Carter watched Maddy go, fighting every instinct inside him that screamed to charge out of the water and chase after her like a fucking caveman. Fuck, his cock was hard as a rock, which he thought was impossible considering the temperature of the lake water in the morning.

But anything was possible when Maddy was around.

Carter groaned, waiting another five minutes before getting out of the water and toweling off. He had really thought it would be safe to take a quick swim if he got up early enough. There was something about an isolated lake surrounded by the forest that made him feel a little like a kid again. He’d paddled around on his back, listening to the sounds of the forest, watching as a family of deer drank from the distant shore. The animals were familiar enough with the Lodge’s guests that they didn’t seem bothered by Carter’s presence at all.

It’d been like a dream: He’d turned around and she was there, standing at the edge of the water with her little bouquet of wildflowers, looking torn between running and staying put.

She was so damn cute. He wanted her in the water with him. He wanted lazy days when they floated around, splashing each other, play-fighting under the water until they came up kissing and breathless.

He wanted more than he should, for so many reasons, but he was starting to realize that wanting her this much—in this consuming way—was unlike anything he’d ever experienced in his life.

Wanting Maddy felt like being on the edge of a discovery in the lab, and getting her—all of her, her sweetness, her hopes, her dreams, and her curves—would be like finding the last element that made everything click.

By the time he got back to the lodge, the sun was higher in the sky and he spent a good hour and a half in the lodge’s little gym, trying to get rid of the restless energy that seemed to fill him every time Maddy was around. When he got to the gym, Nat was on one of the treadmills with headphones in her ears She gave him a nod, but was clearly in the zone so he didn’t want to bother her. She’d just tease him more about Maddy, anyway. Nat was in full match-making mode, and he knew it. He’d seen it before in New York—she’d actually had a part to play in several of their New York friends’ love stories, now that he thought of it. And all those people were married and wildly happy now.

Maybe there’s something to her instinct, he thought as he got back to his room. He was sweaty and a little sore, so he took a long shower, trying very hard not to think about Maddy the entire time. When he got out and dressed, it was almost time for his video call, so he flipped open his laptop and set it on the bed. He slicked his wet hair off his forehead and grabbed his extra pair of glasses, his fingers lingering over the smashed pair that he’d scooped up from the lakeshore.

He felt a little silly that he hadn’t thrown them out, just because she’d been the one to step on them. Like a lovesick little boy, hanging onto a token. But every time he looked at the bent frames, he remembered that cute-as-hell expression on her face, and he liked that more than he was willing to admit.

His video-chat program chirped, signaling a call, and he took a deep breath, feeling a twist of nerves form in his stomach as he clicked “Accept Call. ”

“Hi, guys!” he said, smiling wide as the video appeared.

The screen tilted a little as his dad put it on the bed in front of Olivia. She had an oxygen cannula in her nose, and she was in her Moana pajamas, but other than that and the hospital bed, she looked so much like a normal little girl that it made his heart ache. Her blonde hair was in a neat French braid, and there were sparkly rubber bracelets with words like love and laugh and girl power stamped on them wrapped around her wrist, obscuring the IV needle.

“Hi, Carter!” She waved at the screen.

“Hey sweetie.” He smiled. “How are you doing?”

“Dr. Wilson says my infection is almost gone!”

“That’s fantastic,” he said.

“That means I get to go home soon, right?” she asked, looking over the top of the laptop, off-screen at their parents. He heard his mom say, “Well, honey, that’s what your Dad and Carter and I want to talk to you about.”

Olivia frowned. “I don’t have to stay in the hospital! You said I didn’t have to!”

Seeing the cloudy expression on her face killed him. She’d spent so much of the last year in there. She’d missed so much school and all her dance recitals, and while his parents and her friends’ parents had made an amazing effort to keep Olivia’s life as socialized and normal as possible, she still kept missing out on stuff.

“I have good news and bad news, Olly-Wolly,” he said, using his special nickname for her that never failed to make her smile. “Which do you want first?”

