“Wait!” Damien caught his arm as Paddy handed him gloves. “She’ll see it if you don’t use gloves.”

Nodding, he put on one and Paddy helped him into the other and then he stepped up and began to pummel the bag so hard sweat broke over his face and down his spine. All his rage that anyone would make her upset, threaten her in any way, even to just look at her wrong and make her feel bad wasn’t acceptable.

Each strike vibrated back up into his body, the concussive force battering what felt like a tsunami of rage. Boom. Boom. Boom. His fists hit the leather. He wanted to be doing this to the man who’d made Tuesday cry.

He’d seen it in her face when he’d got very close. Her eyes had been a little puffy and red. That someone had done that to her filled him with a murderous need to do something he couldn’t. He hadn’t felt this way since he’d first started to kick.

A bone-deep ache to do something he simply couldn’t be doing. He wanted it. Could taste the way he’d spin on his heel and head to his truck. He’d tear ass over to the store and beat this dick down.

He could taste that violence. The unacceptable, dark violence of crunching bones. It wasn’t civil to make those choices. Those choices were always trouble. But he wanted to rain his fists and his rage on this piece of shit.

Slowly that haze broke away and he eased back, already feeling the exertion in his shoulders. He wouldn’t make stupid choices because he had reasons to make better choices. She was inside his house, putting herself back together because she was a survivor. A badass goddess who hadn’t broken after all the stuff she dealt with, but instead had grown stronger. He hated that she had to, but he admired her spirit. Respected it. And fucking got terrified that she was way out of his league.

Finally he could breathe again and he stepped back, head tipped to the ceiling as he dragged in lungfuls of air.

He hadn’t been there. But thank goodness his father had. He needed to talk to his dad but not until he burned off some more of this anger.

“Dude,” Paddy said. “I think you killed it. Take a rest.”

“First, she’s out on a ride and her horse got spooked. But she handled it. Then I sent her down to the store because I didn’t want to ruin the surprise and instead some jerk accosts and terrorizes her. I didn’t protect her either time.”

Paddy threw him a bottle of water from the fridge at his back. Ezra drank it slowly, still putting himself back together.

“Jesus. Ezra, you think it’s within your powers to what? Control coyotes? You a wizard now?”

Damien interrupted. “How did she handle it on the horse?”

She’d been fantastic. Coolheaded. “She’s solid. Capable. She was scared but she listened and handled it. She was fine.”

Paddy nodded. “She likes horseback riding so she’s not dumb. Sometimes your animal gets spooked. You handle it when it comes up. She did and she did it right. I don’t think she’s upset over that horse and coyote thing anyway.”

Damien helped Ezra get the gloves off. “How you feel? You hit that bag pretty hard.”

“I hate that I can’t make it better,” he said, not worried about his hands.

“Racism?” Damien laughed. “No, Ez, even you can’t end racism to keep it from hurting Tuesday.” He sobered up. “What happened to her was awful. It makes me want to punch someone, too. But you can’t be with her every moment. And it’s not like she didn’t have to deal with this before you came into her life. I understand that you want to protect her from this stuff. I want to protect Mary. Paddy wants to protect Natalie. It’s how this works. But reality sucks sometimes. The truth is, you can’t protect people you care about from everything that will hurt them. We’ll make sure that joker at the feed store gets fired. But if you make a bigger deal out of it, at some point she’s going to feel bad about how you feel. She needs to come to you with this on her terms. You get that?”

“When the hell did you get so wise?” Ezra stepped out onto the porch and pulled his shirt off. He grabbed the hose and sluiced water over his upper body and hair. The shock of the cold helped him think clearer. Damien was right. He needed to let this be about her feelings and how she wanted to handle it.

“Love makes us fools and wise men all at once.” Damien bowed when Ezra walked back inside, toweling off.

“Fuckyeah.” Paddy threw up the rock-and-roll devil horns and Ezra laughed.

He kept spare shirts out there in the bathroom so he grabbed a clean one, tucking it in. Once his hair was brushed he looked to his brothers.

“I need to talk to Dad.”

“He and Mom are going to stop by in an hour, he said. Give us all time to settle. He’s upset, too. He said to keep an eye on you because he wanted to punch the man as well and he knew you’d end up in trouble if you went in search of the guy.” Paddy shrugged. “Then Natalie listened to her voice mail and heard how upset Tuesday was, even though she tried to sound matter-of-fact about the whole scene.”

“Sure, Paddy, that seems like a great idea to get him all riled up again.” Damien punched him in the arm.

Paddy shoved him back. “Get off, ballsack.” He continued speaking to Ezra. “I’m saying he’s got enough to take care of right here. That loser is going to get fired and we’ll still be Hurley. Right?”

Ezra nodded, remembering the pain on her features and the sadness in her voice as she laid out what she had to experience as commonplace. He couldn’t make this disappear for her. But how he reacted could make things worse. He focused on that.