“Sorry,” Brendan murmured.
So was Aiden. Sorry his brothers felt the need to tiptoe around him when they used to wrestle him to the ground. Sorry they had to shoulder Aiden’s share of the work around the place in addition to their own, while squeezing in time to complete the course for River Quest.
Liam’s plan to finish the cabin that he and Anna and the twins would call home after the couple exchanged their wedding vows on Christmas Eve had been delayed because of Aiden, too.
With a damaged knee, climbing the thirteen steps up to the garage apartment he shared with Liam would have been as impossible as scaling a mountain. And because all the bedrooms in Sunni’s house were upstairs, too, Liam, the brother with the mad design skills, had been charged with converting the sunroom overlooking the river into a bedroom before Aiden was released from the hospital.
His family assumed that seeing the river outside his window would comfort him. But like a kid with his nose pressed against the glass of the candy store window, all it did was give Aiden a perfect view of everything he couldn’t have.
“How did therapy go today?” Liam asked.
Teeth-gritting, stomach-turning, excruciatingly painful. “Great.”
“Great,” Liam echoed, relief chasing the concern from his eyes.
How was it that Aiden could fool his brothers—the brothers who’d lived with him for twenty-six years—and a petite librarian with fern green eyes had seen right through him? Recognized him for the faker that he was?
Aiden didn’t have time to dwell on that—or why he remembered the color of Maddie Montgomery’s eyes—because Liam was nodding at Brendan, and Brendan...cleared his throat.
Aiden’s internal alarm system instantly went on high alert. If his oldest brother was struggling to find the right thing to say, chances were good it would be something Aiden didn’t want to hear.
“Don’t tell me this is another family meeting.” As far as Aiden was concerned, the last one hadn’t gone so well.
He was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that their biological mother had kept her fourth pregnancy a secret and given a baby girl—Aiden’s baby sister—up for adoption after she was born.
And as much as Aiden loved and respected his oldest brother, he wasn’t thrilled Brendan had kept that a secret until a few months ago.
“Not tod—” Brendan caught himself. “Of course not. Liam and I need your opinion about something.”
Since when?
Aiden clamped down on the words so hard that pain shot down his jaw.
But he knew what Brendan and Liam were trying to do.
It was the same thing everyone—from Sunni to Anna’s eight-year-old twins—had been trying to do since the day Aiden was released from the hospital. They wanted him to feel useful.
But what his family didn’t seem to understand was the more they tried to make Aiden feel useful, the more useless he felt.
It was bad enough he’d been as helpless as a baby those first few days at home. Liam had had to help Aiden shower and get dressed. Brendan—Mr. Organized—had bought one of those plastic pill holders and divvied up Aiden’s pain meds in compartments that corresponded with the days of the week. His brothers had even taken turns checking on Aiden after he went to bed until he’d asked for a story, too.
They’d taken the hint and backed off. Now Aiden realized he’d simply been granted a temporary reprieve from “brother smother” while they plotted a new strategy.
“I printed out the map you drew.” A map Liam happened to have tucked in the back pocket of his jeans. “Do you have time to take a look at it?”
“Sure.” The word tasted bitter in Aiden’s mouth. Thanks to the guy who’d run him off the road, he had nothing but time.
He’d imagined being involved in every aspect of River Quest, and now he’d been reduced to the role of consultant. It was killing Aiden to watch his idea take shape under someone else’s hands—even if those hands belonged to his more-than-capable older brothers.
“The fire ring—” Liam pushed aside the flotsam and jetsam that had collected on the coffee table over the course of the day and set the map down. “It looks a little close to the victory platform.”
“It’s not a fire ring...it’s a ring of fire.”
Brendan frowned. “What’s the difference?”
Aiden couldn’t believe he had to ask. “One you roast marshmallows over, and one you run through.”
“Run through,” Liam repeated.
“Is there an echo in here?” Aiden rolled his eyes toward the knotty pine ceiling. “What did you think? We’d be making s’mores for all the contestants when they got to the end of the race?”
Judging from their expressions, that was exactly what his brothers had thought.
“You expect people to run through fire,” Brendan said slowly. “On purpose.”
“If they want to win. Hence the word challenge.”
A smile played at the corners of Liam’s lips. “It will definitely be that.”
“It will also send our liability insurance premiums through the roof,” Brendan muttered.
“Everyone has to sign a waiver,” Aiden reminded him.
“Fine...but that doesn’t mean s’mores are a bad idea.”
Aiden hadn’t expected Brendan to go along with it. Did his big brother trust his judgment? Or did this fall under “humoring the patient”?
There was no way to know for sure until Aiden could sneak the side-by-side out of the garage when no one was looking and take a drive back into the woods himself.
Being under constant surveillance had joined the list of things that made Aiden feel twitchy. And speaking of constant surveillance...
“Where’s Mom? She mentioned something about going out for dinner tonight.” Aiden didn’t look forward to being on display for the whole town to see, but sitting at the table, underneath the family microscope, was taking its toll on him, too.
“She is, but not with you.” Liam got a goofy, lovesick grin on his face. “She and Lily are meeting Anna at The Happy Cow tonight to work on the wedding plans.”
Aiden tried to hide his relief. He’d be alone.
“So we ordered a pizza.”
Or not.
“Sausage with extra mushroom,” Brendan added.
Aiden’s favorite. “Humoring the patient” it was.
“Sounds great. I’ll meet you in the family room.” At least there wasn’t a wall of glass framing the river, reminding Aiden that he could look but not touch.
Liam shook his head.
“You stay put. We’ll bring it here.”
Aiden kept the smile in place until his brothers left the room, and waited until their voices faded before he took out everything on the coffee table—including the map—with one swipe of his crutch.
Because the reminder that Liam and Anna would be exchanging their vows in a few short months reminded Aiden of a vow he’d made. He’d stood in this very room a few weeks ago and announced to his entire family that he would track down their missing sister before the wedding.
What had he been thinking?
Right now, the task seemed as impossible as sprinting through the ring