The Innkeeper (The Kinkades #4)

Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Wade

“Everything okay?” I asked as Lou slid into the passenger seat, slightly flushed from hurrying to where I was parked out front of the inn waiting for her.

“Yes, sorry.” She settled the pastry box in her lap and clipped her seat belt. “There’s just two check-ins this afternoon, so I wanted to make sure everything was prepared for them.”

While Lou finished her morning tasks, I’d spent the couple of hours making calls from Blaze’s room. First, to the hospital’s in-house legal counsel, formally requesting that everyone involved in my brother’s care team sign an additional NDA to ensure his privacy while he recovered. Once I had their lawyer’s agreement squared away and the NDA emailed over, I called the two people I had on speed dial for when… anything involving Blaze happened: his agent, Mark, and my private investigator, Mikey.

Mark’s frustration quickly dissolved into dismay. As tired as he was of trying to rein in my brother’s antics so Blaze didn’t tank his career, he also genuinely cared about my brother, and I got the sense he felt a similar pit of guilt in his stomach. How had we not been able to stop this ?

My private investigator, on the other hand, made a good living by being unemotional in the face of potential catastrophe. He made an even better living by being on retainer with me and forming contacts in all the major tabloids and celebrity entertainment blogs. Media was nothing more than modern-day espionage. A game of who knew what and when. Who was going to say too much. Who could be paid to keep silent. And who could be paid to turn traitor.

If anyone—any guests at the inn or anyone at the hospital—had leaked anything to the media about what happened to Blaze, Mikey would be able to find out, and I’d be able to do something about it.

I’d be able to do something to help him.

Only after I made sure every angle of my brother’s situation was covered did I switch my focus back to my own business. I called Tim Heller, the other senior partner at my firm, and told him what happened.

Tim didn’t sympathize with Blaze— ‘a man has to take responsibility for his own actions’— but he did empathize with me. ‘You have to do what you feel is right, Wade.’ Countless times over the years, Tim had taken my side when Dad railed at me for coming to Blaze’s legal aid, whether it was paying people off or threatening to sue.

Tim’s condolences were heartfelt, and he already knew what I needed from him: to take over the mock trial and continue the preparation for our client’s case without me. It went unspoken that I jeopardized not only our client but the firm’s reputation by putting Blaze first. Dad would’ve been furious. Tim didn’t question it.

“Do you need more time? I’m in no rush.”

And I was under no reservations for what waited for me at the hospital. My distraught mother. My unchanged, unconscious brother. The destructive tension of trauma and broken family relationships.

“Oh, no. I’m ready. I was just caught in conversation on my way out,” she said, her hands knotting nervously in her lap as I pulled away from the curb.

“What did they want?” The couple who’d asked questions this morning at breakfast had been taking photos of the inn and selfies outside. They’d stopped Lou on her way to my car, catching her almost at the perfect time to speak to her alone.

I’d watched her face glow as soon as they had her attention. It was the same way she treated every guest who approached her at the buffet, like a flower that bloomed only under their attention. For those moments, she came to life, beautiful and vulnerable, and when finished, folded herself back into the shadows.

I saw it with everyone she spoke to. From her sister to the guests at the inn. Lou opened for everyone else. Gave them everything she had. And then closed back up.

I wondered if she opened that way for Blaze, too. I wondered if he’d even noticed. I certainly did this morning when I’d cared for her burned fingers. For those few seconds, I had been her entire world. More than that—I’d wanted to be. Until reality reminded me she belonged to him. My brother.

Fuck.

What the hell was I doing… wanting her like that. Guilt slipped like a knife through the throat of my thoughts, and an exhale hissed through my lips.

“They were asking for recommendations for things to do. Lunch spots—nothing about Blaze. I didn’t say anything about your brother,” Lou stammered quickly, her cheeks turning red while her knuckles clutched white around the box of rosquillas she’d brought for Mom.

My jaw flexed.

If I hadn’t been such an asshole, her nervousness—how she’d wanted to avoid me earlier—would’ve made me suspicious. But I had been an asshole. I’d been tired and upset and… afraid for my little brother, and I’d lashed out at someone who hadn’t deserved it. Someone I’d hardly spoken to before nailing her character to the stake and burning it .

