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Shane’s fingers curled gently around her arm. “Why don’t you come inside, and I’ll explain everything.”

She looked over at Boone, but his face didn’t boast any new injuries added to the fading ones he’d always had.

“I’ll take the kid up to start the shit shovel,” Boone offered, nudging Micah toward the stairs.

Shane opened his mouth, but Boone waved him off. “Save your orders, Cap. I’ll keep on schedule.”

“I’ll make sure,” Gavin said quietly to Shane after Boone left the porch. Gavin turned to Cora, his cowboy hat in his hands. “Look, everything was one hundred percent my fault. Shane was just trying to keep me out of trouble.”

She nodded at Gavin before he took the stairs down into the yard. Slowly she turned to Shane, something in her chest feeling weird and jittery—and not in a good way. Bruises and cuts and . . . It was a little sickening to be reminded of how well she knew that morning-after feeling.

“What happened?” she managed.

“It’s a long story,” Shane said sheepishly. He gestured to the porch swing. “Want to sit?”

“Do you have work to do? I don’t mean to—”

“Gavin and Boone can handle it for now. You look . . . shaken.”

Yes, she felt that. She blew out a breath, feeling silly. It wasn’t the same, but Shane had said all those things about violence the other day and . . . She went ahead and sat on the porch swing, her gut twisting in knots.

“Did you two get in a fistfight?”

“I wish,” Shane replied. He stretched back and then placed his arm behind her shoulders. Slowly, carefully, as if he expected her to bolt.

She felt uncomfortable, but she didn’t want to bolt.

“So, after the pizza place, we went to a bar. Sort of a welcome home to Boone.”

“A bar? You don’t seem like the bar type.”

“I’m not. In fact, I don’t think I’ve been in one in something like a decade. At least, not that kind of bar. But, Gavin saw this guy he has a weird history with and . . .”

“Was he drunk?”

“No.” Shane shook his head. “We’d barely sat down when the other guy threw a punch and . . . Well, I tried to break it up and got a split lip for my trouble.”

“You didn’t hit back?”

“I tackled back. Busted the guy’s jaw. He deserved it though, after what he did.”

Cora had to breathe deeply against the hard wave of nausea.You deserved it. If you did what I asked, I wouldn’t have to hit you. If you cared more. If . . .

“Cora?”

She shook her head, leaning away from Shane’s body. “I’m sorry I just . . . I don’t like that word.Deserved.No one deserves to be hurt like that.” She couldn’t bear to look at him. He’d see too much. She knew for a fact he’d see far too much.

“I agree with you to an extent, sweetheart. But this guy was partially responsible for Lou’s fire, Lou’s injuries. He can stand a busted jaw.”

Cora whipped her head up. “He set Lou’s fire?”

“He had a role in the setting of it.” Shane searched Cora’s face for something, and she hoped to God he didn’t find it. Sometimes she was afraid she hadabuse survivorwritten across her forehead. She couldn’t stand to be that to him.

He rubbed his thumb back and forth across her jaw. “You okay?”

She studied the cut on his lip, the slight puffiness to it. Found a truth she could give him. “I don’t like seeing you hurt.”

The unhurt side of his mouth curved. “I don’t mind that.” His thumb kept brushing her jaw, his other fingers lightly resting on her neck, occasionally pulling a strand of hair between two fingers.