"Wait here. I won't be long," Maude said to her driver as she stepped out of her limo that had pulled in behind a black Dodge Ram. Chris Larabee was here. And if he was here so was Vin Tanner. With quick steps, she crossed the short distance between the car and the front door of Ezra's condo. She let herself with the key he didn't know that she possessed and punched in the alarm code that he didn't know that she knew about either. Not that he would be in Denver long it enough to change either.

This time he would return with her to Europe. Mr. Larabee and his Magnificent Seven be damned.

Her son had found a place for himself when Chris Larabee offered him a position with ATF Team Seven. The team showed him he was valued for more than his God-given talents in away that she had never been able to manage. Hardly an email, letter or phone conversation went by without some mention of the team, especially the team leader and the sharpshooter. Ezra could hide his emotions and feeling from everyone one except for her. It was easy to see that Ezra had fallen in love with Chris and Vin.

She noticed when Ezra stopped mentioning the two men to her. Using the excuse she was on her way to visit Robin Masters in Hawaii, she flew to Denver. It didn't take long before she found out that Chris and Vin were now lovers and she could see the pain that caused her son. She knew that best that thing for him would be to move on, find a new love. Sometimes there was no other choice. Her stomach tightened at the unwanted thought of Ezra's father's plane scattered in pieces against a mountain in South Asia.

Before she had a chance to talk to her son, her current husband was in a car accident. Weeks passed before she could leave his side to find messages left for her by Chris Larabee that Robert's now former personal assistant failed to give her. A bust gone wrong. Ezra taken hostage. Chris and Vin finding him beaten and dying from exposure on the side of a mountain. By the time she was given the messages, Ezra was out of the hospital and recovering at the home.

She peeked into the living room. No one was there. Then she could hear the sound of masculine laughter coming from Ezra's bedroom. Silently, Maude crept down the hall until she reached the open door and stopped in disbelief.

Chris Larabee sat with his back against the headboard, Ezra cradled against his body. Vin Tanner was slowly kissing his way down Ezra's chest. She had never seen such joy on her son's face. Quickly, Maude jerked her eyes away as Vin kissed his way south of Ezra's navel. There was something's about a son's love life that she didn't need to know. Though from the brief glimpse of the other two men's nude bodies she could understand part of the attraction for her son. She took another quick peek. If she was twenty years younger, she lead Chris and Vin on a chase that neither one would forget.

Maude met Chris Larabee's eyes. His hands moved to his two lovers, daring her to say anything. She smiled then mouthed, "Take care of him," before turning and leaving.

Ezra wouldn't be returning with her to Europe after all.