The Eye of the Storm was killing her.

Stella had stopped counting the empty tables when she got to ten because she couldn’t stand to have the exact number floating around in her head. People spilled from the door across the street, and the loud, raucous music could be heard from her back room. Whatever they were playing at Señor Hipster’s place, it drowned out the steel drums of her local band so effectively that they’d quit playing halfway through their first set.

This… disaster put a crimp in her stomach. Which frankly was amazing considering the rest of her body was numb. After letting Jace go, she’d almost shut down entirely.

Then Friday night had happened. The Crow Bar had taken a direct hit from the Eye of the Storm, and she was still sorting through the damage. The marketing plans had fallen apart the moment she didn’t have the master of them at her elbow. Why? Who the hell knew? It was like the spirit of the building was missing.

Or maybe more to the point—her spirit was missing.

Jace had been behind her bar so much that he’d become a fixture. To the customers as well. A steady stream of females had walked into the bar, let their gazes rove over Trish and Stella, and then turned to flounce from the building to end up right across the street. Some of the male ones had too. How could she have forgotten how popular Jace was with the clientele?

Obviously she’d made a mistake, but it extended all the way back to getting involved with Jace in the first place. He was her star. And she’d killed her business by falling for him. Did he even understand that she’d sent him away for his own good? Would he thank her at some point in the future when he first held his yet-to-be-conceived dark-haired little baby? Or would he never realize that child only existed because she’d done the unselfish thing for once?

The double whammy of losing both her bartender and her lover in one fell swoop pulled at her seams until one more popped stitch might cause her to completely fall apart. She wasn’t doing too good of a job keeping it all together.

Her battered psyche was doing a number on her too because the next time she blinked, she would swear that she’d glimpsed Jace’s face in the crowd. Twice. God, she was a mess, imagining every guy walking through the door had his cheekbones and shock of dark hair.

She missed him.

But then the man materialized in front of her. Too close. Her heart went into free fall as her hungry gaze drank him in. Jace. He was here. Real. Too far away. Every muscle in her body cried out to touch him, but he was on the other side of the bar. Way too far away.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she whispered. But oh God, was she glad to see him.

“I should,” he corrected, and his gorgeous voice knit pieces of her back together that she hadn’t even realized he could touch. “This is where I belong. This is my place.”

She was already shaking her head at that ridiculousness. “The Crow Bar is mine.”

“I’ll let you pay the taxes all day long, sure. But you had an opening for a partner that you didn’t even know you needed. I filled that spot. Willingly.”

With the kind of dexterity and daring she’d long associated with him, he vaulted over the bar easily and pulled her into his arms, barely registering her squeak of protest.

“Shush, honey.”

He closed her mouth with one finger over it, but it was basically a caress and the feel of him against her rendered her speechless anyway, which he took full advantage of.

“You had your say when you kicked me out of your bed,” he told her. “This is my turn, and just to be sure you don’t try any shenanigans, like making my decisions for me, I brought backup muscle. This is Blake.”

Jace flipped a thumb to his left, and Stella finally noticed there was someone else standing in the spot he’d just vacated. A carbon copy. No, not an exact replica. This man had miles on his face that Jace didn’t and a heaviness across his broad shoulders that could only be the result of internal demons, the likes of which she knew all too well.

Her mind had not been playing tricks on her when she’d thought she’d seen double. “You never mentioned your brother was your twin.”

“That’s because he looks like me,” Blake quipped from the other side of the bar. “Not the other way around. Hi, by the way. Nice to meet you.”

And if she wasn’t already convinced he and Jace were related simply by virtue of their near-identical genetics, Blake demonstrated that they were cut from the same bold cloth by leaping up on top of the bar and shouting out to the crowd: “Who’s ready to get this party started?”

Oh God. She was almost afraid to ask. But had to. “What is he doing?”

“I promised I’d bring the rain,” Jace drawled and released her with a way-too-short kiss, like they were a couple again and nothing had changed. “Let’s give the Eye a poke where it hurts the most.”

The driving club beat across the street was more than loud enough to provide a backdrop for her place too, and Blake took full advantage of it, working the crowd, flirting with the ladies to the nth degree, pulling Trish onto the bar alongside him for an impromptu show that got everyone in the place on their feet.

It was practically magic. The whole atmosphere of the bar flipped on its head. The band dove for the stage and picked up the beat instantly, as if even their fingers had renewed drive. Alcohol and profits flowed, and Jace grinned at her so frequently that she had to pinch herself to make sure she hadn’t slipped into a dream.

“We’re not getting back together,” she hissed at him under her breath the next time they were elbow to elbow as he lined up shot glasses while she pulled another bottle of house red from the storage area under the register.

“Yes, we are,” he said, and without missing a beat, he poured all four shots in a row to the delight of the ladies giggling over him as they crowded the bar.

“There’s nothing you can possibly—”

“I love you.” And he punctuated that mind-boggling statement with another kiss as he served the shots. “You were saying?”

A huge crack sounded in her ears as everything broke apart inside and fused back into a new shape.

“That’s completely unfair.” Greedily she searched his gaze and saw nothing but pure truth radiating back at her. “You can’t say stuff like that.”

