Page 21 of Barbed Wire and Burglary
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.