No wonder she was still uneasy around me. An apology didn’t mean much coming from a man like that.

“I know,” I said and decided to change the subject. I didn’t want her to be anxious and I didn’t want to be… frustrated, and the only way to do that was to not talk about my brother. “You didn’t tell me you were a twin.”

She stiffened.

Shit. I didn’t mean for it to sound like I was interrogating her. Way to go, Wade.

“I…” she drew silent for a moment and then let out a nervous laugh. “I’m sorry. I’m so used to people knowing about Frankie and me… or knowing about Frankie…”

“She likes the spotlight, doesn’t she?” Two seconds was all it took to realize the sisters were the very definition of yin and yang, with Frankie Collins being the extrovert who naturally drew attention.

“You could say that.” Lou’s smile loosened, and her eyes lowered, her body sinking deeper into the seat… like she was trying to fold in on herself again so her sister could shine.

“I know what it’s like to have a sibling who enjoys the attention.” A little too much in Blaze’s case.

Lou only responded with a quiet noise, and I realized we were back on the subject of my brother. Where I didn’t want to be.

I cleared my throat. “Who is covering at the desk for you?”

I didn’t know why, but when Lou said cousin, I’d been expecting the man from last night, Max, to show up again and resume his post. Instead, it was a younger blond with a bright smile and blue eyes.

“Oh, Harper.” Lou adjusted her glasses, her button nose wrinkling adorably for a second. Fuck. My hand tightened on the steering wheel. Adorable was the kind of thought that was off-limits. “She’s my cousin. Max’s younger sister.”

“I see,” I rumbled, watching her attention shift to the window and the scenery passing outside, and I noticed her hands start to relax a little. Talking about the inn and her family calmed her. “Harper… like the honey?”

Her head snapped toward me, and her brows creased. “How did you know…”

“I saw the jar on the table this morning.” Harper’s Honey, the sticker read, a cute, illustrated bee completing the logo.

Her pink lips rounded into the perfect ‘o,’ and desire zipped through me, unexpected and powerful like a bolt of lightning.

My cock hardened inside my jeans. Fuck .

My cock hardened inside my brother’s jeans… for my brother’s girlfriend.

There might be no law against coveting your brother’s woman, but that sure as hell didn’t mean it wasn’t wrong.

“She started just about a year ago—beekeeping. It was a hobby, and then it grew. Now, she has a small plot on my mom’s farm where she has her hives.”

“And she sells her products where? In town? Online?” I didn’t really care where I could get a jar of honey. However, I did care that the more I asked about this, the less Lou’s fingers dented into the pastry box.

“Right now, just to a few local businesses, but the demand has been growing. She’s dealing with a few things while perfecting her product. The flavors. The logo. Her brother, Nox, is working on custom jars… But then she’ll launch online.”

“How many cousins do you have?” It seemed like at every turn, there was another one popping up.

“Just those three. Max, who was at the inn last night. He’s thirty-four. Nox, who is twenty-nine like Frankie and me. And then Harper is the youngest at twenty-one.”

“Sounds like a big family.”

Mine was the opposite. Mom had no siblings. No distant relatives she cared to know. We had cousins on Dad’s side of the family, but I’d met them only once at his funeral. They lived on the other side of the country, and our families had never been close. I never asked. I didn’t have to, not with how our own nuclear family was barely held together with frayed threads.

Meanwhile, Lou had relatives showing up at the drop of a hat to help her.

“They’re the best. We would do anything… for each other.” She looked at me and smiled. Not the small, shy smile I’d seen countless times in the last twenty-four hours, but a smile that was wide and bright and full of personality. Full of genuine happiness.

My stomach tensed. This woman loved her family. There was no doubt about it. And I had no idea what that feeling was like.

A low sound rumbled from my chest. No matter how many times I tried to stop it, the notion that Lou wasn’t my brother’s type just wouldn’t let up. It wasn’t even her physical appearance, though more often than not, Blaze preferred bleach blondes. It was the whole package.

