“Hmm.” I cut my eyes toward him. “You don’t say.”

Delicious irony would have made me laugh if not for the circumstances of our rendezvous.

His lips flattened in a mulish line. “Everything I do, I do to protect the pack.”

I drew my knees to my chest and rested my chin on top of them. “Wouldn’t Bessemer say the same if I asked him?”

He twisted so he faced me head-on. “You just accused him of being a tyrant, and now you’re comparing us?”

“Yes.”

“I want to be insulted that you think I’m a dictator in the making, but I doubt you would have made that climb for Bessemer.” His eyes narrowed. “Yet you made it for me.”

“I know what it’s like to blame yourself for the choices you’ve made, to doubt they were the right ones even when you felt there were no other options at the time.” I hugged my legs closer. “I didn’t want you to be alone.” I bit my lip to keep from adding, Like I was.

That tiny crack in my armor allowed the fingers of the past to dig into my memory and pry it wide open.

“You’re too slow.” Trilling laughter. “Hurry up.”

“My foot hurts.” I limped as sand clotted the wound and salt stung my eyes. “I want to go home.”

“Don’t be a baby.” Lori twirled under the moonlight. “I’m going in the water. Yell if you see Mom or Dad coming.”

“No.” I crossed my arms over my chest, shifting foot to foot, wishing she would get her toes wet already so we could get back before our parents noticed us missing. “Let’s just go back. Before something bad happens.”

“Ellis.”

I snapped to attention. “Sorry.”

The weight of his arm blanketed my shoulders. I wasn’t sure when he had gotten so close, but I didn’t pull away when he tucked me against his side, or when he urged my head onto his shoulder so he could rest his cheek on my hair. I sat there, stunned, and allowed him to hold me.

Aunt Dot tried to comfort me when the past rode me hard, but I pushed her away, not feeling I deserved for her to make everything okay when Lori would never be held or touched by a loved one again. Isaac got in a hug here or a squeeze there, short and fast enough I didn’t have time to register what he was doing until he was gone.