When the driver pulled up to the hotel entrance, I let out a sigh, feeling like I’d just survived some kind of challenge. Jacob helped me out and paid the driver, looking like he wanted to carry me inside and through the lobby, but I stopped that by bouncing up the stairs on my own.
The few people inside the lobby gaped at me as I came in. I probably looked like I’d just been an extra in some new slasher movie. Checking out the panel of windows facing the ocean, I noticed the waves looked the same size as they had earlier today. The wind even looked like it had slowed down some.
“Any update on the storm?” I asked the woman at the reception desk.
She smiled and tried not to stare at me like I was a freak show. “It’s going to miss us. Looks like we’ll just get a bit of wind and a lot of rain probably.”
Jacob was waiting beside me, an impatient look on his face, but he wasn’t pulling on me to keep going.
“That’s good news.”
“Isn’t that the way it goes? You plan for the worst, hope for the best, and land somewhere in between.” The woman cleared her throat, looking away when her eyes shifted to where I still had Jacob’s shirtsleeve pressed to my head. “Can I call an ambulance for you, ma’am? Maybe give you directions to the nearest hospital?”
Beside me, Jacob sighed.
I shook my head. “Thanks, but I’ve got a doctor waiting for me upstairs. He’ll take care of me.”
The woman nodded as I started toward the elevators, while Jacob stepped in front of me so he could punch the up button. A door was just opening when I approached.
The ride up to my room was just as quiet as the one in the cab here. Although that might have had more to do with both of us knowing Matt was waiting for us a few floors away.
As soon as the doors opened, I practically lunged out into the hall.
Jacob moved up behind me a moment later. “In a hurry?”
I didn’t answer that, because I had no good answer to give him. I was in a hurry, and it wasn’t to get my head sewn up either.
Matt was already here, leaning into the door of my room, his eyes trained on the elevator like he’d known it was about to open. He wasn’t in my room, thank god. He had a key—I’d given him one—but he’d been smart enough not to use it, probably knowing what I did. Jacob would lose it if he found Matt in my room, room key in hand.
Matt started to smile when he saw me. That smile faded when he took a good look at me. Shoving off the door, he moved down the hall a few steps to meet us. “I thought you said you needed a few stitches, not a few hundred and a possible blood transfusion.” Matt’s messenger bag—which he kept the standard-fare doctor kit in—was slung over his shoulder, and he was already digging through it.
“It’s a head wound. They bleed like crazy. You’re a doctor—why do I need to tell you this?” I put on my best unconcerned face as Jacob and I moved down the hall, but I had plenty of things to be concerned about. The gash on my head ranked low on that list.
Jacob slid closer to me with every step we took, until our shoulders were brushing by the time we stopped in front of my room. Matt had barely acknowledged Jacob until now. Then Matt covered my hand with his and slowly pulled aside the shirtsleeve to see the extent of the damage.
His face didn’t give a thing away—but he was trained not to show any emotion when a patient’s guts were spilling out on the floor at his feet. He didn’t show any emotion until his fingers gently touched the area around the cut and I winced from the rush of pain that came with it.
Matt’s jaw locked up, his eyes darkening before they swiveled toward Jacob. Before the two of them could work that out, fists first, I hurried to pull the room key from my pack and kick the door open the moment the green lights flashed.
“What happened?” Matt snapped at Jacob.
It was me who answered him though. “I fell.”
Jacob echoed my response as we all moved inside the room. “She fell.”
Matt slid his bag off and set it on the desk, already flipping on lights and starting to grab towels from the bathroom. “Yeah, I got that terribly informative answer on the phone earlier. How about the details? Now that it looks like you fell off of a cliff.”
I headed into the bathroom as Matt glared at Jacob like this was all his fault. Though I expected a response, Jacob didn’t say anything to defend himself. Instead, he stayed quiet, falling into one of the chairs tucked into the corner.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Matt asked me when I started to close the bathroom door.
