Page 172 of Shadowing You

This time, his family had come, every one of them.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Mei Lin held still beside Ethan, whose breaths were shallow and careful, each one measured against the ache in his ribs. They sat on the couch in the living room of Sam and Eliza Wright’s home. Sam was one of Ethan’s cousins, and he and his wife were two of the many people she remembered from the hospital—kind people who’d driven from a couple of hours away to try to help Mei Lin and Ethan escape Lu and his men.

Her family had been so small—Mama, Bàba, Renshu, and Bàba’s mother, who had lived close by. Mei Lin’s parents had no siblings, so Mei Lin and Renshu had no cousins, no aunts and uncles, no extended family. She’d never known enough to want a big family—there were no large families in her small village. But the more Wrights Mei Lin met, the more she realized what she’d missed. And the more she hoped to fill her own house with kids someday.

Ethan shifted, his hand pressing against his ribs.

She grabbed a throw pillow from an adjacent chair. “It will help, you know.”

He took it and hugged it against his chest. “But I look ridiculous.”

His eyes were bruised. He had a cut on one cheek and a sling holding his left arm still against his torso. “You look like a man who almost killed himself saving his wife’s life. Not ridiculous. A hero.”

He shook his head as though he found her amusing, despite the fact that her words were as obvious as his wounds.

He’d been discharged from the hospital that morning, and Gavin had driven them two hours from the mountains in northern New Hampshire, through forest and farmland in Maine, and then up a long hill to a house with a wall of glass that overlooked the rocky coast.

Ethan had climbed the front steps without help, though both she and Gavin had hovered, just in case—which seemed to annoy him, but what did he expect?

Her own body ached, though her injuries were minor—bruises from being tackled into the dirt, scratches from snapping tree branches she’d driven too close to in her desperation to escape Lu and his men. Plus a few aches that came from sleeping beside Ethan, taking up as little space as possible. Or maybe those aches were from not sleeping, thanks to the monitors and nurses and her fear that the doctors had missed something, that he wasn’t going to survive.

But they had both survived, somehow. It was a miracle.

Eliza stepped in from the kitchen with a tray of drinks and a small board of cheese and cured meat. “To keep your strength up until dinner.”

Eliza was older than Mei Lin and beautiful with shiny dark-brown shoulder-length hair and large hazel eyes.

“You don’t have to fuss over us.” Ethan tried to sit up straighter and failed, wincing with the effort. “We could’ve gone to a hotel.”

“And offended both of us.” Eliza winked. “We’re happy to have you.” A squeak of springs carried down from upstairs, and she tipped her face toward the ceiling. “He’s jumping on the bed again. You two make yourselves at home.” She started up the stairs, calling, “Levi, you know the rules!”

How was Mei Lin supposed to make herself at home in a place like this, with a family she hadn’t known a week before? And yet, Sam and Eliza seemed to want them to feel comfortable. They’d given them a bedroom upstairs with a view of the water and an attached bathroom. They were planning some kind of party for the next day because, as Sam had explained, “Everybody wants to see you before you head back to Virginia. Not that you won’t be back.”

Would they be back? Mei Lin didn’t know if this family would truly embrace Ethan, much less herself. They’d been kind, but how did they really feel about a son who didn’t belong to his father’s wife? Or about having an Asian in the family?

These Wrights had been welcoming, but how far would that extend? And if they ultimately rejected Ethan…how much pain could they inflict?

Too much, she thought, for a man who deserved only good things.

She chose a cracker, a slice of meat—she didn’t know what kind—and a sliver of cheese and handed them to Ethan.

“Thanks.” He ate them, then took a sip of the water she held for him. “I’m not really hungry.”

“Not hungry?” She pressed her hand to her heart. “Are you sick? Dying? Should I call an ambulance?”

“Haha.” His not-real-laugh died on a yawn, which made her yawn as well.

Ethan set the pillow on his lap. “Take a nap, sweetheart.”

“Here? In the living room?” They would think her rude, asleep in the middle of the day in another woman’s home.

“Suit yourself.” He leaned his head against the cushion and closed his eyes. “I need to rest.”

She held out against it for a little while, but when Eliza came back down the stairs, she barely glanced at Ethan and Mei Lin on her way back to the kitchen.

Ethan’s breathing had already evened beside her, and the warmth of the room and the long weight of the week pulled her down, and she lowered her head to the pillow on his lap and let go.