GETTING SOME TIME ALONE hadn’t been easy. I’d had to take my turn holding my new niece, and handing her back had been harder than I anticipated. Even once I escaped the excitement next door, I’d stepped in to check on Kyle and Brook, relaxing at Brook’s insistence that they’d both be okay. After I’d found Lauren propped up reading in Mum’s bed, her huge eyes wide as she asked about Jem, and reassured her everything and everyone was fine, I finally reached my personal space.
Leaning back against the door, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. The first intake sucked up the remnants of Shelley’s earlier presence, and my gut twisted at the reminder of my screw-up.
I rubbed at my face, my palms scratching across stubble, before reaching back for the neck of my shirt and sliding it up and
