Chapter 20
LUKE
My limbs are lead weights, pinning me to the bed. The room flickers into focus, then fuzzes out again, like a bad signal.
I’m speaking to Isla—at least I think I am—and it makes sense in my head, but the words tumbling from my mouth slur and tangle. Exhaustion drags at me. Shadows creep in from the edges until everything folds into black.
Sound survives. The rhythm of a monitor. Shoes squeaking. Voices cut into strips I can’t line up into meaning. My body refuses to answer any summons. Sleep is the only thing it understands.
Then I’m yanked up from the dark.
“I don’t care!” My father’s voice bullets down the hall. “He’s going home with round-the-clock nursing care. He’s not staying in this place. It’s a joke. I should sue you for everything you have.”
I want to roll back into the black and let his voice bounce off the walls without me, but I blink instead. Light stings. When the glare resolves, Isla’s face is there, steady and close.
“You’re here?” I croak. My throat feels like it swallowed sand.
“I am.” Her eyes search mine like she’s checking pupils and souls at once. “That’s what happens when you lose consciousness while on the phone with a nurse.”
A floating memory clicks. I was talking to her. I was…flying? Then nothing.
“I remember your voice,” I mutter, dragging a hand to my forehead. “And then I don’t.”
“That would be the part where you passed out,” she says, mouth curving. Even now, she finds a small smile for me.
“Why?”
“You had a post-op arterial bleeder near the repair.” Her voice is calm, almost clinical, but I feel the tremor underneath it.
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“It wasn’t. They fixed it. You got a transfusion. You’re okay.” She edges closer, as if distance could undo the assurance she just gave.
From across the room, Sav’s voice floats, dry as kindling. “He says he’s okay. Meanwhile, Nathaniel Wild is out there terrorizing elderly hospital volunteers. I think he made one cry.”
“I brought you a cookie!” Eden appears like a sunbeam with a dessert the size of a hubcap. Oatmeal raisin. She holds it under my nose with reverence. “It’s therapeutic.”
I lean back, the smell of cinnamon and sugar teasing. My stomach votes yes; the rest of me isn’t ready. “You sure did. Thanks, Sunshine. I’ll…save it.”
“Okay,” she says, a crooked smile softening, like saving it might be the same as eating it in front of her.
The door swings open and my father strides in, chest puffed, suit immaculate, a pink compression band peeking at his elbow like a joke the universe played on him.
“Luke,” he declares, “you’re coming home with me. This place can’t care for you.”
“I’m not going to your house,” I say, flat and steady. “I’m going home.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You need nursing care.”
“Isla will take care of me,” I blurt before I can calculate the fallout.
Her eyebrows go up. Mine would, too, if they weren’t busy holding my face together.
“It’s aggressive to come home right after your transfusion, Luke,” she explains.
My father cuts his gaze toward her, measuring. “You’re a nurse?”
“I’m a registered nurse,” she says, straightening, shoulders squaring with the letters she’s earned. “Critical care and pediatrics.”
He nods once, a decision instant. “I don’t care how aggressive it is. I want him out of this place. I’ll make it happen.”
“I’m coming home,” I murmur to Isla, giving her a wink I hope looks braver than I feel.
“I’ll go speak to the staff,” she says, already halfway to the door, her voice shifting to professional—clear, warm, in charge. “And to your dad. We’ll get what we need.”
Eden glances at her watch. “I should get back to the bakery. I have a delivery.”
She tucks the cookie into the giant box it arrived in and sets it on the side table. “Call me if you need more therapy.”
“Wait up, Sunshine,” Sav says, before leaning down and kissing my cheek. “I’ll check in later. Don’t be stubborn.”
She pins Gabe with a look. “Watch him.”
“Always,” Gabe says, and for once I don’t argue.
When the door closes behind them, I fight the bed to sit higher. The transfusion has done more than put color back in the world. I feel almost human again, if human means my shoulder is a hornet’s nest and my head is wrapped in a slow, cotton storm.
“You ready to come home?” Gabe asks, pushing off the wall.
“More than ready.”
“Good. Because your father’s money and Isla’s credentials are a terrifying combo.”
I grimace. “Did you set everything up?”
“We did.” He grins. “And by ‘we’ I mean Isla cleaned like a Navy inspection, and I pretended to be useful.”
“I hope she’s okay playing nurse.” The admission comes out smaller than I intended.
“The only thing that woman wants is to be near you,” Gabe says. No tease, just truth. “Don’t overcomplicate this.”
