“Here we meet again, huh?” Haley, the nurse who’d cared for me on my previous hospital visit said.

I made a face. “Not that I don’t like you, but . . .”

She grinned. “I think you’re just trying to get out of that cooking class you promised.”

I laughed. “Get out of and cooking are words that I’ve never uttered.”

It had been three days since the incident at the old McKinney barn, just over seventy-two hours since—

I closed my eyes against the bile that seemed to rise every time I remembered the incident, and since I seemed to be remembering the events every minute of every day . . .

“How’s the pain?” Haley asked.

I peeled back my lids, watching her as she probed the bandage just above my knee and checked those on the soles of my feet. “It’s fine,” I said. “Nothing is hurting too badly.”

She touched the splint covering my right wrist, glanced up at my face until my gaze locked with hers. “I didn’t mean the physical pain.”

“Oh.” My eyes filled. “I’m okay. I just—”

“Am reliving it every second of every day?” she asked.

“Well . . .” I tore my eyes away, stared up at the ceiling. “Yeah.”

“Don’t let it fester, okay?” she said. “Promise me you’ll talk to someone about it.”

I tilted my head so I could look at her again. “You sound like you speak from experience on that.”

Pink lips pressed together, and her pale skin went a shade lighter, making the freckles on her nose and cheeks stand out in sharp relief. But she didn’t shy away from the eye contact. Instead, she straightened her shoulders and nodded. “You’d be right.” She fussed with her ponytail. “It was a long time ago, but time doesn’t always make everything go away.”

“I—” But my words were cut off by a knock on the door.

“Hey,” Rob said, and my heart fluttered. Like it used to, like it was filled with butterflies.

“Hi,” I said and couldn’t find the words to say anything else. I just stupidly stared at him.

“I’ll see you soon.” Haley squeezed my shoulder. “Don’t forget what I said.”

“I won’t.”

Rob came into the room, plunking himself in the chair at my bedside. The chair he’d refused to leave from the moment I’d come out of surgery, until I’d forced him out of it that morning in order to go home and shower.

“How are the kids?” I asked.

“Anxious to see you again.” They’d come yesterday when I finally felt like I wouldn’t scare them.

I swallowed hard. After I’d stabbed my mother—no, Sonya, because she was no mother to me—the tourniquet around my leg had given way, and I’d lost a lot of blood really fast.

It had apparently been touch and go there for a while, Justin working on me in the back of a police car as Rob had rushed me to the hospital.

In some ways, I felt lucky that I’d passed out and hadn’t been awake during those frantic moments.

I had enough nightmares to last me.

“Will you bring them after school?” I asked.

He smiled. “Only way I could get them to agree to go in the first place.”

“They love school.”

“They love you more.”

I sniffed, felt my eyes well. “No fair. I’m supposed to be keeping fluids in, not losing more.”

Rob’s face sobered, and he went very, very still.

“What?” I asked.

His gaze dropped to the bed, and he picked up my uninjured hand, laced his fingers through it.

“I thought I’d lost you,” he said softly.

“Justin wouldn’t have let that happen,” I said.

“Not then.”

The serious tone of the words made my breath catch. “We almost lost each other, Rob.”

He shook his head. “I—”

There was another knock at the door, interrupting his words, though I almost felt it was timely.

Because I had the feeling this conversation was one that Rob and I were going to need to have many times over.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” came a male voice.

“Sam!” I exclaimed.

The vet walked into the room, glanced at Rob and my interlaced hands, and smiled. “I heard that you’re going to be discharged tomorrow and wanted to talk to you about Rocco.”

My stomach clenched. “Is he okay?”

Sam put a hand up. “Totally fine. He’s been staying at my house because I wanted to make sure you guys were ready for him. Do you want me to keep him a few more days? Or to bring him over tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” both Rob and I said.

Sam nodded. “Okay then. I’ll just head back to the clinic—”

“A word?” Rob said.

“I don’t—” I began, but Sam said, “Sure.”

Rob stood, pressed a kiss to my lips. “I’ll be right back. Outside,” he said to Sam once he got closer.

“I—”

But they were gone, through the door, and I couldn’t follow them.

“Ugh,” I muttered and stared up at the television screen. It was on Tammy’s food channel, a celebrity chef whipping up a meal for her closest friends. The sight of the lovely cranberry, apple, and brie-laced bread was almost enough for me to forget about the fact that my husband may be coming to blows in the hallway with our vet.

I tried to convince myself it would be fine. Though Rob had been stiff and quiet, he hadn’t been angry.

Or at least I hadn’t been able to feel his rage as though it was a tangible thing, like the last couple of times they’d interacted.

I forced my gaze to the TV, tried to think of how I’d modify the recipe, and just was really beginning to worry when Rob stepped back into the room.

“Is everything—?”

“Everything is fine, Miss,” he said. “Sam and I just needed to come to terms with a few things.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “What things?”

One half of Rob’s mouth curved. “He was the one who spotted you being pulled from the trunk of the car on McKinney land.”

“What?” All thoughts of bread disappeared. “How?”

“Luck,” he said. “Sam was seeing to some injured calves on the Sinclair Ranch. It wasn’t a place anyone would normally be.” His voice gentled. “But we’re lucky he was.”

I nodded and knew that someone had been looking out for me that day. Normally, I wasn’t religious or spiritual or whatever, but I couldn’t explain away the feeling that I’d been slightly more than lucky.

Sometimes things just worked out.

“So I was thanking him. For that. For Rocco.” He sighed. “For looking out for you when I didn’t.”

“Rob—”

“Hey, speaking of lucky,” he said, obviously changing the subject. I think Rob and I both needed to talk with someone. Apart and, perhaps, together. “I think you’ve got a friend in Theodore.”

“What?” I said, suitably distracted and then promptly guilty because I hadn’t given the horse a second thought. “Oh my God. How could I have forgotten him? Is he okay?”

Rob grinned. “Temperamental as ever. I guess he showed up back at the barn as Justin and the hands were rounding up the loose horses and created all sorts of trouble.”

“What trouble?”

“Would only let Justin get him and then when he was back in his stall, kicking and ramming the door until Justin let him out. When he still wouldn’t settle, Justin finally re-saddled him and decided to give Theo free reign.” Rob chuckled. “It’s crazy, really, Justin came up to the McKinney barn like an avenging cowboy, dust cloud, pounding hooves and all.”

I held my breath, imagining the scene, and glad, really glad that Theo was okay. The fuzz bucket was growing on me.

“Justin said that once Theo heard the shots, he started galloping and wouldn’t stop. It’s like he knew something was wrong and that Justin was needed there.”

“A bushel of apples,” I said, feeling suddenly exhausted.

“What?” Rob asked.

“I owe him a whole lot of apples.”

Rob squeezed my hand. “I think you made a new friend.”

I closed my eyes. “He’s not so bad.”

“No,” Rob said. “He’s not.”