Mickie kissed him back with as much urgency. She straddled him, placing a knee on either side of his hips. The new position gave her control of the incendiary kiss.
“Oh, God, my eyes!” Ronnie’s shout had them jerking apart as though on fire.
Wide-eyed and panting, Mickie stared at her door.
“Is it over yet?”
Keith wrenched his head back to see Jagger standing in the open door with one hand over his eyes and one straight out as though trying to feel his way through the house.
“Mickie, don’t move. If you get up and I have to see a tent in my brother’s jeans, I just might vomit.” Ronnie waltzed in as though she owned the place, heading straight for the kitchen with a plastic shopping bag hanging off her arm. Gone was the bashful woman who’d showed up only a few hours before.
JP was last through the door. “Oh, sexy times! Need me to tap in, bro? I’m about due for a good romp. Think it’s been about twenty-seven hours since I got laid.”
Mickie groaned and dropped her head to Keith’s chest. Her shoulders shook, and a bolt of fear shot down his spine. Was she crying?
A bubble of laughter burst from her.
Nope. It took a lot to kill his woman’s spirit. She was laughing, of course.
Keith flipped his brother off. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately. All of his siblings wore smiles and teased as though they hadn’t just had to deal with their embarrassment of a father. He opened his mouth to ask how everything had gone but then decided against it. The mood was high, and they’d have said if they’d had an issue. Why ruin the good vibes? Instead, he asked, “Why the fuck are you losers here perving on us?”
Ronnie appeared from the kitchen with a frightening smile stretching her cheeks.
“I had nothing to do with this,” Jagger said, lifting his hands in surrender.
“Uh oh, what’d you do, Ronnie?” Mickie climbed off him, allowing him to sit and swing his legs off the couch. When she plopped down next to him, he pulled her flush against his side and draped his arm across her shoulders. She beamed at him, happiness radiating from her like rays of light.
“I got ice cream for us to pig out on and...”
Keith narrowed his eyes and she fished around inside her shopping bag. With a shout of victory, Ronnie pulled a DVD out and held it up for all to see. “Tada!”
“Nothing to do with it,” Jagger repeated.
Beside him, Mickie shook her head. “Oh no. No way. Absolutely not.”
Keith’s spine stiffened as he turned back to the movie. “Mars Alien Massacre?” he read from the cover.
Mickie covered her face and groaned. “I can’t believe you guys found that.” With a resigned sigh, she lifted her head. “It’s the first movie I had the lead in. A really, really, really awful slasher film. I think I was twenty. Oh, God, it’s so bad.”
Ice filled his veins, and he turned a scathing look Ronnie’s way. What the fuck was she thinking? Mickie had spent months trying to shake the reach of Hollywood, and now Ronnie was going to throw it in her face. “Ronnie, what the hell?” he barked.
“Seriously,” Mickie said. “We are not watching this.” She was laughing instead of freaking out, but his mind was stuck on the day he’d learned who she was.
“Oh, hell yes we are,” JP said. He snatched the DVD from Ronnie and ran for the television.
A buzzing in Keith’s ears drowned out the rest of the argument, and before he knew it, a young Michaela—young Scarlett, rather—appeared on the eighty-five-inch television screen mounted above her stone fireplace.
Keith began to stand, ready to lambast his family for their insensitivity, when Mickie gripped his thigh.
“Hey, Keith, it’s okay,” she whispered for only his ears.
When he studied her face, he saw only sincerity and peace.
“Seriously, I’m okay with this. Your siblings have become my best friends. Because of all of you, I’m happy and can look at my past with new eyes. I’m okay to watch one of my movies with them. With you. Even the stupidest one.”
“Jesus, you’re amazing,” he said before kissing her silly.
“Hey!” A pillow hit the side of his face. “This is a no-smooching zone. You’ll have plenty of hours to be gross after we leave. For now, we want to make fun of Mickie for agreeing to do this movie, and we can’t do that if she’s halfway down your throat.” Ronnie picked up another pillow and prepared to hurl it at him.
“Okay, okay! Hold your fire.” Mickie laughed and reached for a bowl of ice cream that someone must have delivered during his little freak out. With a happy hum, she settled against him then lifted the spoon to his mouth.