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Although for some reason, he wished he had a weapon.

“I can’t keep my eyes open,” she said.

“Don’t even try.”

He stroked some of her hair and thought, in spite of the fact that in about ten minutes he was going to have the worst case of blue balls known to mankind, that everything was right in his world.

Butch O’Neal, he thought, you have found your woman.

Chapter Twelve

“He does so look like his grandfather.”

Joyce O’Neal Rafferty leaned over the crib and tucked the blanket around her three-month-old son. This debate had been on going since his birth, and she was tired of it. Her son clearly took after her father.

“No, he looks like you.”

As Joyce felt her husband’s arms wrap around her middle, she fought the need to pull away. He didn’t seem to mind the baby weight, but it made her anxious as hell.

Hoping to get him focused elsewhere, she said, “So next Sunday you have a choice. You can either handle Sean by yourself or you can pick up Mother. What do you want to do?”

He dropped his hold on her. “Why can’t your father get her from the nursing home?”

“You know Dad. He doesn’t deal with her all that well, especially in the car. She’ll get agitated, he’ll get frustrated with her, and we’ll have a mess at the baptism when they get there.”

Mike’s chest rose and fell. “I think you better deal with your mother. Sean and I will be fine. Maybe one of your sisters can come with us?”

“Yeah. Colleen, maybe.”

They were silent a while, just watching Sean breathe.

Then Mike said, “Are you going to invite him?”

She wanted to curse. In the O’Neal family, there was only one “him.” Brian. Butch. The “him.” Of the six children Eddie and Odell O’Neal had had, two of them had been lost. Janie had been murdered, and Butch had basically disappeared after high school. The latter had been a blessing, the first a curse.

“He won’t come.”

“You should invite him anyway.”

“If he shows up, Mother will become unglued.”

Odell’s rapidly escalating dementia meant she sometimes thought Butch was dead and that was why he wasn’t around. Her other option for dealing with the loss was making up crazy stories about him. Like how he was running for mayor down in New York. Or how he was going to medical school. Or how he wasn’t his father’s son and that was why Eddie couldn’t stand him. All of which were nuts. The first two for obvious reasons and the third because while it was true Eddie had never liked Butch, it wasn’t because he was a bastard child. Eddie had never particularly liked any of his children.

“You should invite him anyway, Joyce. This is his family.”

“Not really.”

Last time she’d talked to her brother had been…God, at her wedding five years ago? And no one else had seen or heard much from him since then, either. Word in the family had it that her father had gotten a message from Butch back in…August? Yeah, end of summer. He’d given a number he could be reached at, but that was about it.

Sean let out a little whiffle through his nose.

“Joyce?”

“Oh, come on, he won’t show if I ask him.”

“So you get the credit for putting the offer out and won’t have to deal with him. Or maybe he’ll surprise you.”

“Mike, I’m not calling him. Who needs more drama in this family?” Like her mother being crazy and having Alzheimer’s wasn’t enough of a problem?

She made a show of checking her watch. “Hey, is CSI on?”

With determination, she pulled her husband out of the nursery, distracting him from things that were none of his business.

Marissa wasn’t sure what time it was when she woke up, but she knew she’d been asleep for a long while. As her eyes opened, she smiled. Butch was out cold and crowding her at her back, his thick thigh between her legs, his hand cupping her breast, his head in her neck.

As she rolled over slowly and faced him, her eyes drifted down his body. The sheet he’d pulled up earlier had slid off him, and underneath the thin hospital gown, something thick rested at his hips. Good Lord…an erection. He was aroused.

“What you looking at, baby?” Butch’s low voice was mostly gravel.