Temporary Father. Anna Adams

shirt. “Eli, she’s bleeding. Try not to be afraid.”

      “Lucy.” He slid down a couple of steps. The dog whined from below. Beth scrambled past Eli on the stairs and this time he held her back. “She’s mine. I’ll help her.”

      Beth had no intention of letting him take care of their poor, sweet girl on his own. She reached Aidan first.

      “Let’s wrap her in these towels and you can sit with her on the back seat of my car, honey.” Using one of the towels, she wiped the dog’s forehead, revealing a gash that welled again. “Who the hell was shooting on your uncle’s property?” She pressed her cheek to Lucy’s ear. “Don’t worry, baby.”

      The dog fought hard to reach Beth. Taking her out of Aidan’s arms, Beth let Eli help carry her, stumbling across loose gravel to the car.

      He yanked the back door open. “Hurry, Mom.”

      “Slide across the seat.” Together, they eased Lucy in. Beth arranged the towels on Eli’s lap, and Lucy laid her head on his thigh. He cuddled her the way Beth used to hold him when he was hurt.

      She dug for her keys. Thank God she’d already tucked them into her pocket. She walked straight into Aidan’s chest, but he held her off, his hands big, unsettling on her shoulders. “You don’t have to come with us.” Slipping around him, she hurried to the driver’s seat.

      “Are you kidding? I have to know if she’s all right.”

      He jumped into the front passenger seat, and Beth hesitated only a moment. She didn’t want him to—but Lucy was hurt, and Eli’s empty stare in the mirror terrified Beth. She skidded backward through the gravel, but then straightened out to rocket down the driveway.

      Aidan hooked his hand into the bar above his window.

      “All right, Mom,” Eli said. “We’ll get you to the doc in no time, Lucy.”

      “Eli, why don’t you get my phone out of my purse and call Dr. Patrick?”

      Gently settling Lucy, he leaned forward, but her bag wasn’t there. “Where is it?”

      She could see it—on the kitchen counter. “At home.”

      “Mom, your driver’s license.”

      Lucy whined, but more as she did when she couldn’t get comfortable on her bed. Beth glanced at her and then back at the road. “You worry too much for one so young, Eli.”

      “So will the cops,” Aidan said.

      “You’re flying, Mom.”

      “They can join the parade. Lucy’s our girl.”

      “Yeah.” Eli sat back with satisfaction and rubbed his dog’s side. She whimpered again and Beth pressed harder on the gas.

      She glanced at Aidan. “If you’ve brought your wallet, you can drive us back.”

      IN THE VET’S OFFICE, Eli paced awhile, and then Beth wrapped him in one arm and persuaded him to sit. Her fear for him spread around the room in a soft cloud of panic. She tried to be brave and self-sufficient, but her son was her weak spot, and she couldn’t hide it.

      Aidan stared at his lap. At his hands. Neither vain nor overly modest, he knew he was a capable man. Normally strong as a horse, he wouldn’t think twice about taking charge of a last-gasp company or a knock-down, drag-out brawl in one of the pubs where nobody knew his name.

      But he hadn’t been wise or strong enough to save his wife, and he was tired of fighting grief and guilt.

      Eli’s distress was familiar to him. It was like looking into a film of his own past.

      How many times would he live it all again? His heart still thudded with the disbelief he’d felt as they’d told him about Madeline. Finally, he’d seen the letter they’d pushed into his open palm.

      He scrubbed at his hand with the other.

      She’d tried so long to tell him she was in trouble, but his idea of help—doctors, meds for her undeniable depression—had all been useless. He’d loved her. He’d held her while she’d cried, and he’d kept repeating he loved her. She’d sworn he didn’t even want to be with her.

      He’d begged her to come along when he’d traveled, but she’d refused to leave their house.

      “Aidan?”

      He looked up, his head as heavy as a wrecking ball. He shouldn’t like the sound of Beth’s voice so much. He hardly knew her, but he’d lost a woman who could fight no longer, and he couldn’t help being drawn to Beth’s inability to back down from a fight.

      “Huh?” he said.

      She glanced at the people around them. “Are you—” She stopped as she looked into Eli’s curious eyes, but she kept on, lowering her voice. “Are you all right?”

      “Fine.” He might have preferred she pretend nothing was wrong with him, but mattering to someone was good—even in a room full of strangers.

      In the corner, an older man concentrated on his silent parrot in a cage on his lap. A woman who looked pretty pissed because their dog had gone before her solid, superior cat, sniffed.

      “Fine,” Aidan said again.

      Beth hugged her son. Eli endured her affection, but then shrugged out of her reach, sliding to the farthest edge of his steel-and-orange-vinyl chair.

      Aidan read the boy’s mind. Keep your hands off me, but please make this stop hurting. Again, he made Aidan think of Madeline. She’d needed more affection than he could give unless he held her twenty-four hours a day. And even then…

      Eli was desperate and blank all at the same time, need and aloofness that looked too familiar. He shifted his feet.

      What was he thinking, really?

      That Eli might be in trouble, the way Madeline had been? No one had to warn Aidan he was carrying a masochistic load of guilt, that he might be seeing phantoms. But what if he wasn’t wrong?

      This family was raw. He couldn’t step aside when he saw someone else in trouble. He’d never intruded on anyone’s privacy. Too busy. Too smart. Far too comfortable with his own life.

      Until Madeline had chosen to die.

      He looked at Beth, needing to say her son reminded him of his wife. She walked to the plate-glass windows. A couple of cars whispered past, filled with people caught up in their own errands or pleasure, oblivious to life going on around them.

      He loved the idea of oblivion now that he couldn’t get any.

      Beth took a few circuits around the brick-lined waiting room, and then she sat, far from him and Eli. The lady’s cat, two seats away from Beth’s new spot, stared at her a second, but then turned, wobbling as it balanced its bulk on four tiny-in-comparison paws, to face the other direction.

      Eli paced next, his sneakers squeaking on hard linoleum. He collapsed beside his mother. The cat tightened all its muscles.

      “It’s my fault, Mom.”

      “What?”

      “Everything.” Like her, he ignored the people glancing his way or looking studiously everywhere else.

      Beth had eyes only for him. “Lucy’s all right.”

      As she tried to put her arm around him, he pushed away. “Mom.” He put “I’m not a baby” into her name. “I shouldn’t have left her outside.”

      Beth leaned into him. “Lucy got hurt in her own fenced yard. She might not have been safe at our place. She might not have been safe inside if someone had shot toward the house.”

      “Nobody did.” He lifted his hand and angled his thumb toward his mouth and bit down.

      The world pitched. Madeline had done