“It’s complicated.”
He spreads his hands. “Find me one relationship that isn’t. The only thing in your way is the two of you.”
“And possibly a person who wants us dead.”
He flicks imaginary dust off his sleeve. “Details.”
I stare at the ceiling tiles, counting the faint flecks in the paint until my heartbeat stops trying to kick its way out. “I’ll talk to her when—”
“Don’t wait too long,” he cuts in, voice gone level. “Trust me. Good women don’t wait forever.”
The door opens again. My father returns with Isla on his heels. Her cheeks flush pink from whatever battlefield she just crossed, but her eyes are clear.
“We’re all set,” she says, professional sliding into tender. “Discharge in a few hours.”
“The doctor agreed?” I ask.
“In the end, he saw it my way,” my father says, smoothing his tie. “Though it wouldn’t have mattered.”
“Can I leave it to you to get him home?” he asks Gabe, already halfway turned. “Your mother took a sleeping pill and missed this entire fiasco. She’ll want me home when she wakes.”
She’s going to kill him. I almost smile. “Thanks, Dad.”
He nods, and for the briefest moment, something like relief loosens his jaw before he disappears.
“I’m going for a walk,” Gabe announces, raking a hand through his hair. “Call me when it’s time to spring him.”
“Thank you,” I say, the words too thin for what they’re carrying.
When we’re alone, Isla moves around the bed like a tide—quiet, inevitable. She checks the IV site, scans the dressing on my shoulder with practiced eyes, and folds back the corner of the bandage to peek without peeling it. Her touch is light and sure, and the ground under me steadies.
“Sit,” I tell her, covering her hand with mine. “You’ll do laps otherwise.”
“Professional hazard.” She flashes me a small, sheepish smile that curves something inside my ribs.
“Thank you,” I say. “For all of it.”
“Of course.” Her gaze holds mine without blinking.
“None of this is what you planned when you came back.”
“Not quite.” She huffs a laugh, more breath than sound.
“I’m so happy you’re here,” I add, letting the words land where they want.
“Even if it got you shot?” Guilt pools behind her eyes.
“Even then,” I say. “You’re not in this alone now.”
She nods, the most minor dip. “I keep trying to see how it all fits.”
“We will,” I promise.
My shoulder throbs with each heartbeat; the vow holds anyway.
Her eyes stay on mine, searching—measuring the man I am now against the boy I was. “About earlier,” I say, clearing my throat.
Color warms her cheeks. “That was…unexpected.”
“If I crossed—”
“You didn’t.” A quick shake of her head. “I like that side of you.”
“Do you?” I can’t help but smile.
“I’m confused, though,” she admits. “You were so angry. That doesn’t just vanish.”
“No, it doesn’t. But I understand why you did what you did. You didn’t have a choice.”
“What does that mean for us?”
“It means we try,” I say simply. “We’re different people now.”
Her breath leaves her like a held thing finally released, the way a bird looks when you finally open your hand and let it choose. I pat the space beside me. “Come here.”
She fits herself carefully against me, mindful of my shoulder, head on my chest like there’s a groove carved just for it. I trace slow lines through her hair.
She draws circles on my forearm with her fingertip, the motion hypnotic. I close my eyes and count her breaths until mine match.
I wake to pain knifing through my shoulder. Morning light slants across the room in ribbons. Isla stirs, eyelids fluttering, and the pain recedes a fraction just because she’s looking at me.
“Good morning, Beautiful,” I whisper.
“Good morning.” Her voice is raspy-soft. She studies my face, frowns at what she sees there, and cuts her gaze to the clock. “Shit. You were due for pain meds two hours ago.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not.” She swings off the bed and out the door.
A nurse slips in behind Isla. Her dark hair is wound into a neat twist that not a strand dares escape, and a faint scent of honey-menthol gum lingers as she sets a cup with two pills on the tray.
“For the pain,” she says, her voice gentle but efficient, like someone who doesn’t waste words. A thin band of violet polish glints on her nails as she adjusts the monitor.
“Discharge is scheduled for seven-thirty.” The nurse’s tone turns clipped. She glances at Isla again, something assessing in it. “Make sure he takes deep breaths. Men are terrible at that when they’re in pain.”
“I’ll help him,” Isla says.
The nurse gives me that sugar-steel smile again, then pivots and leaves without a backward look.
Isla watches the door a beat longer than necessary. “She seems…friendly.”
