Chapter 4 Boyfriend Duty
Next day
Aurora stepped inside the lake house with plastic grocery bags looped around both wrists.
She made a beeline for the fridge to put away the milk, eggs, and other cold items. A hissing sound caught her attention.
She closed the fridge door and glanced curiously around the room, but nothing looked out of place.
“Bandit?” Was he responsible for the sound? She’d never heard him hiss like that before. “Bandit, where are you?” He usually came when she called, slinking stealthily around the island to start begging for his next treat. However, the room settled into silence once again and remained that way.
She spun in a slow circle, knowing she should go find the cat before her brother did. Knowing Bandit, he was probably paws deep in mischief. A wave of dizziness and nausea made her pause and reach for the edge of the cabinet.
Oh, boy. She breathed through the sensation until it passed, fearing she was coming down with a bug.
“Aurora?” Aaron’s voice wafted down the hallway to her. “Now that you’re home,” his voice grew closer, “we need to talk.”
Uh-oh. That didn’t sound good.
Aaron came around the corner and leaned against the doorway, looking pale and disheveled.
She stared at him in dismay. “You don’t look so good.”
“Thanks.” His voice was dry.
“I meant—”
He cut her off with a jerky wave of his hand. “Why didn’t you tell me A.J.’s living in the garage two doors down from us?”
Oh, great…not! She wasn’t in the mood for another argument, but her brother clearly was. “He’s not living in the garage. He’s living over it,” she corrected in a teasing voice. “The owners renovated the attic and turned it into an apartment.”
“I don’t care if they turned it into a rocket ship. You should’ve told me about this before now.” He folded his arms, stubbornly waiting for an explanation.
Cranky. She summoned her most pleasant voice. “How about we take this to the sunroom?” He looked ready to topple over.
He pushed away from the doorframe and trudged tiredly into the adjoining sunroom, pausing by the windows overlooking Heart Lake to gaze at the water. He looked like he was getting sick.
Another wave of nausea rocked through Aurora, making her wonder if they were sharing a winter virus.
She swallowed and joined him at the wall of windows.
“Just curious. How did you find out where A.J. lives?” She’d put off sharing her boyfriend’s new address as long as she could, knowing the news wouldn’t sit well with him.
Boy, was I right!
Sometimes being right was no fun.
“I asked you a question first,” he griped. “Why didn’t you tell me yourself?”
As if he didn’t already know! “Because I knew you’d blow up at me, which is exactly what you’re doing.
” She backed up a few steps to take a seat on the wicker sofa.
As much as she hated the way her relationship with A.J.
was coming between her and her brother, she wasn’t sure what to do about it.
A.J. was in her life to stay. The sooner Aaron accepted that, the better for them all.
“I’m not blowing up.” He laid a hand against the glass, as if needing the support. “I’m just disappointed. We used to tell each other stuff like this.”
“Did we?” She frowned as she reached for the laptop she’d left on the end table.
Opening it, she took another look at the firewall she’d been attempting to hack through.
So far, Modello’s security system was holding strong.
It was good for them, but it didn’t shed any light on what had triggered their alarm.
“I don’t recall you confiding in me about Elise Hathaway.
” The words on her screen blurred. She blinked a few times to bring them back into focus.
Elise was his ex-girlfriend and the only serious relationship he’d ever been involved with. Elise had also been the biggest sore point between them before A.J. had come along.
He snorted. “You made your feelings clear about her from the start. You were right. End of story.”
“But we never actually talked about her,” Aurora protested.
“You mainly avoided me while you were dating her because you didn’t care for my opinion of her.
” Oh, how it had stung! She’d feared she was losing her brother forever.
“I’ve tried really hard to be upfront with you about A.J.
, but you either shut me down or make me feel like a criminal for wanting him in my life.
And that’s not fair! A.J. isn’t Elise. He’s a wonderful person, one I’m convinced you would like if you gave him a chance. ”
Their jobs didn’t make it easy to date, and the loss of their parents had made it even harder.
Grief had a way of stripping a person down to the raw bones, leaving them with precious little in their emotional tank to offer anyone else.
But Aurora was finally healing, finally moving beyond the numb and paralyzing effects of the twin tragedy they’d suffered, and she was anxious for her brother to find the same level of peace.
