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Beverly. Jackson’s mom? Of course, she was Louise’s best friend. Adrenaline kicked in and fear sent me into motion. “Are you at home?”
“Yes, dear.”
“Stay right there, Aunt Louise. I’m coming.”
I didn’t have Beverly’s number so I texted Jackson with fumbling fingers as I hurried out to my rental car. I told him to tell his mom about Aunt Louise. He texted back instantly that he was on it.
On the way to her place, my mind went to a dark place. What if she was having a heart attack? As my mind raced, I turned on the car’s Bluetooth and called my parents and my sister. No one picked up—they were most likely at work—so I left voicemails. I was still wondering if I should have called the paramedics when I pulled into Aunt Louise’s driveway.
The door was unlocked and I rushed in to find her sitting on her sofa sipping a cup of tea and looking altogether far too happy. And healthy.
“Aunt Louise, are you okay?” I asked through panting breaths.
“I’m fine, dear.” She didn’t have the sick pallor of someone having a heart attack. She wasn’t sweating or breathing hard. Her lips weren’t blue or pressed together in pain.
I stared at her for a moment as my heart rate returned to a normal pace. It seemed I might be the one with heart problems. “What was that on the phone? I thought you were having a heart attack!”
She patted the sofa beside her and I sat down heavily, unzipping my coat and tugging off my hat. “Must have just been heartburn from the spicy BBQ leftovers. I shouldn’t have eaten them for breakfast. Sorry to worry you.”
But she wasn’t sorry, not at all. I recognized that glimmer in her eye, it was the same one I’d seen at the holiday party when she and her friends were scheming to get me and the guys to admit we were together.
No, she wouldn’t have…
Sure enough, there was a knock at the door. There, on the doorstep, were my own personal knights in shining armor. They slammed the door closed behind them and rushed to us. Dash wore his white vet’s coat and Jackson had his nametag pinned to his shirt. It was obvious they’d run out of the animal hospital to get to Aunt Louise.
Shit, they looked good when they were being heroic. Dash knelt in front of Aunt Louise and took hold of her wrist to check her pulse as Jackson grabbed me by the arms. “What can we do to help?”
“Let me guess,” I said to them. “Your mother sent you guys over here?”
They looked at me, then gave Aunt Louise an assessing gaze. Dash winced after he let go of her wrist. Jackson groaned. “No chest pains?”
I added my glare to theirs but Aunt Louise only offered a brilliant, too-innocent smile in return.
“Seriously, Aunt Louise? Did you and Beverly really think you could make me stay by having you fake a medical emergency?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t fake anything.” Patting her chest, she said, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d better go take some antacid for this heartburn.”
She might have managed to fool someone with that little act if she hadn’t stopped on her way out to whisper to Jackson, “This is the second time we’ve stepped in to help. I expect you boys can take it from here.”
He dropped his head into his hands as she left the room. “I can’t believe we fell for this.”
“Seriously,” Dash said, settling onto the couch that Aunt Louise just vacated. “But then, I hadn’t expected your mom and her friends to take it to this extreme. What were they trying to prove, anyway?”
I was just as irritated as they were, if not more. I’d probably aged ten years in the car ride to my aunt’s. But I knew exactly what they were trying to prove.
Aunt Louise and her friends wanted me to see that Dash and Jackson would always be there for me. That they would come running whenever I needed them, just as I had for Aunt Louise. That this wasn’t about sex. This was about so much more. My throat tightened at the thought of that kind of loyalty—at the kind of commitment it demanded in return.
I hadn’t thought when Aunt Louise had called. I cared for her, worried after her and broke every law on my way, forgetting about everything else but her.
“We’re sorry,” Jackson said, coming to sit on the other side of me and pull me into him, his arm around my shoulder.
“Why are you sorry?” I asked, leaning into the touch. He felt so good. Big and strong. God, they smelled good.
I knew then if there really had been something wrong with Aunt Louise he’d be there for me. Helping me through it. Dash, too.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
He shook his head. “We promised that no one would push you into staying. I don’t know what they were thinking, but when I—”
