"You can't break him," Tamara said from her spot beside him. She'd been out here with him since the docs took Leah behind closed doors again to try to talk her into staying the night for observation or at least getting a CT scan.
"Why not?" he asked, already jonsing for the opportunity to dole out some big brother justice.
"He loves her."
No. He loved his sister. Drew just fucked with her head. "What makes you say that?"
"I have eyeballs, an amazing brain, and I've seen you in a similar state," she said with a grin.
Isaac turned to look his fiancée up and down. It wasn't a hardship. Tall, blonde, and so pretty it made his body ache. She also had a tart personality and a brain that moved faster than his own, two things that had transformed raw lust into solid love not that long ago.
"What state is that, darlin'?"
She grinned and shook her head. "Desperate and between a rock and a hard place."
He stiffened. "What happened with us was different."
"Really?" she asked, all false innocence and sweetness he didn't believe for a second. "You mean you didn't move heaven and earth to get to me when my crazy ass cult leader brother-in-law lost his mind, held me hostage, and tried to marry his sixteen-year-old daughter to one of his middle-aged followers?"
Acid burned its way up his gullet at the memory of the worst fucking day of his entire life. "You know I did."
"And Drew must have broken about a thousand standard operating procedures, rules and regulations to get to Leah tonight," Tamara said, snuggling in next to him.
The feel of her mouthwatering curves momentarily distracted him and he forgot for a second what they were talking about. "What are you trying to say?"
"Take your punch if you need to, but don't break him or you'll face Leah's wrath."
A flush of anger burned its way up from his toes tucked into his cowboy boots. Oh yeah. Drew Jackson. The prick who almost got his sister killed. "Her crush on him was kid stuff. She's beyond over that."
Tamara snorted her disbelief. "How did someone so clueless manage to hook a hottie like me?"
It was a question he'd wondered himself often enough that he had the perfect comeback—one that was also damn close to the truth if not the whole truth. "My big dick and all the fabulous things I can do with it."
"Yep, when you're not acting like one, that prick of yours is very nice to have around." Letting her fingers trail up his thigh as she leaned in, she brushed her lips across his in a quick kiss. A set of high-set headlights lit up the dark corner where they stood. She broke contact and looked toward the truck parking near the entrance. "Remember, be nice."
A quick, hard smack on his ass later and Tamara sashayed through the ER's automatic doors. The woman was mean as hell when she wanted to be, but she was also usually right. If he didn't love her so damned much, that fact would probably annoy the hell out of him.
Drew hustled across the parking lot and stopped in front of Isaac. "How is she?"
He debated lying just to mess with the other man's head, but decided against it when he spotted the tortured shadows in his eyes. Isaac knew that look, the one when bad shit happened because he'd fucked up, because he'd worn it himself. He couldn't jerk the guy around when he look like that. "The docs say she'll be fine but they want to do a CT scan because of the probable concussion."
"What does she say to that?" Drew rubbed his palm across the back of his neck hard enough to take off a few layers of skin.
Isaac chuckled. "Lots of colorful words our mama would not approve of."
"Sounds about right." Drew grinned, but it only lasted a second. "So is now when you try to knock me on my ass?"
It should be. But instead of hammering the dude, he remembered what Tamara said. Love? Judging by the way Drew looked, it could be. So instead of curling his hands into fists, he asked a question. "Do I have a reason to?"
"Yeah, you do." No excuses. No whining. Just regret.
"Why's that?"
Drew's whole body went stiff and fury sparked in his eyes. "She could have been killed because I failed to protect her."
"We're professionals at this," Isaac said, offering Drew an opportunity to walk away and save face. "We both know shit goes sideways sometimes."
"It shouldn't have with her," he said with an angry growl. "Never with her."