Nat answered. “Are you all right? I’ve been worried.”

“I’m fine, sis. It’s just...more complicated than I expected.”

“Amanda’s all right, though?”

“So far.”

“Does she still blame you?”

Adam almost smiled at the indignation in his little sister’s voice. Nat had been his fiercest supporter, telling him repeatedly it hadn’t been his fault. His mother had been too glad he was alive to talk about it much, and his father had only said blaming himself accomplished nothing.

“I think she mostly feels sorry for me now,” he said, barely managing to keep from sounding bitter.

“You think everybody does, when in fact most admire you for how well you’ve done,” his sister said.

“Funny, she said pretty much the same thing.”

“Smart, huh?” Nat said in an arch tone. He grinned.

“Yes,” he agreed. “She’s very smart. Maybe even smarter than you.”

“Ha. As if.”

The grin broke into a laugh. Nat could always do that for him, even when he was down so deep he wasn’t sure he’d ever surface again.

“You will be back for Christmas, right?”

“I...hope so.”

He waited for her to protest even the slight doubt, but instead, quietly, his sister said, “I love you, brother mine.”

“And I love you, sis. More than you know.”

For a short moment after he ended the call he just looked at the phone, blinking a bit rapidly as his eyes stung. He sucked in a breath, shoved the phone into his pocket and turned.

Amanda was there. Watching him. Automatically, he raced through his side of the conversation in his mind as he wondered how much of it she’d heard.

“You think I’m smart?”

He shook his head, saw the flicker in her gaze before he said, “I know you are.”

That made her smile. “Your sister?” she asked.

He was sure she’d heard that much, since it was the last thing he’d said. So he only nodded.

“It’s nice. That you’re so close.”

“Sometimes she was the only thing that kept me from going under for good,” he said, feeling he owed it to Nat to be honest about what she’d done for him.

“She made you laugh.”

“She’s usually the only one who can,” he said, that honesty still prodding him, that need to acknowledge.

“I wish I could,” Amanda said quietly. “I wish I could do for you what your sister does.”

Adam’s breath jammed up in his throat. He stared at her. And before he could stop himself the words were out, low, harsh and apparently unstoppable. “Believe me, Amanda, I don’t feel anything like brotherly toward you.”

The smile that lit her face then took what little breath he had away. “Thank goodness,” she said.