She didn’t want to be the only one happy. She wanted him to be happy, too.
“So that’s it?” He lurched around to face her. “Now that you’ve got a serious boyfriend, I’m going to lose you altogether?”
The underlying sadness in his words tugged at her heart, but she cared too much for him to be anything less than honest. “Yes, Aaron, that’s exactly what I’m trying to say. You’re going to lose me if you keep treating A.J. like the enemy.”
Aaron’s coffee-colored eyes darkened to a stronger brew, but he didn’t interrupt her quiet tirade. He simply listened.
“You’ve always had my back, and I don’t take that for granted.
” His expression made her feel like weeping, but she plowed onward.
“Without you, I couldn’t have handled so many contracts so quickly in my quest to make the jewelry industry safer, one security system at a time.
Wouldn’t it be a shame to end our successful partnership over petty jealousy of your future brother-in-law? ”
Her announcement made his eyebrows shoot toward the ceiling. “He proposed?” He practically shouted the question.
“No,” she snapped. “But if he doesn’t do it soon, I will!”
Her brother stared at her with slack-jawed bewilderment. “You’ve only been dating him a month.”
“The best month I’ve enjoyed in a very long time, Aaron.” She silently begged him to understand. “Don’t you see how happy he makes me?”
“Yeah.” He rubbed a hand wearily over his face. “That’s the one pro in the middle of all the cons about your relationship with him.”
What cons? She snapped her laptop closed and set it aside even though she wasn’t finished tinkering with the firewalls. “I think you’d be able to cross most of the cons off your list if you’d make an effort to get to know him.”
He leaned back against the wall of windows.
“Letting people get too close only makes it harder to move on to the next assignment. You know the drill.” His lips twisted bitterly.
“But that’s not something you’ll have to worry about for much longer, is it?
Assuming you’re serious about abandoning ship. ”
“That!” She stabbed a finger in his direction.
“What you just said is the real reason you’re at risk of losing me.
Quit blaming A.J. and start blaming yourself.
After all you and I have been through together, I can’t believe your first response to my decision about a career change is flat-out disrespect. ”
He drew a heavy breath and let it out. “I don’t disrespect you, and you know it. How could you say something like that?”
“Maybe disdain is a better word,” she offered sadly.
“No, it’s not.” He jutted his chin at her. “It’s pretty much the same thing.”
“Then convince me otherwise by playing nice with A.J.” She didn’t back down. “It’s the only way we’re going to get through this without losing each other.”
He gave a humorless huff of laughter. “You can’t just demand that two people become friends.”
“Wanna bet?” Feeling the crack in his resistance brought on the sting of happy tears, but it was too soon to give in to them.
“You and A.J. are my entire world, which means my love for you guys will rip me in two if you don’t fix whatever wrong foot you got off on.
” She was proud of how well she was keeping it together, right up until her voice broke on the last word.
She and Aaron stared at each other in agony.
He caved first. “Okay, I’ll give it a whirl. Don’t blame me if it doesn’t work, though. Pretty sure the guy can’t stand me.”
The misery in his voice told her he wasn’t kidding. “Since when?” she spluttered.
He shrugged. “Since the moment we met, I guess.”
She couldn’t have been more floored. “What are you talking about?” How had she missed that her boyfriend didn’t like her brother? Was it even true, or was Aaron just being an overprotective rear-end like brothers could be sometimes with their sisters?
“I’m not sure.” He shook his head slowly. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, either, but he doesn’t trust me.”
“Shocker!” She wrinkled her nose. “Do you blame him?”
“This isn’t entirely on me,” he insisted. “A.J. is polite on the surface, but he catalogues every move I make. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he’s building a case against me for something.”
She didn’t believe that for a second. “Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound?”
“I know. Believe me, I know.” He pivoted away from her to look out the windows again.
“He watches me, too.” Aurora was at a loss for anything else to say.
“Not the way he watches me.” Her brother sounded discouraged. “Just wish I knew why.”
“Um, he’s an investigator,” she pointed out. “A good one with a whole wall of Army medals to prove it. Naturally observant and inquisitive. I don’t think those are things you can just turn off.”