My sister was on fire.
Which, I guess, in her shoes, I would be, too.
“Your sister is there?” Romeo asked softly.
“She sure is,” I confirmed.
Romeo cleared his throat. “She doing okay?”
“Right now,” I admitted.
“Maybe it won’t be a problem at all, Creed,” he said. “Maybe this was a blessing in disguise.”
There was no way it wouldn’t be a problem up here. It was a problem in Alabama. There’s no way we wouldn’t have a problem where the weather was even worse. Hell, I even had my own issues breathing, and I didn’t even have asthma.
“Will you give Apollo a call?” I asked. “See what he can find out?”
“Sure thing.” He hesitated. “She probably came from a good place.”
I sincerely didn’t care.
What I cared about was my sister’s health.
I hung up without replying, then stared at my sister for so long that she groaned and threw up her hands. “What is your problem right now? Were you hiding from me?”
“No,” I admitted. “But I couldn’t see a way to bring you up here with me without your asthma acting up.”
She grimaced, and the guilt that flashed across her face let me know that she was, indeed, already having issues. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing I can’t handle,” she snapped.
I sincerely doubted it.
“Tell me how bad it is,” I ordered.
“I’m fine,” she again lied.
No. No, she wasn’t.
“Bernice Lynn,” I hissed.
She threw up her hands. “So I had an attack when I got off the plane. That’s normal!”
I frowned. “Normal?”
“I have issues all the time, Justin.”
“Creed,” I corrected her. “I don’t go by Justin anymore.”
Her face softened. “You always loved your middle name.”
I had.
It’d been my grandfather’s.
“Now I go by Creed Justin Daugherty.”
“Great-Grandpa’s entire name. Nice.” She frowned. “I’m fine. I wouldn’t lie to you. I’m handling it.”