“Taking a quick shower to rinse the blood and dirt off.”
“I don’t think so. You need to get your head stitched up before your brains start falling out.” Matt moved toward the bathroom like he was going to physically sit me down in that chair by the desk if I didn’t do it myself.
So I hurried to close the door, knowing there was no way he’d open that door once I’d closed it. Knowing there was no way Jacob would let him either.
I didn’t want to leave those two alone for long, so I hurried through the shower as quickly as possible. Only a few minutes later, I emerged from the steam-filled bathroom with a towel twisted around my hair and wearing a swimsuit cover-up I’d had hanging in the bathroom.
The brothers looked like they’d spent a few years in some foreign prison though. Their expressions were hardened, their eyes blank, every muscle in their body looking trigger-pin ready for action.
“Wow. This isn’t a funeral, boys. Just a few stitches and a little loss of blood.”
Matt huffed over my “little” word choice. When Matt’s face, which had been trained on the ground, lifted, his eyes met mine, which were aimed on him. Not Jacob. Him. The corner of his mouth twitched, but he tamed his smile. Probably a good idea since Jacob was watching him, his hands braced around the chair’s armrests like he was capable of ripping them off.
Suddenly, Matt’s face changed, his gaze sweeping a bit lower. Pushing off the desk, he grabbed one of the towels from his collection and started toward me. Jacob rose from his chair but stayed where he was.
Matt shook out the towel, blocking me from Jacob’s view, then draped the towel over my shoulder. Subtly, his gaze lowered to the spot on my chest just above the barrier of my cover-up where a slightly bruised red mark was showing. The same mark he’d given me here in my hotel room, when I’d known exactly who he was when I put my hands on him.
“Wouldn’t want you ruining another piece of clothing,” he said in a normal voice, shooting me a wink as he tucked the towel down a little lower.
Behind him, I could make out Jacob starting to pace, moving closer with every turn. He didn’t like Matt being so close to me. He didn’t like Matt talking to me or touching me or being the only one who could help me in this instance.
When Matt tucked the towel back from my temple a bit more, his jaw set as he inspected my cut again. “Take a seat. That’s going to require more than a couple stitches, but I’ll go as quickly as I can.” He pulled the desk chair out for me then adjusted the table lamp so it was aimed in my direction. “Here, take a few of these.”
He shook a few pain relievers into my hand and handed me a bottle of water after I’d tossed them into my mouth. Jacob came around beside us, still pacing as he watched the scene like he was helpless.
Matt didn’t seem to notice Jacob as he pulled things out of his messenger bag, his hands moving with the kind of speed and precision only a surgeon’s would, I guessed. I had a flash of what those hands felt like on me, and my body instantly reacted to it. I had to shift in my seat and look away from Matt and his hands to keep from blushing in front of both of them.
“How did you fall?” Matt asked, rolling up his sleeves as he started for the bathroom to wash his hands. His gaze cut to Jacob when neither of us said anything right away.
“I fell backward. My heel caught on a rock or a root or something,” I said, waiting for him to come back, hoping he’d believe it was as simple as that. From the look on
his face when came out of the bathroom, he didn’t.
Matt’s hand gently tipped my head back against the chair, turning it so my cut was facing him. Jacob rolled his head a few times, popping his neck.
“You make a habit of hiking backward?” Matt’s brow carved into his forehead as he cleaned the cut. Every time I cringed from the sting, he winced with me.
“Sometimes. When I’m feeling crazy.”
“Are you going to tell me what really went down, or leave me to fill in the blanks?”
I wasn’t sure if he was talking because he really wanted to know that badly or as a way to distract me from what he was doing, especially now that he was starting to numb the area around my gash. Needles and I weren’t exactly simpatico, as Matt had figured out years ago when I’d come back from my eleven-year-old doctor appointment feeling like a pincushion and looking like I’d just been through hell. Ever since, he’d come with me to all of my doctor appointments that involved needles, from blood draws to my annual flu vaccine. He found some new way to distract me each time, either by running some funny video on his phone or making faces at me.
