“Morning, children,” she said as brightly as she could manage. “Where’s Ava?”
“Rabbit green urn,” said Paige.
“I didn’t get that,” said Holly, confused and a little frightened she was mishearing things.
“Behind you,” said her sixteen-year-old, entering from the hall and stuffing her lunch sack into an already overloaded backpack. She looked up from her phone. “God, Mom, what’s with you? You look super pale.”
“I do?” Holly asked. “I guess I’m feeling a little off. You’re ready early.”
“Riding with Sienna. She and Zoe want to study for the algebra test.”
“Are you ready for the Shakespeare quiz, too?”
“Yes. Bye, Mom.”
And with that, her oldest daughter dashed away, raven curls bouncing on her shoulders, key chain, water bottle, school lanyard, and headphone cord all dangling from her backpack.
Holly dropped onto a stool next to Logan and patted his hand, thinking she probably shouldn’t get behind the wheel of a car right away. “Galenia, can you drive this morning? I’m not feeling well, and I think I need to lie down for a few minutes.”
“That’s fine, Mrs. Wright,” said Galenia.
“Paige, do you have practice today for The Music Man?”
“He’s a what? He’s a what? He’s a music man!” Paige sang energetically.
“Very funny.” At least she’d heard that clearly. She kissed Paige and Logan on the tops of their heads and made her way through the dining room, into the living room, and lowered herself onto the couch. She would be fine, she was sure—Wags’s hoof hadn’t caught her square—but for the moment she thought it safest to remain upright and keep her eyes open.
The sound of Galenia getting the kids ready and out the door came to her as if down a tunnel. Her thoughts were flitting between Wags, Theresa, the after-school schedule, and Jack when the door slammed and finally the house grew quiet. She could feel her pulse throbbing in her aching thigh. Ice, she thought.
When she woke up, Jack was coming down the hall, talking on his phone. She must have drifted off, after all.
“I’m not paying you to find problems,” he told someone. “I’m paying you to make them go away. Call me when you have.”
She was struggling to sit up when he passed the living room doorway. Seeing her, he slid his phone into the pocket of his University of Chicago hoodie. He was still unshaven.
With effort, she smiled and pushed her hair back from her face.
“Why aren’t you driving the kids?” he asked.
“I have a little bit of a headache, so I asked Galenia to do it.”
Stretching, she swung her legs onto the floor, feeling a throb and noticing that her right pant leg was almost painfully tight. Her thigh was swelling. Her head was no longer pounding, but something told her not to move her neck too quickly. She felt fragile.
“Holly, what’s wrong?”
“Wags,” she told him, resigning herself to the truth. “I startled him in the stable, and he kicked me.”
The look on his face was blink-and-miss-it, a small cloud sailing past the sun. Irritation, not concern.
“Where?”
She touched her temple.
He sat down and pulled his chair close. “Jesus, Holly. You weren’t wearing your helmet? Look at me.”
“I wore my helmet while I was riding,” she said weakly.
“Well, that’s fucking awesome,” he muttered.
They locked eyes, and she knew he was staring at her pupils, checking to see if they were dilated or one was larger than the other.
“Did you black out or lose consciousness?” he asked, working through the concussion protocol.
“No,” she answered.
“Do you remember everything that happened before and after he kicked you? Tell me.”
She did remember and thought she did an excellent job of re-creating the scene for Jack, right down to the unreality of staring at her hands on the stable floor.
“Your speech isn’t slurred,” he said, nodding in satisfaction. “Any sensitivity to light or noise?”
“A little,” she admitted.
“Did you throw up?”
She shook her head and realized she shouldn’t have.
“Your head hurts,” he said gently, touching her head with his fingertips and circling until he located the point of contact. “You’re going to have one hell of a bump.”
He stood and strode briskly out of the room. The freezer door snapped open, and she heard the rattle of ice cubes. Despite the reason, she enjoyed having his full attention. It was so rare these days.
He came back, screwing the cap onto an ice bag and handing it to her. He sat down, settled back in his chair, and studied her while she held the ice to her temple and felt the cool relief.
“You could get a CT scan, except I don’t think there’s a fracture, and bleeding seems unlikely. But we need to keep a close eye on your symptoms. Are you seeing patients today?”
“Just a few,” she said.
“Cancel them. Take it easy.”
“I will,” she told him, knowing she wouldn’t but liking that he wanted her to.
“He didn’t kick you anywhere else, did he?” asked Jack suddenly.
“My leg, but it’s fine.”
He rolled his eyes. “You should have gone into mixed martial arts. You’d have been great at taking a beating.”
He noted the swelling but was polite enough not to point out the obvious: she needed to ice that, too. Holly felt a warmth in her leg that could have been the injury but could also have been a wish that he would put his hand on her thigh and touch her tenderly.
“How was Buffalo?” she asked instead.
“A two-day trip that ended up being four? Remind me not to work with family foundations in the future. One of the brothers was having way too much fun dangling two-point-five mil over my head,” he said. “And I still don’t know if he’s on board.”
“Sounds like a pissing contest. Don’t you usually win those?”
He grinned, and something stirred inside her, more than just fleeting arousal. Longing? Regret? After twenty-one years of knowing him, nineteen of those married, sometimes it was difficult to separate the two. Sometimes when she was riding, she