“Can so. I love you. See? It just comes right out,” he said over his shoulder as he turned to pour two beers. He handed them to her, and without hesitation, she served them to the customers he’d nodded at, then turned back to get the next two.

They were seamless together. Had been for a long time. How had she thought she could do this thing without him? She was weak and selfish, and she wanted Jace Custer forever. What kind of horrible person was she?

Blake’s antics attracted the attention of some of the customers who couldn’t get inside the Eye of the Storm. Bit by bit, they drifted over to the Crow Bar. And then some of the ones inside started to notice the exodus across the street. Unashamedly gleeful, she watched the tide turn over the course of thirty minutes until even Jace couldn’t keep pace with the crush.

It was beautiful.

And it was the worst timing ever. She wanted to order everyone out so she could sort through what had just happened. What was still happening. Every time she looked at Jace, her heart swelled. He loved her. It changed everything. And nothing.

Finally two a.m. crawled onto the clock, and she still had customers lined up. It was a travesty to kick them out, and she did it without hesitation. But before she could even start counting the till, Jace handed it over to Trish and barked out some instructions to his brother. Like he owned the place.

Maybe he should. There was nothing in this bar he hadn’t touched with his own hands, including her. It was every bit his bar, just as he’d so blithely informed her. Why hadn’t she seen that already instead of forcing him into demanding his due?

Because she held on to things she should let go of and let go of things she should hold on to.

Jace hustled her upstairs, and despite it being exactly what she’d been itching for all night, being alone with him reopened the rawness that she’d never quite exorcised from the last time they’d been together.

“You can’t barge in here and sling declarations of love all over the place, hoping that’ll change my mind,” she said before they’d barely cleared the door.

He was so close and so beautiful, and she wanted to touch him as badly as she wanted to scream at him to leave as fast as he could before her resolve weakened. But as he’d demonstrated over and over and over again, pigheaded was his middle name. She shouldn’t be swooning at the idea that he really, really meant it when he said he wasn’t going anywhere.

“That’s so funny because I think that’s exactly what I did.” He crossed his arms instead of reaching for her, and it was so unexpected that she floundered. That’s what she’d braced for. Why couldn’t he do something she could get a handle on for once?

“You didn’t change my mind,” she ground out, but he just shrugged dismissively like he always did. “It’s not that easy.”

“Yet you’re so convinced that I’m going to change mine about babies and such. Can’t have it both ways. Here’s the thing about that, Stella. I want to be with you. Whatever the price is, I’ll pay it because it’s a lot lower than the price of being without you. Even if that means I never have kids.”

Her heart overflowed, and she barely tamped it back. She couldn’t buy into this loveliness. It was suicide for their relationship.

“I don’t understand why you’d be willing to give that up,” she whispered.

“Because you’re it for me.” The sincerity in his voice bled through her. “If nothing else, believe that. I’ve never been in love before. But I know what I feel, and every second I’m with you, I know I’m where I’m supposed to be. That will never change.”

“You’re relentless.” She watched him nod, a grin spilling onto his face. “You’ll never give up, will you?”

And against all odds, she started to believe that maybe that was a good thing. That he wouldn’t be the kind of man to run when the going got tough. That his relationship with her could and would be his top priority.

“I’m fairly certain I’ve proven that over the past few weeks.”

Yes, he had. In spades. “But—”

“No buts.” He wiggled his fingers. “Unless you’re done talking and you’re ready to let me put my hands on yours. The Crow Bar is our baby. We’re raising it together, or haven’t you already figured that out?”

The tears spilled over before she’d realized they’d formed. Yes. That’s what she hadn’t even realized she’d wanted. He was always one step ahead of her. Why not in this too? “It’s mine. I can’t ask you to help me save it.”

“You’re not asking me, Stella,” he countered fiercely. “I carved out my place here. On my own. I fit here, and you have no idea how badly I needed that. The only things keeping me from taking my rightful spot next to you are your made-up roadblocks. In case it’s not clear, I’m going to keep kicking them over. Just lay them down for me, sweetheart, and let me love you. Choose to be happy. I have.”

Everything inside contracted as she tried on what he was saying for size—again. Because that was all she’d been thinking about all night, ever since he’d vaulted behind the bar. Happiness could be a choice. She could decide to believe him and that it would be okay if one or both of them didn’t get exactly what they wanted.

“What if you change your mind?”

“What if you change yours?” He shrugged. “As long as we’re committed to weathering the storm together, we’ll end up on the other side still in love, still holding hands, still figuring it out. If you want to do that married, okay. If you want to do it Goldie-Hawn-Kurt-Russell style, I’m game for that too. I really don’t care as long as I’m with you.”

Laughing through her tears, she shook her head. “I don’t know what to do with you.”

His exasperated sigh widened her smile. “I’ve given you all kinds of options, and you still don’t know? This is the part where you say I love you too, Jace, and I throw you onto the bed so we can play Little Red Riding Hood has missed her big bad wolf for a few hours.”

“I love you too, Jace,” she repeated dutifully because holy hell had she missed him.

No fear. She was still learning it from him even as he gathered her up and held her as if he’d found a fragile treasure that he didn’t want to mess up but couldn’t let go of. She’d be okay with him doing that for a very long time.