Page 74 of The Pocket Pair

I’d like to tell myself it’s because I wanted to make sure she was okay after getting hurt again on my watch. This time, I wasn’t the one who caused her head injury. But two in one week? I have got to do a better job taking care of her.

But taking care of Val isn’t your job, I try to tell myself.

Unless you want it to be, myself responds.

And just maybe, for the first time in my life since finding out about my father’s infidelity, I’m actually considering monogamy. Commitment. My own ability to uphold vows. Like Mari said, someone else’s mistakes aren’t mine.

I can’t let myself think about any of this too much or too hard or the idea disintegrates. It’s almost like one of those optical illusion pictures—if I try to picture it, I can’t. But when I let my gaze go a little hazy and unfocused, there it is.

Suddenly, the radar gun lights up, flashing numbers much too high for this street. It’s a car coming from a side street, not passing the school. Still—it’s almost double the limit.

“This isn’t the Autobahn, buddy.” I shift in my seat, setting the radar gun down and buckling my seat belt.

But before I can even start my engine, the car whips around the corner and makes an illegal U-turn, pulling up right behind me. I consider banging my head on the steering wheel when I recognize both the car and the driver, who’s headed my way, stomping her high heels.

“Step out of the car, deputy,” my sister says, stopping by my window, her hands on her hips.

“You stole my line,” I drawl.

“Now.”

With a sigh, I climb out. Winnie may be my younger sister, but I know not to trifle with her when the tone of her voice sounds like that. And I’m pretty sure I know what this is about. Or, at least, who it’s about.

“What did I tell you years ago about hurting Val?” she demands.

I sigh, lifting my hat to run a hand through my hair. “That you’d end my ability to bear children.”

“Gold star for you. And yet … you don’t seem worried.”

“Because I haven’t hurt Val.”

Winnie’s expression doesn’t change. “So you didn’t throw her off a bed and give her a goose egg?”

“Oh, well that—”

“And she didn’t get a mild concussion on your watch?”

“She was playing basketball with her boss’s teenage boys! I was just there! And I took care of her afterward.”

Her eyes narrow into terrifying slits. “How?”

“I carried her to the car and then in the house. I stayed with her and watched a movie. I ordered her dinner. And she doesn’t know it, but I monitored her through the night.”

Yep—I did that. Sneaking into her room to check her breathing. I even checked her pulse.

Is that good enough for my sister? Based on her face, apparently not. I tense, ready to defend myself in case of sibling attack.

But I almost trip and fall over my boots when her judgy expression releases into something totally unexpected: a smile.

No, a grin.

The kind of smile that tells me I’m in more trouble than I originally thought. Just like the one Mari gave me the other day when she asked about my roommate situation.

When she reaches out, I flinch. I can’t help it. I may be a strong, confident man. One with a badge and a gun and a pair of handcuffs at my disposal. But I’d challenge any man not to do the same in my position.

Winnie doesn’t hit me. She grabs my shoulder, squeezing. “That’s the brother I know.”

“Huh?”

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