Time. It was going to take him time to put all the pieces together and still be able to run his hospital to the best of his ability. So Rafe focused on the one extra resource he had.

Lacy and the Becks. He took copies of everything he had found, including the files from the pharmacy, to Jillian's house that evening after his final meeting with Fin and Vincent.

Chance was meeting him there. Lacy was already waiting.

When he walked in, Jillian—who had clocked out an hour before he had and ridden home in the Barratt-Handley company car with Chance—was at the stove. She spent a lot of time there, he'd noticed before. She handled the kitchen tasks quickly and competently, and seemed to really enjoy it.

Classic cars. Cooking. Things they both enjoyed. Something that when the world settled down around them they could do together. Rafe was actually looking forward to it.

He wanted to get his house fixed, then get her little she-devil ass into his home where he wanted her to belong. He wanted her in his bed every damned night.

Not across the yard, her light tempting him to do something stupid like climb the rosebush to get to her without her father knowing.

Jillian’s bedroom was on the first floor—climbing would be wasted effort. But he’d do it, if that was what it took.

But they would have to discuss that later. For now FCGH had to come first.

Marcus was right next to her. Lacy was across the island, busily chopping vegetables. Horace the Beagle wove in and out of their feet, begging for scraps. Apparently he liked zucchini.

It was so domestic, so open and welcoming. And when they looked up and smiled at him when he walked in the door, it felt so right. As if Rafe had just found exactly where it was that he belonged.

Jillian stopped cooking and crossed the kitchen to him. She took the stack of files from him and handed them to her father. Kevin carried them into the dining room and sat them in the middle of the table.

They all knew why those files were there.

Jillian slipped her arms around him and tilted her head back for him to kiss her. Rafe complied. Quickly, easily, like he had done it a thousand times before.

Until the door opened behind him and someone bumped him. "Move, you're blocking the door. You can suck face with Jillian later."

Chance's words surprised a bark of laughter out of Rafe. He looked over his shoulder as his cousin, Brynna and the baby, and Ariella came in out of the light summer rain. Rafe used his hold on Jillian to lift her out of the path of their family.

Their family. That was exactly what they were; the realization practically knocked him on his ass.

It had a nice ring to it. Because it was where they belonged.

He'd found his belonging, and Rafe knew it. Now he just had to decide what he was going to do about that.

But first, they had to figure out who was threatening FCGH.

All the digging Rafe had done that day, and it didn't answer the most burning question—what was Jessica Ward doing with the liquid drug that she had smuggled out of the pharmacy? No one had a clue.

He had Larry and Manda, the two supervisors of the pharmacy, searching every record possible to ensure that she hadn't taken any other drugs out of the building.

Larry and Manda were cooperating, knowing that as her supervisors they were as equally on the hook for not noticing the missing inventory.

Unless Jessica had been just that good.

Elliot had brought the news earlier that Jessica Ward had been a false identity. The woman in question did not have two sisters like she had said. What she had was an aging mother with a prostitution record who had shown up at the TSP building to report her daughter Jessica Ames as being missing.

Jessica Ward had been a woman with a high intellect, an excellent transcript, all the right pharmaceutical credentials, and an upward future. Who had died five years ago from a genetic heart disease at the age of twenty-six.

Jessica Ames was a high school dropout who'd grown up three blocks away from the worst section of Boethe Street. Who had a rap sheet for drug trafficking and possession with intent to sell going back to when she was twelve.

Rafe had been there when Allen Jacobson was questioned about that information. It had rocked the other man completely. Jacobson had asked for a leave of absence from the hospital to process what they had learned. Rafe had no choice but to grant it. He hadn’t hesitated.

It was going to take a while for the other man’s own wounds to heal.

There was nothing Rafe understood more.

He was still raw himself, and probably would be for a very long time. Jillian and her family, his family, had helped the healing process to start, but people were not static. One thing could not change in your life and everything just be fixed. Healing was a lifelong process. For all of them.

He just hoped Jacobson had people in his life that would see that, that would help the other man start on that journey.

Rafe's next task was addressing the FCGH Board of Directors, and informing them of his plan to fix what was wrong at FCGH once and for all. It was going to be a massive, and dramatic, change.

Starting with Solpalmitraln.

Rafe back stepped Jillian into her kitchen, then kissed her once again. Then he let her go. He just stared down at her for a very long time. Until one small hand touched his cheek and she smiled. “We’ll figure it all out, you know?”

He did.