When he looked down into the water, he could see the rock. Ida had said the sun would be out tomorrow (thank you, Annie). He’d go for a swim and carry the rock to where he couldn’t see it. An animal hadn’t thrown that rock.

He’d brought them here to relax and recharge before Kate’s next round of hellacious treatment. Andrew joked that he and Kate must have been child killers in a previous life. Their current incarnations were just a long step toward penance. Well, it appeared that penance involved spoiling his Hail Mary pass at peace.

Spending their nights with one ear open was not the way he wanted to wile away the rest of the summer. That wouldn’t do. He was not going to cower like a child or be run off. He’d be damned if he let that happen.

There was a way to fix that.

Chapter Eighteen

Days later, Kate’s fever had come back and refused to be broken, leaving her feeling worse than ever. She’d called her doctor in the morning (the connection giving out several times, driving Kate to the brink of madness) and it was as she’d expected. The mélange of chemicals they’d injected into her body two months ago were still doing their thing. Like an acid trip (her analogy, not his), it could come back and hit her hard at any time. Right now, it was going full MMA on her, and there was nothing to do but grit her teeth and ride it out.

The problem was, the pain was so bad, even her teeth hurt, so gritting them was out of the question.

Andrew had taken the kayak out after she insisted she didn’t want him lurking around the cottage. There was no sense having them both trapped in there.

Kate sighed.

Trapped.

That was the last thing she’d expected to feel in her dream lake cottage.

Yet here she was, truly and madly trapped in more ways that one.

She called and left a message for Ryker. She kept playing phone tag with her brother while he was going from speaking engagement to speaking engagement. She in turn slept through his return calls. Kate missed him so much. Since his career had taken off, she’d seen less and less of him. Ryker would know how to set her at ease. Quick text messages wouldn’t do. She needed to hear his voice and tell him about the vibe the cottage was giving her, along with the strange new microwave feels she’d been suffering through. He was the one who’d coined bad feels days. He’d get a kick out of the microwave feels.

“Instead, I get Mr. Floppy Ears,” she said, rubbing Buttons’ head.