He grinned at me and I felt my heart flip over in my chest. Just the fact that he had agreed to go with me meant so much and I doubted he even realized it.

“Stop worrying. If there’s one thing you don’t have to worry about, it’s me being able to handle your mom.”

“Handling her isn’t what I’m worried about; tolerating her is.” My mom was my favorite person in the world, but if she made googly eyes at Asa while I was in the room, I very well might flip out. I had never been the jealous or possessive type before him, but now I was in so deep, so far down in the depths with him, that I wouldn’t hesitate to stake my claim even if I logically knew there was no way my mom would ever want to hurt me or upset me like that on purpose.

Asa reached out a hand and put it on the back of my neck, where he could give it a squeeze. It made a shiver race up along my spine. I wanted to pull the SUV over and climb in his lap. To be honest I always wanted to climb all over him, but the fact that he was trying to reassure me, that he was willing to go through the motions of meeting my mom just to make me happy, made me feel even more amorous toward him.

“Moms are a piece of cake. The dads used to take more work, but then again I wouldn’t want my daughter anywhere near a guy like me either.” His tone was full of self-deprecating humor and I wanted to purr as his fingers stroked along the curve of my neck.

“It’s hard to picture you doing the sit-down-and-meet-the-parents thing.” It was hard to see him as anything other than this complicated and difficult man that had become the center of everything to me.

“I did whatever I had to do to get me what I wanted, including meeting the parents.” There was no humor in his voice now.

I turned to look at him as I pulled in front of the town house and cocked my head to the side as I told him, “And yet here you are doing it for me.”

He just stared at me for a long moment and then a tiny grin tugged at his mouth. He bent forward and pressed his lips lightly against my own. “Here I am.”

I knew what he was saying to me. Not just was he here to meet my mom for me, he was here with me in this moment. Not because he necessarily wanted to be, not because he was going to gain anything from it, but simply because I had asked him to be and he was making a concentrated effort to be present, for me. There was no question about it any longer, I had handed my heart over to the southern charmer with a criminal past. Probably not the smartest move I had ever made, but I couldn’t regret it. Not when he was looking at me with that warm shimmer in his eyes and that knowing smirk on his too-pretty face.

We walked up to the front door and he put his hand on my lower back. I had ditched my hat in the car and pulled my hair out of the coiled-up bun that held it up and out of the way while I was on duty. I actually groaned out loud when Asa raked his fingers through the long locks and rubbed his fingers across my scalp. I gave the door an obligatory knock before walking in and hollering out a hello to my mom. She yelled back that she was in the kitchen, and I headed off in that direction only to be drawn up short when Asa paused at the hallway wall to look at the various pictures that decorated the flat surface. They were all of me, several of me and Dom and his sisters, and a bunch of me and Mom. His eyes seemed glued to the images and all his good humor and gentle handling from moments ago disappeared behind a hard veneer that dulled the typical molten sheen in his gaze. His jaw clenched so hard that I actually heard his teeth grind together and his arm felt like steel when I reached out to touch him.

“Are you okay?”

He jerked like I had electrocuted him, and when he looked down at me it was like he was looking at a stranger. I saw his Adam’s apple bob up and down and his hands curled into fists at his sides. His head shook slowly from side to side and he took a step away from me, so that I was no longer touching him. I was baffled by his sudden change in demeanor, so I gave a forced little laugh and asked him, “Did seeing me with braces and knobby knees really scare you that much?”

I was happy in almost every single picture on that wall. It was my life before him laid out in snapshot after snapshot, and I wondered if the reality of coming with me to meet my mom, the seriousness of letting him into every single part of my life, was finally sinking in. He looked like he was struggling for words when I heard shuffling as my mom came around the corner, undoubtedly wondering what was taking us so long. She had a glass of wine in her hand and a welcoming smile on her face as she chirped, “Did you get lost?” I saw her eyes get big and her mouth drop open in a little O of surprise when her gaze locked on Asa. I thought she was probably just stunned by how ridiculously good-looking he was until the wineglass slipped from her fingers and sent red liquid splattering all over her fancy Berber carpet. My mom could be flaky but she typically was as graceful as an old Hollywood starlet.