Free Forever Grace by Linda Poitevin

the bathroom.”
    Grace responded with a wave of one hand. Then Lilliane closed the door and the gazes of all three girls turned to him.
    Annabelle produced a second small stuffed creature from the pouch on the front of her pajamas. She held it up hopefully. “Bunny owie?” she asked.

CHAPTER 10
    ………………
    “AUNT GRACE?” JOSH’S VOICE CAME from behind her as they trudged along the path to Sean’s cottage. “Do we have to move again?”
    Grace stopped walking. She took a deep breath and turned to her nephew. Meeting his worried gaze, she wrestled with the desire to protect him from more worry—and the knowledge that she couldn’t. With all Josh had been through, all he’d known, he’d see through false reassurances in a heartbeat. She couldn’t afford to have him question her honesty. But she could—and did—weigh her words with care.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “I hope not, and I’ll do everything I can to make sure that doesn’t happen, but I can’t promise anything, Josh. You know that.”
    His wire-framed gaze slid away from hers, dropping to the path between them. Grace reached out to squeeze his shoulder.
    “As soon as we get Mr. McKittrick back into his cottage, I’ll call Luc. He’ll know what we should do.”
    “Will you tell me what he says?”
    “Of course. No more secrets, remember?”
    It had been their special pact, hers and Josh’s, when Juli brought the kids to live with her. She’d seen how damaged Josh was, then, and how much he needed to talk. As much as she’d needed to hear what had been kept hidden from her. No secrets. Not if she’d wanted to help her sister.
    And even that hadn’t been enough.
    Her nephew nodded. He lurched forward and slid his arms around her in a fierce embrace, his face buried against her shoulder. Grace hugged back, equally fierce, and swallowed against the lump lodged in her throat—a tangle of grief, worry, responsibility, and overwhelming love. Josh stepped back.
    “I’m good now,” he said, blinking too fast.
    Without comment, Grace dropped a kiss on his forehead and then turned back to the path.
    Getting Josh into Sean’s cottage turned out to be remarkably easy. The bathroom window consisted of double-paned vinyl sliders, loose enough in their tracks to be pushed up with the flats of Grace’s hands and then wiggled free. Josh was light enough for her to boost, and in short order, he had his head and shoulders through the opening. The toughest moment came when the rest of him disappeared with an ominous, hollow thud.
    “Josh? Josh, are you all right?”
    No answer.
    Grace stretched up on tiptoe, clinging to the windowsill and straining to peer inside. “Josh!”
    “I’m okay,” came a muffled response. “I just fell into the tub.”
    “Are you hurt?”
    “I don’t think so. No. I’m fine.”
    Relief made her arms shaky. She released the ledge and settled back on her heels again. “All right. Good. Now go open the door for me, and then we’ll get Mr. McKittrick.”
    She replaced the windows in their tracks, and then went around to meet Josh at the door. He sported a large, purpling goose egg on his forehead. Grace swept his hair back to examine it, wincing.
    “Ouch. That has to hurt.”
    Her nephew shrugged. “Not too much.”
    “Still. Put some ice on it when we get home, all right?” Grace stepped into the cottage and found what she was looking for just inside the door. She scooped up the single, untied running shoe, then hesitated. Should she get a sock, too? He’d be more comfortable…
    She shook her head at the idea of going into his room and through his personal things. Not a chance. He’d endured an entirely shoeless journey last night; he’d survive a sockless one today. His pain meds, however, were another story.
    “I’ll be back in a second,” she told Josh, who waited on the deck, rubbing his forehead.
    As she’d suspected she would, she found a pill bottle sitting in the open on the kitchen