Page 119 of Her Ex-Husband's Brother

Her head sinks back against my thigh, spent.

“Why didn’t you come to me sooner if it’s been this bad?” I ask thickly, reaching over to wrestle the seat belt awkwardly around her before I pull out onto the street.

She shrugs, barely a movement against my leg. “It just felt… normal.”

Something in my chest ratchets straight past boiling into some register of furious I don’t have a name for. Somewhere near the heat of the seventh fire of hell.

“Because it’s not the first time he’s poisoned you,” I mutter, just as horrified but no longer shocked.

She’s said she had migraines on and off her whole marriage.

So what sets him off? What triggers it? Anytime she got a little too—what, self-reliant? He makes her sick so she stays dependent? So she can never quite trust her own body enough to leave?

With her this fragile, I drive slow and careful, which is its own kind of difficult with how wired and furious I feel.

My fists go white-knuckled around the wheel, steadier than they have any right to be. It’s the same trick I use to keep a needle from shaking over somebody’s skin. Right now, though, I’d give anything for my hands to just shake like a normal person’s would.

At least the sheriff’s substation is less than five miles out. She’ll be safe the second I get her there, and hell, we can make them call an ambulance from the lobby if she won’t let me take her straight to a hospital.

Meanwhile I’m quietly losing it, convinced every decision I’m making is the wrong one.

“Lennon. Len? Fuck, are you still with me?”

“Jesus, I’m not dying, August.”

“Well how the hell do I know that? You’ve been poisoned.”

“Not enough to kill me. I really don’t think he was trying to kill me…” her voice goes distant. “Yet.”

“That’s not as comforting as you think it is.”

“Are we at the station?” She starts to sit up and I ease her back down.

“Not yet. Stop moving. You’re gonna make yourself sick.”

“I’m already super nauseous. And you’ll regret it if I throw up all over your lap.”

“Good grief, woman. Just stay put. GPS says two minutes. Can you stay put for two minutes?”

“Maybe,” she allows, grumpy about it.

I’d laugh at how adorable she is, if the circumstances weren’t so goddamn dire. How does anybody look at a spirit like that and decide it needs snuffing out?

It’s a good thing I’ve got Lennon to focus on right now. I’m not a violent man, but I still feel like I could kill my brother with my bare hands if he were in front of me this second.

Probably not the best thing to be thinking on the drive to an actual sheriff’s station.

I pull into the gravel lot of the county substation south of Austin. It’s a squat brick building with a flagpole out front and a couple of cruisers nosed up against the curb. I ease into a spot close to the door. My hands don’t fully unclench from the wheel even after I’ve thrown it in park.

Lennon needs me cool-headed, so that’s what I’ll be. Same as when Owen needs me. I’ve learned how to keep my head in the game even when the crazy’s poking at the edges. Nobody needs manic, hot-headed August running loose right now.

“We’re here,” I say, gently helping Lennon up to sitting. She might be bound and determined to march in there herself, but I’ll be damned if she takes one step on those wobbly legs. I’ll carry her the whole way if I have to, then set her down in a chair once we’re inside so she’s got her dignity back?—

“Duck!” she gasps, and dives sideways for my thigh again the second I’ve got her upright.

She grabs me on the way down, nearly driving my face into the dashboard. I catch her against my chest at the last second and yank the seat-back lever, dropping us both flat.

“What?” My heart’s slamming.