She sighed, the sigh of a child who had been forced to give up too much, who had faced too many things she shouldn’t even have to imagine. “The bad,” she said in a resigned tone.

“Okay, so the bad news is that you get to go home, but only for a little while. You’re going to have to come back to the hospital pretty soon. But that’s where the good news comes in.”

Her little face was screwed up in a mulish expression. “What good news?”

“The good news is that you and I? We’re going to become something ever cooler than brother and sister.”

She shot him a “What the heck?” expression that was just adorably skeptic, like she couldn’t imagine anything cooler than being his little sister.

“You and I,” he continued. “Are going to be twins. And not just any kind of twins. You and I are going to become kidney twins. The doctors are going to take a piece of my kidney and give it to you, so even though our outsides don’t match, our insides will. It’s going to make you feel a lot better.” He learned forward conspiratorially, lowering his voice, causing her to dip forward so she could hear the secret. “You’re going to have to teach my kidney to tap dance, though. Because it doesn’t know how right now. I know you’ll be all over that—you’re gonna be the best tap dancer ever. But isn’t that cool, to be twins like this? Something of mine is going to be yours.”

Her mouth pursed as she thought it over with the weight only a seven-year-old could give something. “I think I’d rather have your car than your kidney.”

Carter burst out laughing, hearing his parents join in as they crowded on the bed next to her. God, he loved his baby sister so much. He was so fucking glad he was able to do this for her. So relieved that after this, she was going to be okay.

“Tell you what, baby girl,” he told her. “When you’re sixteen, I will build you a car. Any color you want.”

“Even purple glitter?” she asked.

“I will build you the most purple, most glittery car you ever did see,” he promised, making her break out in a wide smile.

“Carter!” his mother scolded. “You can’t make promises like that!”

“Sure I can,” he said, and he could hear his Dad snorting with suppressed laughter.

“In a few weeks,” his mom told Olivia. “You and Carter are going to have an operation, so the doctors can take some of his kidney and give it to you. And when you wake up and once you feel better, we get to go home.”

“No more dialysis?” Olivia asked, her eyes wide with hope.

“No more dialysis,” his Dad promised. “That’s what being a kidney twin means. Remember how I told you that I have one, too?”

Olivia nodded.

“It is like being part of a very special club,” his Dad said.

“And I get to be part of that club, because of you,” Carter added.

Carter was feeling thankful that they’d consulted with the pediatric psychologist Renee had recommended, because this was going remarkably well. He had been worried that an idea of an operation—on both herself and her big brother—would frighten her.

There was a knock on his room door. “Carter?” Nat’s voice called. “Sorry to bother you. We have an issue.”

“I’ve got to go,” Carter said. “I’ll be back in a few days? Do you want me to bring you anything from the forest, Olly-Wolly?”

“A baby bear,” Olivia said.

“I think that might be a bit difficult,” he said. “We wouldn’t want to make a Mama Bear angry. Why don’t I surprise you with something a little less furry?”

“I like surprises!”

“I’ll talk to you later,” he told his parents, who nodded. “I love you!”

“I love you, too,” Olivia said, blowing a kiss to the screen with her whole hand in that way enthusiastic little kids did that made a loud mwah noise.

“Bye everyone.”

He shut the camera off, getting up and going to the door. He didn’t know what he was expecting, but a very worried looking Nat was not it.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Have you seen Maddy?” she asked. “No one’s seen her since last night, and her room is empty and I can’t find her anywhere.”

He frowned. “I saw her this morning out by the lake. I think she was going for a walk. She hasn’t come back?”

Nat shook her head.

Fuck. That had been hours ago. Something must have happened.

“She was headed north,” he said, grabbing his jacket and pulling it on. “I’ll head out to look for right now. You go find Rhett and have him put together a search party. Tell him she took the right path on the fork away from the lake, okay?”

Nat nodded. “Be careful,” she said.