Page 7 of Shelter for Morgan

So he set his phone back down on the table and called out as he headed to the door. "Morgan?"

"Yeah! It's me!"

His brain was snapping different pieces of the puzzle together in his head.

And when he reached the door, he looked through the peep hole and everything fell into place.

Morgan.

Morgan wasn't a guy.

Morgan was Jacob's sister?

Turning his head to the side, Rhett had to take a moment. He could have sworn that he remembered Jacob introducing him to a... No.

The memory popped up in his head.

A late summer afternoon in the City Center Park. Several dozen fire houses and police precincts had set up booths and a carnival company had arranged for food and snack booths to go up as well.

Rhett had been assigned to the First Aid tent and was standing at the tent opening when Jacob walked up to say hello.

"Hey, man!"

Rhett had lifted his chin in greeting before the two had leaned in for a hug and a hearty slap on each other's backs before Jacob stepped back.

"You working all day?"

"Mostly. I'll have about a half an hour in the middle of the event to go and get something to eat. You?"

Jacob shrugged. "Not officially. I'm moving around from tent to tent checking in. See if folks need something. I'll grab food as I go. 'Sides, I brought Morgan along with me. I've got to feed the kid."

Rhett remembered that Jacob had been raising his younger...

Oh.

His younger sister.

Oh, shit.

Dragged right back into the present, he opened the door and stared at the woman in the hallway.

She didn't look at all like her brother. Jacob was dark haired and tall. Broad in the shoulders with muscle, and rather imposing if he was being honest. Morgan Rafferty, if that's who she was, was just an inch or two shorter than himself. She had honeyed blonde hair and even in a T-shirt and long loose pants, Rhett could tell she had an athletic form.

Wow.

He smiled. It had been a long, long time since the word 'wow' had been in his vocabulary, but it fit the situation.

"Morgan?"

Her brow furrowed a little. "You got my text, right?"

He gestured toward the apartment behind her. "Yeah. Yes. I got a text message that you were at my door. I'm just a little... confused."

"Confused?" Morgan's expression went from confused to horrified. "Oh my god. Jacob did tell you that I was coming, right?"

"Oh? Yeah. I mean, Yes. He told me you were coming but I was..." He hated the words that were about to come out of his mouth. "I was expecting... I thought... I thought you were a guy."

Lord, he wished that he could take it back. He saw the way her face fell and wanted to kick himself in the ass.