I nodded quickly. Matt’s energy was contagious. I wondered if this was phase two of a protracted breakdown—some kind of mania.
“She’s fine. I mean”—I searched my memory—“we spoke … a couple times on the phone. After, uh … she moved back home. She’s back with our parents.”
I watched the color drain from Matt’s face.
“Out of the condo? That nice condo?”
“Well, S—” I bit my tongue. Seth didn’t leave Chrissy anything. But that wasn’t Seth’s fault. He didn’t know death was right around the corner. “She can’t afford that place.”
“We can. She can stay, for God’s sake.”
“No, love…” I smiled softly. Matt was concerned for my sister? Strange, but touching. “It’s more than the money. She needs people right now, family. The condo isn’t good for her. Isolation isn’t good. It’s been … hard for her.”
“Okay.” He dragged his hands through his hair. “The baby?”
I shrugged. I did not want to be having this heavy conversation. Any one of these topics—Seth, Chrissy, children—could send Matt back into a tailspin. And God, it was heaven to have him here and communicative and engaged with the real world.
I stopped his pacing with a hug.
“Baby, are you hungry? Do you want dinner?”
“Not at all.” He squeezed me, his voice thin. “Please. Is she still pregnant?”
I stared up into his wide eyes. Was that the problem here?
“Yeah, she is. For now.”
“For now?”
“She doesn’t know what she wants anymore.” I stroked his cheek. “She’s twenty-two weeks this week, so she could still—”
“Don’t.” He pulled away from me. “Don’t say it. I get it.” His gaze panned rapidly around the room. “Right. She only wanted the kid to get to him.”
I’d had the very same thought about my sister, but when I heard it from Matt, spoken with such contempt, protectiveness reared inside me.
“Hey, you don’t know that. She’s going through her own issues, okay?”
“No. It’s not okay. You don’t understand.” He hurried to the window and looked out in the direction of the paddock. “If she does that, I will never be okay. I’ll do anything she wants. It’s not just some child. It’s my brother’s child, and my brother is dead.” His eyes snapped to mine. “Get her on the phone.”
*
Matt locked himself in the study with my cell.
He spoke in a low, continuous murmur. Not once did he raise his voice. And that sucked, because I couldn’t hear a damn thing he was saying.
I hovered outside the door until I heard Nate returning.
With a sigh, I descended the stairs.
“Everything okay?” Nate said. A long receipt dangled from his hand.
“Uh, sort of. What’s all that?”
“Supplies for Written in Verse. It’s all in the barn. A couple more pieces of tack, hay, oats, a concentrate mix.” He set the receipt on the mantel. “In case you need to return anything.”
“Thank you.” I looked at my feet. I should have bought food and supplies before having the sellers drop off the horse. Desperation made me rash. “That all went well, huh?”
“Amazingly well.” Nate approached me. For the first time in weeks, he looked happy and confident, like his old self. “You know what you are?”
“What?” I peered up at him.
“Saving Matt with a white horse. You’re his knight in shining armor.”
I laughed. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“Well, you are. You’re a regular heroine, in my book. Make sure he teaches you to ride that horse, because I want to see you on it—jumping fences, fending off doctors, throwing yourself like Pocahontas onto ungrateful men.” He hugged me and kissed my cheek. “Where is that ungrateful man, anyway?”
“In the library.” I cringed. “On the phone with Chrissy.”
“Oh, Lord. Really?”
“Really. He gave me this fire-and-brimstone speech about how she must not get an abortion and—” I covered my mouth. Oops. I’d momentarily forgotten Nate’s Christian status.
“It’s fine, Hannah. I’m also a doctor.” He took a swift stride toward the steps, then stopped. “No … I suppose I won’t interfere.”
“Probably a good idea. He’s…”
“Being a bit of an asshole?” Nate raised a brow. He swore so rarely that when he did, I had to laugh.
“Exactly.”
“Then he really is feeling better. Listen, I’m packed already and I got myself a hotel for the night. I’ll fly out tomorrow or Thursday. You two have put me up long enough.”
“Oh…”
“Yes. You both need this place to yourselves.”
A twinge of fear pinched my heart. For weeks now, we’d been a team, trying to help Matt—and though we argued more than we agreed, I would have been lost without Nate.
“What if he’s not actually better?” I fought the urge to grasp his sleeve.
“He’s coming out of it. I can see it. I’m a phone call away, and don’t forget Mike.”
“But you can’t just sneak off. He’ll want to say good-bye.”
“Oh, no.” Nate smiled. “He won’t.”
I watched him walk away and climb the stairs two at a time. The thick wedding band on his finger skated up the rail. My future brother-in-law. He truly felt like a brother now, after all that we had been through. I would be proud to call him my brother.
And there were things I wanted to ask Nate, with his unwavering faith—did we bring this pain on ourselves, did we deserve to lose Seth because we played a game with death?—but I think the time for those questions had passed.
He returned with his bags. I walked outside with him, we hugged again, and I watched his rental car roll into the dark, crunching and kicking up dust.
When I got back inside, I found the study door open.
I heard a loud thump, then a grating noise.
“Matt?”
“In here,” he called.
I peered into his room. He’d moved Laurence’s hutch to the door. All his weights were rolled into a clump on his exercise mat.
“Whatcha doing?”