1 week later

Walker jolted awake, hearing a loud banging on his grandfather’s cabin door.

“Idiot! Open up!” It was Grant.

Walker wanted to pull the covers back over his head and forget the killer hangover he had. After getting on a plane and coming to his grandfather’s place, getting drunk hadn’t seemed like a bad idea. Too bad he’d felt like doing it all week. He hadn’t even been to the lake to row. “Go away!” he yelled.

More banging. “I can do this all day, bro, and from the pile of beer cans in the trash bags out front, I can tell you probably love this.”

He cursed and got up, throwing the blankets back and moving to the front door in his boxer shorts. He unlocked the door and threw it back. “No one’s asking for your opinion!”

Grant stood there, his peroxide blond hair dreads and overly tanned body making him look like some surfer caveman.

Walker flipped him the bird. “Go away.”

Grant shoved his way through the door, pushing Walker hard in the chest. “Do you know what an idiot you are? Do you know how embarrassed I was to be your brother and have you treat her that way?”

Walker didn’t want to deal with this. He needed a drink. Turning, he moved to the refrigerator, yanked back the door handle, and reached in. “Want one, bro?”

Grant must have developed super speed or something, because before Walker could grab a beer, Grant slammed the fridge door shut.

Walker yanked back his arm. “Oww!” he thundered, but the sound hurt his head, and all of his anger was focused on the pain in his forearm.

Grant pushed him up against the kitchen wall, holding him back with both hands, staring into his eyes. “What the hell is wrong with you? I haven’t been able to get ahold of you. I had to fly back for one more scene, but you haven’t answered any calls or texts.”

Walker was past fighting. He let out a sigh. “Don’t know where the phone is, bro, but if you don’t get your hands off me, you’ll regret it.” Truthfully, he wasn’t in any shape for a fight with his brother. He’d hardly eaten all week, living off beer. It had finally caught up to him, and he felt awful.

Grant’s lip tugged up into a sneer. “She’s getting surgery tomorrow.”

Suddenly, Walker was alert. Her face flashed into his mind, and pain ripped through his chest.

“Bro!”

Walker couldn’t take it anymore. He crumpled into his brother’s arms.

Grant stumbled, then supported him. “It’s okay.”

It felt like all of the other deaths were mixing with this one.

For a few moments, Grant held him. “It’s okay. It has to be okay. She’s going to be okay.”

Walker pushed back past him then. “You don’t know that! You don’t know that!” He rushed out of the front door and down the little cabin steps out to the dock.

“Walker!”

He grabbed the canoe and picked it up, heaving it into the water.

Grant was running to catch up with him. “Idiot! You’re still in your boxers!”

Walker grabbed the paddles and threw them into the canoe. “I don’t care!” All he could think about was Scarlett standing next to him on the shore of her lake house in his dream, of the way her belly had been extended. He cursed. Why had he had that dream?

His mind went back to Laura. She’d been so young, too young to die. And Tams. And his mother!

“You’re pathetic!” Grant stood at the edge of the dock, staring down at him. “You’re a coward.”

Walker thought about Scarlett, thought about making a sand castle with her at the beach that day. He squeezed his eyes shut. “Just go away!”

Grant didn’t let up, getting in his face. “You’re so afraid of facing the fact that you let someone in again. You’re so afraid of being close to someone that you run away!” he shouted, his breath so close Walker could feel it on his face.

“She is dying!” he yelled back at Grant.

There was a moment of ugly silence between them, the kind that might precede a nuclear explosion. Then Grant leaned back and rubbed a hand over his face. “We’re all freaking dying, man! We are all dying.”

Walker clenched a hand into a fist and wanted to just hit Grant to get him away. Wanted to feel his knuckles against Grant’s face. Wanted to end death.

Grant let out a long breath. “I know you lost Laura, Mom—”

“Tams.” Walker’s voice was quiet.

“Tams.” Grant nodded. “We lost Dad, too.”

Walker flinched, thinking about his father. About all the times his father had come home from an assignment and went right to the ground, playing with him and all his brothers. Tears pricked at his eyes.

Grant put a hand on his shoulder. “We could lose anybody, at any time. We don’t … We don’t get to control everything. We just don’t get that.”

Walker blinked and barked out a laugh. “Dude, your pep talk pretty much sucks right now.”

Grant squeezed his shoulder.

Walker shrugged. “Then what do we get? Then what is it all for?”

Hesitating, Grant considered the question. Then he pulled back his hand. “We get right now. We get this moment. We get all the moments granted to us by God’s grace. That’s all we get, bro.”

Walker met Grant’s eyes.

“I remember when Laura died and we were worried about you. Do you know what Mama said?”

Walker thought of his mama and he shook his head.

Grant swallowed and hugged him. “She said you might be the biggest of the Kent brothers, but you had the most tender heart. That when you had loved Laura so much, when she died, it almost took you with her because your heart was intertwined with hers. That’s what’s happened now, bro.”

Walker couldn’t stop the tears from flowing. Grant was right … and, of course, his mama was right. “I have to go to her.”

Grant pounded his back and then pulled away. “Now that’s the Walker Kent I know.”

Walker took off to the cabin, thinking of how he could get there the fastest. “Call Zane!” he yelled over his shoulder. “I need a ride!”