To Professor, with Love (Forbidden Men #2)(107)

I nudged Brandt’s leg with my shoe until he jerked awake and sat up.

He stared at me a moment before blinking and saying, “Noel?” When his voice cracked with emotion, I hauled him off the floor and into me for a bone-cracking hug. It took him a second, but he finally hugged me back, and when he did, he buried his face in my neck to let out one short sob. Jesus, but he’d gotten tall.

“How’s Caroline?” I asked, pulling away to see he still had a bruise on his face, a fresh reddish purple one.

He shook his head. “She’s bad. Real bad.”

I reached out to touch his discolored jaw, but stopped myself at the last second. “Shouldn’t that have healed by now?”

With a half shrug, he glanced away. “It’s a new one.”

New one. No one had told me he’d gotten beat up again. Hell, no one had told me much of anything in the last few weeks.

On the couch, Colton stirred. When he sat up, yawning and scratching his head, the holey blanket that had been covering him slipped down to reveal pale, boney arms. Shit, how much food did the kid eat? Looked like he only got fed once a week.

“Hey, kiddo,” I greeted, my throat closing over, as I reached out to ruffle his grease-matted hair.

He’d been five when I’d moved away. So when he stared up at me with leery, untrusting sunken-in eyes, I realized I was akin to a stranger, his absent big brother who’d deserted him.

“Where is she?” I asked, turning to Brandt and unable to look at Colt without begging for his forgiveness.

Brandt pointed toward a narrow hall. “The bathroom, I bet. She’s been in there all night.”

I nodded and made my way to my little sister. The bathroom was dark, but the morning sunrise coming in through the window showed a human-sized lump on the floor, draped over the toilet seat. Reaching inside, I tried to flip on the light switch, but nothing happened.

“Light’s broken,” my sister’s frail voice came from inside.

“Shit.” I crouched down and scooped her into my arms. “Caroline?”

She slumped against me, so frail and limp I stopped short from pulling her in tight, afraid I might hurt her.

“I’m so glad you’re here.” Curling in close, she shivered and cuddled her face against my collar.

I kissed her hair and tried to keep it together, but f*ck, my little sister. When I spotted dark splotches splashed around the rim of the toilet, I choked. “Is that...Jesus, is that blood?”

Made me think of Eva Mercer and the way she’d bled after getting punched in the stomach.

Caroline didn’t even lift her face. “Probably.”

“Oh, hell. Did you have a miscarriage?”

She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and sniffed. Wetness soaked through my shirt, telling me she was crying. “No. I...I...Sander’s parents offered me money to get rid of it...so...I did.” The last three words were whispered and clogged with tears.

The breath whooshed from my lungs. “You...I...” I shook my head, not sure what to say. My fingers trembled as I brushed the hair out of her face and kissed her temple. “Is this what you wanted?”

“I don’t know,” she croaked.

Squeezing my eyes closed, I ground my teeth together. “Fuck, Caroline. If you’d wanted to keep the baby, I would’ve helped you. You realize that, right? I know I lost it when I found out, but I was mad, and disappointed, and scared shitless.”

“Well, what do you think I was?” She pushed back to glare up at me. “I was scared too, Noel. And you weren’t here. What was I supposed to do?” Burying her face into her hands, she wept openly, her shoulders trembling from the force of her sobs.

Fisting my hand against my mouth, I watched her fall apart. This was my fault. I’d failed my family. I’d failed Aspen.

I’d failed, period.

“I’m sorry,” Crawling the few feet she’d scooted away from me, I pulled her back into my arms. But she remained stiff, and it broke me. I buried my face in her hair. “I’m so sorry.”

It took her a while to finally ease back against me, but when she did, I could finally suck in a relieved breath. I stroked her back as if that could somehow repay her for all the times I hadn’t been here for her. With a gulp, I glanced over her shoulder, trying to pull myself back together, when I spotted more blood. Fuck, that was a lot of blood.

“Do we need to get you to a hospital?”

She shook her head. “No, I think...I think it’s over now. They said I’d bleed. I just didn’t expect so much.” When her voice broke, I kissed her temple again.

“Does it still hurt?”

Her nod was all I needed to see. “Okay.” I shifted with her until she was sitting on my knees. Then I rose to my feet. “Let’s get you somewhere comfortable, and we’ll see about finding something for the pain.”

I didn’t even bother taking her to one of the two bedrooms. If the boys had been sleeping in the living rooms, I already knew I didn’t want to go back there.

Ten met us at the end of the hall. “Hey, I’m—”

His words broke off abruptly when he saw Caroline.

She looked up at the new voice, and her eyes bugged. “Oh, my God!” Yelping, she clutched me hard and buried her face back into my chest. “Who is he?”