Page 70 of Breaking His Exile

Alone.

Rainey sat on the edge of the bed. The quilt was soft under her palms. She toed at one boot, got it half off, and gave up. Her body had reached its limit. The adrenaline that had carried her down the mountain, through the gunfight, across the yard and the porch steps and the conversation with Brandt — it drained out of her all at once, like someone had pulled a plug.

She meant to stand up. She meant to find out where they’d taken Evander. She meant to go sit beside his bed the way he’d sat beside hers that first night in the cabin, when her ribs were taped and her hands wouldn’t stop shaking and he’d given her hot tea and silence and the gift of not being alone.

She meant to do all of that.

She lay down instead and was asleep before she knew it.

nineteen

The boot was under the bed, on its side, and Evander couldn’t reach it.

He’d hooked it toward him with one foot, gotten it close, then bent to grab it. The cracked rib stopped him at sixty degrees. White flared behind his eyes. He straightened, breathed through his nose until it cleared, and tried again from a different angle. The rib said no. A fine gray film crept in at the edges of his vision.

The gown didn’t help. Two sizes too big, open all the way down the back, and every time he folded over, more of him met the cold infirmary air.

He sat up and let the boot win for now.

His body inventoried itself while he caught his breath. Ribs wrapped tight. Temple stitched, tender when he touched it. An IV port taped to the back of his left hand, the line pulled. His clothes gone. His knife gone. The rifle he’d handed Brandt at the gate was federal property now, and the second boot was nowhere he could see.

A bedroom doing duty as an infirmary. One window, north-facing, the light coming in pale and thin. A shelf of gauze and tape and whatever else Bear kept close. A chair. A door. Nothing that asked him to stay.

He didn’t intend to.

The door opened.

“That’s impressive.” River stopped just inside it and took in the whole picture, the gown and the boot and Evander bent over his own cracked ribs. “You’ve been awake ten minutes and you’re already trying to leave.”

Boone came in behind him and set his shoulders against the wall by the door. Arms crossed. Stetson low. He didn’t say anything.

Evander straightened the rest of the way. River wore the rumpled suit jacket from the night before and a carefully neutral expression that didn’t cover whatever he’d walked in carrying.

“How long do I have to stay?”

River glanced at Boone. Boone gave him nothing.

“Bear wants twenty-four hours minimum. Concussion protocol.” River came farther into the room. “You cracked at least two ribs, and the stab wound needs watching for infection. Your fever didn’t break until around four this morning, so⁠—”

“How long?”

“Until Bear says you’re clear.”

Dammit. He looked at Boone.

Boone looked back, steady and unreadable.

Evander wasn’t going to outwait him. He reached for the boot again.

“Jesus, sit your ass down.” River dropped into the chair by the window and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Three reasons. One, you’ll pass out before you make it to the door. Two, Bear will break your leg to keep you in that bed if he needs to, and Boone’ll probably help him.”

Boone snorted at that, but didn’t deny it.

River paused. “Three, we need to talk.”

Evander sat back. Not because of the first two reasons. Because of the third, and the way River said it — flat and braced, like a man who’d been holding a conversation in his head for eight years and was finally done rehearsing.

“Thank you.” River looked at the floor between his boots. “For keeping her alive. For—” His jaw worked. “For bringing her back.”