Love by Association

His sister didn’t get it. Chantel had played them both. Used them both. In order to help them.

Because it was her job. Didn’t have to mean she’d cared.

She’d gone to bed with him.

For the job?

Women did it all the time.

She’d shoved him aside like a sack of potatoes and saved his life.

Not that he wasn’t perfectly capable of having saved it himself...

He’d been thinking about asking her to marry him before she finished her book and had to leave.

She wasn’t a writer.

She wasn’t leaving.

She’s a cop!

Colin was content to have Julie there—sitting with...the cop. It kept him from having to step up. Or sit closer. His sister seemed to have taken her life back.

And was certainly taking the night’s events in stride. But then, she’d had a heads-up on most of it.

Except the part where the woman they’d taken into their confidence, their home, had been an undercover cop. Playing a part.

But Julie was better. She’d faced Smyth and survived. She’d had the satisfaction of watching him be put in handcuffs.

He had his sister back, which made all of the confusion and betrayal worth it to Colin. He just couldn’t pretend to have personal feelings for the stranger in the hospital bed.

“How’s Leslie?” Chantel asked, looking over Julie’s shoulder to where he was sitting against the wall. “Did I hear that James called?”

“He did. The doctor’s been to see her, and she’s sedated. But James seemed to think that she was going to be fine. Better than fine. He thinks that tonight was a turning point for her.”

Chantel nodded.

“I feel horrible thinking that he was the one who was hurting her,” Julie said. Colin had told her about Leslie’s self-sabotaging accidents.

“I thought so, too,” Chantel told her, her eyes drifting shut. Colin was glad to know that she’d been wrong about something.

And that he’d been right all along.

* * *

LIKING THE TOUCH of Julie’s hand against hers, Chantel drifted in and out a little bit. It had been a long night. Much more tense than she’d expected as she’d lain there alone in the darkened room and knew that the entire operation was up to her.

And that no one had her back.

She’d been in danger before. Risked her life before. She’d witnessed death and destruction, blood and horrible tragedy. She’d pulled mangled bodies out of smashed cars.

But lying there, knowing that if something happened to her, Colin would never forgive himself—because she was there to help his sister and because he seemed to blame himself for everything that happened to anyone he cared about—she’d had a moment when she’d wanted to stop the whole thing.

He hadn’t looked at her since she’d declared herself just before shooting the gun out of Junior’s hand.

She’d known she was going to lose him.

She just hadn’t realized how badly it was going to hurt. How could you hurt over something you’d never had to begin with?

Colin had been falling in love with Johnson. Not Harris.

Her door opened. Probably someone else coming in to draw blood or look in her eyes, check the machine holding her IV drip or...

She looked up to tell whoever it was that she was fine, that she didn’t need anything and would probably get more rest at home if they’d just let her out of there....

“I told Wayne not to call you,” she said, looking at the ashen face of her best friend in the world.

“I knew better,” a voice said from behind Max.

Wayne.

“After all we went through.” Meri’s voice came next, softly, as she followed her husband and Wayne through the door. “We’re a team. Family,” she said. “Of course he’d call us.”

Aware of Julie’s fingers leaving hers, Chantel sat forward to return Meri’s hug and Max’s. Wayne gave her a soft punch on the shoulder.

“If I’d known what you were planning to do, I’d never have helped you,” Max said, frowning down at her.

“Yes, you would have,” she told him, all trace of Johnson’s highfalutin tone gone now. “And as you can see, I’m perfectly fine.”

She loved that they were there. But she wanted them gone. Colin was standing now, and she didn’t want him to leave.

Meri turned as Chantel looked in Colin’s direction. “Oh!” she said, as though just noticing him. Julie had already left Chantel’s side by the time Meri had made it into the room.

“Colin, Julie, this is Max, Meri and, in case you didn’t figure it out, my partner on this assignment, Detective Wayne Stanton. Everyone, meet Colin and Julie Fairbanks.”

The guys shook hands. Politeness all around. Meri took Julie’s hand in between both of hers. “I heard you helped Chantel tonight...”