Dax (Arizona Vengeance 4)

Despite looking travel weary, she is still one of the most gorgeous women I know. She looks just like her siblings, Dax and Meredith, but with a slightly more exotic tilt to her eyes. It makes her appear a tad foreign with her dark hair, golden-brown eyes, and sun-kissed skin, like she’s the princess of some desert sheik.

Her eyes appraise me critically. It’s the first time she’s seen me since Lance died. She’d been on the other side of the world under some perilous conditions, and she hadn’t been able to make it back for the funeral.

“I’m good,” I say, answering the unwritten question in Willow’s eyes that wonders how I’m dealing with my brother’s unexpected death. “I promise.”

The concern washes away, although it’s really just tucked down deep so I can’t see it, and she breezes in the door. Willow pulls an olive-green canvas duffel on wheels behind her, which I’m sure carries all of her clothing and travel necessities. Her precious camera and lenses are in the battered leather backpack resting easily on her shoulders. With her khaki cargo pants, olive-green tank top, and heavily pocketed tan vest, she looks every inch a traveling photo journalist. Almost a cliché.

What I don’t see under all that clothing are the physical scars from being hit by grenade shrapnel in Syria last year. She was so proud of her injuries, sending me not only photos of the wounds but also of a tiny plastic jar that held the metal shards that had been pulled from her body. It was something she felt safe in showing me, but I was positive she never would have showed her parents or siblings, because they already have a modest amount of fear over her job. I do, too, of course, but she also knows she can be a bit freer with the sister who’s not actually blood, and more of a close friend and confident.

“I need wine, a hot shower, and pizza, but not necessarily in that order,” Willow announces as she releases the duffel handle and shrugs her backpack off, gently setting it next to the entertainment unit in the living room. “Then we can turn on the hockey game to cheer Dax on.”

“Wine first,” I say with authority as I walk into the kitchen to pour her a glass from the bottle I’d recently opened. “And I’ve already ordered the pizza. It should be here soon.”

“Now you’re talking,” she replies with a grin, plopping into a chair at the kitchen table.

I top off my drink and take the glasses to the table, pulling a chair out opposite of Willow. I last saw her two years ago at Christmas when she happened to be home visiting her parents for the holidays. Lance and I had made a trip to visit the Monahans. Our time there had been short, my diagnosis with the PNH new. We chose to keep it between ourselves, a decision Lance sort of followed my cue on.

Now as I study Willow, I’m wondering why we kept it a secret. Technically, it had been so we wouldn’t throw a pall over the holidays. I also hadn’t wanted Linda and Calvin to worry about me. But I also think it was partly because Lance and I had bonded so tightly after our parents died that we seemed like an unstoppable unit together. He’d promised he would take care of me when we became orphaned, and he’d kept his word. He’d been all I really needed.

And now he was gone, and I’m still keeping secrets. Willow takes a sip of her wine, sighs, then smiles, not knowing I have a deadly disease or I’m married to her brother.

Shit… we’re actually related now. Sisters by marriage… and she has no clue.

A wave of guilt courses through me, but it’s quickly extinguished when Willow sets her glass on the table, making a clucking noise. “Christ, Regan… you look like shit. Are you sick?”

My eyes round with wonder. How in the hell could she know about my PNH just by looking at me? But then I remember I had a rough morning. I woke up from a sound night’s sleep utterly fatigued with dark circles under my eyes. It happens sometimes—luckily, it’s infrequent—and I hadn’t thought twice about it. I barreled forward with my day, doing some light cleaning and laundry before attending a job interview for a part-time position at a local pediatrics office.

Sidestepping her question, I turn the tables. “Look who’s talking. You’re a total travel rat, and you smell, too.”

Willow laughs, her bright white teeth flashing as she inclines her head in a touché moment. But then her face sobers, and she asks, “Seriously… how are you doing with everything?”

She means with Lance dying as she has no clue about the other upheavals in my life. Because I am not about to tell her I’m married to her brother, I stick to the limited scope of her inquiry so I don’t have to lie. “It’s tough. I reach for my phone at least ten times a day to call or text him. I turn the TV to sports the day after a Vipers game to see the highlight reel so I can get a glimpse of my brother. I’m not exactly sure when he’ll stop being my go-to thought of the day, but for now… it’s just tough.”