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teenage-boy grunge to put his hormones on hold.
     • • • 
    B ETH reached for the kitchen chair once Bryan walked past her and sank into it.
Cupcake
. She ought to be offended. Disgusted. But all she could think of was Bryan licking icing off of her, one long, slow lick at a time.
    “You feeling okay, Mommy?” asked Tommy.
    “Yeah, you look kinda funny.”
    That’s because she was having a hot flash and she didn’t mean the menopause kind. Hell no. Bryan Manley could set her hormones buzzing with one glance, start them boiling with a word, and incite an inferno with a touch so insignificant that it shouldn’t even be called insignificant.
    “I’m fine, guys.” Though that term was relative. “Why don’t you go round up Kelsey and Jason? They could both use this lesson as well, since they’ll be driving in a few years.”
    Wow. Thank God she was already sitting because that thought would have knocked her legs out from under her. Jason driving. He’d have to cut his hair first or he’d never pass the vision test. They frowned upon a kid having to look sideways and up from beneath his hair to drive.
    Her baby driving. Wasn’t it just yesterday that she’d brought that squalling bundle of energy home from the hospital? She and Mike had sat on the sofa with Jason between them and stared at each other, petrified out of their minds. What had they been thinking? They’d practically been kids themselves, yet there they were with the infant they’d created.
    It hadn’t gone too badly. It’d been chaos at first, a little more when Kelsey had come along, but by the time the twins were born, they’d found their rhythm. They were a good team. So when Maggie, the “oops,” had arrived, she’d fit in seamlessly. Then fate had struck.
    Beth inhaled and shoved the nightmare aside. The family counselor she took the kids to every few weeks—and who she saw on a few others—said not to dwell on
what ifs
. That
what ifs
got you nowhere. This was their reality and living in La-La Land would only do more damage than good.
    Still, it was nice when she was alone to imagine what could have been. If Mike hadn’t picked up that flight. If the weather had held off even a few more minutes. If they hadn’t been late leaving the gate. There were a whole bunch of variables that had put him on the tarmac at that moment and any one of them could have changed the outcome, but the reality was, none had. Everything had conspired to put Mike and his passengers and crew at the wrong place at the wrong time, and she and the kids had to deal with it.
    Still, life really sucked sometimes.
     • • • 
    T HE six of them gathered round Bryan’s truck in her driveway, paying attention as he showed them where the jack was, how to set it up, how to remove the lug nuts and change out the tire. The twins wanted to climb in the tire well to see the truck’s “guts,” but Bryan yanked them out by their waistbands before they could.
    “You could knock out the jack, guys, and the truck will fall on top of you. Remember, safety first. And never change the tire next to oncoming traffic. It’s not worth the risk.” He looked at Kelsey. “What do you do if that happens?”
    Beth had to bite her lip to keep from laughing at Kelsey’s rapt expression. She doubted her daughter had understood a word of what Bryan had said. Since he’d arrived, Bryan’s movies had shown up on the DVR schedule to be recorded and there’d been a flurry of googling on the family room laptop. Beth knew who’d done that.
    “Um, call someone?”
    “Exactly. Who?”
    Kelsey twiddled her hair and looked up at Bryan from under her lashes. “You?” She held out her cell phone.
    Beth wanted to groan. Bryan Manley was
not
the guy for Kelsey to practice her feminine wiles on.
    Beth on the other hand . . .
    Bryan, bless him, chuckled softly, took Kelsey’s phone, and programmed something into it. “No. You call your mom. She’ll call a roadside assistance