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As soon as I opened the door, she gave me a subdued smile as she passed into the kitchen through the laundry room.
“Come on,” Anya yelled, sprinting for the stairs, “I’ll show you my room. I have a pink canopy!”
“Uhh, okay.”
Isabel exhaled a soft laugh. “I don’t think he’ll act suitably impressed.” As she walked slowly into the family room, her gaze lit on the wall of windows, pitched in an A-frame, overlooking the sprawling view of Lake Sammamish. “It’s beautiful,” she said.
“Thanks,” I replied. “Do you want to go straight to bed? Or rest on the couch?”
Her eyes flew to mine, her cheeks becoming a shade of pink. “Which room should I use? I wouldn’t mind a nap.”
I blew out a hard breath because I hadn’t thought this piece through. The guest room, which I’d assumed Emmett would use, was across the hall from Anya’s room on the second floor. The third bedroom—my own—was on the main floor, along the back of the house with the same view as the family room. I gestured in that direction. “You can sleep back there. I don’t want to make you do stairs.”
Without argument, Isabel walked in that direction, and when I pulled the Tylenol out of the cabinet in the kitchen, I had to take a moment. Hands braced on the kitchen counter, I pushed through the feeling that I’d made a massive mistake by doing this.
As soon as I strode through the living room, painkillers in one hand and an ice pack in the other, and caught sight of her sitting on the edge of my bed, I knew I had.
She took the pain meds without complaint, allowing me to pull back the covers so she could slide in. Not a word was spoken as she settled herself onto my pillow, let me set the ice pack on her hip. For that, I was glad because I didn’t even know what to say.
Isabel Ward was the blood-red apple, tempting just by being herself. She was the thing I shouldn’t want but might wreck the world around me in order to try.
One taste, even the smallest indulgence, and I’d know exactly what I was missing.
If I allowed myself to, I’d want to devour her whole. Because there were no half measures, not with her. There might be a hundred things I didn’t know about her. What her favorite food was. If she was a good dancer. If she liked action movies or romances or stories that made her cry. If she liked to read or if ice cream in the winter sounded good to her.
The frantic urge to uncover each and every thing took me by surprise. Because I’d never felt anything like it.
It was impossible not to compare it to Beth, and I hated that too. Beth had been slow, sweet growth. And this … this was not in the same universe.
I walked out of the bedroom and took a deep breath because I didn’t need to figure it out immediately.
While she slept soundly in my bed, I fed the kids dinner, and we walked down to the lake for a little bit.
After we got back to the house, I quietly pushed the door open. She was on her back now, her wrapped wrist laying on her chest, which rose and fell evenly.
“Are you going to wake her up?” Anya whispered.
I ushered her away from the door. “Soon. She’s only been asleep for a couple of hours. I’ll give her another hour and then see if I can wake her up.”
Emmett gave me a nervous look from where he sat on the couch. “And if you can’t?”
“I’ll be able to,” I promised him. “She’ll be okay, bud. You said she never passed out when she … when they fell?” I almost stuttered over the question because it sparked a dangerous, violent reaction in my head if I tried to imagine her and Anya crashing to the ground. Something volatile.
He shook his head. “No, she said way too many bad words when she hit the ground.”
Reluctantly, I smiled. “That’s a good sign.” I tilted my head toward the bedroom. “Your parents gonna be mad when they find out about this?”
His eyes got huge. “Oh yeah. I was actually supposed to FaceTime with my mom tonight, but maybe I’ll just ignore it so she doesn’t find out and try to get a flight home. My dad has to coach tomorrow.”
If I had to guess, missing a game would be an easy sacrifice for both of them, but I didn’t tell him that.
“Is Isabel’s phone in her backpack?”
He shrugged. “Probably.”
Her pack was still sitting on the floor by the door, right where she’d left it when she walked in. After turning on a movie for the kids, I picked it up, pausing before I unzipped the front pocket.
The phone was right there, and when I touched the screen, I saw a few texts and two missed calls from Paige.
