Page 1 of His Custody

Chapter One

June

Jasper’s feet pounded down the linoleum-floored halls, through the endless twists and turns of neutral-colored walls. What Sarah would call beige, sage, dove. As he followed the signs toward the wing he needed to get to, he tried to ignore the pounding in his chest echoing his footfalls.Man up, Andersson.

A doctor in a white coat and a guy in a suit stood at the end of the hall. Because when the Anderssons and the O’Connells were involved, lawyers and PR were, too. The guy in the suit noticed him first and plastered a serious, sympathetic expression on his face.

“Mr. Andersson.” Jasper extended a hand and shook. “Davis Wilcox, patient liaison. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

Patient liaison his ass. He’d bet anything Mr. Wilcox didn’tliaisewith anyone who wasn’t a major benefactor to the hospital. Or didn’t have the potential to be.

“And this is Doctor Sandra Ettleson. She’s been responsible for Miss O’Connell’s care.”

“How is she?”

Doctor Ettleson looked to Mr. Wilcox for a go-ahead that made Jasper’s fists tighten at his sides. He was in no mood to fuck around with rigid formalities or legalese.

His phone had rung after midnight. He was used to getting calls in the middle of the night, some panicked underling needing direction, or one of his carefree friends wanting to know if he wanted to get a drink or maybe hit something heavier. He was not, however, used to getting a call from the United States Coast Guard telling him his parents’ yacht had sunk off the Connecticut coast and his parents and his kid brother were dead, along with the crew of the boat.

“What about the O’Connells?” he’d asked. His family’s closest friends. They traveled together, lived two streets away, ate several meals a week together, and their kids had been madly in love. Keyne and Gavin had been inseparable since they were born, two days apart.

But now they were separated. Gavin had been killed and Keyne had survived. Was maybe the only survivor. Search and rescue was still on the scene, but they weren’t hopeful. And Keyne, god, she was just a kid.

“Miss O’Connell is asleep—”

“You mean sedated.”

Doctor Ettleson blinked. “Yes.”

“Then say that.” He wasn’t known for his patience under the best of circumstances and at the moment he was strung taut like a double bass.

“Of course.” Dr. Ettleson flashed Mr. Wilcox another glance and he gave her a go-ahead nod. For fuck’s sake, could the woman not make a decision without a second motion? “Miss O’Connell has been sedated. She was, as you would expect, distraught when she was brought in. Physically, though, she’s as well as can be expected. The hypothermia from being in the water before she was rescued shouldn’t have any long-term effects. There was a laceration on her left upper arm that required stitches, but aside from that and some minor contusions and abrasions, she’s fine.”

“I’d like to see her.”

“Of course,” Mr. Wilcox piped up. “Right this way.”

They showed him into a not-quite-standard room—private, of course, and the décor was more upscale, but the hospital bed was the same. And there was Keyne. Tucked up to her chin under bleached-white linens, her long reddish hair providing a brilliant contrast, her coltish legs outlined under the blanket. If you didn’t know to look for the faint freckles that dotted the bridge of her nose and the swell of her cheeks, you wouldn’t be able to tell they were there, but Jasper had known her literally her entire life. All seventeen years of it.

There was a big gap between him and his brother. Fourteen years. But Gavin hadn’t been the accident, Jasper had. His parents hadn’t meant to have a kid during college, but that’s why it’s called an accident, right? He’d been in this weird generational gap, a child to their parents but a grown-up to Gavin and Keyne, and no one for him to pair off with. No one who wanted to play his games or read his books. But that had been okay. There was plenty of love and affection to go around their self-made Andersson-O’Connell clan and he didn’t often feel left out. Besides, whenever he’d gotten too broody-adolescent, little red-headed Keyne would come and ask him to read her a book. He could never say no.

And now... now it was just the two of them. From seven came two. That’s not how it was supposed to be.

His jaw clenched and he swallowed. This was no time to lose his cool, to let himself come undone even though his world was ending as definitively as Keyne’s was. Parents, dead. Brother, dead. Godparents, dead. The only family he had left was lying sedated in a hospital bed.

He talked to Dr. Ettleson and Mr. Wilcox for a few minutes once they were inside Keyne’s room, asking questions about when she could be released, what care would need to be provided. He was careful not to leave any room for argument about where she would be going upon discharge, because she was coming home with him. When he was satisfied, he dismissed them.

Needing something to keep him busy in the quiet, he sat by Keyne’s bed, making notes on arrangements that would need to be made. Through the fog of disbelief, he let his planning mind take over, the part that functioned in a crisis when everyone else was flailing around. Jasper wasn’t the flailing type. He made lists instead: legal documents that would need to be obtained, funeral arrangements made. He’d send his housekeeper, Ada, over to the O’Connells’ house to get some things for Keyne: clothes, toothbrush, books. She’d need a new phone, too, although who she was going to call... He fought back the sick rising in his throat. She could call him.

It had been several hours of list-making, emailing, and making quiet phone calls before Keyne’s eyes opened, slow and heavy.

Whatever drugs they gave her hadn’t worn off yet, or maybe it was the aftereffects from the hypothermia. She looked dazed, and when she’d opened her eyes, she didn’t freak out as would have been well within her rights. Maybe she was wading through a haze of denial like he was—this is not happening, this cannot be happening, things like this don’t happen to people like us.

“Jasper?”

It came out a whisper, but the small sound was a heavy weight on his chest. “Yeah, Keyne, it’s me. I’m here.”

“Am I—What...”

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