“It is,” Johnny grunted.

Her eyes came to her eldest. “Are you and uh, Eliza intending to raise a family here?”

“How about we get to the part where you explain why you’re here, Sierra?” Johnny suggested.

She closed her mouth.

For something to do, Toby reached out and wrapped his fingers around his beer.

Sierra watched him do that, she opened her mouth but shut it again, probably wisely thinking better of asking for a drink.

But she did lean into her crossed forearms on the table.

She took her time taking a good look at both of them.

And right before Toby was going to tell her to get on with it, she began.

“You both are very handsome. You grew up so tall. I shouldn’t be surprised. Lance was tall. So very tall. I am too. But for some reason you seem . . . even bigger than your dad.”

Neither of them said anything.

“And you both look a lot like him,” she murmured. “So much like Lance. I don’t see me in you at all. Except,” her eyes drifted to Toby, “you kind of have my nose.”

It sucked, but he kinda did.

“Is you tellin’ us this why you’re here?” Johnny prompted.

She shook her head at Johnny.

“I wanted to explain to you boys why I left you and your father,” her gaze shifted quickly to Toby and she added, “my husband.”

“You didn’t have it good at home growing up, so you were worried about ruining us like you were ruined, therefore you took off,” Toby said. “Is there more?”

“Well, that’s putting it very simply,” she replied.

“So there’s more,” Toby prompted.

“It’s just that, every day, I would . . . think things, and every day I would . . .” she drew in breath and let it out, finishing, “worry. About you boys. About living up to your father’s expectations. He . . . I don’t want to speak ill of your dad, but he expected a lot from me. Too much.”

“Like what? You making two sons with him and then sticking around?” Johnny asked.

Toby was a little surprised at his brother’s question and how he worded it.

Though anyone said anything that could be construed as even a little against Lance Gamble, Johnny didn’t like it.

Toby didn’t like it much either.

And he liked it less coming from her.

“No, he was . . . actually, he thought I was—”

“Beautiful? Perfect? The love of his life? Worthy?” Johnny queried.

“Brother,” Toby said low, shocked as shit he was the one calling Johnny down.

Johnny shut his mouth and his beard ticked against his cheek.

“I’m not sure, you boys being all you are, which was how Lance was, that you’d understand.”

“And what do you think we are?” Johnny asked and kept pushing with, “What did you think Dad was?”

“You’re very much . . . men,” she answered.

Well, you couldn’t argue that. They were men.

“Right, you’re here to explain why that was a problem,” Toby pointed out before Johnny could say anything more.

“That’s a lot of pressure,” she told them. “Expectations like that. For some people, marriage and motherhood doesn’t come naturally.”

“So you give up and take off, is that the key?” Johnny asked. “A note that says nothing and you’re gone?”

“Johnny—” she began.

Johnny didn’t let her get far.

“He tried to find you.”

She pressed her lips together.

Interesting.

“You actively made sure you weren’t found,” Toby murmured.

“I met someone who was, um—”

“Able to buy you a BMW that costs a hundred thousand dollars,” Johnny finished for her. “And he could also help you stay buried so your husband couldn’t find the mother of his sons.”

She straightened in her chair, body language no longer eager and open toward them. This wasn’t going as she’d planned so now she was back against the chair, hands in her lap.

“He’s a good man,” she stated.

Fucking hell.

“Do we have siblings?” Toby asked.

She shook her head. “No. He . . . had kids already.”

“So you raised them,” Toby said.

She shook her head but said, “They were older. Almost in their teens. He’s older. He’s now in his late seventies.”

Almost their teens.

She raised them.

“Dad was well-off. Not enough for you?” Johnny asked.

Her chin lifted. “Yes, my current husband is wealthier than your father was, but that wasn’t why I fell in love with him.”

Fell in love with him.

Jesus.

“You’re married to him?” Toby asked.

“We were . . . aware of Lance’s passing. We . . . made things official after your father passed.”

Jesus.

“Were you with him while you were with Dad?” Johnny kept at her.

She grew visibly cagey.

Fucking hell.

“I knew him growing up,” she allowed. “He was older than me. But I knew him. We . . . knew each other.”

“And then he got shot of his wife or she died or whatever and he was available, so you had a clean go,” Johnny surmised.

Her face turned pointy. “That’s not how it happened.”

Lie.

The woman was fucking lying.

Sitting in the mill, Johnny’s home, her dead husband’s property, a property she knew the kitchen had not been fully updated because she’d been there, repeatedly, probably before she was married, definitely after she was married, undoubtedly while she was pregnant with one or both of them, and she was fucking lying.

“Can you understand how we might not believe that?” Toby asked.

“This isn’t how I wanted this to go,” she returned snappishly.

Losing patience.

Quickly.

He knew her type. He’d seen that type again and again.

She was gearing up for a tantrum if she didn’t get what she wanted.

“How about you just lay it out there so it can go how it goes and gets done,” Toby suggested.

“I just want to get to know my boys,” she said shortly.

“Why now?” Johnny inquired.

She turned her head and looked out the wall of windows that led to Johnny’s balcony, beyond which was the creek.

“Sierra,” Johnny called.

She turned back. “I’m your mother. I never gave you permission to call me by my name.”

“You did the minute you walked out the door of our home, fell in love with another man, actively made sure you were never found until you were ready to come back, and then you made the approach the way you made it,” Johnny returned. “So you got a choice. You’re Ms. Whatever the Hell You Call Yourself, and I hope like fuck it isn’t Gamble, or you’re Sierra. Which one is it?”

“Clearly Lance didn’t teach you any manners,” she bit.

“No, but Margot did. It’s just that you’re sitting in the home I share with my fiancée, lying to my goddamned face, so I’m seeing I don’t have a lot of patience with you,” Johnny returned.