“Stomach’s not so good, Britt.”

“Just a little. Try a little.”

“You need to go. If they catch you in here—”

“They’re asleep. I made sure. I’m staying with you. I’m going to stay with you until you can eat something. I’m so sorry, Zane.”

“Don’t cry.”

“You’re crying.”

He let the tears roll. He just didn’t have the strength to stop them.

Sniffling at her own tears, swiping at them, Britt reached down to stroke his arm. “I brought milk, too. They won’t notice if a glass of milk is gone. I cleaned everything up, and when you’re done, I’ll wash the glass.”

They spoke in whispers—they were used to it—but now her voice hitched.

“He hit you so hard, Zane. He hit you and hit you, and when you were on the ground, he kicked you in the stomach. I thought you were dead.”

She laid her head on his chest, shoulders shaking. He stroked her hair.

“Did he hurt you?”

“No. He sort of squeezed my arms and shook me, yelled at me to shut up. So I did. I was afraid not to.”

“That’s good. You did the right thing.”

“You did.” Her whisper thickened with tears. “You tried to do the right thing. She didn’t try to stop him from hurting you. She didn’t say anything. And when he stopped, he told her to clean up the blood on the floor. There was glass broken in the kitchen, to clean it up, to clean herself up and have dinner on the table by six.”

She sat up, held out half the sandwich she’d neatly cut in two. In that moment he loved her so much it hurt his heart.

He took it, tried a bite, and found it didn’t threaten to come up again.

“We have to tell Emily and Grams and Pop you’re sick. You got the flu, and you’re contagious. You have to rest, and Dad’s taking care of you. He won’t let them come up to see you. Then we have to tell people at the resort you fell off your bike. He said all this at dinner. I had to eat or he’d get mad again. Then I threw up when I went upstairs.”

He took another bite, reached for her hand in the dark. “I know how that feels.”

“When we get back, we have to say you had a skiing accident. Fell. Dad took care of you.”

“Yeah.” The single word rang bitter, bitter. “He took care of me.”

“He’ll hurt you again if we don’t. Maybe worse. I don’t want him to hurt you again, Zane. You were trying to stop him from hitting Mom. You were protecting me, too. You thought he was going to hit me. So did I.”

He felt her shift, saw in the faint light of the flashlight she’d set on the bed that she’d turned to stare toward the window. “One day I guess he will.”

“No, no, he won’t.” Inside the pain, fury rose. “You won’t give him any reason to. And I won’t let him.”

“He doesn’t need a reason. You don’t have to be a grown-up to understand that.” Though her tone sounded adult, fresh tears leaked. “I think they don’t love us. He couldn’t love us and hurt us, make us lie. And she couldn’t love us and let it keep happening. I think they don’t love us.”

He knew they didn’t—had known for sure when his mother had come in, looked at him with nothing in her eyes. “We’ve got each other.”

While she sat with him, making sure he ate, he understood he couldn’t run away, couldn’t run and leave Britt. He had to stay. He had to get stronger. He had to get strong enough to fight back.

Not to protect his mother, but his sister.

CHAPTER TWO

On Christmas Eve, Emily Walker still had half a dozen items left on her to-do list. She always made lists, always worked up a schedule. And invariably every item on every list in her history of lists took longer than she’d thought it would.

Every freaking time.

The other thing about lists? Other items tended to pop up onto it, adding yet more time she hadn’t anticipated.

Such as today. In addition to giving the house one last going-over, making her daddy’s favorite stuffed pork chops and scalloped potatoes for Christmas Eve dinner, giving herself a much-needed home facial, driving out to Asheville to pick her parents up from the airport, she’d added in a quick trip to the market to pick up a stewing chicken.

Poor Zane had the flu, so she’d also added making that stewing chicken in a nice batch of chicken soup. And that added on delivering the soup to her sister’s house across the lake.

Which added on the chore of being sweet and nice to Eliza.

To make it worse, she had to be sweet and nice to Eliza after Eliza decreed that Christmas dinner had to be at the old house.

Oh, not to worry, said Eliza, Emily thought while she threw on fresh clothes. She had to skip the facial, needed or not. No, not to worry, because Eliza had already contacted the caterer and switched the venue.

Venue, for God’s sake!

And who in holy hell hired on a caterer for a family holiday dinner?

Eliza Snootface Walker Bigelow, that’s who.

But she’d be sweet, she’d be nice. She damn well wouldn’t start something up with Eliza during their parents’ visit. She’d take over the soup still simmering on the stove, have a little visit with her sick nephew.

And she’d sneak him the latest Dark Tower novel, since King, along with a good dozen others, didn’t make Eliza and Graham’s approved authors list.

What they didn’t know wouldn’t come back and bite her in the ass. Zane was good at keeping secrets. Maybe too good, Emily thought as she slapped some makeup on her face. Maybe she didn’t spend as much time with the kids as she should, but sometimes when she did, she got the sense of … something. Something just not altogether right.

Probably her imagination, she admitted, pulling on her boots. Or just looking for something to whack her older sister with. They hadn’t been close as kids—opposites didn’t always attract, and the nine-year gap between them might have added to it.

They’d grown no closer as adults. In fact, while usually polite—usually—on the surface, there were those undercurrents again. An active mutual dislike.

In fact, if it hadn’t been for her parents and her niece and nephew, Emily could have gone the rest of her life never seeing or speaking to Eliza again.

“A terrible thing,” she murmured as she hurried downstairs. “An awful thing to think, to feel.”

Worse, she feared some of that thinking, that feeling was straight-out resentment on her part—which added shameful.

Eliza was prettier, and always had been. Not that Emily wasn’t cute enough herself, even without the home facial. But Eliza could claim double scoops of good looks, and bigger boobs, too. And of course, given that nine-year head start, had done everything first.

She’d starred in school plays, made head cheerleader, wore the crown as homecoming queen, as prom queen. And when she’d graduated, hadn’t their grandparents given her a slick silver BMW convertible?

Then she’d gone and bagged herself a doctor. A surgeon, and one handsome as a movie star. Had her fancy-dancy country club engagement party, her snooty-assed bridal shower, her extravagant and splashy white wedding.