No, no, no…
I scramble off the bed, limbs leaden and shaky, knees buckling the second my feet hit the hardwood. Pain shoots straight through the bone. My joints throb like someone’s trying to screw them loose from the inside out, and my head—fuck, my head feels like it's wrapped in barbed wire.
I half-stumble, half-drag myself toward the bathroom across from me. The cold tile bites into my bare knees as I skid toward the toilet, fingers digging into the bowl just in time.
And I lose it.
Everything.
Definitely alcohol, definitely some kind of food.
And definitely bad.
I heave, dry and wet, as my throat burns and my ribs scream. My hands shake, my vision blurs. I can feel my lymph nodes swelling already—an ache blooming in my armpits, my neck. My hips throb like I ran ten miles. Everything hurts.
And I’m wearing—
I glance down and catch a flash of navy fabric and the worn white cotton letters across the chest that readsRanger.
It’s Kade’s shirt.
I’m wearing Kade’s shirt, and…
Using my free hand, I check what’s underneath and my shoulders slump. Shirtandpanties, but nothing else. I don’t get a chance to think about what that means before the bedroom door slams open somewhere behind me.
“Georgia?” His voice is rough and groggy, but he sounds scared. “Darlin’, you okay?”
Quickly flushing, I lean up and scramble for toilet paper, wiping my face even though I know this is only the beginning—the prequel to the horror show about to go down.
“I’m fine,” I rasp, nausea already blooming again.
My head falls to the toilet seat, and I thank all the stars in the sky that the toilet is new.
The light coming in from his room is suddenly blocked out and without even looking, I know he’s staring down at me with narrowed, stormy eyes and a ticking beard. His hand’s probably gripping the handle like he’s ready to yank the thing from its hinges.
“You’re not fine,” he murmurs, voice closer than I expect. So close, I shiver. Joints pop, and then he’s there, brushing my hair from my cheek. “Drank too much, didn’t you, baby?”
My heart skips a few beats at the name, and as if it’s all I needed to unlock a hidden vault, everything comes racing back in.
The bar with his sisters, Loretta’s words that pushed me to drink way too damn much, that asshole putting his hands on me and Kade fighting to defend my honor.
His admission, his feelings, hiswants.
Sound of his voice when it wrapped around the wordsbabyandmine.
I remember him bundling me into his truck and kissing my forehead—repeatedly. Remember the ghost of his beard over my flesh when he carried me inside and left me alone in his room to change while he made…
While he made me the French fries I wouldn’t shut up about.
“No,” I groan, rolling my head against my arm. “I mean, yeah. I drank too much but this isn’t just that…”
God, he’s going to think I’m a freak. Too much work. A nut job with a weird allergy and a body that’s far too delicate for his rugged, country ways.
How could a guy like him, raised the way he was, understand a person with health issues like I have and not think I’m making it up? Other people have—somany people have discredited my illness. Told me I’m a hypochondriac. That it’s in my head.
Happened my entire childhood. Every foster parent dismissed me, swept my pain under the rug. Both my exes rolled their eyes and scoffed at my flare-ups. The last one even nicknamed meprincess, and it wasn’t because I’m sweet and delicate. Whenever we’d go out, he said I was spoiled and difficult because I had to be careful with what I consumed.
Kade will be just the same, and maybe…
