Page 178 of Knot in the Wedding Cards

Cade's eyes cut to August.

It's instinct, I think, muscle memory, the old pack reflex — August is the smoother, the one who steps between andtranslates everyone down into softer versions of themselves, the one who makes the hard things survivable.

Cade looks to him now like a man reaching for a rope he's always found waiting.

August looks back at him and says nothing at all.

The silence stretches.

My hand has started to shake around the plate, a fine tremor I can't seem to stop, and there's a heat climbing the back of my throat that I recognize as the ugly cousin of tears.

The pit in my stomach isn't sadness yet.

Right now it's pure, white anger, and it's screaming so loud in my head I'm half afraid they can hear it.

You stayed the night at a woman's place…a coworker, a pretty one, one who smells like she's still on your collar…to "nap," and you came home and told us over coffee like it's nothing. Like there's nothing here to break.

I feel the spike coming, the sharp spiced-citrus edge my scent takes on when I'm furious, and I clamp down on it with everything I've got.

I will not give him that.

I reach for another plate off the rack and make myself dry it, slow circles, an anchor for my hands.

Warm fingers close gently over mine and lift the plate away before I can crack it.

Sawyer.

He doesn't say a word. He just takes it, sets it down, and stays close at my shoulder, a wall of magnolia and quiet fury I could lean into if my knees gave.

Then August's hand appears in my line of sight, resting light on the counter beside me. His voice, when it comes, is pitched soft and only for me.

"Didn't you have a phone call to make, Amber?"

I look up at him.

His eyes meet mine and hold, steady and warm and deliberate, and I understand exactly what he's doing. He's handing me the door. He's giving me the exit before I have to admit out loud that I need one — the same courtesy I've watched him extend to a hundred cornered people, turned now on me.

He knows. He always does…

"Ah." My voice comes out thinner than I'd like. I clear it. "Yes. I do. I'll…go take care of that."

I set the towel down.

I keep my chin level and my steps even, and I walk out of that kitchen like a woman with a genuine appointment, not a woman fleeing before she says something that can't be unsaid. I make it to the stairs.

I make it up the first several, one hand on the smooth old banister.

I'm halfway up when Cade's voice cuts through the house behind me, sharp with disbelief.

"Okay, seriously…what the fuck is the problem here? I've crashed at Iris' place a couple times before. Slept it off on her couch. Nobody said a damn word about it then."

My foot stops on the stair.

I know I should keep climbing. I know the merciful thing, the dignified thing, is to shut myself in a room and let the men handle their own.

My legs won't cooperate.

I make it to the top of the staircase, and I stop there, pressed against the wall of the upstairs hall where they can't see me, and I listen. I've never been good at not knowing. Fine print is a compulsion.