“Hey,” Logan called out as Cole walked by his office.

He stopped and stuck his blond head in the door, his eyebrows raised.

“Eight work for you tonight?”

Cole glanced down at his watch and stepped inside. “Eight works. You sure he’s up to this after the trip? If he’s not, we can wait and do it next week.”

Logan lowered the pen he was writing with to the desk. “He said he’s fine. I think he’s looking forward to it. Having friends around. Speaking of…” he began, and when Cole looked at him expectantly, Logan continued. “Is Rachel going to be okay with him tonight? He’s noticed the weirdness going on there.”

Cole wandered farther into the office and shut the door. When he turned back to face him, Logan sat back in his chair, this time waiting on him to speak.

“I honestly don’t know how she’ll be tonight.”

Cole’s expression was one Logan hated to see. It was also one he recognized—one full of worry. His brother sat on the couch and looked over at him for a few silent seconds before continuing.

“You know, day in and day out, she’s the same Rachel she’s always been. But the second I bring up the accident or you call or Tate’s name is even mentioned, it’s like she… Fuck, I don’t know, Logan,” he said, shaking his head and rubbing a hand over his face. “She zones out and gets this expression on her face. It’s fucking heartbreaking. Like she’s seeing it, reliving it all over again, and I ask her about it and she says she’s fine. But I know she’s not. I’m about at my wit’s end over it.”

Logan sat forward in his chair and suggested, “Maybe after she sees him, she’ll feel better?”

“I don’t know. She saw him before he was released and she still…”

“But that was different. He was still surrounded by all the medical stuff. He’s great now. She’ll see. Maybe then she can try to move past it. Then again, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget the way he looked, Cole, and that wasn’t even the actual accident.”

Cole grimaced. “I know. She’s such a strong woman, and she’s been through so much already. But I’ve never seen her like this, and she won’t talk to me about it, which is completely unlike her. She skirts around the issue, and she won’t tell me how she’s really feeling. Christ,” he cursed.

Logan stood, coming around the desk. He walked over to where Cole was sitting with his head in his hands and sat beside him, putting a palm on his back.

“Hey?”

Cole looked over at him, and Logan tried for a smile.

“You need to throw up? I can get my garbage can.”

Cole flipped him off. “No. But thanks for the offer. You do owe me.”

Logan had never been more serious than when he agreed, “I know I do. Bring your wife over tonight. Let her see him, talk to him. Then we’ll see how she does, okay?”

“Yeah, okay.”

Logan clapped him on the back, and when they both stood, Logan adjusted his jacket and asked, “You still keeping the baby’s sex a big secret?”

“Yes. So don’t try to weasel it out of me.”

“But you’re usually so easy to crack. You don’t even realize it until you’ve let it slip.”

“I am not.”

“Yes, you really are,” Logan disagreed.

Cole opened the door. “That’s only because you’re a smooth-talking bastard. You circle the issue so much that, before a person knows it, you’re back on point and tricking us into telling you everything.”

“What can I say? It’s a gift.”

“A gift it may be, but you won’t succeed this time. So get back to work, would you? We have a business to run. I’ll see you at eight.”

Logan waved as Cole walked out, telling him, “Don’t come early—got it?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it with you. Just be decent by eight.”

Logan cocked his head to the side. “I can promise to be dressed, but not decent.”

Cole smirked. “As always, it’s been a pleasure, brother.”

Logan closed the door behind him and felt his smile drop from his face. He was trying to keep a good front for Cole, but he wasn’t sure if seeing Tate would help Rachel. He knew how affected he’d been after everything that had happened. But Rachel? She’d been there.

How did you ever un-see something like that?

Everyone arrived at or around eight, and as Logan took their coats and showed them into the kitchen area to reheat food, grab a drink, or find a place for the dessert in the fridge, Tate surveyed the crowd of people who had somehow become part of his extended family.

Shelly was sitting on the couch with her daughter, Savannah, on her lap, and beside her sat Mason and Lena’s little girl, Catherine. The girls were both dressed as princesses and giggling at something Shelly had just said. When she looked over at him, Tate was amazed that this was the same woman who’d been so professional in the hospital when she’d visited and, at the same time, the woman who’d been so outlandish at game night months ago.

Her husband, Josh, was chatting with Cole and Lena, who were both sipping on cocktails. Logan was standing with Mason in the kitchen, and Rachel, who was holding a piping bag arched up over a cake, had a fierce look of determination on her face.

So far, he’d been skirting the issue of approaching her, and he hated that. Every time they’d been left standing beside one another, she would give him a timid smile and then excuse herself, and he would do, well, something other than stand there trying to think of what to say.

But it was time to man up. What am I afraid of? A tiny pregnant woman? As he got closer, though, he rethought that. Okay, maybe he was a little scared of her.

“This is amazing, Rachel.”

She was focused on what she was doing as she bent down to write his name across the cake in a cursive style. The apron she was wearing was black, and in white writing across her pregnant belly were the words, Your opinion wasn’t in the recipe, which was so much like the fun, outspoken woman he knew. It saddened him that, each time he got close, she clammed up and fled the scene.

Once she’d finished his name, she glanced up at him and that sad look, the one she always got around him now, entered her eyes.

Tate tilted his head to the side and reached for her arm, and when she took a deep breath, he asked softly, “Do you think we could talk for a minute?”

She scanned the room, but when there was apparently no plausible way for her to say no, she nodded. Tate caught Logan watching them from across the kitchen.

“How about we go out on the balcony? Let me grab your coat.”

“Okay,” she said as she untied the apron and removed it.

Tate left to get the black-and-white-zebra-print coat she’d walked in with, and when he got back to the living room, he saw her standing over by the sliding doors, waiting for him. He spotted Cole sipping on his scotch, and when he gave a nod of his head, Tate held her coat up for her to slip into before he opened the door.

As they stepped out onto the balcony, the cool night air hit his cheeks, and Tate shoved his hands into his pockets. She walked over to the railing, and as he stood there, surrounded by the city lights, he wondered where on Earth to start.

“Think they’re gonna make out?” Logan asked as he stopped by Cole and looked toward the sliding door Tate had just closed.

His brother turned toward him with a wry look on his face, and when he raised his glass to take a sip, Logan winked.

“Really though. How do you think that’ll go?”

Cole shrugged, and Logan noticed Shelly watching the two of them. As a look of understanding appeared in her eyes, she ran a hand down the back of her daughter’s hair and gave them a small smile.

“She’s a contradiction, isn’t she?” Logan mused.

“Shelly?” Cole asked as he leaned a shoulder against the wall. “Yeah, I guess she is.”