“Okay, kiddo, wanna tell me what’s going on now?” Laura asked as she worked beside her brother in the stable. With Josh, the hired stable hand, off sick today, it put more work on her and Paul. But Laura didn’t really mind as it gave her a physical outlet for her energy…and a chance to talk to her brother.

She’d had enough of his moodiness, and decided that now was the perfect time to talk.

“What’cha talking about?” Paul asked as he lugged a bale of hay into the stall his sister was working in. Laura stopped working and sized up her baby brother for a moment as he started to rake out the hay, oblivious to her attention.

At almost six feet tall, the 17-year-old could hardly be considered a baby anymore, but to Laura that is what he would always be. And she absently wondered exactly when he had become taller than she….

Leanly built, he was still well-muscled, and his skin was permanently bronzed from the time he spent outdoors. Right now his curly blond hair was plastered to his forehead, as he had worked up quite a sweat this morning.

Reaching down, Laura grabbed one of the bottles of water she had brought out with them and tossed it to him. Paul caught it, flashed her a grateful smile and then drank it down quickly.

Laura knew that both Paul and she took after their mother, who had been blond-haired and blue-eyed like they were. But while her own eyes were pale blue, her brother had inherited their mother’s vibrant blue eyes – electric sapphire, Paul’s girlfriend Gwynne called them – either way, a rare color, and for one moment Laura found herself wondering, if she had any children what color their eyes would be.

Would they be pale blue like her own? ‘Electric sapphire’ like their grandmother and uncle’s? Or brown like Fen- Laura stopped her chain of thought right there.

Brown like Fenton? That was a bit presumptuous.

“Larry? You okay?” Paul’s voice broke into her thoughts, as her brother had finished the water and was watching her. It was very obvious to him that his sister had been somewhere else.

“Huh? Oh, I’m sorry, Paulie, I was just thinking about something, that’s all.”

“A something or a someone?” the younger teen teased, and Laura picked up a handful of fresh straw and tossed it at him.  And that started an out-and-out hay fight.

Ten minutes later, they were lying on the clean straw side by side, covered from head to toe and laughing. 

“Hardly…fair,” Laura griped as she gasped, glancing across at her brother, “I just got…outta…hospital!” 

Paul laughed, not as badly out of breath as she was. “Sis, it could’ve been me who just got home…and you still wouldn’t have been able to take me!”

Laura stuck out her tongue and Paul almost grabbed it. She’d almost forgotten he had great reflexes.

“Case you haven’t noticed Larry, but I’m a wee bit bigger than you now!” he finished, as he laid his head back and closed his eyes.

This had brought back a lot of wonderful memories for him, of being younger and wrestling with his sister when they were supposed to be doing chores. Of course, there had been a time when she had been able to pin him in the straw and rub his face in it…but that time had come and gone.

“You’re still my little brother,” Laura asserted as she pushed herself up on her elbows, recovered from the roughhousing, and scowled at him, “whether you like it or not!”

Paul’s vibrant blue eyes cut right into her heart as he smiled but he didn’t say anything.

And so Laura asked him once again, “Paul, I’m being serious now. What’s going on?”

Immediately he averted her gaze and started to pull himself up out of the hay, but she reached up, grabbed his arm and pulled him back down.

“Please little brother…don’t shut me out.”  The pleading note in her voice was almost more than he could stand, and Paul sat up in the straw but didn’t try to leave this time.

Instead he sighed and said softly, “I’m afraid you’re going to hate me.”

“What?” Laura sat up beside her brother and stared at him incredulously.  “Paul, there is nothing you could ever do that would make me hate you!”

But he was shaking his head.  “You don’t understand Laura….It was my fault!”  He turned to look at her, and she sucked in her breath at the pain she saw laid out so openly on his face.

Laura reached out and caressed his cheek gently as she reasserted, “Oh baby, there isn’t anything you can do to make me hate you….But it is killing me to see you so miserable. Paulie, please tell me – what’s your fault?”

Turning away from her concerned gaze, he just blurted it out.

“I caused the accident….I killed Heart. I almost killed you! It’s all my fault!” There, now he had said it, finally – now his sister would see that she was wrong…she would hate him.

He waited, expecting some sort of backlash, but there wasn’t. And a moment later when he dared look at her again, he saw a confused look on her face

“Paul, Heart tripped. That was all. There was no way you could have caused that. I don’t understand—”

He cut her off.  “I was there Laura! I was watching you jump! I jinxed you – don’t you see that?  I knew something terrible was going to happen and so what do I do, I go to watch!  I jinxed your ride! It was me!”

Laura grabbed her distraught brother and held him tightly in her arms as she kept saying, “No baby…no.  This wasn’t your fault. There wasn’t any jinx, Paulie. Just an accident – that’s all. No more, no less, and most certainly not your fault!”

“But… but….” He pulled away and stammered as his intense gaze searched hers for any signs of duplicity, “but I was there. We never watch each others’ ride – bad luck!”

Laura gave a sad little smile, “Paul, I…um.  I have a confession to make.”

“Huh?”  He had no idea what his sister would need to confess. 

Placing her hand against his trembling cheek, Laura continued, “I have seen you ride…you and Grace.  In fact, I usually do go and watch. I can’t help it,” she admitted, “you’re my little brother, and I’m so proud of you…” and she added grudgingly as she thought about the black mare, “and Grace. Well, when she isn’t busting your butt, that is.”

“Really?” Paul said, shocked, “You’ve watched us ride?”

“Yeah, and little brother, never once did it jinx you.”  She smiled softly at the stunned look on his face – it wasn’t often that she saw that look on his face.

“So I… I didn’t cause it?” He was still very hesitant to believe. He had punished himself with it for too long….

Laura smiled widely.  “You never caused it….I never caused it….Even Heart didn’t cause it. It was just an accident.  A horrible one, but an accident nonetheless.”

“Oh Larry,” Paul said as he leaned back in the hay, an unbearable weight lifting from his shoulders, “I was so sure…”

“It’s okay, Paulie…it’s okay,” she reassured her younger brother, inwardly saddened by the burden he had been carrying – a burden that he was unwilling to share.

Suddenly Paul sat up again and looked at his sister, his eyes wide in his pale face, as he suddenly seemed unable to draw a breath.

“Paul, what’s wrong?” Laura demanded worriedly.

But her brother was just shaking his head as he sucked in deep lungfuls of air – something was wrong, that’s all he knew.

* * *

...DR. SCOTT TO THE ER….STAT….DR. SCOTT TO THE ER….STAT….

As the surgeon raced into the ER, he was quickly briefed on two gunshot victims, cops, being rushed in. One in critical condition.

There were also three other victims and one fatality, but they were being taken to another hospital.

Moments later, the doctor’s face paled as he recognized one of the shot police officers – Fenton Hardy.

“Ohmygod, I know this boy,” he said, running beside the stretcher as it was wheeled into an examining room. “This is my daughter’s boyfriend!”

“Do you want me to get Dr. Tarkenson down here?” the attending doctor asked, referring to the other surgeon on duty, as he lifted the makeshift bandages on the cop’s chest to get their first glimpse of the wound.

But as Dr. Scott heard the paramedics listing Fenton’s condition and did a quick assessment himself, he shook his head.  “No time. Get OR Four ready, we’re coming right up!” 

And as he ran with the stretcher for the elevator, he yelled at one of the nurses, “Call my home – tell my kids to get in here, NOW!”

And then he was gone. 

He had told them one white lie with regards to Fenton’s condition – they could have waited for the other surgeon.

But Dr. Scott was the best, and right now he wanted nothing but the best for this young man – if not, he would have his daughter to answer to….