Page 3

“You will not,” Nate said.

Her eyebrows lifted. He knew that look. An argument was coming.

“You’re tired,” he said.

“I am standing in a room with broken glass and your brother’s blood on the floorboards.”

“You are carrying my child.”

“That does not mean my arms don’t work.”

Simon took the broom from her hands before either could say more. “I’ll sweep. Gives me something to do besides catch another fist with my face.”

Jesse’s lips parted slightly.

Simon paused, broom in hand. “Was that an apology?”

Jesse’s eye drifted toward him.

“Sounded like one,” Beau offered.

“Sounded like a man trying not to choke on his own breath.”

“You were always hard to please.”

Recognition flickered in Jesse’s expression. Then pain seized him. A low moan tore from his throat.

Nate’s attention snapped back to the bed. “Enough. Jess, I need you to take this.” He measured a smaller dose into the spoon, then slid his hand beneath Jesse’s neck.

Jesse went rigid.

“I’m only lifting your head.”

“Don’t.”

“I have to.”

Jesse’s breath came fast and shallow.

Bass spun back from the window. “What’s wrong?”

“He doesn’t want to be moved,” Carolina said quietly.

Nate held still, the spoon in one hand, his other supporting Jesse’s head. “You remember something?”

Jesse’s face twisted. The clinic door opened in the front room. Cold air rolled down the hall.

“Carolina?” Emily called. “Is he—”

“Stay out there,” Nate answered, sharper than he intended.

Silence followed. Then Bass said, “I’ll talk to her.”

“No.” Carolina looked toward the hall. “I’ll go.”

Nate wanted to protest—to guide her back to a chair by the stove, a cup of tea warming her hands, her feet propped on a stool where no glass could reach them. Instead, he nodded. She knew how to keep his family from pouring into this room all at once.

“Please,” he said.