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“Me?” I gestured to myself.

“Yeah, we’re officially assigning you to take Chloe on all the things she wants to do.” His gaze had a knowing glint.

I pressed my tongue into my cheek before nodding. “When we have the next short cross-country skiing jaunt, I’ll take you.”

“I’ll look it up,” Chloe said.

“Well, you do schedule all the trips, so that would be logical,” Asher pointed out, glancing between us. I knew he sensed something was up, but then, with my brothers, we all knew each other well.

“What’s for dinner?” I asked, just as he turned to walk out.

“I don’t know, you’ll have to ask Tommy,” he tossed back over his shoulder.

If it were anyone other than Chloe, I would’ve just turned and followed him. But with Chloe, I always wanted to linger. As soon as the sound of his footsteps faded enough, I met her gaze again. Just then, her phone vibrated on her desk. She glanced down at it where it sat innocuously on her desk. It was as if a dark cloud passed across the sky, blotting out the sun in an instant.

“Is that whoever texted you the other night?” I asked.

The sound of her swallow was audible. “Yeah.”

“You want to tell me what happened?”

Chapter Twenty

Chloe

Things we carry

You want to tell me what happened?

Lincoln’s question echoed in my thoughts as I stared at my reflection in the mirror. No, I did not want to tell anybody what happened. I absolutely hated talking about it. It hurt too much.

There were different degrees of betrayal. For me, I’d discovered that having my high-school best friend betray me hurt so much sometimes I couldn’t breathe. Tears burned in my eyes. I swung away from the mirror almost forcefully. I didn’t want to see the pain in my reflection. If I thought Lincoln could fix it, I would tell him everything.

I raced through a shower, glancing down at my hip. The bruise was starting to spread. I loved baths and planned to indulge in one later to try to ease the ache in my hip. The soreness was setting in, but I knew it would’ve been worse without Lincoln insisting on the ibuprofen. I tended to stay so busy that I forgot things, or ignored them, or planned to do them later.

A short while later, I hurried down to the kitchen for dinner. “Hey, Chloe,” Maggie called over as I came walking in.

“Hey.” I smiled over at her.

“I heard you went snowshoeing today.”

“It was fun. Definitely going to do it again.”

“Well, apparently, Lincoln is in charge of taking you on all the new things you haven’t done yet,” she added.

“What else is there to do other than snowshoeing and cross-country skiing? Maybe I haven’t hiked many mountains yet, but I have walked, so I can handle that,” I teased.

“There’s rock climbing, ice climbing and ice fishing too,” Grady called over.

“Ice fishing? My dad has mentioned that, but it sounds cold,” I pointed out. “I’m game for most things. I’m not so sure about the ice climbing, though. What if the ice breaks and I fall?”

“It’s possible, but not likely,” Grady offered dryly.

I let out a breath just as I heard footsteps. We were in the more public area of the kitchen, and it could have been anyone walking in. But I knew it was Lincoln, and my pulse kicked up its heels.

“Hey, hey,” Lincoln said as he reached my side. “How you doing?”

“Good.”