The Slow Burn (Moonlight and Motor Oil #2) - Kristen Ashley Page 0,12

and her baby cradled safe in his arms, walking behind the sister as she hurried into a hall.

He walked them up the stairs as Addie cried in his neck.

And he walked her down the hall into a bedroom where he placed her in the bed while she kept crying in his neck.

Eliza moved in the minute she was in bed, so Toby took a step back.

Another step.

Then he stopped and watched.

Eliza soothed Addie, and with the two sisters’ heads so close, Toby thought another man might not be able to tell their hair apart.

But he could.

Already.

Because Jesus Christ, fuck . . . shit . . .

He’d fallen in love.

Fallen in love with a spitfire with a baby and a cheat of an asshole husband she was trying to make her ex . . .

A spitfire who just happened to be the sister of his brother’s new woman.

Something Toby could not fuck with.

Johnny, who had retreated from life when the love of his had torn his heart from his chest, was back. Healed. Moving on with a pretty woman with a cute-as-fuck house who obviously loved her sister, and who his brother connected with so much, someone had seen him fucking his girl and he hadn’t even noticed.

So yeah.

Toby could not fuck with this.

And again yeah.

To put it simply . . .

Fuck.

On that thought, reluctantly, Toby walked out.

Snow in The Moonlight

Addie

Seven Months Later . . .

BROOKLYN AND ME rolled up to the house in the dark.

But even in the dark, I could see someone had showed after the light fall of snow we’d had that afternoon in order to brush it off the steps.

It wasn’t even half an inch.

But while I was working at the store and Brooks was in daycare, either Johnny, Dave or Toby had come to make sure I could get from the car to the door without incident, even if, through a quarter inch of light, fluffy snow, there would be no incident.

I shook my head, putting my little yellow Ford Focus in park, switching it off and saying to my thirteen-month-old, “Looks like we don’t have to brave a dusting of fluff, baby boy. So much for our evening’s adventure.”

“Mama, Dada, Dodo, baba,” Brooks replied, banging his chubby hands and legs against his car seat.

This was his favorite time of the day, coming home to Dapper Dan, the floppy-eared ridgeback mix Toby had rescued and given us a few months ago.

I was a woman who put a lot into the back of my mind to sort out later. This happened because this was me, and it happened more now because I was the single mother of a thirteen-month-old precious baby boy and I had a lot of other stuff to think about.

Though I was a woman who took it out and sorted it later.

But Tobias Gamble was something I put in the back of my mind in a way I wasn’t going to sort it out later.

He was my sister’s fiancé’s brother.

He had become a friend.

Due to the way the Gamble men were, as well as nearly everyone in Matlock, Kentucky, most especially after what had happened with Brooks, he felt it was his duty to look out for me.

And seeing as I’d be family by marriage come next August, for the Gamble men as they were, I just came with the territory.

Yep.

That would be nope.

Not thinking about Toby.

Push him right to the back of my mind.

I did that, got out and started the drill.

Get my son out of his seat in the back of the car and get us inside the house.

Let Dapper Dan out after giving him a few pets and letting Brooklyn squeal at him.

Hit the thermostat and jack it up from the fifty-eight I set it to during the day to save on utilities, to sixty-nine (the temperature I picked because I thought it was funny, but it still wouldn’t give me high heating bills) so my kid and I didn’t freeze.

Put Brooks in his playpen and dump my purse so I could go back out and grab the five bags of groceries I’d got from work before picking up my kid.

Cart those in, put away frozen stuff and perishables, go back to the front door to Izzy’s metal mailbox at its side, the box with the hummingbird and flowers stamped in it, to get the mail.

Thank the town of Matlock for having a postal service, which even outside the city limits had postal workers who drove up to your house, walked