“Thanks.” She turned her head to brush her lips against his throat. “Thanks especially for helping me stay calm. You too,” she said, and kissed Spock.

“All part of our post-trauma service here at the House of Sawyer.”

He helped her downstairs. He flipped back the lid of the hot tub, hit the jets, while she took off her shirt. “Want the iPod?”

“No, thanks. Maybe I’ll give meditation another shot.” She winced as she reached back for the hook of her bra. “Definitely stiff and sore.”

“Let me. I have experience with these devices.”

She smiled, let her arms drop as he moved behind her.

Fresh fury gushed into him, one hot blast of blind, mindless rage. Bruises purpled across her back, along her shoulder blades, in angry storm clouds. More bruising mottled the skin high on her left biceps, and a raw, red line like a burn rode over her shoulder.

“Having trouble with the mechanics?” Cilla asked him.

“No.” Amazing, he thought, how calm his voice sounded. How matter-of-fact. “You’ve got some bruises back here.”

“So that’s what I feel. It must be from when he shoved me against the truck.” She tipped her head to the side, down, then sucked in some air as she brushed her fingers over her shoulder and across her chest. “Seat belt burn, too. Shit. Well, better than the alternative.”

“Fuck that.” He said it softly, but still she shifted to look around at him.

“Ford.”

“Fuck. That.” He bit off the words now as that gush of fury spewed out, a raging, boiling geyser. “You’ll have to get your calm and your Zen somewhere else, because I’m not up for it. Goddamn it. Goddamn it! The son of a bitch came at you. You’re all bruised and bashed up. He did that to you. Did you see your truck? For Christ’s sake, did you see what he did, what he tried to do? He hurt you.”

She’d turned to face him, to stare at him. With hands stunningly gentle in contrast to his face, his voice, he unhooked her work pants, crouched to ease them down her legs.

“Your truck’s in a fucking ditch, and the only reason you’re not is because you took him out. There were skid marks on the road as far as I could see.” He took off her shoes, her socks, lifted her foot, then the other to free them of the pants.

“Better than the alternative? Better comes when I kick that crazy, murderous bastard’s teeth down his throat. That’s when better comes.” He turned her around, unhooked her bra.

He picked her up, eased her into the bubbling water where she just sat, staring at him.

“I’ll get the aspirin and that robe you brought over.”

After he strode away and up the stairs, Cilla let out a long breath. “Wow,” was really all she could think of.

Meditation might not have worked very well for her, but Cilla found fifteen minutes in hot water with pulsing jets helped considerably. Especially with the image of Ford’s anger playing behind her closed lids.

Steadier than she’d have believed possible, she carefully climbed out. As she wrapped herself in a towel, she heard him coming back down the stairs.

“I’ll do that,” he said when she started to flip the lid back over the tub. “Here.”

He handed her pills, water, and when she’d taken them, helped her into the white terry robe she’d left at his place.

“Sorry about before. You don’t need the ravings of another maniac.”

“You’re wrong. You helped me, you gave me exactly what I needed by staying calm when I was the shakiest. You stayed steady, and took me to the cool and the quiet. You gave me magic peas, and you let me lean on you. There have been a very limited number of people in my life that let me lean on them.”

She laid her hands on his chest, on either side of his heart. “And after I got through the worst of it, you gave me something else. The outrage, the anger, the blind thirst for revenge. It helps to know someone could feel that on my behalf. That while he was feeling all that, he could still take care. It’s no wonder I fell for you.”

“I’m so in love with you, Cilla.”

“Oh.” She felt a jolt, nearly as violent as she had while under attack. “Oh, Ford.”

“Maybe it’s lousy timing, but that doesn’t change a thing. It’s not what I was looking for. It’s not simple and easy, just picking which bed we use and who walks home in the morning. That’s how I figured it, and I was wrong.”

“Ford-”

“I’m not finished yet. When that woman-Lori-called, she was careful to let me know right off you were okay. But all she had to do was say accident, and my heart stopped. I never really understood what it was to be afraid until that moment.”

Everything he’d felt, and was feeling now, swirled in his eyes. So much, Cilla thought. So much in there.

“When I got there, and I saw you sitting on the side of the road. So pale. The relief came first, waves of it. Waves. There she is. I didn’t lose her. Waves of relief, Cilla, and this lightning strike at the same time. There she is. And I knew. I’m in love with you.”

It had been a day for shocks and jolts, and huge moments, Cilla thought. “You’re so steady, Ford, and I’m so disordered.”

“That’s just another way of saying, ‘It’s not you, it’s me.’”

“It doesn’t make it less true. I’m caught right now between the thrill, and the terror, of having someone like you tell me he loves me. And mean it. And that’s complicated because I have such strong, real feelings for you. I think I’m in love with you, too. Wait.”

She threw up a hand as he stepped toward her. “Just, wait. I probably have a mild concussion. I’m at a disadvantage. You’re steady,” she repeated. “And I bet you know exactly what you want out of being in love.

I’m disordered, and I don’t. What I do know, or at least what I’m pretty sure of, is you’ll want, expect things to change.”

“Yes. But they don’t have to change today, or tomorrow. Part of being steady might be as basic as knowing how to appreciate what you’ve got, in the moment.” He framed her face. “There she is,” he murmured, and brushed his lips to hers.

Cilla closed her eyes. “Oh, God. I’m in such trouble.”

“It’s going to be fine. Now let’s go up. You should get off your feet.”

He lay her on the living room sofa this time, and as he’d expected, within twenty minutes the emotional and physical upheaval dropped her into sleep. He took his phone out onto the veranda, leaving the door open so he’d hear her if she stirred. Sitting where he could watch her through the window, he started his calls with her father.

When he spotted Matt heading up Cilla’s drive toward his house, Ford figured his friend had been keeping an eye out for any sign. He finished up the call-this one to a friend, an RN, just to make sure he handled Cilla’s injuries correctly.

He gestured Matt to a chair as he disconnected.

“What the hell, Ford?”

“Hennessy,” he began, and ran through it.

“Jesus. Crazy bastard. Are you sure she’s okay?”

“I just talked to Holly. Remember Holly?”

“Nurse Holly?”

“Yeah. She thinks it’d be better if I could talk Cilla into getting checked out. But in the meantime, heat, cold, rest, ibuprofen. Got that covered so far. You saw the truck.”

“Yeah, did a number on it. His own van, too. She got him with a nut shot?”

“Apparently.”

“Well, goddamn good for her,” Matt said with both heat and admiration. “I’d like a shot at him myself.”

“Take a number.”

“Well, listen, you need anything, she needs anything, you know where I am. There are a lot of people across the road there who’d say the same.”

“I know it.”

“And tell her not to worry about the work. We’ve got it covered. You’ll want to come over and set her alarm if she’s staying here tonight.”

“Yeah, I’ll take care of it.”

“Any questions, messages, whatever, I’ll make sure I leave them in her famous notebook, and I’ll pass the word to Brian. I’ll check with you tomorrow.”