“Maybe you just want half of one?” Jake asked, his voice still kind and gentle and soft. “They’re pretty big.”
Rye shook his head, and with a hand that still trembled, he reached out and picked up the nearest cookie. And he closed his eyes as he took a good-sized bite.
Chapter Seven
Jake
Jakehadheldhimselftogether long enough to help the young man after he’d panicked and thrown up. And he’d held himself together long enough to heat up and serve dinner and dessert. And he’d even somehow held himself together long enough to wash about half of the dishes and make sure the man was settled in the extra bedroom for the night.
But by the time the lights were off inside and Jake had donned his heavy coat and hobbled out to the patio to sit for his evening tea and wait for his sister to call, he wasn’t sure how much longer he’d be able to hold himself together.
He was hurting. Badly.
He sat on the patio sofa rather than his usual lounge chair, partly because the sofa was closer to the door and partly because he could use the ottoman to elevate his leg. He set his tea and the home phone down on the patio table in front of him and then hiked his leg up onto the ottoman, leaned back into the sofa cushions, and closed his eyes.
Pain radiated from his lower thigh, just a bit above his knee—stabbing, sharp pains that shot up into his hip and back and then also all the way down into his toes. It wasn’t the worst he’d ever felt, not by a long shot, but it was bad enough that he wasn’t sure whether he’d be able to sleep at all that night.
Just like at the beginning.
And he desperately didn’t want to think about that, but his mind went there anyway, as it tended to do. He could hear it again—the deafening crash as the other boat had rammed straight into the side of the NOAA research vessel he’d been on with his PhD advisor and lab mates. And he could feel the panic in the next few minutes, which had seemed to stretch on and on, playing out in some horrible slow motion all around him, as he’d come to the realization that he and the entire crew aboard the research vessel, as well as the passengers on the boat that had struck them, were in serious danger. And he remembered the momentaryrelief when their boat seemed as though itmightstay afloat, at least long enough for the coast guard to reach them. But then...
The details after that were all fuzzy, even now, six years later—just a mess of panic as he’d been thrown into the freezing Pacific Ocean, grappling for something to hold onto, then water filling his lungs, and shouting, and some frantic struggle, and everything converging into the worst pain he’d ever known.
Shit, he was so lucky to be alive.
He’d woken up in the hospital several days and multiple surgeries later. His sister and his dad had been there. And later, his advisor, Dr. Mulland, had visited. She’d assured Jake that everyone else had survived with only minor injuries thanks to his quick thinking having deployed the life raft—something he still couldn’t remember having done.
The subsequent months of rehab had been incredibly painful as well—difficult in more ways than he’d expected—but he’d pulled through, refusing for even one moment to entertain the notion that he might not ever walk again.
It just wasn’t happening.
Yet now, here he was. Defeated by fifty-three stairs.
He sat back up, groaning, and began rubbing the weak, damaged muscles in his lower right thigh.
That wasn’t true, he knew. He wasn’t really defeated. Just... fucked up. Carrying someone up fifty-three stairs in an adrenaline-inducing panic had definitely fucked him up.
He almost laughed at the absurdity of the whole day, but it really wasn’t funny, and instead, he found himself grimacing, his jaw clenched against the pain as he continued to massage his muscles.
Several minutes later, as he’d just settled back into the cushions with his tea in hand, the phone rang. He wished he knew what to expect—kind, compassionate sister or sister who’d realized how angry she should be with him for screwing up so royally—but he could never be sure which Kris would be calling. Or whether her personality would swap mid-conversation. Either way, she only ever had his best interests at heart, and he knew it.
He leaned forward and picked up the phone, then clicked the answer button and lifted it up to his ear.
“Hey, sis.”
“Hey, lunkhead.”
Jake grinned weakly and breathed a sigh of relief. He could also live with teasing-yet-compassionate sister. “Yeah, lunkhead about fits. I’ve been calling myself that allevening.”
“Do you need me there? I’ll figure it out. Seriously, Jake,” Krista said without any hesitation at all. He wondered sometimes how she just seemed to know when he was hurting. She’d always been intuitive.
He shifted on the sofa and held back a curse as a fresh bolt of pain shot up his leg. “No, no, please don’t come.” Even as he said the words, he wished he could be saying yes instead.Yes, please come. Please bring me some pain meds. Maybe stay here and help me out for a few days.But he couldn’t say any of that. “I just need to rest, really. And Tim called, says they’ll have the road fixed up probably in two or three days tops, as long as the weather holds. So—”
“So I can come next weekend, then?” Krista cut in, her voice filled with both eagerness and concern. “Phil and I can visit. We’ll drive out Friday evening after he gets out of gym. I can do a deep clean of the house for you. When was the last time you mopped the floors? And I can cook. Maybe barbecue. And make you some casseroles and things—stuff you can freeze and reheat just, you know, in case...” She paused to take a breath, and he heard the shudder in it. “Jake, seriously, will you be okay? I couldn’t stop thinking about you all day.”
Guilt bubbled up inside him, and he closed his eyes. “Kris...”
“I know I worry too much. I know that. But—”
