It had been easier to watch her friend die than it had been to look at the man who’d held a gun on her, told her if she touched Maryanne, if she helped, he would shoot her.

God, it was easier than thinking about the fact that if she’d been the tiniest bit braver, Maryanne wouldn’t be dead.

“Lila, you are not going to work,” Will said gently. “I think we should get you cleaned up and take you home. You can come with me or you can go to Laurel’s if you like. She and Mitch are on their way up here right now. I’ve already talked to Lisa. She’s getting in a car as soon as she can. She’ll be here by morning.”

Her youngest sister lived in Louisiana. She’d gotten married a couple of months before in a ceremony Lila hadn’t truly understood. There had been raucous dancing and an outdoor service where the groom had written poetry for his bride and her sister had looked radiant. Will and his wife and Laurel and her husband had been there. They’d brought their kids.

Her siblings had kids. They were all married and she was alone. She’d sat at her table as they’d all danced and known that she wouldn’t have that. She wouldn’t glow the way her sisters and Will’s wife did. She wouldn’t dance the way they did. She would be alone, always holding herself apart from the rest of them because she had work to do, because she couldn’t let herself open up.

A brief vision of a muscular man in a tux floated over her brain. Dark hair and striking blue eyes, broad shoulders that seemed to go on for days. He’d smiled at her, a warm, sensual thing that she hadn’t returned. When he’d started her way, she’d known he was going to ask her to dance and she’d excused herself quickly so she wouldn’t have to say no. She’d been a coward.

Like she’d been tonight when she’d had to make the choice between saving Maryanne’s life and saving her own.

“Why would Lisa drive up here? I’m fine.” She said the words and was pleased with how perfectly normal they came out. The world around her had turned chaotic again, and it was her job to make sense of it, to force it to be normal through sheer willpower.

“Lila, you were held captive for over an hour,” he said gently. “You watched two people die and you couldn’t help them. You could have died yourself. I know you’re a strong woman, one of the strongest I know, but you’re not okay.”