My brother always found himself entangled with younger women—usually college-aged party girls. The ones posting provocatively on social media, inviting attention—inviting him. He went after the ones looking for a good time because that was all he was looking for. Of course, some wanted more. More money. More fame. A jump-start to their acting career.

But Lou Kinkade was none of those things, and it was simultaneously both what attracted me to her and what should’ve sent Blaze running for the hills.

“Oh, good. You’re here.” Mom stood and rushed from Blaze’s bedside, enveloping Lou first in a hug.

It didn’t come as a surprise whom she was more relieved to see.

“How is he?” I asked when she finally reached for me, her embrace a fraction of what she’d just given a veritable stranger .

“No change.” Her expression fell as she turned toward the bed, but when Lou placed her hand on Mom’s arm, her expression lightened a little bit. “They took another scan earlier this morning, and the doctor said the swelling has started to go down slightly, not as much as he had hoped to see, but he said some is better than none.”

I stared at Blaze’s serene face, the beep of the monitors a distant echo in my ear. “Does he have any idea why it’s going slow?”

Mom didn’t answer right away, and immediately, I knew it was because she didn’t want to. “He thinks it’s because of the alcohol that was in his system, but now that they’ve flushed that out, he thinks the improvement will go quicker.”

I bit the side of my cheek, willing myself not to say anything. I could be hard on him when he woke up—would be, even though, if the past was any indication, it wouldn’t change anything. My brother had no incentive to reform because every time he failed, he failed up. Maybe because I kept saving him.

“How are you? Did you get any sleep? Eat anything?” Lou changed topics like she sensed the changing tension.

“No, not really. But I’m alright?—”

“I thought you might say that,” Lou broke in softly, extending the pastry box to her. “So, I brought some fresh Spanish rosquillas which are like donuts, and some yogurt for you.”

Mom’s eyes went round… and then watery. “You’re so sweet,” she gushed, taking the food and hugging Lou again. “So thoughtful… I’m just so glad Blaze found you. It’s been my only consolation all night.”

Jesus Christ.

It was a small miracle my phone started to buzz at that moment, giving me a legitimate reason to excuse myself. This was what I meant by failing up. Blaze ended up in a coma while he just happened to be dating the only woman who truly cared and wouldn’t take advantage of him.

“Let me know as soon as you hear anything,” I told Mikey and ended the call, looking up to see Mom coming out of Blaze’s room.

For a woman who was always put together, her straight face trained to withstand the greatest of trials, it hit me now how ragged and exhausted she looked. It was like she couldn’t let herself believe the doctors when they said Blaze should make a full recovery. It was just going to take time.

“What’s wrong?” I rasped and met her a few steps from the door to Blaze’s room.

“Nothing,” she said as she reached up and absentmindedly rubbed her neck. I didn’t doubt that she’d spent the remainder of the night in that chair by Blaze’s bedside. “I was going to go get a cup of coffee. I wanted to give Lou some time alone with Blaze. The poor girl…”

For loving my brother, the thought came unbidden. Unwarranted. What kind of asshole mentally judged his degenerate younger brother while said brother was in a coma?

What kind of asshole desired his younger brother’s girlfriend while said brother was in a coma?

This asshole right here.

“Who called you?” Mom asked.

“Mikey.” My hand tightened on my cell. “Just trying to keep ahead of any media attention.”

Immediately, Mom cupped her hand over her mouth, her gaze awash with fresh worry. “Do they know?” she whispered loudly.

I couldn’t lie to her even if I wanted to. When it came to the press, we all had to be ahead of the game if there was any chance of keeping this under wraps.

“Not sure. Mikey said he heard rumblings, but if someone does have any information, they’re keeping it quiet right now. ”

“Oh, Blaze.” Mom shook her head, not bothering to hide how she wiped a tear from her cheek. “They wouldn’t publish something about this. He’s in a coma, they can’t?—”

“They won’t,” I interrupted her and took hold of her shoulders, trying to stop her from spiraling. “I spoke with the hospital council this morning. They’re all signing NDAs.”

The fact didn’t seem to comfort her. “What if it’s too late? What if they already know…”

I stiffened. “About the alcohol?”

