He clapped his free hand over mine, holding me in place. “Jay.” He tugged at my hair until I met his eyes, then raised one eyebrow at me.
“Fine, yes, okay.” I waved a hand in the air. “Talking time. I’m ready. You go first.”
I reminded myself that Aimee said there was no romance involved… but did that mean it had been purely physical? A one-night stand that made them mistake lust for love?
A night not unlike the night Rafe and I had just shared?
Oh, fuck. I might vomit.
Rafe snorted. “I wasn’t aware that the human body could become as tense as yours is right now.” He shook my frozen arm. “How bad do you think this story is gonna be?”
“Well. I think it’s gonna involve my first lo—crushmarrying my baby sister,” I said softly. “And I already know it’s gonna result in years of misunderstanding, during which I spent night after night singing a song I’d written about a guy I wasn’t sure I’d ever see again.”
Rafe was quiet for a minute. “Yeah, okay, that’s fair. But that’s not actually how the story starts. I’m not sure how much Aimee told you yesterday—”
“Basically nothing. I know nothing,” I admitted.
He sighed and squeezed me tighter for a second, like he knew how much that admission cost. “Okay, then. Three years ago last spring, Aimee started having trouble catching her breath. She figured it was just a bad spring asthma flare, but every time she thought it was under control—”
“It kept coming back,” I supplied. “I remember this. And old Dr. Corlia back in Rock Gulch kept finding new things she was allergic to. Pollen and mold spores and dander and whatever…”
“Yeah. Exactly. But then she collapsed one day while she was at work, and they took her to the ER—”
I lifted my head, incredulous. “What? Andno onetold me this?”
“I know. Look, it turned out okay,” he reminded me. His big hand caressed my back, but this time I refused to be soothed. I pushed myself up to sit cross-legged near his hip, and he reluctantly let me. “It was actually a really good thing that it happened, because she was taken to the ER, and the doctors ran some tests Aimee’s old doctor never ran, and…” He took a deep breath. “It turned out Aimee has a heart condition.”
I blinked, feeling like I’d stepped sideways into another world. I knew he wasn’t lying but also knew it couldn’t possibly be true.
“They said it was probably something she was born with that went undetected for years,” Rafe continued, “because the symptoms seemed to mimic asthma—”
“How could she not tell me the second she found out?” I whispered, hurt beyond belief. “How couldyou? Is she seeing specialists? Is she…” I grabbed two fistfuls of my hair to stop myself from jumping off the bed and running to Wyoming so I could demand answers from Aimee or her doctor or… God, I didn’t even know.
Rafe, meanwhile, remained annoyingly calm. “Jay. You talked to her yesterday. You said she was okay.”
I blew out a breath. “Yeah, I know, but that was before I knew—”
“I know,” he interrupted. “I know, but she’s been managing this condition for years. She has a cardiologist… or at least she did when she lived on the Key. And her condition can be managed with medication and regular medical care.” He reached out a hand like he wanted to touch my leg but thought better of it. “Do you want me to go on?”
“My God, there’s more?”
This time, he didn’t hesitate. He rolled toward me and slid his palm up my thigh, splaying his tan fingers on my paler leg. I wasn’t sure whether he was trying to calm me down or hold me in place, but either way, it was effective.
“Yeah, babe. There’s the whole marriage part.”
That, right there, was a roller coaster of a sentence, beginning with the casualbabeand ending in a reminder that he’d once made vows to my sister. Was it possible to get motion sickness while sitting on a stationary surface?
“After she was diagnosed, Aimee was… not in a great place mentally. Emotionally. The new doctors told her she needed to avoid getting pregnant and should maybe reconsider a career working with kids in favor of one that required less exertion.” He grimaced. “She thought her life was over. She was depressed as fuck. Jealous of her friends who didn’t have this shit to worry about. Angry at your dad, I think, for trusting the doctor. She came to the Key for a visit because she didn’t know where else to go—”
“To me! To her brother! That’s where she should have—”
“Jay.” Rafe sat up and crossed his legs to mirror mine. He lifted my chin and forced me to look at him. “Let me finish, okay? I want you to understand all of it.”
There was a strain in the creases of his eyes and the line of his jaw, and I realized Rafe wasn’t enjoying this conversation any more than I was, but he was forcing himself through it because he wanted to get to the other side. With me.
I set my jaw so tightly my molars squeaked, but I managed a small nod.
“She didn’t want to go to you.” He stroked a thumb over my jaw, like that might take the sting away… for both of us. “Think back. Debbie had just organized your very first tour. You were over the moon excited. You’d workedsohard forsolong to get that.”
