He smiles at me, but it doesn’t reach his ears. “I can’t answer that for you, Beau. But just remember, just like I don’t regret what happenedlast night with Ethan, I don’t regret what happened all those years ago with him.”
I swallow harshly and nod. “I’m gonna go shower quick too,” he says before kissing Abigail softly on the head and heading toward his room.
She murmurs something under her breath—nonsense words really, fragments of a dream. Regardless, I lean forward instinctively, resting my forearm against the mattress, hoping she can feel me near. Feel that she’s safe. That whatever is happening in her dream is only that… a dream.
“You’re home,” I whisper.
Her brow smooths, like her body believes me even if her mind doesn’t.
Five words continue to play in my head on repeat as I wait for Jas and Lawson to finish their showers.
Abigail almost died last night.
She almost died, and we almost became men who didn’t make it to her in time.
I brush my thumb lightly over the back of her hand, barely touching.
Not a promise.
Not a claim.
Just a quiet vow that we won’teverlet it happen again.
Chapter five
Lincoln
I’vehandledworsethanthis.
Or so I thought.
I tell myself that over and over again, like it’s a fact, like it’s something I can prove with numbers and logic and memory. I’ve been the calm one when I should have panicked. I’ve stood in hospital hallways that smelled like antiseptic and fear, staring at the doors that held my entire future behind them.
Or so I thought.
I’ve waited before.
I’ve donethis.
Sothisshouldn’t feel like it’s breaking me apart from the inside out.
And yet…
Every second that passes with Abigail still asleep feels like a test I don’tknow how to pass.
Dinner sits heavy in my stomach, untouched by appetite, eaten only because Lawson practically made us, insisting that we needed the fuel. We sat around the table like ghosts pretending to be men, the same fear threatening to swallow us whole. Jasper barely spoke. Beau kept glancing toward the stairs. And Lawson ate like he does everything else—steady and deliberate—but I know my big brother well enough to see the tension in his shoulders.
He keeps saying the same thing. “She needs rest. Her body went through hell. This is normal.”
I believe him.
I do.
Because it’s the same thing our dad once said when one of the ranch hands fell into that very same river.
But belief doesn’t stop my hands from shaking when I sit back down beside her bed and take her hand gently, like even that might be too much. Her fingers are warm now. Warm and pink but still somehow so,sofragile.
My thumb moves automatically, brushing slow circles along the back of her hand. “I’m here,” I murmur, my voice low and steady. Because that’s what I need to be for her.Steady.Always for her. “You did so good, Sweetheart. We’ve got you now.”
