His eyes widened and then narrowed. “Good God, Tate, what do you take me for? Have I given you any indication that I’m that shallow a man? I love you, damn it. Not your father. You. I want to be with you and continue to build something with you. If you weren’t suffering from a head injury I’d be offended.”

“Matt,” she sighed, “I worry that you’ll regret this.”

He cocked his head. “Why would I regret loving you? You don’t seem to understand and that’s my fault I suppose. Tate, I’m old enough to know what I feel. Old enough to know this is very different than anything I’ve ever felt before. It’s you. You and me and it’s right. Surely you can feel it.”

“We come from very different worlds.”

“So you keep saying. And I keep saying—so? Seriously. Yes, you had a f**ked up childhood. One I can’t even begin to imagine. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have a future together. Sometimes I’m going to do something stupid and thoughtless because I don’t know any better. I’m a guy, it’s what we do. And sometimes you’re going to react in ways I don’t understand and it’s going to piss me off or confuse me. We’ll get through it.”

Tate put her head against the pillow and closed her eyes. He was fooling himself to ignore the real fact of the situation. People in town were going to talk. They already were talking. He’d always been on the inside, how was he going to take it when he risked that to be with her? Still, she was too damned tired to deal with it right then. And she didn’t want to.

“Rest now, Venus. I’ll be right here. If you wake up and I’m gone, I’ve just nipped out to get something to drink or to make a call to fill in your family or mine.”

He kissed her forehead gently and she let herself fall into sleep.

By the time they were ready to release her the next morning, his normally good-natured Tate was a very grumpy woman. He didn’t blame her, they’d woken her up every hour on the hour and she looked dead tired.

He’d slept in her room all night, which meant he woke up every hour on the hour as well. And every three hours a new one of her siblings showed up and stayed in the room with them.

Shane had gone to Matt’s apartment and packed him a bag, bringing it by the hospital. They’d found Tate’s father and arrested him sometime overnight. Her mother had gone off to Dallas after trying to borrow some money from Tim, who’d refused.

Once the release papers had been signed, Matt and Tate got into a heated argument. He’d wanted to carry her to his truck and she’d looked at him like he’d lost his mind.

“I’ll do the wheelchair thing like I’m supposed to but you’re not carrying me.” She slapped his hands away as he’d tried to pick her up.

“Why not? Tate, honey, let me help you.”

“You’re insane. You can push the wheelchair.”

He growled at her and she raised a regal, white-blonde brow at him. Sighing, Nathan pushed his way into the discussion.

“As fascinating as it is to watch you two argue over stupid shit like this, let’s motor. Matt, push the damned wheelchair, she doesn’t want you to pick her up because she thinks she’s too heavy. You, Tate, sit your ass down and shut up.”

Tate did that cute little hmpfing thing and Matt thought about arguing over how stupid it was that she thought he couldn’t pick up a bitty scrap of a woman like her. He could carry two hundred pounds on his back up a ladder during a fire for God’s sake, but she really was cute when she made that sound.

They got her settled in at her house. He tucked her into bed with some magazines while one of her sisters made tea. His mother had wanted to come over but already Tate’s little house was bursting at the seams with Murphys so Polly agreed to bring over some food later that day.

Tate had fallen asleep by the time the tea had steeped so he left her to rest in the cool, darkened room and snuck quietly out to the living room where her family waited.

“Is she all right?” Beth asked, putting the tray with the tea on it down.

“She’s asleep.” Matt fell onto the couch.

“You need the sleep too. Do you need to go home? To work?” Tim asked from across the room.

“I’m good. I took the next three days off. I planned to stay here. Are you all okay with that?”

“More than okay with it. But one of us will stay here too.” Anne drank some iced tea, rocking slowly. The house was shaded by several large willow and oak trees and the air conditioning kept it cool as well. Still, it was July in Petal and the heat rose from the pavement out front in dizzying waves.

“Mostly me, Anne and Nathan,” Beth spoke up. “Jill and Jacob have summer classes so they need to go home and William and Tim have kids and wives.”

“Hey, doesn’t mean I won’t do my duty here!” William grumbled. “She’s mine too, damn it.”

“William, we know that. She knows that. But you know how she is. She’d worry about Cindy being alone with the kids and you being here. She’d worry about you not being at work. She’ll worry about Susan at the shop and Tim’s business if he’s not there. You can come by in the evenings. Back me up when I insist she take the rest of the week off.”

“She can’t mean to go back to work just yet anyway!” Matt looked at them all.

Tim snorted. “She’d have gone back today if we’d have let her. Tate views any kind of illness or injury as a weakness. She’s the hardest worker I know. We’ll have to wrestle her to keep her from going to the shop this week, crutches and all.”