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“Nothing,” Gabe muttered, turning back to his stock. “Just busy. Gotta get this shipment sorted for the weekend.” He gestured vaguely to the cases of bottles all around him.
From behind him came a low, knowing “hmm.” It was a sound that haunted his worst adolescent nightmares. It was a sound that signaled a lecture was coming.
“I saw Sean in the bar.”
Shit, this was not good. When his sister got her claws into his best friend, Gabe knew he didn’t stand a chance. Sean might be a six foot five martial-arts badass, but he cowered like a little child around Gabe’s sister. He also sang like a canary anytime she asked him anything she wanted to know.
“He told me you got a new babysitter for Ruby. The girl who lives in the other apartment upstairs.”
Gabe let his head drop between his shoulders in defeat. He should have known this was why Lori had cornered him in his supply room. Sean had told her about Hope, and Lori had come to sniff out the details.
“Hardly a girl. Hope’s in her mid-twenties.” He knew from her rental agreement that she was twenty-six, the same age he’d been when Ruby had been born. “That makes her a legal adult in all fifty States.”
“Hmmm.”
Shit. Giving up on his stock count, he faced his sister. “Christ, will you spit it out already? You clearly came here to say something, so say it.”
Lori flicked her hair over her shoulder and crossed her arms.
“Fine,” she said. “Icame hereto see if you wanted me to take Ruby this weekend, and then Sean told me that you have this new sitter who’s amazing and who’s really fitting in with your family. And I am thinking to myself,Gee, why haven’t I heard about this amazing new sitter?”
Gabe sighed. “Because there’s nothing tohear about. Hope was available to watch Ruby when I needed someone. The timing worked out well, that’s it.”
“So you didn’t kiss her.”
Fuck, he was going to kill Sean.
“That’s none of your business.”
“I went upstairs and introduced myself,” she admitted.
His jaw went slack as he gaped at his sibling. “Tell me you did not actually do that.”
Arms still crossed, Lori’s expression switched from smug to defiant. “I most certainly did. I was going up, anyway. I had food to deliver.”
Gabe ran a frustrated hand through his hair, trying not to yank any out as he did. “Christ, Lori. What the fuck? Why do you always think you can stick your nose into every aspect of my life?”
“Because you’re my baby brother,” she returned evenly.
He knew she felt it was her duty to vet any new person coming into his and Ruby’s life for any reason at all. Especially a woman. Ninety percent of the time, he didn’t mind. Hell, most of the time, he depended on it, but this time felt different. Hope was different. Whatever was happening between them was new and unfamiliar and, dammit, special. The last thing he wanted was his big sister making Hope feel like she was under a microscope.
“Well, as your now bigger-than-you brother, can I ask you to please, for the love of God, stay the fuck out of this one?” he pleaded, knowing his chances of success with that request were next to nil.
Lori approached, like a predator stalking its prey. “First of all, you swear altogether too much, Gabriel Walsh. And second…” His sister’s eye’s softened into a meaningful look. “I just don’t want you or Ruby to get hurt.”
He snorted. “Too late, sis.”
Lori sighed, then put her hand on his shoulder like she’d always done. It was either a gesture of comfort or a reprimand. He was about to find out which.
“It’s not that I want you and Ruby to be alone forever, but this girl—this woman,” she corrected after Gabe narrowed his eyes at her. “You don’t know her well. She’s certainly beautiful, and I know you’re lonely and have,” she gestured toward his general crotch area, “needs.”
“Jesus Christ, Lori.”
“You can deny it all you want, but it’s true, Gabe. It may be unbelievable for most of us, but you’re still human, and like all human beings, you need a human connection. Not to mention that it’s obvious Ruby craves a maternal figure in her life.” Lori inhaled deeply. “I heard her talking to Hope about wanting a mother.”
Gabe’s heart seized painfully as his sister’s words tore through his emotional weak spot. Ruby never spoke directly to him about missing a mother figure in her life. He figured she avoided it to protect his feelings, which in and of itself gutted him. But recently, he had noticed slight changes in her behavior—in her play, and in her interactions with others, especially adult women—that suggested she was starting to miss a more traditional mother figure in her life. They were subtle. So subtle he had hoped he was reading too much into them, but Lori’s perceptions echoed his own intuitions. And now she’d overhead Ruby say the words, making it all impossible to deny.
For his daughter’s sake, he was going to have to suck it up and deal with his uncomfortable feelings around the matter. Guilt probably being number one. When it came to Ruby, he felt guilty about so many damn things.
