“Then go.” Wyatt gestured to the doors that led out of the ICU.

Romeo surprised him by stepping forward and hugging Wyatt in that same tight, strong-armed way he hugged his own brothers. It was obvious the chaos of the night was wearing on him. His emotions were right on the surface, and Wyatt understood completely. He patted his brother-in-law’s back affectionately as he reeled over the bizarreness of his life that had allied him with Romeo Wellings of all people.

“She’s been asking ’bout you too,” Romeo said as he pulled away. “She’s been asking for you a lot actually. She keeps saying something’s wrong with you.” He shook his head. “They got her high as a kite. It’s making her paranoid as hell.”

“Yeah,” Wyatt agreed distantly. “That must be it.”

“Tell her I’m taking more pictures. I won’t be too long.”

Romeo was halfway down the hallway before something occurred to Wyatt, and he called out, “Hey.”

He turned around, arching an eyebrow curiously. “Yeah?”

“Congratulations.”

Romeo pulled back, making it obvious that was the first he’d heard it. Then he gave Wyatt a wide, pleased smile that lit up his entire face and showed the first signs of excitement for the future rather than the stress and strain he had been dealing with for the past nine months. “Thanks, man.”

“Sure.” Wyatt gestured to the doors once more. “Go look after those boys, Dad. You might as well enjoy it now. Twins are something else.”

“Nah, they’ll be good,” Romeo said confidently. “They got half Juliet in them. They gotta be good.”

Wyatt laughed. “Whoa boy, who lied to you? Wait and see; it’s gonna be interesting.”

“I can handle a little interesting.” Romeo laughed with him before he turned once more to leave. “See you soon.”

Wyatt walked to Jules’s room. He had already checked in at the nurse’s station and had a sticker on his chest that said he had a right to be there. He could hear his sister’s voice before he stepped past the door, because it echoed off the stark walls, vibrant and demanding as always.

“Just put me in a wheelchair. Five minutes.”

“Darlin’, you just got out of surgery, and you lost a lot of blood. You need to get a little stronger first.”

“I’m strong.” Jules sounded unbendingly confident about it despite the slur in her voice. “My daddy made me strong.”

“That ain’t a lie, you know.” Wyatt stepped in the room and saw his sister, who was so pale her lips were almost blue. She had IV’s in both arms, and wires coming out of her gown that tracked the steady beat of her heart, but he didn’t doubt her words as he confirmed to the nurse, “Her daddy did make her strong.”

“Wy Wy.” A frown marred Jules’s forehead when she turned to him. Her blue eyes were darker than they usually were, her pupils wide and dilated from whatever drugs they were giving her, but still she saw what Romeo didn’t and asked, “What happened to you?”

“Well.” Wyatt grabbed the chair Romeo had obviously been sitting it and pulled it closer to Jules’s bed. “Let’s see. My sister made me an uncle this morning. That happened. Wanna see some pictures of my nephews?”

Jules made a move to sit up a little.

“Honey, you can’t move too much yet.”

“I got her,” Wyatt said as he took his phone out of his pocket. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t move round too much.”

That seemed to appease the nurse, who walked out of the room as Wyatt searched for the pictures he took of Jules’s sons. He held up his phone to his sister, showing her the first one.

“Oh.” Jules took the phone from him, staring at the screen with a look of motherly adoration. Tears filled her eyes as she whispered, “I wanna hold him so badly. Which one is he?”

Wyatt looked at the screen, trying to see what bed he was lying in. “That’s Freddy.”

“Sweet like Daddy.” Jules let out a little giggle. “He looks like a Fred, dontcha think?”

Actually, he didn’t look anything like a Fred. He looked more like a Nova or a Tino, with his olive coloring and dark hair, but Wyatt didn’t argue. If they’d had a daughter, they would have named her after Romeo’s mother, but they didn’t.

Romeo didn’t seem to mind letting Jules honor her family instead, and Wyatt knew it meant the world to Jules. So they’d be Italians with two of the biggest redneck names on earth. One day they might complain about it, and Jules could send them to talk to their Uncle Wyatt, who most certainly won the prize in that category.

He hoped they did better with their legacy than Wyatt had done with his.

“He sure does.” He took his phone back and swiped his finger across the screen, looking for another clear picture. “I think Dad would be mighty proud ’bout right now. Grandpa too. You know he’d be strutting round this hospital telling everyone Charlie was named after him.”

Jules nodded, tears filling her eyes once more. “He would.”

“Charlie.” Wyatt showed her a picture of her son screaming his head off. “Screeching like his mama.”

“Hush.” Jules took the phone again. “He’s beautiful. They’re both beautiful, aren’t they?”

“They are,” Wyatt agreed softly. “You did good. I’m proud of you.”

“I wish it didn’t happen like this.” Jules’s bottom lip jutted out as she took over swiping through picture after picture Wyatt had taken. “I hate seeing ’em alone like that.”

“Sweetheart,” Wyatt started as he pulled his phone back and found a picture of Tino posing in front of the glass, a wide smile on his handsome face with his nephews being held up on either side of him by the nurses in the NICU. “They aren’t alone.”

He handed the phone back to her.

Jules laughed hard enough that she winced in pain as she stared at the picture of her brother-in-law hamming it up for the camera. “I may never get to hold those boys with Tino in the house. He’s so excited.”

Wyatt decided not to tell her how out of his mind Tino had been a few hours earlier. That picture had been the first smile Wyatt saw from him. Seeing the babies healthy and strong had lightened the mood for all of them, especially knowing Jules was going to be okay.

