Remy didn’t hear from Sawyer. Not the next day. Or the one after that.

Not that whole week, actually.

In fact, when she saw him at the church social on Sunday, he barely spared her a glance. He also made a point of talking to Emma Lake, a gorgeous redhead who’d moved to Catahoula about a year before.

Damn him, she thought, but of course she couldn’t say anything.

She’d done this, after all. Walked out on him, left a thank you note.

This was her big plan, her big stupid plan.

The social crawled by, and Remy didn’t think she’d ever felt so glad to go home afterward. Except when she got home, Shiloh was fussy, running a fever.

She went into Mommy Mode, as she liked to call it. Ran him a cool bath, gave him some baby aspirin. Monitored the fever, waited for it to break as they always did.

The fever persisted. So she changed into sweats and spent most of the night walking him around the house, bouncing him on her hip, trying to get him to eat a popsicle.

When the sun rose, Shiloh was still awake and crying, completely miserable.

“Honey, I think that’s a rash on the back of his neck,” her mother said, pulling down the back of Shiloh’s sweat-dampened t-shirt.

“Crap,” she said.

Turning her son around, she checked. Yep, right there, spreading down across his back.

So into the bath again, new clothes. Fever still present. Climbing, in fact.

Stressed and exhausted, she handed Shiloh over to her mother for a bit, tried to get some sleep, drawing the curtains in her bedroom as best she could against the morning light. As soon as she closed her eyes, though, her father woke her.

“Your mother told me to come get you. Shiloh’s vomiting. And… well… he doesn’t look good, sweetheart.”

“Okay,” she said, her voice rough. “We should go to the doctor.”

“Don’t panic, but your mother already called Dr. Hickston. He wants us to go to Children’s Hospital.”

“What?” she said, sitting up, head spinning.

“Calm down, honey. He just said that there’s an outbreak of viral meningitis in town, and he wants Shiloh to go get checked out.”

“Let me get dressed,” she said, shooing her father out of the room.

An hour’s car ride later, Shiloh was passed out in her arms as she paced in the waiting room of the ER, distraught and desperately trying to hold it together.

“At least he’s sleeping,” her father said.

“He’s so hot, though,” Remy said. “He’s burning up, Daddy.”

Her mother and father just held hands and held their peace, and Remy continued her nervous pacing.

It took almost another hour to see the doctor, and when they did, the news wasn’t what they wanted to hear. To Remy’s surprise, Emma Lake was their doctor.

“Remy, nice to meet you, I’m Dr. Lake.”

Remy inclined her head, too worried about Shiloh to care a whit about the pretty redhead. Dr. Lake stood on one side of the tiny hospital bed, Remy on the other, holding Shiloh’s hand as he slept.

“So we’re doing some cultures to see if it’s meningitis,” Dr. Lake said. “I’m willing to say it isn’t, though.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Remy’s mother said, fanning herself.

“Well what could it be?” Remy asked, shaking her head. “This isn’t normal, right?”

“You’re right, it’s not,” Dr. Lake said. “We’re doing a broad spectrum of tests. We’d actually like to draw some bloodwork on you too, if that’s okay. There could a genetic condition making itself known.”

“Genetic?” Remy asked, feeling tears welling in her eyes.

“We just want to rule some things out. This could be any number of things, so let’s just wait to see what we find out, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Are there any conditions I should be aware of?” she asked. “Mother, father, either set of grandparents? Diabetes, Cushing’s, anything like that?”

“N-no,” Remy said, the first tear spilling. “Well, I don’t know…”

“Okay, no problem,” Dr. Lake said, giving Remy a calm smile. “We’ll just do a full workup and go from there. In the meantime, we’re going to control this fever, treat it very aggressively. He’s in good hands here, okay?”

“Sure,” Remy said, feeling her face crumple as Dr. Lake left the little room.

“It’s okay,” her mother said, giving her a hug.

