.

“Just lucky, I guess.”

      “No, that’s not it.”

      “Okay, I might have had some friends watching for you,” he said. “You know me. I’m always watching out for you and Kim, even Kate.”

      “And you just thought, hey, maybe today of all days, Kathie will come home?”

      “Sure,” he said, looking a bit less comfortable now.

      “No, that’s not it. You sent Joe to get me,” she said, wishing she could die right then and there on the street, so she would never have to face Joe again. Joe who hadn’t come because he’d wanted to or because he’d wanted her back, but because her older brother had twisted his arm, or something to that effect! Joe who’d never really wanted her. How she could have thought he might…

      Kathie could have sunk into the ground quite happily at the idea of her thinking that for once, Joe had really wanted her and had come to get her.

      “And you!” She turned to Joe, because it was either yell at him or cry, and she really didn’t want to cry over him anymore. Not one more tear. “You must have called him and told him the minute I’d be back!”

      “Kathie, wait a minute,” her brother said. “Joe and I aren’t exactly buddies, you know? We don’t have a lot to say to each other these days.”

      She turned to Joe. “Tell me. He sent you, didn’t he?”

      “I…I was worried about you, Kathie,” Joe said, looking very, very guilty.

      Oh, God. If it was possible to die of embarrassment, now was the time. Right now. She waited, barely breathing, disappointed to realize she was going to live and that she’d have to face them both.

      She laughed, a scary sound even to her own ears, and said, “But Jax is the one who sent you, isn’t he? I wouldn’t talk to him or come back for him, so he sent you.”

      “Kathie, everybody wants you back home,” her brother insisted.

      “How did you make him do it, Jax? How did you make him drive up there and talk me into coming back?”

      “Kathie—”

      “Tell me,” she yelled at both of them. “It’s my life. I think I have a right to know!”

      “Look, I’m sorry,” Joe said. “I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t known how much they all want you back. They’re your family, Kathie. You guys have always been so close, and I know you love them. This is where you should be.”

      He turned around and left.

      Kathie watched him, hot, angry tears filling her eyes.

      He had no idea.

      She couldn’t be here. Not with him here, not loving her, not even thinking about her. She couldn’t!

      Kathie looked back at her brother, whom she’d been so happy to see just moments ago, and wished she could smack him.

      “What did you do?” she asked, sounding weak and weepy, everything she didn’t want to be. “Go ahead. I’ll get it out of you eventually. You know that. What did you do to get him to come after me?”

      “I threatened to break his jaw into sixteen different pieces,” Jax said, like it was no big deal, like he threatened people every day.

      For all she knew, he did. Maybe that was why he loved his job so much. He got to order people around all the time, just like he had when they were kids. Make him the oldest and the only boy, and then take away their father to a bullet when they were little, and what did you get?

      A brother who thought he was in charge of everything.

      “I cannot believe you did this!” she yelled, then stood there while every bit of the fight drained out of her and she was so weary, she could hardly breathe.

      “Kathie, I—”

      He reached for her, but she jerked her arm away and stalked off toward the house, leaving him standing there yelling back at her.

      “Oh, come on, Kathie. Was it really so bad? Sending the rat after you? We just wanted you back, that’s all, and you wouldn’t talk to any of us! Kathie!”

      She ran inside the house, up the stairs and got her key in the front door of her apartment, ignoring her brother altogether when he knocked on the door, when he pounded, even when he shouted.

      They all wanted her back.

      Well, fine. She was back.

      It didn’t mean she had to talk to them or see them, and it certainly didn’t mean she had to stay.

      “What did you do?” Kate stared at her new husband, who should know her moods well enough by now to be uneasy about her current state of mind, then at her brother, who definitely knew better, but just did ridiculous things anyway.

      “What do you mean, what did we do?” Jax made himself comfortable in her kitchen by grabbing a carton of orange juice out of the fridge and downing what was left in it in practically one gulp. “We got her home. I thought you’d be happy. I thought you’d be jumping for joy, and we’d be heroes.”

      “That depends. What did you do?” Kate said, crossing her arms and trying out her sternest look on both of them.

      Ben was going to play innocent and then try to make her laugh. She could tell. That’s what he always did when he annoyed her, and it usually worked, because she adored him, but her brother was a different story altogether.

      She and Jax both tended to think they knew what was best for their younger siblings, which had led to any number of clashes over the years. Kate was trying to let go of her controlling tendencies, but Jax’s had gotten even worse since their sister took off six months ago and, to date, had adamantly refused to come home, no matter what kind of begging or pleading anyone had done.

      “Can you not just be happy?” Jax asked, maybe catching a hint of the trouble he was in, but maybe not. Maybe he was oblivious still. “You know? Wow! Jump up and down. Kiss your husband. Hug your brother. Go see your sister? That kind of happy?”

      “Not until I know how you got her back here,” Kate said, picking up the knife she’d been using to chop carrots and holding it purposefully in front of her. “What did you say? What finally worked?”

      “We didn’t say anything,” said Ben, doing his Mr. Innocent routine.

      “Oh, okay. Neither one of you said a word, and yet, you somehow got her back here,” she said, waving the knife a bit for good measure. “Which leads me to my previous question. What did you do?”

      “We didn’t do anything,” Jax claimed. “Joe did it.”

      “Yeah, Joe did it.”

      “Joe, who she won’t talk to any more than she’ll talk to any of us? He got her to come back? Okay, what did Joe do?”

      “He didn’t say exactly,” Jax said, looking to Ben. “Did he?”

      “Not to me.”

      “Right. He didn’t say.”

      “Okay, now I’m really worried,” Kate said. “You two have done something, and I’m thinking it didn’t turn out the way you’d hoped and now you want me to fix it.” She looked pointedly at her brother, whom she was sure was the guilty party.

      “No. You’ve got it all wrong,” he claimed. “We just wanted to tell you she was back…so you could go see her. Don’t you want to go see her?”

      “Yes.”

      “And you should go now. You could put the knife down and go now,” Jax said. “I mean…why not go now? You haven’t seen her in months. Why wait?”

      “For one thing, I’m in the middle of cooking dinner.”

      “I’ll