She let out a cry and stepped out of my hold. “Don’t start with me, Wade,” she snapped defensively. “I don’t want to hear how your brother brings this on himself. You don’t know that. You don’t know what happened. You don’t know anything about your brother.”

I gritted my teeth, forcing myself not to flinch as each accusation hit me like a whip flayed against my back. I wasn’t going to say any of that, but there was no point in trying to deny it. I had said it plenty of times in the past for her assumption to be warranted and my denial to be doubtful. But this outburst—her anger—was mostly a product of emotion and exhaustion.

“Why don’t you head over to your hotel for a few hours? I know Miss Kinkade brought you some breakfast, but you could shower and take a nap?” I suggested, urging when I saw she was about to refuse. “I’ll be here… Miss Kinkade will be with Blaze until you get back.”

That seemed to comfort her—Lou being here, not me. Some of the rigidity of her posture started to deflate, and she looked over her shoulder, debating.

“I’ll call you if anything changes.”

“I know you will,” she said quietly, looking back at me. “I know how much you care about him, Wade. I just wish…”

“I know.” I reached out and pulled her in for a hug. It was awkward and stiff. Not like the ones I’d seen her share with Blaze over the course of my life, but it was still a hug because I wished, too .

I wished Dad hadn’t been like he was. That things had been different. That I knew more about the unconscious man in the hospital bed than just all of the legal problems I had to clean up.

“Go. Rest. He wouldn’t want you wearing yourself thin.” I pushed my hands into the pockets of Blaze’s jeans.

Mom nodded, running the back of her finger under her eyes once more. “Thank you.”

I let out a deep exhale, my feet rooted in the hall until she disappeared toward the exit.

Slowly, I shifted my gaze to Blaze’s door, knowing what was behind it: Lou, bathing my brother in adoration and concern. Her wide eyes and soft words. Her face opening for him. Not nervous. Not anxious. But beautifully flushed all the same.

Fuck . Maybe I should go get some coffee. Give them their privacy like Mom wanted. It was the right thing to do. And I always did the right thing.

Always had done…

I found myself walking up to the door. Just to look—to make sure— I peered through the narrow blinds and saw Lou sitting on Blaze’s bed, one of his hands clasped between both of hers in her lap.

Tension thrummed through me. She was talking to him. I moved my hands from my pockets to rest on the frame on either side of the door, not caring how it looked to anyone walking by that I was so obviously spying.

It wasn’t like I could hear her.

It wasn’t like it mattered.

Lou wore her every emotion out in the open. The nervous fidget of her fingers. The sad quiver of her full bottom lip. But it was the guilt… goddamn, it was the guilt in her eyes that gutted me.

I knew guilt. Learned it. Studied it. My entire life was predicated on discerning guilt from innocence, and while there might be a whole hell of a lot that screamed innocent about my brother’s enigmatic girlfriend, there was also something undeniable in the way it whispered guilty in my ear.

But what the hell was she guilty about?

Annoyed, I tried to will myself to look away, to step back, but my annoyance only grew when I could do neither. I shouldn’t be spying. I shouldn’t care about what was going on, what she was saying to him, or how she was touching him. Yet, the sight of her small hands clutching his like she was the one holding on for dear life felt like a hot poker straight to my gut.

I tipped closer to the glass until it began to fog with my breath.

My jaw locked tighter and tighter, but I couldn’t look away, watching the stroke of her hand along the back of his. Soft. Tender. I stared until everything else faded, and I imagined her hands on me. Touching. Stroking. And my hands on her, wrapping the soft length of her braid around my hand. Directing. Encouraging. I’d tip her head back until her soft lips fell open in that perfect ‘o’ again. Hold her steady as I fed my cock into the heat of her mouth… That’s it. Fit my whole cock like a good girl, Lou.

Fuck. I jerked, banging my head on the glass because I was a fucking idiot.

Lou immediately looked over, and since there was no hiding my presence, the only thing I could do was pretend I’d knocked to alert her that I was coming in.

“Sorry to interrupt,” I grunted as I opened the door.