Remy cried then, really cried. She cried as they moved Shiloh upstairs to a room for observation. She cried when the results came back inconclusive, test after test. She cried when Dr. Lake hesitantly said they needed to keep him overnight, do a few longer-running tests and monitor him.

Finally, around seven that night, Remy broke down and called Sawyer.

It was the last thing in the world she wanted, but what if there was a piece of information she didn’t have? What if something happened to Shiloh, something she could have prevented?

“Your son is here at the hospital.”

Somehow she managed to choke out the words, get the story out. And Sawyer, being the upstanding man he was, said the right thing.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

He hung up, leaving Remy feeling even more bereft and rudderless than before.

True to his word, though, Sawyer was striding down the hall in forty minutes flat. The fury on his face, his expression dark as a thundercloud, his whole posture tense and ready to brawl…

Remy swallowed.

“Where is…” Sawyer started, then stopped, his throat working.

Remy pointed to the glass door across the hall. Sawyer walked over and looked inside, going white as a sheet.

He saw, no doubt, what Remy saw every time she looked at Shiloh. The perfect reflection on his father, down to the dark hair and beautiful hazel eyes, the features just the same. Cut from the same bolt of cloth, unmistakably.

“Fuck,” Sawyer said, turning and walking down the hall.

He was clearly struggling to keep his emotions in check, leaning down to brace his hands on his knees, rubbing a hand over his face. When he finally returned to Remy, though, he seemed to have mastered himself.

“What do you need?” he asked, stone-faced.

“The doctor will want to draw some blood, ask some questions.” She bit her lip. “Sawyer…”

“Stop.” The single word rung through the air, a furious command.

Remy’s guts twisted, making her feel as though she might throw up.

“Please hear me out. Your father threatened me, said if I didn’t get rid of the baby, he’d come after me. He said if I involved you in any way, he’d ruin my life.”

Sawyer glared at her, unwavering. When he spoke, his words weren’t the forgiveness or understanding that Remy had secretly hoped for.

“Don’t speak to me, unless it’s about… him.”

Remy only nodded. Though Sawyer was before her now, she was already out of tears, overwhelmed and exhausted. She didn’t have the energy to talk about it right now, so in a sick kind of way, his refusal to talk was a relief.

For now.

“Miss River?”

She turned to find Dr. Lake in the hall, a smile on her face.

“Yes?”

“I have some great news. It looks like your son has a simple staph infection.”

Remy’s mouth opened and closed. “What?”

“It was hard to diagnose, because the infection is below the skin, but… it’s a very simple and quick fix. He can go home in the morning, assuming it clears up as we expect.”

“Oh thank God,” Remy said, pressing a hand to her heart. “Oh, thank you!”

“It’s my pleasure. I’m always glad to give good news,” Dr. Lake said. Cocking her head, she seemed to notice Sawyer in the corner, but Dr. Lake was too polite to ask.

“Thank you again,” Remy said, patting the doctor’s arm.

“No problem! I’ll keep you updated, but I think we’ll have to do a minor procedure here in a minute. We’ll probably need you guys for that.”

You guys? Remy wondered, then glanced back at Sawyer.

“Oh, he’s… uh… just here for support,” Remy said.

Sawyer pushed off the wall, nodded to Dr. Lake, and stalked off.

“Or not…” Remy said.

“Okay. None of my business. How about I grab a tray of tools and meet you in Shiloh’s room?” Dr. Lake said.

“Sure, yes. Thanks.”

Remy turned to see Sawyer vanish around a corner. If she had to guess, he probably wasn’t coming back.

“Shit.”

She took a deep breath, trying to push herself back into Mommy Mode. She still needed to take care of Shiloh, that was the whole point of this day. Of her whole life, actually, and all the deceptions.

For the good of her son.

Blowing out a breath and shaking her head, she forced herself to head back into Shiloh’s room.

There was no room in her heart for Sawyer, not today.