Jake couldn’t even answer. He just closed his eyes and dropped his head onto to his little sister’s shoulder.
“You must be Amanda,” Zeke greeted her, hand out. Another handsome Kendall, with Gen’s dark features and Jake’s rock-solid jawline. Tall and slim and windblown.
Amanda pulled out a smile for him as she shook hands. “Then that makes you Zeke.”
“I heard you got Jake to wear the sweater. We consider that a minor miracle in this household.”
“Any small help I can be,” she answered, knowing that even now she was being judged for her worthiness for the Kendall big brother. If she hadn’t been so thoroughly drained, so taut and miserable, she might have found the situation amusing.
“Gen,” Jake was saying, and only Amanda could still hear the tears he’d spent in that lonely, cold room. “This is Amanda Marlow.”
Amanda turned toward yet another appraising eye. She just smiled. “Thanksgiving would have been better,’’ she allowed.
Gen’s answering smile was genuine. “Lee’s talked about you once or twice,” she answered. “What’s the latest word on her?”
“She’s in surgery,” Jake said, his voice cracking, his eyes lifting to battle the moisture that glittered in them.
Gen immediately shot to attention. “Surgery? They weren’t talking about it when I left to get here. What happened?”
But Jake was reduced to shaking his head again.
Back at the door Clovis and Ed stood in mute tandem, hats in hands.
“The nurse said possibly her spleen and liver,” Amanda offered quietly, so tired of waiting, of worrying, of being the only shoulder to carry this weight. “Said that sometimes they look stable at first, but later something happens?”
Right before her eyes, Gen metamorphosed from little sister into medical resident. Gathering a kind of cool authority about her, the young woman bobbed her head and turned to her older brother.
“Yeah, well, we’ll just see about that. You guys sit tight for a minute. I’m going in to talk to that ICU crowd.”
“The door says authorized personnel only,” Zeke offered laconically.
Gen’s smile was piratical. “I just aced my finals in medical arrogance. Watch this.”
“Boss,” Clovis offered diffidently from his position as Gen swung through the doors no one else thought to breach. “I brought you and Amanda some dry clothes. You wanna change?”
Jake didn’t even seem to hear him. Amanda saw that Zeke wasn’t nearly as nonchalant as he appeared. She knew that he saw exactly what toll this was taking on Jake. The only comment he made was a worried lift of the eyebrow in Amanda’s direction.
“Why don’t you leave the clothes, Clovis?” Amanda asked. “Maybe when the word comes down on Lee...”
His nod was abrupt and uncertain. “She’s a tough little filly, boss. She’ll be just fine.”
“I know,” Jake answered, not bothering to turn his attention from where Gen had disappeared.
Amanda surreptitiously took his hand back in hers and exerted the gentlest of pressure. “Time doesn’t pass any faster standing up,” she offered gently.
His lip curled a little. “That another one of those quaint little sayings you two collect?” he demanded.
Amanda actually chuckled. “No,” she admitted. “That’s an original. Now, sit down.”
Amazingly enough, he did.
“What happened?” Zeke asked, getting himself some coffee. “All I got was that it was an accident.”
“It was an accident,” was all Amanda would say.
“Jake,” Ed spoke up, brushing his magnificent handlebar with nervous fingers. “Anything else I can do?”
It caught Jake’s attention. He looked up at the store owner who had driven to Jackson Hole airport for Gen in the dead of night, and his expression lightened. “You’ve been a real friend, Ed. Thanks. I don’t—”
