From his vantage point, he could see her in the rearview mirror, her brows down in concentration, her lips parted.

He got hard.

He didn’t mean to. He didn’t want to. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to do anything about it. But here it was—the adult equivalent of a high school boy’s come-up-and-solve-this-math-problem nightmare.

Man, this trip kept getting any better, the pair of them were going to be struck by a bajillion joules of wake-up juice.

With a jerk, he made sure his blazer was covering his lap, and then Beth was working her way down his shirt and pulling the tails out as she went. Which meant a whole lot of him was getting airtime.

Well, at least he wasn’t as preoccupied with his Freddy Krueger.

“I’ll take it from here,” he said gruffly.

“You’re not going to manage. Lean toward me.”

Mack slowly shifted off the back of the seat, bringing them close together. She was talking about something, God only knew what, going on and on as if nothing particularly notable was happening … while she stripped his chest and shoulders.

“… butter, you know? Right from the fridge. I don’t know if it worked on my neck burn necessarily, but I smelled like I had breakfast for perfume when I went to the dance. The boys were crazy for me.”

Laugh, you idiot, he told himself.

“That’s funny,” he said.

“Oh … Mack.”

As she looked down and shook her head, he thought for a cringing moment she had noticed his erection, but no, his wet blazer was still covering up everything.

Actually, she had managed to get the shirt completely off where he’d been burned, the thing now hanging damply from his “good” arm. Like it was depressed it wasn’t going to get to go to a party.

“You’re going to need a doctor,” she said at the horrible red bomb burst in his skin.

“It’s fine.”

“You’d say that if you had an arterial bleed, wouldn’t you?”

That was when she looked at him.

And instantly she went still … as if she knew exactly where his brain had gone—and it certainly was not on her radiator, his arm, or any kind of medical intervention.

Not unless she was playing nurse to his patient and was half naked at the time.

Damn it, he was a pig.

“I’m fine,” he said again as he focused on her lips—and wondered what they felt like. Tasted like.

Her eyes drifted down to his pecs and his abs—and man, he was glad that he had never been afraid of physical labor. And that he was in a basketball league that played hard twice a week. And that he could bench-press twice his weight, easy.

Clearing her throat, she eased out of reach. “Ah … so, the hospital?”

“I’m fine.” His voice was so low it was all gravel. And where the hell had the rest of his grown-up words gone? “Don’t worry about it.”

She put her hands on the wheel and stared out the front windshield, as though for the life of her she couldn’t remember where they’d ended up stopping. Or why. Or what they were doing in the car.

“No,” she said as she put the engine in drive. “I’m taking you to the emergency room. Text whoever you need to, but we’re not going to make it to the visitation.”

“Stay at one of the cottages, then.”

As Lane spoke to Max, he removed his bow tie and folded the thing into the side pocket of his jacket. The foyer was empty of people, but that had been the case all afternoon, hadn’t it.

When his brother didn’t respond, Lane took that as a “fuck no.” “Come on, how about it? I think I heard from Lizzie that the second cottage from the end is open. Key’s under the front mat and it’s furnished.”

He wasn’t sure whether Max heard him or not. The guy was staring through the archway into the parlor, at that portrait of Elijah Bradford.

In the background, thunder and lightning did a rumble-tumble through the sky, the open front door seeming to invite the storm inside. Then again, the tornado was already in the house. Had been for the past few weeks.

“Max?” Lane prompted.

“Sorry. Yeah, I’ll stay down there.” His brother glanced over. “Edward looks …”

“I know.”

“I’d read the papers … but the articles hadn’t had a lot of pictures with them.”

“It’s also different in person.”

“I’m not used to it yet.”

As Lane’s phone went off in his breast pocket, he took the thing out and wasn’t surprised at the text indicating that John Lenghe’s plane had been rerouted due to bad weather. Just as well. He was exhausted and not up for an epic game of poker right now.

Before he could put it away, a second text came through, almost as if the storms had caused a cellular tower to briefly blink out before starting to function again. Mack couldn’t make it either. Something about car trouble.

Not missing much, Lane typed to his old buddy.

“You need some food?” he asked Max.

“I ate before I came.”

“How long are you here for?”

“I don’t know. Long as I can stand it.”

“In that case, we might as well say our good-byes now,” Lane said dryly.

Funny, his brother’s roughneck exterior belied the fact that Max had a Yale education behind that scruff. Proof positive you shouldn’t judge books by covers, et cetera … although maybe the guy had done so many drugs that he’d rusted all that higher learning out of his brain cells.

“You know …” Max cleared his throat. “I have no idea why I came back.”

“Well, a piece of advice. Find that out before you leave. It’s more efficient. Oh, but make sure you say hello to Miss Aurora, okay? She’s going to want to see you.”

“Yeah. And yes, I know she’s ill.”

For a split second, a flag got raised, but Lane lost track of the warning or instinct or whatever it was. And then a flash of silver blue outside in the circular drive caught his eye. It was Sutton Smythe out in the rain, her hairdo ruined, her fancy suit soaked, her high heels splashing through puddles. She wasn’t running, though. She was walking as slowly as if it were just the gloaming on a summer night.

“Sutton!” Lane called out as he rushed for the doorway. “Do you want an umbrella?”