Even with my interruption, she hadn’t moved or changed her hold. I wanted to walk right over and pull his hand from hers so she’d stop stroking it—and so my imagination would stop running wild.

“It’s okay,” she said and gave her head a small shake. “I was just talking. Joanna said hearing my voice would help.” Her shoulders sagged. “Do you think he heard me?”

I clenched my teeth. “I don’t know.” But I wish I could’ve.

“Where’s Joanna? ”

I grabbed the back of one of the chairs against the wall and carried it with one hand to the other side of the bed. Better to keep Blaze between us. Remind me exactly where I stood in their relationship—outside of it.

“I told her to go back to the hotel and get some rest,” I said and took a seat, finally able to adjust my cock now that my waist was hidden.

“Oh, good. It won’t help anyone if she runs herself ragged.”

“Why does it sound like you’re speaking from experience, Miss Kinkade?” I asked, my gaze still locked on her.

Those lips parted dangerously, and even though she kept herself facing my brother, it only gave me a straight-on view of the rapid thrum of her pulse along the smooth column of her neck.

She swallowed, her eyes lowering for a second. “My brother, Kit, was injured in the Boston Marathon bombing. He wasn’t running… he just happened to be in the city that day…” she trailed off, but I didn’t say anything—didn’t move—because I needed her to finish the story.

The emotion she carried in her expression, in her words, in her voice, it was like a drug. Maybe if I was more like Blaze, I’d know better how drugs felt in my system, but I wasn’t. So, I was blindsided by the swell of need I felt to know more about this woman.

“His injuries were severe, and he needed so many surgeries. Mom—our mom was inconsolable, afraid of the worst. My other brother, Jamie, fought so hard to get her to rest. I remember—” Her voice caught. “He tried to tell her that killing herself with worry wouldn’t make anything better, but she just kept repeating, ‘What am I going to do, Jamie? What am I going to do?’ And I just remember going up to her and telling her that she had to be here for him when he pulled through. It was all she could do—all any of us could do. Hold ourselves together so we were there for him when he woke up.”

Air pushed in a slow stream through my tight lips. I’d lost count of the number of times I’d consoled Mom because of something Blaze did or something that happened to him. I only wondered one time if she’d worry the same if it were me in trouble rather than her youngest—her baby. I didn’t like the answer I imagined, so I never wondered again.

“I’m sorry,” I said in a low voice, amazed by the picture of emotion on her face. It was so pure—like she’d stepped right back into that memory to recall the pain.

“Don’t apologize for something that’s not your fault.”

I jerked, surprised to hear my own words turned against me. “Touché, Miss Kinkade.”

“Just Lou,” she demanded with sudden insistence, the strength of it retreating as she added, “Now that you know there are two of us.”

There is only one of you, I wanted to growl. I wanted to cup her face, hold her eyes to mine, and tell her there was only one of the woman who made my blood burn and my body ache. If there were two, it would be easier. If there were two, it wouldn’t be a problem. But there was only one of her, and she belonged to my brother.

Lou.

I ran my tongue along the insides of my teeth, the damn thing like a tiger assessing the bars of its cage. I shouldn’t want to sink my teeth into the intimacy and taste the sound of her name. It was wrong. More than wrong. She was my brother’s girlfriend, and I should keep the boundaries clear.

But instead, I found myself breaking them and wondering if maybe my younger brother and I had a little something in common after all.

“Lou.” My voice rumbled over the single syllable. Small and soft and subtle. Just like her. But I’d be a fool not to think the nickname wasn’t dangerous. Like a taste of belladonna on my tongue—the perfect poison to my morals.

Instantly, the color in her cheeks deepened, and that flutter of her pulse I’d been watching now raced. The way she sat—turned so she was in profile to me—I could follow the measured inhale and release of her breath, her chest rising, her breasts straining against the tight beige top that had been mostly hidden by the oversized blazer she’d had on in the car.

I gritted my teeth and inched my legs wider to relieve some of the pressure on my cock. Fuck. I forced myself to look at Blaze, thinking it would help.

It didn’t.

I’d never once been jealous of my little brother. Not for his fame or his fortune or the way he managed so effortlessly to get everyone to love him, but that was what I felt right now: jealous that he was the one who got to find all the ways to make her blush.