I shake my head. “We’ve had an influx of temporary staff lately. These traveling nurses come from all over, and sometimes they haven’t quite adjusted to how we do things in a close-knit community like ours.”
The door opens again and Gabe strides in, armed like a breakfast saint: coffees in a carrier, a paper bag steaming from the top. “Pages and Pastries,” he announces. “Ham and cheese croissants.”
“Your sister is an angel,” Isla says, eyes lighting.
“She is.” He grins.
Thirty minutes and a few sips of coffee later, I’m being wheeled through the front doors into a blue morning.
The air outside tastes like a different planet: pine and dew and the faint sweetness of something blooming. Light on skin instead of fluorescent hum.
I tried to argue for walking out, but hospital rules and Nurse Isla teamed up against me, and I decided not to die on that hill.
At Gabe’s car, I stand slowly, the world tilting while Isla slips under my elbow. She leans in to buckle my seat belt, her hair brushing my cheek, her perfume—no, just her—settling me.
“Careful,” she murmurs. “Let me.”
“I’m not helpless.”
“I know,” she says, and smiles in a way that makes me stop complaining.
Gabe hits every pothole between the hospital and the cabin on principle. “Gabe,” I grind out when the tires find another crater.
“What? That one jumped under me.”
When we pull up, Isla slips her hand around my forearm and walks me up the steps, pausing when my breath catches, steadying me without calling attention to it.
I don’t realize I’ve been bracing for chaos until the door opens and the opposite greets us.
Light spills across floors that shine. Counters gleam. The sink is empty and dry. A small bouquet of eucalyptus and lemongrass sits in a mason jar on the table, the scent bright and clean. A folded stack of laundry lives on the ottoman as if it were always meant to be there.
“Did you do this?” I ask, useless awe coating the words.
She shrugs. “Mmhmm.”
“You—” I brush my thumb over her cheek before I think better of it “—spent hours.”
“I had energy to burn.” She bites her lower lip. “And Gabe stocked the fridge. I figured if you’re stuck here, it should be clean. And…comfortable.”
I pull her in with my good arm, set my cheek against the top of her head. “If you’re here, I’ll be okay.”
She tips her face up and kisses my cheek. “Couch,” she orders gently. “You haven’t eaten anything. I’ll make you some tea and toast.”
I don’t have the heart to tell her I don’t drink tea, and food sounds horrible right now. I let her fuss with the kettle while Gabe clatters in the kitchen, making himself useful in a way that produces more noise than results.
“Are we still calling it the ‘Villain Board’?” I call, lowering myself onto the slate-gray couch. My body tries to argue. I win with a groan.
“‘Murder Board’ is too aggressive,” Isla says from the counter.
“It’s aggressive because murder is aggressive,” I murmur.
Gabe snorts. Isla shoots me a look that could pin a man to a wall and walks over my comment like it’s a rug.
She sets a mug on the table—steam curling, mint rising—then kneels beside the pharmacy bag and lines up the bottles with a nurse’s neatness.
Painkillers. Stool softeners. Antibiotics. Gabe snickers; she ignores him, and for a sliver of a moment, the cabin pretends we’re normal people.
“Let’s look at your paperwork,” she says, scooping the discharge packet. She settles on the edge of the coffee table, ankle tucked under, brow furrowing in concentration. Her fingertip traces columns, finding what matters in a thicket of abbreviations.
I let my head fall back, my eyes half-closed, and listen to the house. The kettle ticks as it cools. Wind fingers the trees. For the first time in days, my lungs fill all the way up.
Then Isla goes still. A pause that doesn’t belong to a page. Her eyes narrow. Her lips part, then snap shut. Her hands flatten on the table like she needs the wood to keep her from floating up.
“What?” My pulse leaps—the primitive response that hasn’t had a break since this started. “Isla?”
She doesn’t look up. When she does, the color drains from her face. “Your blood type.”
I blink. “What about it?”
“It says AB negative.”
“Yeah,” I say slowly. “Rare as hell. I remember the lecture I got when I got a cut on my head while wrestling with Chase when we were kids. Why?”
Her finger jabs the page, then another. “Because both your parents got tested when you needed blood.”
“And?”
“They are both listed as type B.”
Silence drops, heavy and immediate. I stare at her. She stares back.
“That means…?” I ask, even though the math is already writing itself in black marker across my skull.
Her gaze locks on mine, no soft edges left. “It means there’s no way Nathaniel Wild can be your biological father.”