Jack glanced down at her ankle which was purple and still swollen, though not as bad as the night before. Shit. He’d forgotten all about it.
“I think you need to see a doctor.”
“No,” Donovan said, shaking her head. “I don’t…I’m fine.”
Something in her voice made him uneasy. “A trip to the doctor isn’t going to hurt you.”
“No, but that would be the best way for the media to find out I’m up here, and that’s the last thing that I want.”
She glanced up at him. “You just said you don’t want the outside world finding its way into ours. At least not yet. Can’t we just have a little more time to deal with everything before that happens?”
Everything. Like that damn pregnancy test. And all the other shit. Thing was? It was the other shit that he was concerned about.
“At least let me ask Sabrina for a quick look. She used to be a nurse before the kids came along.”
Donovan nodded. “Okay.”
The two of them were in the kitchen—Donovan propped on the counter as Jack busied himself making French toast—when the door banged open and two bundles of energy ran inside.
“Hey,” Harry shouted. “You’re alive! You’re alive!”
Jack tossed him a strawberry and the little guy caught it.
“Of course I’m alive, silly,” Donovan said.
“But Harry tolded me that you might have got eaten by a big bear,” Morgan said, her eyes huge as she stared up at Donovan.
“Nope,” Donovan replied. “I’m all good.”
“Yay!” Morgan shouted. “Uncle Jack said a lot of bad words when you were gone.”
“He did,” Harry piped in. “He said that one that starts with an F so many times that Mommy says we might be able to fly to Mexico once he pays the swear jar.”
“Did he now?” Donovan asked.
Jack shot the kids a look. The little traitors.
“I told you guys to wait for me.” Sabrina walked into the house and didn’t stop until she had Donovan in a fierce hug. “You scared crap out of me.”
“Is crap a bad word?” Morgan asked, twirling a long lock of hair between her fingers as she looked at her brother.
“I don’t think so,” Harry replied. “It means poo.”
Morgan giggled and Jack grinned at the two of them. “Just don’t say the S-word,” Jack said.
“What’s the S word?” Morgan asked.
“It starts with sh—”
“Harrison Campbell. That’s enough.” Sabrina shot them a stern look before settling onto Jack. “You might want to put some clothes on while I take a look at Donovan’s ankle.”
Jack glanced down at his boxers. Not exactly appropriate for company.
He turned the heat low, pressed a kiss to Donovan’s cheek (to another round of giggles from Morgan and a big fat ‘eeewww’ from Harry) before heading up the stairs to his room.
He’d just pulled on a T-shirt when his cell went off again. Jack almost ignored it, but when another text came through, he strode over to the chair where he’d dumped his cargoes the day before and rifled through his front pocket to retrieve the damn phone.
One glance down told him all hell had broken loose, and just like that, the ease and peace of his morning vanished.