Just once, it would be good if she was wrong.
Even half-wrong.
Truth was, there was nothing wrong.
“Don’t you ever just wake up in a pissy mood?” he asked. He wished he’d never brought up the damned pod. A bottle of water sounded better than coffee, anyway.
“Sure. When I’m PMSing. Did you sleep poorly?” She took a step closer, studying his face. “Is the bone causing you pain again? Or the nerve going up to the eye? Does that hurt?”
“No.” Not anything he couldn’t ignore.
“Did you have another nightmare?”
God save him from a pair of sisters who’d nursed him through more surgeries than he cared to count and knew far too much.
“No.”
If she asked him if he was constipated, he was going to walk out on her.
“So what gives?”
A damned key.
And if he told her that, she’d ruin his life in her exuberance to help him. She’d ruin everything trying to make more out of things than would ever be there. Then he even wanted to be there.
He tried the silent treatment. O
n a normal day it would work.
“Mike?”
He tried harder.
“You want me to sic Charlie on you? Or Mom and Dad? Because you know I will if...”
His cell phone rang. Pulling it off his belt, he glanced at the screen.
Kacey.
“I have to take this,” he said to his sister. “This is Mike.” He used his usual greeting when speaking to a client.
Diane let him go, but he knew he hadn’t heard the end of their conversation.
Still, Kacey had saved the day. She’d bought him time to come up with an explanation that would satisfy his nosy sister when they next spoke.
As he’d known all along, Kacey’s friendship was good for him.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“YOU SOUND TENSE,” Kacey said the second she heard Michael’s voice. She’d called his cell. He’d have known it was her before he picked up.
“My sister was just after me for the same thing,” he told her, and she wasn’t sure if he was irritated with her for nagging him, as he often got with his sisters, or if he was using code to tell her he was with his family.
Maybe he was feeling cozy enough with her to think of her as one of his sisters. She was pretty much good with that, except for the fact they annoyed him at times. She didn’t want to be an irritant in his life.
“Diane?” she asked as thoughts spun through her mind.
“Yes.”