Page 55 of The One Who Never Left: Colter

Somewhere between the pancakes, the coffee, and Lynlee informing Colter that syrup counted as a breakfast beverage, Sutton had taken a call on the porch and, just like that, he found himself alone in the living room with a four-year-old and absolutely no exit strategy.

No exit strategy and, worse, no interest in finding one.

He'd gone to refill his coffee and had come back to find every available inch of rug covered in plush livestock. The room looked like a toy store had detonated.

Casualties included: one dragon, one bear, and, from the looks of it, his entire morning.

A sparkly dragon with one wing bent sideways lay on its back near the fireplace and a one-eyed teddy bear slumped against the coffee table with the posture of a man who'd given up or was having a bad week. Three horses were lined up along the edge of the rug in what appeared to be an orderly waiting room, and sitting proudly in the middle of all of it was Lynlee, bright pink backpack unzipped beside her, watching the doorway with the patience of someone who had never once doubted he'd come back through it.

The moment she spotted him, her whole face opened up like her morning had a Colter-shaped space in it and he'd simply stepped back into place. "There you are."

He stood there for a moment longer than made sense, coffee cup in hand, feeling that greeting do something to him he wasn't entirely prepared for.

"What happened in here?" he asked.

Lynlee patted the empty spot beside her with the certainty of someone who had already decided how this was going to go. "I brung some patients that need patienting."

Patienting. Not a word. Also, apparently, a full-time job now.

He should have said something reasonable or mentioned he had a clinic opening in an hour, paperwork, and a dozen actual animals waiting on him—because what the hell did he know about two-legged two-foot-talls. Instead, he set his coffee on the end table and lowered himself to the rug beside her.

So much for the exit strategy.

"I knows you was gonna be here," she said, already unzipping the backpack further, to reveal bright-colored, plastic doctor instruments. "So I packed them before we left."

Something in his chest shifted that he had absolutely no protocol for. Because it was such a small thing to say, an offhand, matter-of-fact, an in-the-way-kids-stated-things vibe that adults spent years learning to hedge. She'd known he'd be here—not hoped or wondered. Known—with the clean, uncomplicated confidence of a child who had decided someone was reliable.

Somewhere along the way, without his permission, this little girl had started counting on him and he didn't know what to do with that. It sat in the center of his chest like something warm that he hadn't earned and wasn't sure he deserved.

A black horse emerged first from the backpack and, naturally, it had the dignified, well-worn look of a toy that had been through things—slightly flattened, soft in all the places that got held most, carrying a few mystery stains that were probably better left uninvestigated.

Standard occupational hazard. He'd seen worse on real horses.

Lynlee lifted him with both hands and placed him carefully in Colter's lap, the gesture so deliberate it felt like a formal transfer of responsibility. "This is Sir Neighs A Lot and he has a problem."

"Does he now?"

She nodded solemnly. "He won't stop sneezing."

Colter looked the horse over twice, making a big show of how thoroughly he was inspecting their first patient. "Has he always had this condition?"

"Since Tuesday."

"Tuesday specifically."

She gave a single nod that sent her blonde ringlets bouncing. "That's when it started. You’ll need this."

She handed him a pink stethoscope.

A pink stethoscope. He was going to be found dead in a field somewhere from an aneurysm caused entirely by how much he liked that she'd handed him the pink one without a second thought.

He placed the hard plastic nubs in his ears and turned Sir Neighs A Lot over in his hands with the full weight of clinical gravity—pressing an ear to the chest and inspecting each hoof with a concentration the situation absolutely did not require.

Lynlee watched him with the focused, unblinking attention of someone who had not once considered that he might not know what he was doing.

There was no test in her expression. No wait-and-see. Just trust, offered freely, the way she apparently offered everything — all the way, without conditions, without a fallback plan. It settled someplace that he couldn't quite locate. Some place past the ribs.

Or was it near his heart?