It was hard not to let fly with every curse in her arsenal, but she had to keep quiet or risk Andrew stopping again. No matter the pain, he couldn’t stop until they were both in.

Every pore on Kate’s body leaked hot, pungent perspiration. It was the smell of pain and fear. It made Buttons back away, though his dark, somber eyes never left her.

Something clicked in her hip. It was still dislocated, but not as bad as it had been seconds before. Her kneecap continued to slide.

Kate bit her tongue, copper flooding her mouth. She reached up and grabbed Andrew’s sleeve, twisting it in a knot. He looked pale, on the verge of panic.

“Don’t…stop,” she said. “Almost…almost there.”

Her knee slipped into place with a wet thunk. There was no relief, because her hip still had a ways to go. Her hips were always the hardest. She’d been known to projectile vomit a time or two when a hip had been jammed back in place, pain and adrenaline and endorphins pooling in her core.

“Just the hip to go, honey,” she said, her voice tremulous in her ears.

He moved both hands to her thigh. She grabbed the leg of the chair and tried to help him by pulling her body back.

Her hip bone made a sickening crack that startled them both. This time, she couldn’t hold back her scream. At the exact same time, an animal outside the cottage let loose with a high-pitched screech. The strange cry stopped her own peal of agony. Andrew looked at her as if to say, I don’t have a freaking clue.

There was no time to worry about the animal.

Kate thought her hip bone had broken.

But the sudden dulling of the searing agony told her the cursed joint was back where it belonged. With so little cushion left, the bone-on-bone shift was like tectonic plates in a dry boogie.

“It’s in!” she cried, the back of her head thumping on the floor. Buttons leaned forward and licked her face, knowing it was time to celebrate.

“You want me to get you back in bed?”

She waved him off. “No. I just need to lie here for a while.”

Andrew put a pillow behind her head, patted her with a wet washcloth, and gave her a painkiller and anti-inflammatory, his movements fast and sure.

“You feeling better?”

“Just give me five minutes and we can go dancing.”

A small, nervous smile played on his face as he sat on the floor beside her. “You don’t dance on a good day.”

She laid one hand on his leg, the other on Buttons, the most important men in her life. “That doesn’t mean I can’t start.”

“We have video from our wedding that says otherwise.”

“Hey, at least I tried.”

He smoothed her damp hair from her forehead.