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is that different from the way you usually are?”
    “I’m glad to see the aftereffects of surgery have not dampened your wit,” he said, but his voice had an unmistakable edge.
    “Is everyone really okay?”
    He tucked her hair behind her ear. He seemed obsessed with having constant physical contact with her. She wasn’t about to complain about it, when it comforted her so effectively. It took him a moment to speak.
    “It was not a fun evening. But Tom kept the girls reasonably calm. I did my best too. From what he told me, their flight was pretty rough, even though I assured him that your injuries weren’t life threatening.”
    “Flight?”
    “Tom took my jet up to Massena. He brought your children home from camp.”
    Did he mention a jet ? Privately owned aircraft had never come up in any of their conversations before. She must have misheard him. Probably the morphine. “You did that for them?”
    Jack gave her a shy smile. “Your daughters are very important to me.”
    They wouldn’t be the only ones affected by her injury. Caroline knew to ask about the usual suspects. Kathleen would be fine but everyone else was a question mark. “What about Chrissy? And Jen?”
    He took a very long sip of coffee. “Katie and I had to convince her to change her dress and clean herself up a little before she saw the girls. She was not in a good place. Neither was Jen. You’ll probably need to hug them or something when they get here tomorrow morning.”
    It didn’t hurt to ask. “Katie’s okay?”
    He gripped the cup a little tighter. “She’ll be fine. Held most of us together, as I’m sure you expected. You had a lot of people checking on your condition, and she herded them all around since Jen was a little shaky.”
    Caroline took a good look at him. His face was drawn and pale, almost gray. Had anyone checked on him? “How are you doing?” she asked.
    Jack set the cup down and closed his eyes. It was a while before he opened them again. She could have sworn she saw his lip tremble. He turned away from her and cleared his throat before reaching over to squeeze her fingers.
    “I am very, very glad to be here with you right now,” he said softly. He slid her hand in between both of his, careful to avoid the IV needle. “And I’m not going to waste this opportunity while I have it.”
    “You don’t have to worry. I’m literally not going anywhere. I don’t have any clothes here and I think they’d notice me trying to escape.”
    Jack didn’t laugh at her cheap attempt at humor. “Do you know why I was so mad at you about what you said about me during the campaign?”
    He didn’t want to waste too much time with small talk, did he? Caroline leaned back into the fluffed up pillow on her hospital bed. She didn’t want to talk about that speech. Not now, not ever. “Jack-” 
    “Don’t, Caroline. I know what you’re going to say. I really have forgiven you for giving that speech. I mean it. And I know you hate talking about it. But I realized a while ago that it struck a nerve with me because it was grounded in truth.”
    She glared at him. “It wasn’t the truth and you know it.”
    “You know how many women I’ve been with. How many I’ve used. You know the bad decisions I’ve made, the terrible things I’ve done to make money, get ahead, close the deal, get laid. You know how I’ve manipulated people. And you know that deep down inside, I’m an entitled asshole who thinks he can get whatever he wants, whenever he wants. That’s precisely why I ran for Congress. I wanted the power. I wanted the attention. I wanted everything that came along with it, so I could take that next step.”
    “That’s not the real you,” she said.
    “The hell it isn’t. You as much told me the same thing over the course of the last week, and you were right.”
    “I’ve said a lot of awful things to you recently. Things I shouldn’t have said. You’re not that man.”
    “Who am I, then?”
    “That’s