP reaching for their phones to make a doctor’s appointment.

“Sierra, I don’t know what you’re doin’ here . . .” Toby began, and I saw her head jerk sharply when he used her given name, “but I can tell you right now, it serves no purpose.”

“Please, Tobias. Give me thirty minutes. I’ve been waiting for two hours for you to come home. It’s cold. And—”

I knew she said the wrong thing when I felt Toby’s tense body string taut.

“Well, shit, Sierra,” he spoke over her. “Two hours? That sucks. Hell, waiting sucks. I know. Seein’ as I waited thirty fuckin’ years for my mother to come home.”

Oh God.

My man.

I held on tighter.

She winced at his words.

“Go back wherever you came from, I don’t wanna hear your shit,” Toby finished.

She reached out a hand when it seemed Toby was preparing to move us.

“Please. Please,” she begged.

Toby started to move us.

“I know your dad passed,” she declared. “I’m so sorry. So, so sorry, Tobias. He was too young to go.”

Toby stopped moving us.

She dropped her hand.

“My dad?” he asked. “My dad?”

Oh shit.

Her being there was all wrong. Everything that came out of her mouth was all wrong.

But now she’d said something really wrong.

“Yeah, Sierra, my dad passed. But also, your husband passed.”

Yeah, what she said was really wrong.

“Tob—”

He interrupted her again. “Just gettin’ this out of the way, you fucked his shit up, but he was never stupid. He changed his will, Sierra. He gave Johnny and me everything. If you’re here to cash in, think again.”

She reared back. “I’m not here for money.”

“That’s good ’cause you’re not getting any.”

“Tobias, I want to explain.”

“Explain what?” It was Toby’s turn to lean toward her, and since I was latched on, he took me with him. “I was three.”

“Son—”

“I’m not your fucking son,” he snarled. “You’re nothing to me. You’re nothing to Johnny. Nothing but a bad memory.”

“My Lord,” she breathed, staring at him, her face pale in the moonlight.

Toby didn’t miss it.

“You expected a different reaction?” he asked, straightening us both. “Seriously? I’ll stay for this just ’cause I’m curious. What did you expect, Sierra? Tears and hugs and me tellin’ you how much I missed you? Well, I didn’t miss you. I didn’t ever fuckin’ know you. I missed the concept of having a mother who carried me in her body who would not leave. I wondered what the fuck was wrong with me, my father, my brother, that she could go without even an explanation, and never come back. You I did not miss.”

“There were reasons. And I’m asking you to give me the courtesy of hearing them.”

“At eleven thirty, a half an hour before Christmas Eve when you ambush me at my home?” he shot back.

“You can imagine I didn’t know how to approach,” she murmured. “And I didn’t expect you to be home this late.”

“I can’t imagine dick, Sierra, ’cause, you see, I would never do what you did. I reckon this is probably hard for you, but I cannot express how little I care. Get gone. I have no interest in what you have to say. I don’t when you show as an extra special Christmas surprise at my house, and I won’t if you send a letter askin’ me to sit down with you on neutral ground and hear your shit. And to make this crystal, I don’t now, I won’t later, and I never will.”

With that, Toby moved us, me shuffling because I was turned to the side.

I was about to let him go with an arm and shift so I could walk normally when she said, “I know Johnathon lives at the mill.”

Toby stopped dead and both of us turned our heads to look at her.

“Is that a threat?” Toby asked.

“I’ve been . . . I’ve been in town for a while. I’ve been watching my boys. Trying to figure out how to . . . well . . .”

“So you’ve been stalking us,” Toby said.

“Watching you,” she replied quietly. “Watching my boys.”