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“You want me to hit you again?” Shane asked, though he didn’t think he had the energy. All this anger only made him exhausted.

“Maybe,” Boone replied as if considering. “You could just go with the truth.”

“Who cares about the truth?”

“Good point. Guess you could just fester and explode later. Sounds more like the Tyler way.”

The Tyler way. Shane had always thought it was superior. The best way. Look at him now. He thought he’d finally put all the pieces together, and they’d just . . . Well, they’d more than fallen apart. Everything was wrong and jumbled, and he didn’t even know how.

“I just don’t know why . . .” Was he really going to empty this all on Boone of all people? He shook his head. But no one else was here, and Cora had made it perfectly clear she didn’t understand him. Whateverlovemeant to her, it was something different from how he meant it.

Felt a little too familiar.

“You don’t know why what?”

“Why she wouldn’t tell me. Why won’t anyonetellme? I know I haven’t always been the most open guy, but I’ve been trying. And all I get is secrets from her and shit from you and . . . and . . . Ben fucking Donahue is the most upfront person with me in this whole world right now, and I don’t get it.”

“Okay,” Boone replied, so unceasinglycalm. “You want to know why I took the kid on the drive?”

“Because I told you not to? Because you didn’t care if he got hurt? Or if anyone got hurt because all that matters is that you have a good time?”

“No. Much as I’d like to blame you for all those answers, I figure I’ve cultivated that idea hard enough I can’t blame you for believing it.”

The worst part was Shane didn’t believe it. Not really. For all Boone’s faults, therewasa good man under there. Shane had just never known how to reach that man.

“Sometimes . . .” Boone said, leaning against the hospital building, talking in a low, soothing voice. A voice that reminded Shane strangely of himself. “Sometimes you see yourself in someone so damn clearly it hurts. And it scares the shit out of you, so you do something dumb.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“To you,” Boone said. “When that kid told you what his dad did to them, he looked right at you. He watched you, and he waited for your response. He planned that all out. It wasn’t some accidental confession.”

“Yeah. But why?”

“He had it good, and he sabotaged it—well, tried to—because he didn’t know what to do withgood. Or maybe he didn’t think he deserved it. I’m not a shrink. I can’t work all that out. I only know I’ve seen that look before—that look on his face when he told you about his dad. I’ve seen it in the mirror. In video. Felt it wash through me hard as a pelvis fracture. That was fear, plain and simple, and not of anything bad, but that good and right might be in front of you. Maybe evenforyou. Not everyone is comfortable with that, Shane.”

Shane couldn’t help but wince at the idea of apelvisfracture, but then it only made him angry again. Boone had never told them. He’d hightailed it away and thumbed his nose at them, and what had Shane done so damn wrong?

Fear. But what had Micah hoped to gain out of . . . Clearly Cora didn’t want Shane to know. Clearly it was going to require some . . .

Hell if he knew. He only wanted to fix it, but he’d never been so at a loss as tohow.

Molly’s head poked out of the door. “Um, Lilly convinced Cora to go get some coffee, and she said you two can come back and see Micah for a few minutes.” She glanced from Boone to Shane, offered him a little smile. “He asked for you in particular.”

Something in Shane’s gut twisted so hard and painfully he couldn’t even respond. Wasn’t sure he was breathing as he strode inside to follow Molly, Boone at his heels.

Molly led them through a maze of halls, to an open door. Inside, Cora’s sister was sitting in a chair next to a hospital bed. Micah was lying still on it, though the bed was elevated so it almost looked like he was sitting.

His blue gaze drifted to the door, and Shane didn’t know what to say, or do. He only knew that his legs were propelling him next to Micah’s bed.

“Hey, kid,” he managed to breathe.

Micah stared, wide-eyed, before his gaze shifted away. Down. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

Shane breathed through all that horrible tightening in his chest. “It was an accident, bud. I think you learned your lesson, huh?”

Micah shifted in the bed, looking small and helpless and just breaking the hell out of Shane’s heart. “Mom cried.”

“Yeah, well, moms do that when they’re worried.”