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Kerri glanced toward my room across the hall. “I noticed you and your bystander are both dressed for a night on the town. Tell me she really is a random stranger and not your date. Or a secret girlfriend you haven’t told me about, which might explain why you keep canceling on these great women—”
“I’m going to stop you right there.” I employed the big-brother tone I rarely used with her now that we were adults. “I haven’t asked you to set me up with ‘great women.’ In fact, I seem to recall asking you to stop doing that.”
“I just want you to be happy,” she said. “You left Emma behind in Philly to follow me here, and the only woman you’ve been serious about since you came to Chicago was Sarah.”
“Wait, that’s what this is about? You feel guilty about Emma?” I scrubbed my hand over my face. The need to be all up in my love life seemed to be another thing Kerri had inherited from my mom. In the fifteen years since Mom and Dad had been gone, I’d thought many times that I’d trade my privacy for one more meddling conversation with my mother. How had I missed that Kerri had assumed that duty? “Em and I broke up a month before I came here. It wasn’t your fault.”
“What happened?”
I stopped myself from saying it was none of her business. While that was true, it was also unnecessarily mean. My sister meant well, and I loved her for it. It cost me a little, but not much, to tell her the truth. “She hated the job,” I said, referring to police work. “And I guess I wasn’t invested enough to try to convince her to stay. Now, can we drop the discussion of my dating life?”
“After you tell me about ‘Red,’ starting with why you don’t call her Dr. Bond.”
Had I said the nickname out loud? No wonder my sister was giving me the side-eye about my innocent bystander story.
My sister continued, “Since she’s totally your type—”
“What is my type? I don’t have a type.”
“You do have a preference for redheads. Remember when you had a crush on our babysitter and you told mom you were going to marry a redhead?”
“I was eight.”
“And the first girl you dated, that strawberry blonde, Brianna or something?”
She wasn’t the first girl I’d dated, but she was my first in another important way. No need for my sister to know that detail. “I was fifteen and running on hormones, and Bree had a lot more going for her than just her hair color. I’ve also dated blondes, brunettes, and Dana with the pink hair.” I knew Dana was a natural light blonde based on other information of a personal nature, but I was never going to tell Kerri that, either. “So can we please agree you’ll butt out of my love life?”
Kerri held up her hands in surrender. “If you really are happy being alone, I promise I’ll back off.” She toed off her sneakers and kicked them into the corner. “And now I’m going to get some rest because my alarm’s going to go off every couple of hours so I can check on the very attractive redhead who is not your girlfriend.”
I kissed Kerri on the forehead, thanked her again for helping me out, and closed the guest room door on my way out. I leaned in the doorway of my bedroom and stared at Red, Dr. Bond, for a few minutes while debating where I should sleep. The living room sofa was pretty damn comfortable, but it was also too far away to hear her if she needed anything during the night. The blue upholstered chair with a matching ottoman was a lot less inviting for sleep, but it was only a yard away from our patient.
I opted for the chair.
I pulled a pillow off the bed, grabbed a blanket from the closet and settled in for the night. In the morning, assuming Kerri and Dr. Inez said she was recovering well enough, I’d find out from the sexy doctor herself what had gone down in the parking garage. Until then, I’d do what I did best—provide personal protection and security for a very important person. And if I could keep from thinking about the mysterious woman’s great rack, spectacular ass, and yes—although I wouldn’t admit to anyone that I did have a type—red hair, maybe my cock might stop aching long enough for me to get a few hours of sleep.
