“Umm.” His forehead creased as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Taylor, I’m trying to figure out what your brother said that caused you to go off the way you did.”

“Excuse me?” She tossed the gym shorts she usually slept in back into the open carry-on. “You’re trying to figure out what he said? Did you not hear what he said about Caleb Mitchell and his fancy new job?”

Jamar held his hands up. “I don’t understand how you took that as a slight against you.”

“‘Another one of Taylor’s classmates doing big things’?” she said, doing an exaggerated impersonation of Darwin’s voice.

“Is Caleb a classmate of yours?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you think it’s a pretty big deal that he got hired as a lawyer?” Jamar said. “It seemed to me that’s all your brother was pointing out.”

His words felt like two swift punches to the gut. Taylor took a step back and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Is that how you saw it? Well, given that I’ve known Darwin my entire life, and not just for a couple of hours, I may have a better handle on how to read between the lines when it comes to my brother.”

“Taylor, I—” He reached for her, but she stepped out of his grasp.

“I’m going to take a shower and then I’m going to bed,” she said, grabbing her T-shirt and shorts from where she’d tossed them in the open suitcase.

“It’s not even eight o’clock yet,” he said. “What am I supposed to do for the rest of the evening?”

“You seem to get along with my family better than I do,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll be just fine.”

She pushed past him on her way out the door, not bothering to answer as he called after her.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

As he stood outside Taylor’s bedroom, Jamar couldn’t tell if the faint strip of light that beamed on the hallway’s wooden floors came from the sun or from the ceiling fan light. He didn’t want to wake her if she was still sleeping, but the thought of her lying in bed brooding over the way things ended last night made his stomach turn.

Sucking in a fortifying breath, he knocked on the door. “Taylor?”

He didn’t have to keep his voice down. The rest of her family was already awake and eating from the buffet-style breakfast someone had laid out downstairs.

The activity in the kitchen had woken him just after seven this morning. As far as Jamar could tell, the room he’d been assigned had once been a small office or maybe a den that had been converted into an extra room for guests.

He knocked again. “Taylor?”