Casanova(93)

“Your dad?”

“On vacation still I think.” I grabbed the backpack my sister had packed for me the day before and pulled out some shorts, a bra, and a t-shirt. “Can you take me to get my car from your house?”

“Of course.” Brett picked up his bag too and kissed the side of my head. “Shouldn’t you call her doctor?”

“I don’t have the number.” I started changing. “She never gave me it and I didn’t think I’d need it. I can call when I get there.”

“Do you want me to drive over there while you go to the store?”

“She’s vomiting,” I said with my eyebrows raised.

He shuddered. “Do you want me to go to the store for you? I can do that.”

I smiled at his quick U-turn. “No, it’s okay. It won’t take me long. I think she’s going to try to sleep anyway. But thank you.”

“All right. There I was hoping to be a knight in shining armor and you shatter my dreams.” He said it so dramatically I couldn’t help but laugh at him.

“She’s craving Twizzlers. I’m sure she’ll be thankful for those when she stops chucking up her guts.” I pulled my shirt over my head and paused. “Although that is her favorite candy, so I’m still out on the ‘craving’ part. It’s real convenient.”

“I think it’s a rule,” he said slowly. “For pregnant ladies. They can have whatever they want and claim it as a craving.”

“Please don’t say that around my sister.”

He grinned. “Come on. Let’s go get your car.”





I let myself into my sister’s house, grocery bag tucked against my chest, and kicked the door shut behind me. At least she’d given me a spare key so I could get in without making her get out of bed. At least I hoped she was in bed. That was where she needed to be.

“Lani?”

“Yeah, it’s me.” I locked the front door, and still holding the shopping bag, went upstairs to her room.

She wasn’t in there.

“Con? Where are you?”

“Bathro—” Retching interrupted her answer.

I dumped my purse and the bag on the chair in her room and ran down the hall to her. She was bent right over the toilet, and by the looks of it, had made a half-assed attempt at tying her hair back. She retched again, and I sat on the edge of the bath so I could reach her.

I swept the loose, sweaty locks of hair away from her face and held them back. Tears streamed down Connie’s pale face from her tightly-closed eyes, and I had to turn away from her as she vomited properly.

“Thank god,” she whispered after a moment. “I thought I’d be coughing here forever.”

I didn’t point out that she’d been doing a bit more than coughing before that one.

“Better?” I asked, touching the backs of my fingers to her cheeks. “God, you’re boiling.”

She blinked up at me blearily. “I am?”

I nodded. “Really hot. Do you have a thermometer here?”

“There’s one in the baby’s room.” She sat back against the wall and rested her head against it. “I need my toothbrush.”

“I’m taking your temperature.” I got up and, after handing her her toothbrush, went into the baby’s room.

It was barely done. The walls were a bright white, and there was no crib. In fact, there was nothing but a chest of drawers, a blind in the window, and several bags of baby stuff. There was what looked like a big plastic tub beneath the bags, so I pulled them off and found what I was looking for.

My super-organized sister may not have had all the big things, but she had enough little, important things to stock a baby store.

I decided there and then that when she was better, we were going shopping and I would buy her all the things I needed with the money William had paid me.

I plucked the thermometer from the tub and went back into the bathroom. Connie had her eyes shut now, and her toothbrush was lying on the floor next to her. It took a moment of fiddling, but I finally wrestled the thermometer from its stupid-ass packaging and turned it on.

“Just do my forehead,” she muttered so quietly it was as if all the words were mixed into one.

I pressed the thingy against her forehead and watched the number climb. It beeped at one hundred and one point five degrees.

I grimaced.

“Okay, back to bed.” I capped the thermometer and put it on the side of the bath before I helped her up. “I’m going to get you a cool cloth, get you changed, and then you’re going to try to sleep for a while so you can have some water.”

And go search out her doctor’s phone number. I was only mildly reassured by the fact it was only a light fever.

“Being sick sucks.” She was so exhausted she was leaning on me. “Being sick while pregnant feels like a sumo wrestler folded you into his rolls and started a winner-stays-on tournament before getting kicked in the stomach by a donkey.”

I really wanted to call her a drama queen, but judging by the look on her face, she wasn’t lying.

“If you get sick I’m not looking after you,” she warned me as I sat her on the edge of the bed.

“Noted and understood.” I retrieved a cool, damp cloth from the bathroom and wiped off her face. She sighed as I literally undressed her the way you would a young child. I even made her change her underwear—a fact she was none too happy about, but she admitted she’d only had the strength to throw on an old concert t-shirt before she threw up this morning.