My mind was running away with me. “I don’t even know this man.”

“Focus, baby.”

“Why does he want me to suffer so much?”

“Baby, focus.”

“Why can’t he leave me alone?”

“Shit,” Cal muttered and he did it in a way that my head came up to look at him and he was staring across the room at the front door.

“Mom?” I heard Kate call.

I looked where Cal was looking and saw Keira, Kate and Dane standing just inside the door.

Myrtle had my vacuum cleaner out. I didn’t even know she was there. I could see through the window that Colt was standing on the front porch, Jack to his hip, his phone to his ear, his head turned, his eyes on the girls.

Before I could move, Cal stood, me in his arms, and he carried me halfway across the study then carefully, he let my legs go but his arm at my waist held me close to his body. So close, I was suspended, my feet barely touching the floor.

The girls watched this without moving a muscle.

“Girls, come to your mother,” he ordered and both looked at him then they moved hesitantly into the room.

I tried to push away but he held me firm and when they got close they only had eyes for me.

I put my hands on both of their necks and I pulled them closer to Cal and me.

Then I bent my head to them, pulling them in further so we were in a little huddle.

“Something’s happened to Uncle Sam,” I whispered.

I clutched at their necks but they knew, they knew, just like me.

Kate tore free, taking two steps back, her face colorless, her eyes wide with pain.

Keira fell to the floor.

Cal let me go and went after Kate.

I dropped to the floor and gathered Keira to me.

“No!” I heard Kate screech. “Nonononono!”

I looked to her to see her beating Cal’s chest, his arms around her, letting her do it.

Keira just shoved in close, burrowing into me and cried in my arms.

“Oh baby, my baby, my sweet baby,” I cooed, gathering her as close as I could and rocking her.

“Hush, girl,” Cal murmured and my head came up again and I saw Kate clutching Cal, her arms wrapped around his waist, her hands bunching his t-shirt, her face buried in his chest and he had his arms locked around her too, holding her close.

I watched as it overwhelmed her and her legs buckled. Cal caught her, bending, he shifted her into his arms and carried her into my room.

I had no idea why but I got up, pulling Keira with me. She didn’t struggle but she was hard to control, her tears still coming, violent, unrestrained. I guided us into my bedroom and Cal was in my bed, his back to the headboard, Kate curled into him full-body, her face again shoved into his chest, her arm tight around him, her legs curved and tangled with his.

I moved Keira to the other side and instantly she crawled in, moving straight to Cal, to Kate, she burrowed into his other side and locked her arm around Cal and Kate, her head to Cal’s belly.

I slid in behind Keira, holding her close, having no where to put it, I rested my head on his shoulder and did my best to wrap both my girls in my arms.

Cal’s one arm was around Kate’s waist, his other arm slid around my shoulders. I couldn’t help but hope that he was holding Kate as tight as he held me. It felt steady, strong, safe when life had just knocked us right back down to our knees.

“Should I call Doc?” I heard Feb ask.

“Her foot that bad?” Cal asked back.

“It’s deep. I wrapped it up but I can see it’s still bleeding,” Feb answered.

“Call him.”

“Okay.”

Feb closed the door but I heard, in the living room, Myrtle turning my vacuum on.

I bent and kissed Keira’s head then reached to kiss Kate’s.

“We’ll see this through, babies, we will. Promise,” I whispered.

Keira’s body bucked with the next wave of tears that my words caused and Kate’s breath hitched so hard, it made me wince.

“Hang on tight, babies, we’ll see this through,” I kept whispering then my tears came back and I forced my face into Cal’s neck and his arm curled me closer.

“We’ll see this through,” I mumbled and then my breath snagged as I felt Cal’s lips on my forehead.

I should have pushed him away, forced him out of my bed, kept my girls to myself. He had no business being there.

But I couldn’t. He was warm and strong and solid and big enough to surround us with all of that and we all needed it, we needed something to hold onto.

He could go away later.

And anyway, he would.

* * * * *

Keira fell asleep first, Kate next, Vi last.

All their weight was heavy on him, Keira’s head still at his gut, her arm tight around his hip; Kate’s head at his chest, her legs still tangled with his, her body dead weight against his side; Vi’s face in his neck her arm around Keira.

Cal’s back was still to the headboard, his head tipped back and resting against it, his eyes on the ceiling. He was f**king uncomfortable but he didn’t move a muscle.

He heard the door open and he righted his head.

Colt was leaning, shoulder against the doorjamb.

“Doc’s here,” Colt whispered.

“Tell him to come back,” Cal whispered back.

Colt nodded, his eyes did a sweep of Cal under a pile of exhausted, grief-stricken, sleeping females in Vi’s bed.

Then he looked at Cal, shook his head, grinned and walked away.

Crazy f**k.

Keira made a noise in her sleep and pushed closer.

Cal closed his eyes, trying to blot out the feeling.

But he couldn’t blot it out, it was insistent, not to be ignored.

It hit him the minute he saw Vi standing, shoeless, carrying a dust rag, wearing shorts and a tank, the first time he’d seen her in two and a half months and she was shrieking, f**k, the sound of her shrieking the word “no”. He’d never forget it, not in his life. That word, the way she said it, seared a path straight through him.

And it kept coming when he ran to her house after the crashing sounds came from it, the Dad pounding on the door.

And more of it came when he forced his way in and he saw her, that loss claiming her expression, fresh this time, so difficult to witness he felt it settling on his f**king soul.

And more of it came when she pressed into him, giving him her grief.

And more, when Kate beat at him, and more when she collapsed into him under the weight of her sorrow.

And more when they all curled into him, one by one.

And now, that feeling in the left side of his chest wasn’t nagging