“I won the toss,” Cord said, looking back at her and Sara. “Both of you go home. I’ll be sitting within six feet of Eli’s bed until morning and, believe me, nobody is going to get close to him except Marisol and the nurses.”

J.P. slapped Cord lightly on the back, though his gaze rested on Sara. “I’ll be back to relieve my buddy here at 7 a.m. sharp, and I can make the same promise.”

Sara nodded wearily, and a tear slipped down her right cheek. “Thanks,” she said, almost in a whisper.

Brynne added her thanks; Cord and J.P. were Eli’s closest friends, and they were strong men, country tough.

She and Sara collected their coats from the rack provided by the hospital, and left the waiting room, headed toward the bank of elevators. J.P. followed behind them, saying nothing.

He was quite literally, Brynne reflected, a man of few words.

Downstairs, in the main lobby, they encountered Dan Summers, who was just coming through the front doors and into the lobby.

His expression was grim.

“How is he?” he asked.

J.P. stopped to give an update, while Sara and Brynne, barely functional now that they could relax a little, greeted the newcomer distractedly and went on.

They were barely outside when J.P. caught up to them.

“It’s dark,” he said. “I’m walking you to your cars, and I don’t want any arguments.”

Brynne said nothing.

Sara gave an exhausted snicker.

What, Brynne wondered, was that about? She was too tired to pursue the issue, though. She just wanted to go back to her apartment, feed her cat, make a brief call to her parents and fall into bed.

A shower could wait until morning. She might not even undress.

The trio reached her roadster first.

She unlocked it with a key fob, and J.P. and Sara waited, side by side, until she was behind the wheel with the headlights on and the doors secure again.

As she drove away, she caught a glimpse of Sara and J.P. in her rearview mirror, and something about the way they walked, a little apart, heads lowered, hurt her heart.

Again, she wondered.

Again, she was too tired to frame a question, even in her own mind.

When she arrived at Bailey’s, her parents’ car, a modest sedan, was parked in back, leaving just enough room for her roadster.

Her dad was standing on the back porch when she got out of the roadster.

“You should be at home, sleeping,” she told her dad, in mild reprimand. “It’s late.”

“How are we supposed to sleep when our daughter’s young man is undergoing brain surgery?” Mike Bailey countered, though gently.