shook his head. “Mom, we appreciate the offer, but you do know that we are all successful and you don’t need to worry about us anymore?”
She was Mom, Callie wanted to tell him. She’d always be Mom. One day they’d understand. She’d always worry about them.
“Are you sure you want to move into the house on Ennis Street?” Jules asked.
Absolutely. There were too many ghosts in this house, too many memories. “I need something new, something different. Dad is gone but I’m still standing and I’ve made the decision to reinvent my life. I have a bucket list and so many things I want to do by the time I turn fifty-five.”
“That’s in ten months,” Darby pointed out.
Callie was so aware, thank you very much.
“What’s on the bucket list, Mom?” Jules asked, amused.
Callie smiled. “Oh, the usual. A road trip through France, take an art class, learn how to paint.”
Jules sent her an indulgent smile. God. Jules would probably fall off her chair if Callie told her that a one-night stand, phone sex, seeing a tiger in the wild, bungee jumping and sleeping naked in the sun were also on her to-do list. Oh, and she definitely wouldn’t tell them that her highest priority was to help them all settle down...
She wasn’t hung up on them getting married. No, sometimes marriage, like her best friend’s, wasn’t worth the paper the license was written on.
Callie wanted her children to find their soft place to fall, the person who would make their lives complete.
But, right now, Callie wanted Noah home, back in Boston, where he belonged.
How was she supposed to get him to settle down when he was on the other side of the world?
Noah...
Noah pushed his hand into her thick hair and looked down into those amazing eyes, the exact tint of a new moon on the Southern Ocean. Her scent, something sexy but still sweet, drifted off her skin and her wide mouth promised a kiss that was dark and delectable. His stupid heart was trying to climb out of his chest so that it could rest in her hand.
Jules pushed her breasts into his chest and tilted her hips so that her stomach brushed his hard-as-hell erection...
This was Jules, his best friend.
Thought, time, the raucous sounds of the New Year’s party receded and Jules was all that mattered. Jules with her tight nipples and her tilted hips and her silver-blue eyes begging him to kiss her.
He’d make it quick. Just one quick sip, a fast taste. He wouldn’t take it any further. He couldn’t. He wanted to, desperately, but there were reasons why he had no right to place his hand on her spectacular ass, to push his chest into her small but perfect breasts.
One kiss, that’s all he could have, take.
Noah touched his lips to hers and he fell, lost in her taste, in her scent. For the first time in months his grief dissipated, his confusion cleared. As her tongue slid between his teeth, his responsibilities faded, and the decisions he’d been forced to make didn’t matter.
Jules was in his arms and she was kissing him and the world suddenly made sense...
He was about to palm her beautiful breasts, have her wrap her legs around his hips to rock against her core when hands gripped his shoulders, yanked his hair.
Surprised, he stumbled back, fell onto his tailbone to see Morgan and his dad looking down at him, laughing their asses off. His eyes bounced to Jules and tears streaked her face.
“Bastard!” Morgan screamed.
“That’s my boy,” Ethan cooed. “Blood or not, you are my son.”
And Jules? Well, Jules just cried.
Another night, the same recurring dream. Noah Lockwood punched the comforter and the sheets away, unable to bare the constricting fabric against his heated skin. Draping one forearm across bent knees, Noah ran a hand behind his neck. Cursing, he fumbled for the glass of water on the bedside table, grimacing at the handprint his sweat made on the deep black comforter.
Noah swung his legs off the side of the large bed, reached for a pair of boxers on the nearby chair and yanked them on. He looked across the bed and Jenna—a friend he occasionally hooked up with when he was in this particular city—reached over to the side table and flipped on the bedside light. She checked her watch before shoving the covers back, muttered a quick curse and, naked, started to gather her clothes.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.
Hell, no. He rarely opened up to his brothers or his closest friends, so there was no chance he’d talk to an infrequent bed buddy about his dream. Without a long explanation Jenna wouldn’t understand, and since Noah didn’t do explanations, that would never happen. Besides, talking meant examining and facing his fears, confronting guilt and dissecting his past. That would be amusing...in the same way an electric shock to his junk would be nice.
He tried, as much as possible, not to think about the past...
Noah walked over to the French doors that opened to the balcony. Pushing them open, he sucked in the briny air of the cool late-autumn night. Tinges of a new morning peeked through the trees that bordered the side and back edges of the complex.
He loved Cape Town, and enjoyed his visits to the city nestled between the mountains and the sea. It was beautiful, as were Oahu or Cannes or Monaco. But it wasn’t home. He missed Boston with an intensity that sometimes threatened to drop him to his knees. But he couldn’t go back...
The last time he left it nearly killed him and that wasn’t an experience he wanted to repeat.
Noah accepted Jenna’s brief goodbye kiss and walked her to the door. Finally alone, he grabbed a T-shirt from the chair behind him and yanked it over his head and, picking up his phone, walked onto the balcony, then perched lightly on the edge of a sturdy morris chair.
The dream’s sour aftertaste remained and he sucked in long, clean breaths, trying to cleanse his mind. Because his nightmares always made him want to touch base with his brothers, he dialed Eli’s number, knowing he was more likely to answer than Ben.
“Noah, I was just about to call you.” Despite being across the world in Boston, Eli sounded like he was in the next room.
Noah heard the worry in Eli’s voice and his stomach swooped.
“What’s up?” he asked, trying to project confidence. He was the oldest and although he was always absent, his hand was still the one, via phone calls and emails, steering the Lockwood ship. Actually, that wasn’t completely true; Levi buying into the North Shore marina and boatyard using the money he inherited from Ray allowed Noah to take a step
