LITMIR.BIZ

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before she brought the cab to a full stop within the large garage where Kevin kept the five cabs that he owned. Slightly shorter and broader than his brother, Kevin Quintano gave the impression of a bulldozer plowing through the underbrush.

      He was plowing in her direction now.

      Having spent the better part of the last couple of hours trying to reach her on the two-way radio when she didn’t arrive to pick up her next fare, Kevin had been vacillating between furious and frantic. She was, after all, his baby sister, and the city was large. All the maniacs were not confined to cities with more than a million in population.

      Now that he saw she was all right, he went back to furious.

      “Okay, what the hell’s going on? I’ve been trying to reach you all afternoon. Where the hell did you disappear to? I felt like someone in that old sitcom. You know, Car 54, Where Are You? Except in this case—” he jerked a thumb in the cab’s direction “—it was Cab 4.” He waved one of his drivers over. “What are you waiting for? Christmas? Go, go!”

      With a nod of his head, the driver eased past Alison and got in on the driver’s side.

      Hands on his hips, Kevin turned toward his sister. He didn’t miss the opportunity to glare at the man with his sister, either. He knew it couldn’t be a boyfriend. Gorgeous though she was, Alison didn’t have boyfriends. He and the others had tried, in vain, to fix her up time and again, but she’d stubbornly refused to have any part of it.

      When being yelled at, Alison had a tendency to yell back. It didn’t affect the way she felt about her brother at all. “I didn’t have time to call in.”

      “Why, why didn’t you have time to call in?” Kevin found himself walking behind her as Alison retreated to his office, the stranger beside her. “Was it because of him? He get fresh with you?” Not waiting for an answer, Kevin moved Alison aside and commandeered the man’s attention. “Listen, buddy, just because she was driving a cab doesn’t make her an easy mark—”

      Alison wedged herself between them, glaring at her brother. “Kevin, you’re getting carried away again.”

      Deep-seated affection flickered in Kevin’s eyes for a second as he looked at her. The ideas that had been running through his head these last few hours… “You’re my baby sister. I have a right to get carried away if some guy—”

      “He saved me, Kevin.”

      The barrage of words came to a sudden, skidding halt. Dark brows came together over a Roman nose. “Saved you? Saved you from what?”

      “From being mugged.” She’d wanted to find a way to tell him, a nice, calm way, but apparently Kevin wasn’t going to allow that. “Two guys stole the fare money. And all his things. I’m sorry, Kevin. The money’s gone.”

      He didn’t give a damn about the money. Only Alison. He looked from Luc to Alison, words temporarily refusing to come. And then they came. In a flood.

      “That does it! No more driving the cab. Not full-time, not part-time. Not from here to the edge of the garage—”

      “Kevin—”

      But he wasn’t listening. “I told you that wasn’t a job for a woman, but no, you wouldn’t listen. You always thought you knew what was best.” When he thought of what could have happened to her, his blood ran cold. “Well, I’ve got news for you. You don’t know—”

      She placed her hand on her brother’s shoulder. “Slow down, Kevin. Luc has a headache.”

      Working up a full head of steam, he was just getting started. “I don’t care—”

      But she did. “He got it defending me.”

      “Oh.” The words finally penetrated. Chagrined, Kevin looked at the man who had earned his eternal gratitude. “Oh,” he repeated. “Hey, sit down.” He dragged a chair closer, urging Luc to sit. “You want an aspirin?” Kevin pulled open a drawer in his desk, reaching for a half-empty bottle. “Did you take him to see Jimmy—?”

      Alison reclaimed the bottle and put it back in the drawer. “He has painkillers and yes, I took him to see Jimmy. I am a nurse, you know.”

      “A nurselet,” Kevin corrected fondly. Ten years older than Alison, it was hard for him to think of her in any sort of adult capacity. “But you’re coming along,” he added when he saw the storm clouds gathering in her eyes.

      Even though he had no way of knowing for sure, something told Luc that he was accustomed to a less frantic pace. But then, probably everyone was. “You people always talk this fast?”

      Kevin looked at him and then laughed. He dragged his hand through his hair in a way that was reminiscent of Alison. “Only when we’re stirred up,” Kevin apologized. “Can I get you anything? Just name it.”

      “He needs a place to stay,” Alison interjected before Luc could demur the offer. “If it’s okay with you, I told him he could have the room over the garage. Until his memory comes back.”

      Kevin glanced in Luc’s direction. “His memory?”

      Alison nodded, pressing her lips together. “He has amnesia.” And it was all her fault.

      Kevin could only stare at her.

      Chapter Three

      “You can’t remember anything?”

      Kevin thought of all the things that were crowded into his life, all the treasured memories he had of precious moments. The idea of suddenly losing his grasp on all of them was devastating. Sympathy flooded through him for the young man sitting on the guest side of his small, cluttered desk.

      “No.” The single word echoed, dark and lonely, in Luc’s brain. Drawing nothing into the light in its wake except frustration.

      Blowing out a breath, Kevin passed his hand over his hair.

      “Man, that has got to be awful for you.” At a loss as to what to say, Kevin looked toward his sister. “How long do these kind of things last?”

      Alison hesitated, then purposely kept her voice upbeat for Luc’s sake. “Jimmy said it might clear up in a day or two.”

      Or longer, she added silently. There was just no telling. Even though she’d asked the same question of Jimmy, Alison knew that there was no blueprint for amnesia to follow. It varied from person to person, a product of cause and effect. It could be gone by tomorrow, or last forever. There was just no telling.

      For Luc’s sake, she crossed her fingers and hoped for the first.

      “Day or two, huh?” Kevin was a dyed-in-the-wool optimist. He shifted his eyes to look at Luc. “Sure he can stay over the garage,” he told Alison. “You can stay for as long as it takes. Nothing’s too good for the man who saved my little sister.” As if to underscore his sentiment, Kevin threw an arm around Alison, hugging her to him.

      Embarrassed, Alison tried not to flush. “We’re a very close family,” she told Luc.

      Luc noticed that she subtly shrugged her brother’s arm off and then stepped back. It reminded him of something. Small spaces and claustrophobia. Cave-ins. What did all that mean?

      Behind him, he heard the door being opened. “Hey, Kevin, can I see you a sec?” Turning in his chair, he saw a man in stained, zipped-up coveralls peering into the office.

      Kevin waved the mechanic back out. “In a minute, Matt. Can’t you see I’m busy?”

      Grunting, Matt retreated. “It’ll keep.”

      An idea suddenly hit Kevin. Perching on the corner of his desk, he looked down at Luc. “Have you been to the police station?”

      “No, but I called 911,” Alison told him. “The police came to take down the information about the robbery.”

      “Yeah, that.”

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