“Is that what he calls you?” I heard myself ask.

“Excuse me?”

“My brother.” My jaw pulsed. “Does he call you Lou?”

Her brows furrowed together, and she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth for a single, tantalizing second before answering, “What else would he call me?”

I waited until my gaze captured hers before letting the feral words escape from my lips, “Something sweeter. More intimate.”

I should’ve stopped, but the rose color in her cheeks deepened with every word, and suddenly, I needed to see how many different shades I could turn her skin.

“He should call you something no one else would call you,” I said, my voice gravelly.

Her throat bobbed. “Like what?”

My good girl.

I sat forward so suddenly the chair jerked, and I banged my knee against the side of the bed.

“Shit,” I ground out, gripping my knee like the pulsing pain was any competition for the throb of my cock.

“Are you okay?”

No. Far from it.

Blaze might be the one who had an NDA for all of his liaisons, but as far as I knew, I was the one with the praise kink. And when I looked at the woman in front of me, the way she worried over my brother, all I could think was that he never would’ve treated her like I would. Never would’ve worshipped her like I would. And the thought made me want to punch a hole in the wall.

“Fine,” I said, finding my voice but unable to let go of the scowl on my face.

“Did he have… nicknames for his other girlfriends?”

I wanted to think she was asking out of jealousy, wanting to know more about my brother’s checkered past, but I couldn’t find any trace of the emotion in her voice.

“They weren’t his girlfriends.”

Lou ducked her head, but not before I saw her grimace. “Right.”

Dammit. I wasn’t trying to hurt her with who my brother was, but there was a reason the saying existed how a leopard couldn’t change his spots.

I let out a slow breath and stared at my brother’s sleeping face. For the first time, I let the thought in that this could’ve been so much worse. Many of the problems he’d had over the years could’ve been so much worse, but this… this could’ve been death. And I wouldn’t have been able to protect him from it.

“Why don’t you like him?”

My shoulders stiffened. “Who said I didn’t like him?” Even my tone made the question sound ridiculous.

“I don’t think it needed to be said.”

I turned back to my brother, wishing I felt, even for a second, an ounce of dislike. Maybe that would make things easier… if I just hated him.

“What I don’t like is that I wasn’t surprised to get the call that Blaze was in the hospital—that he was drunk and ended up in a coma,” I said through tight teeth. “What I don’t like is that my little brother seems to have everything, still tries to fuck it all up, has everyone jumping to save him, only to come out unscathed enough to do it again. What I don’t like is that there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do to stop it… or to help him.” My voice cracked at the end.

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop—” I bit back a curse. The last person I wanted to take responsibility for Blaze was her. It felt like the sun apologizing for not being able to stop the night. “Keep saying sorry, and I’m going to assume you actually feel guilty for something.”

Her eyes blew wide behind her glasses, her sharp inhale making her whole torso quake. And then the color in her cheeks appeared again, almost like my very own lie detector test. I inched forward in my chair, and I caught the subtle way she tipped back.

“Do you feel guilty for something, Lou?” Her name shouldn’t have purred from my chest like it did. It shouldn’t sound intimate when it was supposed to be an interrogation.

Her lips parted, the flutter of her pulse skyrocketing against her neck. There was something she wasn’t telling me, and in that moment, I was sure of it.

“What is it? What aren’t you telling me?” I coaxed, my voice dipping to a tenor reserved for times when I was with a woman and near a bed.

And then the machine by the bed began beeping loudly, making Lou jump and stealing both of our attention.

“It’s not reading. What happened?—”

I stood and then saw the problem. “The sensor on his finger—” I reached over the bed for the finger clip just as she did, our hands colliding right next to my brother’s.

Heat seared my skin, my eyes snapping to hers. One slip of my finger against the sensor, and she’d know my heart was racing, too. She’d know there was something I wasn’t telling her. Something I felt guilty for, too… Wanting her.

“It fell off,” I muttered, releasing the clip to her hold and returning to my seat.