As my silence stretched into the next minute, Matt glanced at Jacob, waiting for an answer.
Jacob lifted his chin. “I don’t know. Are either of you going to eventually tell me what ‘really went down’ on this island before I got here, or is swept under the rug going to be the way of all of it?”
“Not the time, Jacob. Not the right damn time.” Matt’s head turned back toward me, the skin between his brows deepening as he finished numbing my temple. To his credit, I barely felt a thing after the first initial poke.
“I don’t know. We’re all three here, not going anywhere too soon. Seems like the right damn time to me.” When Jacob looked over Matt’s shoulder to see what was happening, his forehead creased, remorse filling his face before he had a chance to turn away. “You two had separate rooms, right?”
Matt’s teeth ground together, his mouth staying shut as he disposed of the needle and gathered what he needed to sew me up.
“That’s right,” I answered, figuring this was about as basic of a question as I could expect from Jacob on this topic.
Jacob rolled his head again. “Yeah, except I checked with the front desk and this room wasn’t checked out until the second night.” He turned so he was angled toward me. “So that means you must have both shared the cabin.”
“The first night we did.” Matt came into the conversation then, his voice as even as I’d ever heard it. His eyes flickered to mine once, something in them telling me it would be okay. It might have been foolhardy and naïve, but I believed him. Somehow, Matt found a way to make everything okay. “It was late. I took the couch.”
Jacob nodded, his gaze wandering from Matt to me, like we somehow had every answer he was looking for. “Was this before or after Cora knew you were you?”
“What the hell does that matter?” Matt’s head turned over his shoulder, a lethal expression forming.
Jacob lifted his shoulder as he backed into the wall behind him. “Because it does. Say you guys got it on but Cora thought you were me—she’s not to blame. I can forgive her for wanting to have sex with her husband on their wedding night.” His nostrils flared as he sucked in a breath. “But I will kill you, Matt, if you put your hands on her like that. I will end you if you fucked her when she thought she was with me.”
The corners of Matt’s eyes creased as he set the first stitch. Again, I barely felt a thing—even when he was doing something painful, it was impossible for Matt to hurt me.
“So you’d prefer the possibility that we made love knowing exactly who the other was?” Matt asked.
Jacob shoved off the wall, his eyes blazing. “Tell me. Look me in the eyes and tell me. I’m tired of you messing with me. Smirking in my face. Strutting around like you screwed my girl.”
Matt was taking slow, purposeful breaths. That was the only indication he gave that Jacob was getting to him. The whole time, his hands never wavered, his gaze intent, his whole façade focused.
“I’m a little busy stitching up your girl.” He didn’t pull his tone as he continued. “That ‘looking you in the eye and telling you what either did or didn’t happen’ thing is going to have to wait.”
“Fine. Don’t look me in the eye. Just tell me.” Jacob had managed to wrestle himself back against the wall, but his body was twitching from what I guessed was adrenaline and emotion.
“You’re making an awful lot of assumptions. Throwing around a lot of accusations at the person you say you love most in the world.” Matt kept working, not blinking as he fixed me.
“I don’t say I love her most in the world. I do love her most in the world.”
“Of course you do. You make that clear every single day. Like the day you didn’t make it to your wedding. And the day after that, when you showed up and accused her of screwing me behind your back. You don’t have to convince me of your profound love for Cora. Consider me sufficiently convinced.”
My breath caught in my chest as I looked at Matt. He was too focused on my temple to meet my stare, but I wasn’t sure what he would have read in my eyes if he had. Part of me felt like I was telling him to stop, another felt like I was telling him to keep going—to never stop.
Jacob’s hands were curling into fists, releasing, then forming again a moment later. “Keep talking and I’m not going to need you to tell me what happened. I’m going to figure it out all on my own.”
“Seems like you think you’ve already got all the answers.”
