“Babe,” Tate said when I looked up at him.

“Hey,” I replied.

“We gotta go, get Jonas home,” he told me and I nodded. “Can’t find his jacket,” Tate went on.

“I know where it is. I’ll run and get it.”

He nodded back but his head turned to the right and my eyes followed his.

“Tate,” I said gently when I saw he was looking at Blake.

They seemed to be locked in optical combat until I pressed up to his front and my hands curled on his biceps.

“Baby,” I whispered and he looked down at me, “we have to go. Jonas.”

“Right,” he muttered, his hands left my h*ps and he guided me in front of him toward the door.

To keep it out of the way, I’d taken Jonas’s jacket to an upstairs bedroom and I headed straight there, Tate at my heels. We walked up the stairs, down the hall and I opened the door. I walked right in then stopped dead, Tate coming to a halt behind me, his hand coming to my waist as I stared at Wood who had Maggie pressed against the wall, his hands at her bottom, his tongue obviously in her mouth, one of her arms was tight around his waist, the other hand cupping the back of his head.

Tate made a grunting noise that sounded like a swallowed bark of laughter and my body jerked at the sound at the same time Maggie and Wood separated, their heads swinging toward us.

“Sorry, sorry… um, sorry!” I muttered, rushing to the bed and blathering. “Jonas’s jacket. I put it up here to get it out of the way. He was getting hot and you know kids, he just threw it anywhere and I was worried someone would get beer on it or something.”

“Ace,” Tate cut off my chatter as I pushed aside some purses and other jackets and grabbed Jonas’s.

I straightened and looked at them. “I don’t know how to clean a jacket like this, so it’d have to go to the dry cleaner,” I informed them stupidly. “Not that it would, really, since he doesn’t wear suits on a regular basis and he’s growing so fast, he’ll be out of it in, like, a week, but, you know, it would.”

“Ace,” Tate repeated, his hand closing around mine and he yanked me toward the door.

“Right,” I mumbled, dipping my chin and avoiding Maggie and Wood’s eyes as Tate moved us to the door.

“I’ll just,” Maggie whispered, Tate stopped moving us and my head came up to see her running her hand through her hair, her other smoothing her skirt down at the hip, her cheeks flushed bright pink. “Just… um…” she looked at Wood then Tate and me and finished, “go check on the kids.”

Then she ran, actually ran out the door.

Tate and I watched her then Tate and my heads swung to look at Wood.

Wood’s eyes were locked on Tate.

“Don’t,” he warned low.

“Brother, I told you –” Tate started.

Wood cut him off, repeating, “Don’t.”

“She’s a sweet piece,” Tate remarked casually but his voice held a tremor of humor and at his words my head jerked back to look up at him.

“Man, like I said, don’t,” Wood growled and I looked back at him.

“Never shoulda let her go,” Tate returned.

“I’m tellin’ you –” Wood started.

“Wasn’t speakin’ to you when you jacked that shit up,” Tate said, jerking his head toward the door. “Glad I got the chance to say it now.”

“Jackson, seriously,” Wood bit off.

“She’s a sweet piece?” I asked, butting in, and Tate looked down at me and grinned.

“Yeah,” he answered.

“A sweet piece?” I repeated.

“Yeah, babe,” Tate replied.

“She’s the mother of Wood’s children!” I snapped.

“She’s still a sweet piece,” Tate, undaunted by my tone, reiterated.

I yanked my hand out of his and crossed my arms on my chest.

Tate’s arm hooked around my neck, he hauled me forward into his body and burst out laughing.

With Jonas’s jacket bunched in one hand, I kept my arms crossed and turned my head to look at Wood.

“I’m thinking nothing’s funny,” I told Wood.

Wood took in my stance as well as Tate and he grinned.

“I wasn’t, but I am now,” he stated.

“Whatever,” I muttered, Wood walked up to us, put a hand right to my face, his thumb sliding across my cheekbone then his hand dropped, he glanced at Tate, shook his head and walked out.

I kept myself stiff as Tate moved to my side and guided me to the door.

“Let’s hope that shit takes,” he muttered when we were in the hall.

“What shit?” I asked as we made it to the mouth of the stairs.

“Wood back with Maggie,” Tate told me.

“Wood said she was a bitch,” I told him.

Tate looked down at me as we descended the stairs. “He would say that, babe, he was tryin’ to get in your pants.”

“But –”

“He’s not gonna say he acted like a dick which meant she acted like a bitch in return and that shit escalated because they didn’t talk about it and work it out and then it got so bad, neither of them could deal so they called it quits.”

“What do you mean, acted like a dick?” I asked when we reached the bottom of the stairs.

Tate stopped me and explained, “He was workin’ through some shit, primarily him killin’ my Dad and his sister bein’ a pain in the ass. Maggie tried to help with the first, had trouble puttin’ up with the last, seein’ as she didn’t like Neet around her kids. Neither of them handled it well and they split. It was stupid, she’s a good woman, great ass, sweet as hell and she loved him.”

I looked beyond him, searched the room, couldn’t find Maggie or Wood and looked back at Tate.

“She’s very pretty,” I noted.

“She is,” he agreed.

“Did he love her?” I asked.

“Oh yeah,” he answered.

“Do you think –?”

“He gets his head outta his ass, yeah.”

I sighed then informed him, “I sat with Bubba outside for awhile. He misses Krys.”

“He would, she’s a good woman too, he had it all and lost it by bein’ a dick, same as Wood.”