“We aren’t Dad, there’s –” Carrie started but Dad interrupted her.

“We’re out of beer,” Dad stated firmly. “Mack, Carrie, you comin’ to town with me?”

Carrie looked down at Mack and Mack looked up at Carrie. Then without glancing in any direction but the door, Dad, Mack and Carrie walked out of it.

Carefully, because my stab wound miraculously didn’t hit anything vital, but it still hurt like a mother, I twisted to look up at Tate.

“Baby, you should go talk to Jonas.”

Tate was staring at the TV screen, a commercial now on, he lifted the remote and I heard it go mute. Then he looked down at me and I held my breath at the anger still darkening his features.

“What happened to you isn’t exciting. The aftermath of it, with those f**kin’ buzzards circling, isn’t cool. It’s f**ked. He needs to get that.”

“He’s coping,” I said softly, “the only way he knows how.”

“And you?” Tate shot back a question that confused me.

“Me, what?” I asked.

“I was in that house, Lauren. When we went after Jim-Billy, I saw where he had you, I saw what you saw. I saw your blood on that mattress. Are you coping?”

“Well…” I said, “yeah.”

He stared at me, his jaw went hard and a muscle ticked there.

Then he bit out, “Bullshit.”

I turned fully to him. I was lying partly on him, partly on the couch but my movements brought me fully on him. They also hurt but I fought back the pain and put my hand to his heavily stubbled jaw (he hadn’t shaved, not since that night, he was growing back the beard, for me).

“Honey,” I whispered, “I’m okay.”

“I saw what you saw and I wasn’t tied to a mattress,” Tate repeated.

“I’m okay,” I repeated too.

Then Tate glared at me, his entire frame tensed the length of mine and he roared, “He cut off your goddamned hair!”

I stilled and stared at him as Tate shifted out from under me and stalked out of the room. I lay on the couch continuing to stare at where I last saw him. I knew something like this was going to happen eventually. Tate had been nursing a slow burn for days and Tate wasn’t the kind of man to let it smolder and then burn out. He was the kind of man who let it explode.

Gingerly, I got to my feet and followed him.

As I did, my hands went to my hair which Dominic had come to the hospital to do an emergency cut and style on the day I was released which was Christmas Eve, making it seriously nice, Dom showing up like that. But he’d said reporters were outside and “no girlie of mine is gonna face the media with bad hair”.

Dalton hadn’t got the chance to take it all, it now brushed my shoulders and it looked good because Dominic was a master. That said, I liked it better longer and, apparently, so did Tate.

I hit the bedroom and saw Tate standing, staring out the side window to which he’d yanked up the blinds.

“Tate –” I started the minute I hit the room, he turned sharply toward me and I stopped talking and moving when I caught the look at his face.

“Neet’s hair was there, and Tonia’s, and Sunny’s and yours was in a bag, ready for his trophy wall. Jim-Billy hadn’t shown up, you’d have been on that wall, Lauren.”

“But I wasn’t,” I whispered.

“We would have been too late,” Tate ground out.

“You don’t know that.”

“He didn’t hit anything important with his first thrust. He had enough time to get in a second, a third, he could have cut you places, babe, places that only I –”

“Stop it, Tate.” I was still whispering.

“I should have killed him.”

“Stop it.”

“He cut your hair. He cut you. You didn’t see Jonas, babe, you were livin’ your nightmare and me and my boy were livin’ an entirely different one but, trust me, Ace, it was a f**kin’ nightmare.”

“I know,” I whispered.

“I don’t need that shit from the TV to remember it. I don’t need it on the phone. I don’t need it in town. I don’t need it shoved down my throat everywhere I turn which means I don’t need it from my son.”

I moved as swiftly across the room as I could and put my hands to his abs.

“Lower your voice, Captain,” I hissed.

“He took you from me,” Tate bit back.

“He didn’t, Tate, I’m right here,” I reminded him.

“He took you from me, right from my goddamned house.”

“He didn’t. I’m right here.”

“I called him to take you to work, bring you home. I trusted that sick f**k to keep you safe and he took you from me.”

There it was, the crux of his anger. Tate was blaming himself.

I pressed into him, lifting my hands to hold each side of his head and I shook it, repeating, “Baby, I’m right here.”

Tate closed his eyes.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I whispered and Tate opened his eyes.

“I trusted that sick f**k to keep you safe,” he repeated.

“I trusted him too,” I told him. “I opened the door to him. So did Tonia. So did Neeta.” I fitted myself into his front and slid the fingers of both of my hands into his hair, pulling his neck to bent and his face closer to mine. “And I didn’t do anything wrong either. He’s crazy and now he’s incarcerated.”

“It’s gonna haunt you,” he informed me.

“It’s not me who’s not sleeping,” I reminded him and his whole body jerked.

This was true. I’d only been home three days but every night I knew he woke because, when he did, he woke me. And when I was in the hospital, he stayed with me all day, all night, the last night climbing into my hospital bed with me and holding me close. I woke twice because hospitals were noisy and both times I saw Tate awake, eyes open, staring at the ceiling.

I pushed up on my toes so my face was an inch from his and I whispered, “You’re beside me, baby, I’m sleeping just fine.”

Both his hands came up to cup the back of my head as he murmured, “Laurie.”

“I lay on that mattress and I knew you’d find me. I ran through those woods, Tate, and I knew you’d be looking for me. I was shouting because I knew you’d hear me. And I ran right into you because you were coming for me.”

His mouth lowered to mine. “Baby.”