“Enough.” My voice projected through the room louder than I’d intended. “Both of you.” This time when I glanced at him, Matt’s eyes met mine for a beat. “This male bravado crap isn’t helping anything.” Jacob stuck his arm out toward Matt like he was to blame, but I kept going. “Jacob, I’ll answer all of your questions that I can. What I can’t remember, I can’t help you with. Kind of like you can’t help me with what you don’t remember.”
Jacob was the first to look away, his jaw straining through his skin.
“We’ve all been through a hell of a few days, and maybe we all just need a little time to figure out what happened and what comes next.” I didn’t realize my hand was moving toward Matt until I felt it brush his shirt.
Jacob didn’t see it, but Matt didn’t miss it. He leaned in a little closer, until my hand connected with his body hidden beneath his shirt. My fingers curved into his stomach before falling back into my lap. Jacob couldn’t see, but that didn’t mean it was right for me to be touching his brother with him ten feet away.
“I’m with Cora,” Matt said, blowing at a chunk of hair that had fallen over his forehead.
“Big surprise there,” Jacob muttered.
“Need a little help?” I smiled when Matt blew another hard breath, only to result in another chunk of hair falling into his face.
“Please. This is why those head wraps are so convenient in surgery. Wouldn’t want to accidently sever an artery trying to get hair out of my eye.”
When my smile went higher, Jacob’s shoulders tensed. Taming it as best as I could, I lifted my hand to slide Matt’s hair back into place. The whole time I was touching him, Jacob looked like he was fighting every instinct inside him to stay where he was, while Matt looked like he was heeding every instinct inside him by staying where he was—facing me, his back exposed to his enemy.
“Better?” I asked.
One corner of his mouth lifted. “Better.”
Another minute passed, this one in silence. From the feel of it, Matt was almost done. I wasn’t sure if I was happy about that or not, because what came next? Where did the three of us go from here? We were all stuffed into this small hotel room, but what would happen when the last stitch was sewed into place? Would Matt go? Would he stay? Would we talk, or would we need to think?
Either way, I knew I’d be leaving this island in a few days. I just wasn’t sure who I’d be leaving with. Or if I’d be leaving
all alone.
“Why did you fall?” Matt asked, shattering the silence.
When I shifted in my seat, Jacob stepped in. “We were talking.”
“About what?” From the flash in Matt’s eye, he already knew.
“I was asking her about you two,” Jacob answered. “Since neither one of you are volunteering too much information and I need to know. I have a right to know.”
Matt’s eyes darkened, his shoulders tense. “She fell because you were having a fight?”
“I fell because I tripped,” I interjected, hoping Matt would hear the plea in my voice that was asking him to let it go and move on.
“I didn’t push her. I’ve never laid a hand on her like that.” Jacob pushed off the wall, his arm flying between him and me like the idea was absurd. When Matt stayed quiet, refusing to accept what had just been said, Jacob’s face went red. “How dare you. You think I’d put my hands on Cora? That I could hurt her like that?”
His footsteps sounded like thunder rolling in the distance as he moved toward us, but Matt never once looked over his shoulder. I wondered if he was banking on the assumption that Jacob wouldn’t charge when I was close by, or maybe Matt just didn’t care if he got blindsided by his brother.
“You’ve hurt her in every other way, right?” Matt paused just long enough for that to charge the still air. “But if you did, if you did physically hurt her, that ending favor will be returned, brother.”
Matt must have been finished with my stitches because his hands lowered at his sides, the skin between his brows deepening as he inspected my temple. It was eerie how calm he was, how in control of his emotions and body he could be when his twin had never looked so close to losing his grip. With the way Jacob was looking, and the way I knew Matt was feeling, I knew the moment Matt stepped away from me, Jacob would charge.
“He hasn’t,” I said, looking at Matt as he started to rise. “He didn’t. I wouldn’t be with him if he had. That’s not the type of person I want to spend my life with.”