He studied me as if he was seeing me for the first time. It was a bit unsettling, so I turned back to my book.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Vale McKinley,” he said, and I nodded but didn’t look up.

With a soft chuckle he was gone.

One more hour before I could see Crawford.

CHAPTER SIX

MADDY WAS FINALLY asleep. Malyn had fallen asleep easily, but Maddy had been too excited. I covered her up and then eased myself out of the bed. I wanted some milk and another bite of the caramel pie Mom had in the fridge. Maddy had eaten most of my piece earlier.

I heard Knox and Mom talking in the kitchen, and I almost turned around and went right back into my room. Those two would want to talk about Crawford and my schedule. They loved me. I got it. But they needed to get that I was an adult. I was eighteen years old. I didn’t need advice.

Taking a deep breath and preparing myself for a potential argument, I went down the eight stairs that it took to get to the first floor. Turning right, I walked straight into the kitchen. Knox was at the table with the entire pie plate and a fork. Not surprising.

“Save me some, pig,” I said, going over to the drawer to get myself a fork.

“The rest is all yours,” he said, sliding the plate over.

“You want milk, baby?” Momma asked.

“I can get it,” I told her. She waited on my brothers, but I didn’t like it. We should be waiting on Momma the way she did for us.

“Sit. I barely see you. Let me at least fix your milk.”

I forced a smile and sat down with my pie. It was more than I’d eat, but I didn’t tell Knox that. He’d eat the whole thing if I offered him more.

“Dylan said Slate stopped by again today,” Knox said.

I nodded. “Yep.” I decided telling him about the coffee was a bad idea.

“Be careful. You’re a challenge to him. He’s used to girls chasing him. He hasn’t met a Vale yet.”

I crammed a bite of pie in my mouth and glared at him. Was he seriously worried I was going to hook up with Slate Allen when all I did was sit outside my comatose boyfriend’s hospital room waiting on him to open his eyes?

“I think it’s good she has someone up there to talk to. I worry about her getting lonely,” Momma said as she sat the milk down in front of me.

“Mom, he’s a player. Sleeps with more women than Charlie Sheen.”

Momma made a tsking sound. “Nonsense. No one has slept with more people than Charlie Sheen.”

I laughed and Knox sighed. He wasn’t amused. I thought Mom had made a funny.

“I’m serious. Not your kind of guy,” he said, looking at me with a hard glare.

I was over this conversation. “Knox, I sit at a hospital all day every day waiting on the only guy I’ve ever loved and will ever love to open his eyes. That is my world. Do you honestly think I’m even entertaining the idea of Slate? What makes you think I would even notice him?”

“All females notice him.”

I took another bite. I wasn’t some sorority girl who wanted to be added to Slate Allen’s bedpost notches. No thank you.

“I think you need to trust your sister,” Momma said.

Knox grunted. “Just because you want her to have a life outside that hospital doesn’t mean Slate Allen needs to be part of it.”

I sat my fork down and stood back up. “I think I’ve had enough. I’m going to bed. Then in the morning I will go back to Crawford. I will always go back to Crawford.”

“Finish your milk, honey,” Momma said, sounding almost like she was pleading.

I didn’t want to upset her, so I reached for my glass and started drinking.

“Wasn’t trying to upset you.” Knox sounded a bit guilty. “I’ll come read to Crawford tomorrow. More college football stuff he needs to hear.”

I finished my milk, then took the glass to the sink to wash it.

“I’m fine. And thank you. Crawford needs to hear us. This talk about Slate Allen is pointless, though.”

Momma patted my back and kissed the top of my head. “I want you happy.”

I couldn’t be happy without Crawford. But I didn’t tell her that. I just nodded.

“I know, Momma.” I hugged her. “Good night and thanks for the pie.”

“See you at lunch,” Knox called out, and I waved without turning around, then headed back to my room. The security of silence. Where no one told me what they thought I should do.

Quietly I slipped back into my room to see my nieces sprawled out on my full-size bed. There wasn’t any room left for me now. Smiling, I took the extra pillow and a blanket from the closet and curled up on the bean bag I still had on the floor from my childhood. The girls loved to play on it so I’d kept it.

Although I hadn’t slept on it in years, I remembered nights I would fall asleep reading in it or talking on the phone to Crawford. That seemed like another lifetime ago. What I would give now to be able to just pick up the phone and call him. To hear his voice before I went to bed. To hear his laughter and know that tomorrow he would be there with me.

He had to wake up. I couldn’t face this life without him. He was my safe place, my best friend. Tears stung my eyes and I let them fall. Feeling them run down my cheeks, the pain in my chest didn’t ease, but it felt less lonely to cry.

Everything was different now. I was lost. Alone. I didn’t know how to find myself. I needed Crawford. Knox worrying about me liking the wrong guy was ridiculous. I loved Crawford and I had my entire life. A pretty smile and incredible eyes weren’t going to change that. I wasn’t shallow.

Closing my eyes, I let myself remember life with Crawford.

Walking through the field, I saw the swing hanging from our favorite tree before we got to it. The thick ropes held a large flat piece of wood. I turned back to Crawford. “What’s that?” I asked, pointing at the swing.

He grinned. “It looks to me like it’s a swing, V.”

“I know that … but where did it come from?”

He walked up and slipped his hand over mine. We were doing that a lot lately. Holding hands. “You said last week the only thing that could make this place better was a swing. So there’s your swing.”

My eyes grew wide as his words sank in. “You did that?”

“Well, my dad helped a little,” he admitted.

That didn’t matter. It had been his idea. He had built me a swing. “Can I try it?” I was unable to contain my excitement.

“You better. Or my feelings will be hurt.”

I threw both arms around his neck while standing on my tiptoes to reach him. He grew an inch every day, it seemed. Soon I would need a ladder to reach him.

“Thank you,” I said as his arms wrapped around me.

“Anything for you, V. Anything.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

AS I WALKED down the hall toward the waiting room, my steps slowed when I saw Slate sitting there. He had a coffee in each hand. The same delicious coffee from yesterday. He was leaning back in a chair with his feet propped up on the seat across from him.

Why was he here this early? I’d been here an hour already when he’d arrived yesterday, and he had called that early. He turned his head in my direction as I got closer. Then a slow smile slid across his face that I would admit was movie star–worthy. He should look into that. Or modeling, maybe.

“Good morning,” he said as if he’d been up for hours or had several cups of coffee. I’d had none and slept on a bean bag, then was awakened by Maddy before the sun was fully up.