He worried over it like a man worrying over an aching tooth. How could he concentrate on what he needed to do when he kept seeing her the way she had been, white and still on that ledge? Or the way she had looked, eyes filled with hurt and temper, as she’d turned at the door and told him she loved him.

Distractions didn’t help. He’d dealt with the mess of the apartment—because Ann had ordered him to get up off his butt and take out the trash. He’d calmed his horses, rehung his tack, then taken the tack down again and packed it.

He wasn’t staying anyway.

In the end he’d given up and started across the lawn to Templeton House. It was reasonable, wasn’t it? he argued with himself, to want to check on her. She probably should be in the hospital. Her family wouldn’t push her. It was obvious to him that when Laura Templeton dug her heels in, no one could push her.

He would just check, then he’d make arrangements to stable his horses elsewhere until he could get the hell out of Dodge.

As he walked through the garden, Kayla and Ali popped up from their perch on the terrace where they’d been playing jacks. His first thought was that he hadn’t known kids still played jacks. Then they launched themselves at him.

“You saved Mama from the earthquake.” Kayla, all but climbing up into his arms, made his fresh bruises throb.

“Not exactly,” he began. “I just—”

“You did.” Solemn-eyed, Ali looked up into his face. “Everyone said so.” He started to shrug, uncomfortable in the role of hero, but she took his hand and her eyes were clouded with worry. “They said she was going to be all right. Everyone said she was going to be all right. Is she?”

Why ask him? Damn it, how did he get to be the authority? But he crouched down, unable to resist that trembling lip. “Sure she is. She just got some bumps, that’s all.”

Ali’s lips curved a little. “Okay.”

“She fell off the cliff,” Kayla continued. “And found Seraphina, and she got hurt, but you and Max came to pull her back up. Mrs. Williamson said Max should have a whole bushel of carrots.”

He grinned, tousled her hair. “What do I get?”

“She said you already got your reward. What is it?”

“Search me.”

“You got hurt too.” Soberly, Kayla lifted his bandaged hands one at a time and kissed them. “Do they hurt? Does that make it better?”

Emotion swarmed through him, a stinging hive of bees that left behind a sweet ache. No one, in all his life, had ever kissed his hurts. “Yeah, much.” He pressed his face into her hair for a moment. Wishing. Wanting.