So maybe this was a way he could heal. He could help save her. There was nothing romantic between them. She knew that. But at least he would feel like he had done something to help her. Maybe it could erase that guilt she saw in his eyes. She could do that for him.
And while you’re doing that for him? What about you? How are you supposed to guard your heart against falling in love with him?
She didn’t think there was any way she could do that. Considering she was already falling for him. Even though she wasn’t Lana, she could be the one to help him heal.
“Okay,” she whispered. “I’ll let you do that.”
He grew tense. “You’ll let me look out for you?”
“Yeah,” she told him. “I will.”
He turned his face to her and pressed his lips against her forehead. It was a sweet gesture, one that brought tears to her eyes. She had to quickly blink them away. Because it was also a paternal gesture. Something a father might do to his child. She didn’t want to be seen as a child. But there was no mistaking that’s what he saw when he looked at her. Not a woman, a girl.
“Thank you, sunshine. I know I don’t deserve your trust, but I’ll prove I can look after you. And I won’t let that bastard get near you. Not ever again.”
She wished she could believe that. But she knew Spencer better than he did.
“Does it make me weird that I’m worried about him?”
He reached out and lightly ran his finger down her swollen cheek. “Why would you worry about him?”
Her eyes darted to the side. “I know he’s not well. I know nothing he did to me was right, I’m not stupid. But he’s still my brother. And he’s all I have.”
“I’m gonna stop you right there, sunshine, because he’s definitely not all that you have. Understand?”
She looked at him. She got what he was saying. She had Mia. She had the Malone boys. But they weren’t exactly her family. She nodded anyway. This was about helping West. Not about her.
“I know,” she whispered. “But he’s in a wheelchair. What if he gets picked on?”
He blinked a few times, his eyebrows coming together. “Picked on?”
“I watch TV, I know what things can be like in prison. How much worse will they be for a man in a wheelchair?”
“Baby, he beat you. Regularly. He chased you into your bedroom and you were so scared you climbed out the window and fell and broke your foot. Going to prison is the least he deserves.”
There was a coldness to the way he spoke. And in that coldness, she could see the man he’d once been. The man who’d worked for a crime boss. Anything that happened to her brother would be his idea of justice.
But it wasn’t hers. She still remembered the man that Spencer had once been.
“I just don’t want that for him.”
He reached out and gently took hold of her hand. “Because you have a heart as big as Texas, you wouldn’t know how to be vindictive if you tried. But that’s okay, because I know how to be vindictive enough for the both of us. Listen to me, I don’t want you worrying about him. Whatever happens to him is not on you. It is not your fault. He brought this on himself. He should have recognized he had a problem and gotten help. Even if he hadn’t, he still had no call to ever hurt you. He caused harm to someone smaller than himself, someone he was supposed to look out for, someone who loved and trusted him. That shit is not all right. So you are not going to waste your time worrying about him. If anything happens, I’ll worry about it. Understand?”
“It shouldn’t be your worry either,” she told him.
“Didn’t you, just minutes ago, give me responsibility for you?” he asked in a low voice.
“Oh, right. And part of that includes dealing with my brother?”
“A big part of that is dealing with your brother,” he told her firmly. “I’ll be telling Jake that anything that comes up about him goes through me first.”
She didn’t know quite how she felt about that. “West, I—”
“Nope. That part is not u
p for negotiation, sunshine. That part is carved in stone. Anything to do with your brother goes through me first, and I decide if you need to know.”
“Isn’t that a bit controlling?” she asked.