Jules was obviously tired, but she lay there for a long time looking through the pictures Wyatt had taken. He’d taken a lot. When she did drop her arm, her eyes closed and Wyatt thought she had fallen asleep. Instead she turned her head on her pillow and studied him. She left the phone on her chest and reached out, touching the crease between Wyatt’s eyes thoughtfully.

“What happened?” she asked as if the first conversation had never happened and they were looping back to where they started. “Did she leave?”

Wyatt shook his head. “No.”

“Is she going to?”

“Probably.” His voice cracked on the word, and he turned away, fighting the surge of loss that hit him square in the chest hard enough to steal his breath. “Love was kinder to you, Ju Ju.”

“No, it wasn’t,” she argued as she reached up and touched the crease between his eyes once more. “I just fought harder.”

Wyatt could always count on Jules to state the obvious, and he winced at the bitter truth of it.

Jules eyes closed. Her arm dropped. The beeping on the heart monitor told Wyatt she was closer to sleep than wakefulness, but still she whispered, “Daddy made you strong too.”

“Did he?” Wyatt asked, because he wasn’t so sure.

“Yes.” Jules didn’t seem to doubt it. “If you got something to fight for, you fight, Wy Wy. Promise.”

Wyatt leaned down and kissed Jules’s forehead instead.

She fell asleep before he had to promise.

* * *

The sun was high in the sky by the time they got home.

Tabitha was exhausted. Wyatt even more so. If it was just the physical strain, they might have been able to ride into the sunset on the adrenaline, but as it was, they pulled off their clothes and fell into bed in their underwear.

Tabitha did managed to tug off her bra and toss it over the bed, which wasn’t like her, but she was too broken to bother picking up any of the clothes now littered over the bedroom.

Wyatt rolled up next to her, and she curled into him, with her head resting on his arm and his heavy body draped over hers. She closed her eyes, savoring his scent. The feel of his warm skin. The rhythm of his breathing. The strong energy that still vibrated off him, even at the very moment when it should have dimmed under the weight of injustice resting on his broad shoulders. She just let it all wrap around her and lull her into a false sense of security.

They didn’t say anything to each other.

They just let sleep claim them instead.

Tabitha’s nightmares were different. In them, Vaughn had a gun pointed at Wyatt, his finger on the trigger, and Tabitha screamed, desperate to warn him. To do something to help him. She would have jumped in front of him and taken the bullet instead, but she was rooted to the spot, forced to watch helplessly when Vaughn fired.

She screamed when she saw it tear into Wyatt’s chest. The rest of him was strong. His heart was vulnerable.

“Wyatt! No!” she shouted, but she couldn’t move. Couldn’t go to him. He was dying alone. “Please! No!”

“Tabby, you’re dreaming, darlin’.”

Tabitha jerked at the low rumble of Wyatt’s voice against her ear. His arms had tightened around her, and it helped to wake her up more fully. She was covered in a cold sweat, and she turned in his arms to look into his eyes that were wide and bright in the darkness.

She reached up and touched his chest, feeling for herself that his heart was still beating. Wyatt stroked her sweaty hair away from her temples as she took a quivering breath and whispered, “This is worse. It’s so much worse.” The thump against her open palm told her Wyatt was still healthy, but it still felt like Vaughn had raped her soul rather than just her body as she fought her way back from the nightmare. “He’s taken everything this time.”

“Not everything.” Wyatt kissed her, soft and chaste, and then breathed against her lips, “We have now.”

Vaughn could take everything else. He nearly had, but right now she was in Wyatt’s arms, and Vaughn couldn’t have that. The love was untouchable. It always had been, and she gave in to it as she reached up and threaded her fingers into Wyatt’s hair. She returned the kiss, parting her lips in an invitation Wyatt took. His tongue slipped into her mouth as he rolled her over, his body heavy over hers as if he suddenly didn’t have the strength to hold himself up, but it was okay. Tabitha held him as she let him take out all the heartache in a crushing, feral kiss that stole her breath far more effectively than his hard chest pressing her to the bed.

She used her hold on his hair to tilt his head and returned the kiss with the same desperate hunger for something to remember. The passion flared easily, making every brush of his skin against hers a dance of ecstasy. When he slipped a hand between their straining bodies, pushing it beneath her panties, he found her already wet and needy for him.

He groaned into her mouth and then pulled away to press his lips against the soft spot behind her ear. “Lemme hear you.”

She gasped, arching her hips into his hand in surrender, and whispered, “Okay.”

Tabitha could feel Wyatt watching her as he touched her, rubbing his fingers against her clit in a way that left her sweaty and moaning from the quick build of need. She didn’t even try to fight it. She just clutched at his large biceps and rode out the storm until the end crashed over her in a wild rush of bliss.

The electric surge of her climax left her pussy aching for more and her fingers tingling from the bone-melting rush of it. She was still shaking with it when she blinked up at Wyatt. His chest was heaving as he studied her face and then tilted his head to eye her body beneath his.

His fingers were still on her, and rather than slip them out from beneath her underwear, he pushed one into her and then a second, stroking her and making her head jerk back against the pillow. She knew he was intent on bringing her to a second orgasm while he watched, but she needed to be with him.

She tugged at the elastic to his boxer briefs, forcing them past his muscular ass until he was finally forced to help get rid of them. While he kicked them off, Tabitha fought to get herself naked too.

Their underwear ended up on the floor with the rest of their clothes, but she didn’t care. She just wrapped her legs around Wyatt and clutched at his shoulders when he shifted over her. Then his cock was stretching her, slow and steady, bringing them closer and closer until they were inseparable and untouchable for that one perfect moment.