Nash Read Free Page B

engulfed in a hug I
    needed like no one’s business. I let Cora do her magic and try and make me feel better. I also let the quiet
    strength and steady assuredness of the guy I considered my older brother try and ground me. Rome Archer
    was a rock and I needed that kind of stability as my world was shaking around me.
    I was pulling it together, getting the emotions that were churning and rolling in check, getting my head
    around what was going on when they showed up. It was bad enough that my mom was there, but that she
    had the nerve to bring that asshole she married with her was just pushing the limits of my already tattered
    control.
    She just had to go and call me Nashville … no one called me Nashville and lived to tell the tale … well,
    no one but Cora. I think it was hearing my real name spoken from my mom’s lips that had all the questions
    rolling and the pieces tumbling into place. I went from hovering on the brink of calm to a volatile molten
    core of fury that was ready to take this ER down in flood of hate and wrath.
    Why was she here?
    Phil made her his next of kin, his power of attorney … like she was somehow more important to him
    than I was.
    Why?
    She didn’t answer.
    Did she know he was sick and for how long?
    She did. Phil didn’t want me to worry.
    She tried to convince me it was all in my best interest and my top was about to blow with each biting
    question I fired at her, when my best friend, Rule, showed up with his fiancée. I had a moment of clarity
    and was starting to see through the haze of dread, anger, resentment, and everything else fueling my blood
    when Saint’s copper-colored head popped back around the corner. Her words had already changed my life
    once tonight.
    I had no idea that she wasn’t even close to being done.
    She cocked her head to the side, blinked those gray eyes at me like she wasn’t just going to break apart
    the foundation of everything I thought I knew, and said, “He’s awake and asking for you.”
    “He is?”
    “Yeah, he said he wants to talk to his son … that has to be you, right? You guys look identical.”
    The world fell away. I stopped breathing, stopped feeling, and stopped living. I was just rooted on the
    spot, stuck in a moment where my beloved uncle Phil had somehow just morphed into my father. The lies,
    the secrets, the wasted time, the hollow feeling I had always carried around from being unwanted not only
    by a superficial and uncaring mother, but also by a faceless, nameless father turned around and around, and
    I felt like I was going to pass out from the dizziness it caused.
    “Holy shit!” Typical Rule, he brought me back to the white room with a clatter and blood rushing into
    my face and ears. I was going to lose it, but like she knew it, Cora was suddenly there, right in my face,
    always the voice of reason. Always taking care of her boys.
    “Nash.” Cora’s tone was stern and no-nonsense. “Now isn’t the time. We can work out all the details
    later. They don’t matter. You have to appreciate that he’s still here and focus on the now.” Her bright eyes
    danced over to her man and then slid back to mine. “Plus you can’t hit her and get away with it. I can.” Her
    spiky blond head tilted in the direction where my mom was cowering next to her husband. I wouldn’t put it
    past her to actually take a swing at my mom. It was why I loved her so much.
    Cora moved to the side as Saint walked up to my side and put her hand on the crook of my elbow in a
    silent gesture to follow her.
    “I got you, Nash.” Her eyes were a thundercloud I wanted to stare at forever. That was a storm I would
    never complain about getting caught in.
    “Do you?” I hoped against hope she was the only one who could hear my voice crack and that Cora
    really did lay my lying, conniving mother out on the ER waiting room floor.
    “I do.” She almost whispered it and I wanted to ask how long she had me for. Was she going to be there
    while I coped