She fumbled to attach the monitor back on Blaze’s finger. As soon as it picked up a signal, the beeping stopped, and her shoulders visibly sagged with relief. Without lifting her eyes from his hand, she said softly, “I feel guilty because this happened to him, because it happened while… he was with me.”

I ground my teeth. “Don’t do that,” I warned. “Don’t make yourself responsible for his actions.”

For years, I’d taken responsibility for Blaze’s actions, hoping it would protect him. Shelter him. Hoping it would give him the kind of love and support our father wasn’t capable of. It hadn’t done either of us any good.

“I know. But we argued, and he wasn’t okay, and I couldn’t?—”

“That’s not your fault, Lou. He had a problem with alcohol—has for a long time.”

“W-what?”

I stared at her, unsure why she was looking at me like I had two heads. Blaze was an alcoholic. Hell, even with all my interventions, I hadn’t been able to keep that out of the tabloids.

“He’s an alcoholic,” I repeated, slower this time. “He was in rehab. Mom paid for him to go to a very good”— and very expensive— “program, and he couldn’t even stick it out for the first week before running away up here.”

Not only had Mom paid for it—because she didn’t even want to try to convince him to register himself on his own—but the soonest availability had been six months out, so she’d called me, and I’d offered my legal services to the facility at no charge for an entire year if they agreed to take him in the next round of admissions. All of that, and he’d checked himself out after a few days.

Decades, and I still hadn’t learned that I couldn’t help a man who wouldn’t help himself.

“I don’t—He didn’t—” She shook her head, gathered her thoughts, and spoke again. “He didn’t drink.”

“What?” She couldn’t mean what I thought she meant. It didn’t make sense—wouldn’t be possible. “No,” I told her. “He was good at hiding it, but he was an alcoholic.”

“You’re wrong,” Lou insisted, her voice small but all backbone as she stared me down .

“Just because you didn’t see it, didn’t mean he wasn’t doing it,” I said, my jaw clenching as I tipped forward, fighting my ingrained urge to argue and prove my point when I knew someone was guilty. “I’m sorry, but he had a problem?—”

“And I’m telling you, he didn’t drink while he was here,” she said, her back ramrod straight. “I was in his room every day. There was no alcohol in there. No empty bottles. No hidden stash. He never had alcohol when he ate. Never had alcohol on his breath.”

In his room. On his breath. Everything she said made the knot in my stomach turn tighter. It was one thing to know the concept of her being Blaze’s girlfriend, but it was another to hear… to have to think about her being close to him every day. In his room—in his bed. Talking to him. Kissing him.

The angry urge to argue was suddenly cannibalized by the roar of jealousy surging through my veins. Hot and ravenous and violent. My mind flitted with visions of the two of them. Smiling. Laughing. Enjoying a meal together. And then an image of her—naked. Those long braids unraveled into chestnut waves, draping her pale skin. Her limbs tangled in white sheets. Her pink lips parted with pleasure as my brother?—

Fuck.

Fucking fuck.

“Then what happened last night?” I demanded, frustration stretching my tone taut. “You saw him. You know what the doctors said was in his system. Why his brain—the swelling is recovering slowly. You saw the same room that I did…”

Like the flip of a switch, I watched all her emotions clam up, and the nagging suspicion that she was hiding something scratched the inside of my mind like nails on a chalkboard.

“I don’t know what happened,” she replied after a second, her voice lacking most of its former strength. “But it wasn’t the Blaze I knew.”

The Blaze she knew wasn’t real—couldn’t be real.

“Well, maybe you didn’t really know him.”

Her sudden inhale pierced the stillness of the room, and I cursed myself when she stood from the bed and quickly excused herself from the room.

“Dammit, Blaze, what have you done?” I muttered, wondering if he’d hear me, too, as I added in an almost soundless whisper, “What am I doing?”

I didn’t want to be an asshole, but I couldn’t sit here and pretend like the man in the coma deserved the woman sitting by his side. As much as I loved my brother, I couldn’t feed the fallacy of who Lou believed my brother to be. And if that made me an asshole, then so be it.

Who was I kidding? I was an asshole from the moment I’d wanted to kiss her… from the moment I’d imagined if she were mine.