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Molly grabbed his arm, stopping his progress into the seat. “You’re shaking, Shane.” She squeezed his arm, eyes soft and sympathetic. “I’ll drive you.”

“I’m going.”

For the second time, Shane whirled on Boone, who’d gotten to his feet and was limping toward the car. “Like hell you—”

“You blame me, right? This is all my fucking fault? Well, I know it, and I’m damn well going to apologize to that kid, and his mother, to their faces. No matter how much you hate me and wish I was gone, you don’t get to decide how that shakes out.”

“Shane, please,” Molly whispered.

It was only because Molly was crying now, and he had the sneaking suspicion the noise he heard behind him was Mom crying, that he relented.

He might want Boone gone, but Boone did owe that apology to Cora and Micah both.

Shane didn’t say anything as they climbed in the car. He sat in the passenger seat, jaw clenched so tight it started to throb, and all he could think about was how long the drive was taking forthem. For Cora it had to feel twice as long, and she was alone.

Completely alone. Because of his fucking brother.

“I can’t believe you did this,” he couldn’t help but say. “I can’t believe after everything I told you, you went ahead and did it anyway.”

“We were in the back. If we hadn’t run into a snake, we would have been fine. I was watching him. I was—”

“He’s getting surgery. God help whoever you decide to take care of next.”

“We can’t all be perfect, Shane.”

“Get it all out right now,” Molly said bitterly. “Get this dick measuring match out of your systems before you dare take onesteptoward that hospital. You want to be angry at each other, you have right at it, but I’ll be damned if I let either of you walk in there and upset Cora further.”

“I won’t upset her,” Shane retorted. “And if you do—”

“I’m coming to apologize,” Boone exploded. “This isn’t aboutyou. I made a mistake, not to hurtyou, but because I wanted to give that poor kid something. You heard what he said.”

“Yeah, I heard what he said. That he’d been hurt e-damn-nough. So you thought you’d risk his safety?”

Boone didn’t say anything to that, and they glared at each other in silence until Molly cleared her throat.

“We’re here,” she said before fixing them each with a hard stare. “You got your bullshit out of your systems?”

Shane didn’t bother to respond. All of his feelings regarding Boone’s disregard for a child’s safety, Boone’s disregard for him and every damn thing on this planet, they didn’t matter.

All that mattered was that Micah was okay, and that Cora was holding up, and Shane would swallow down all the simmering rage he felt toward his brother.

At least until they were back home. Then, then maybe he and Boone would have it out once and for all.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Cora was in some awful waiting room after having filled out a bunch of paperwork that hadn’t made any sense. Sitting, all alone, trying not to imagine worse-case scenarios where everything went all wrong and she’d lost her baby.

Because she didn’t deserve happiness. Hadn’t life taught her that?

She jolted when an arm came around her shoulders, then immediately began to sob into Shane’s shoulder.

“He’s just in there. Just in there.”

“I’m so sorry, honey,” he whispered, rubbing her back. It didn’t take away the horrible dread, the awful thoughts, but at least she got to lean on someone.

“I need to call Lilly,” she realized with a start. “I need—”

“Mom was calling Mile High when we left,” Molly said softly. Oh, Molly was here. She blinked up at Molly’s sympathetic face. That was nice.