Maddie stormed out of the room. The words spewing out of her were unfair and she knew it. But the fire in her head and the mash of memories running through her mind—the ones she tried so hard to pack and put away—knocked her off balance. Her fingers tingled and her heart raced.

She made it the whole way to the outside of the building before she doubled over. Balancing her butt against the wall, she braced her hands on her knees. Took deep, cleansing breaths. Forced her mind to think of good memories, but hunting those down zapped her strength.

She slid down the stucco wall until her ass hit the wet grass. Last night’s rain soaked through her jeans on contact, but she had bigger problems. Tipping her head back, she let the cold breeze blow over her. Above her all she saw was a solid gray sky. No rain but something was coming. She felt it to her bones.

A door banged shut in the distance. She could hear a dog barking and assumed someone walked by and got a front row seat to her messy reaction. She closed her eyes, not wanting to know who or how many people stood around or waited in their cars to see what she would do next.

This was what mental exhaustion looked like. All that running and energy spent convincing herself she was fine when she felt anything but. The anxiety built and grew and just walloped her.

“You forgot your jacket.”

She opened her eyes and saw Connor standing over her. He held out her raincoat but his expression was unreadable. She looked for anger or disgust but got an emotional void. It was as if he felt nothing and that realization punched into her, stealing the last of her will.

She took the coat. “I’m fine.”

“Yeah, you look fine.” He glanced at the wet ground, then sat down beside her.

“You’re going to have wet underwear.”

He shrugged. “Won’t be the first time.”

“That sounds like a story.” She turned to look at him and half hoped he’d tell it.

He sat in a sprawl with his long legs bent at the knee and his feet flat against the ground. His arms hung between his legs and a slight smile crossed his lips. “He’s a hotel guy now, but when I was growing up, my dad had a thing for camping.”

“What about your mom?”

The smile grew. “She did not. She was always pro-hotel. But he would get us out there, to this cabin in the woods that he loved, and we’d go boating and swimming.”

The longer he talked, the more the tension eased from her body. “In your underwear?”

“Hansen thought it was funny to try to throw Alexis in the lake. When he couldn’t find her, he’d come after me. Lots of sibling wrestling happened on that dock in Maryland.”