Yay.

Darn it.

“Hell,” she muttered, giving the blinds a frustrating yank, dropping them hard into place and blocking out half the sunlight in her office. “All it was was one stupid little moment of flirtation,” she muttered.

Well, that wasn’t exactly the truth, either.

Shoving herself back toward her desk, she decided not to dignify that with any further mental discussion.

Twenty minutes later, Marissa was doodling absently on a scrap of paper, her pen swirling almost frenetically. Almost as if it was matching the frenzy of the thoughts racing through her mind … or the fierce effort she was exerting trying to not think. The phone rang at her elbow, the cell vibrating into movement, trying to travel across the desk. She picked it up and glanced at the screen. A bright, beautiful picture of her sister was displayed, the pure sunlight on her hair making the brilliant red light up as if on fire. That brilliance was nothing compared to the explosive beauty of the smile that had been captured with it. And that smile said everything that needed to be said about the type of person her sister was.

Smiling in return, she answered the call.

“Whadayawant?” she drawled into the phone, using the heaviest Brooklyn accent she had in her repertoire.

Angelina laughed right off the bat, the ebullient sound dancing across the tension in the back of Marissa’s neck and shoulders, instantly releasing and relaxing it.

“Whatchyadoin’?” Angelina bounced back to her in the same exaggerated accent. The amusement was that neither of them had been born in New York, but Lina kept insisting Marissa was starting to sound like a native, so …

“I’m working of course,” she replied in her normal voice. A voice that had been cultivated to sound sophisticated and free of all accent.

“No, you aren’t. You wouldn’t have answered the phone if you were trying to pluck the crazy out of someone.”

“I do other things besides ‘pluck the crazy’ out of these cops. The paperwork alone …”

“Sure, sure,” Lina drawled. “You’re probably just sitting there staring out at Mr. Tall Dark and Dangerous.”

The remark took Marissa so by surprise that she hesitated, her words trapped in her throat. “I most certainly am not staring out at him!” she protested.

“Liar,” Lina accused knowingly.

“Shut up,” Marissa groused, hating that Lina knew her so well … and beyond grateful for it at the same time. They both had other friends and companions in the world, but no one was closer to Marissa and she knew the same stood for her sister. “So tell me why you feel compelled to torment me in the middle of my workday.”

“You mean besides it being fun?” But Marissa could hear the smile fading from her sister’s voice in the next sentence. “Actually, I do have kind of a small teensy little problem,” she confessed.

Marissa rolled her eyes. Angelina never had a small problem. And the more adjectives she used to minimize it, the more Marissa knew she wasn’t going to like the favor she was going to be asked for.

“What is going on, honey?” she encouraged her, sighing silently.

“Can I come see you? I’m not far away.”

Marissa glanced at the clock.

“I have an appointment in an hour …”

There was a knock on Marissa’s door, interrupting her. She got up and hurried over to it.

“Hold on a sec, Lina, I have—”

She broke off when she opened the door and saw her sister standing there. Angelina lifted a hand, gave her a sheepish version of her winning smile and wiggled her finger in hello.

“Oh for Pete’s sake,” Marissa huffed, shutting off her phone with a click. “Why didn’t you just …”

That was when she noticed the large, surly looking officer standing behind her sister. Officer Weiss she thought his name was. Marissa slowed down a moment, taking in the details of what she was seeing.

“Oh hell no!” she exclaimed.

“Yeah. I kinda got arrested.”

“How do you kind of get arrested?” Marissa demanded, using every last remnant of professionalism and patience she owned to keep from losing her cool in front of the entire bullpen. Just a few yards away everyone she worked with was milling about and any of them, most probably all of them, were witnessing this developing debacle.

“She kind of punched a cop in the eye,” Weiss growled churlishly.

Marissa’s eyes flicked back to the officer, and sure enough he was turning black and blue around the orbital bone of his left eye.

“Angelina!”

“I didn’t punch him!” she exclaimed. “I sort of … flailed. It was an accident!”

“She was at the MaxCon rally.”

Now things were starting to make sense. MaxCon was a notorious textile company on the Hudson River, just north of the village of Saugerties. They had recently been fined for illegally dumping chemicals into the Hudson River. MaxCon’s press release claimed it was an accident, a malfunction of some piece of equipment or other. There were a lot of people who didn’t believe that for a second. Clearly, her sister was one of them.

Leave it to her sister to be in the thick of trouble. Angelina was a blunt, outspoken, and confident person. She didn’t prevaricate. She didn’t keep her opinions to herself and she always, always fought for what she believed in.

Needless to say, it wasn’t the first time Angelina had had a run-in with the Saugerties Police Department.

Well, she wasn’t in cuffs. She was holding her cellphone, so it hadn’t been confiscated. And Officer Weiss had brought Lina straight to her. Marissa winced inwardly when she realized he’d probably been privy to Lina’s entire conversation, including the part about her staring out the window at Jackson Waverly. She hadn’t mentioned him by name, but still it didn’t take a genius …

Oh man she was going to commit sororicide!

“What else did she do?” Marissa asked wearily, deciding not to waste energy worrying about that. Her sister had offered far more fodder for worry at the moment.

“She trespassed.”

“I climbed the fence and sat on top of the wall! I didn’t even touch the damn ground!” she argued fiercely, hands on her h*ps as she rounded on Officer Weiss. “At least I didn’t until you grabbed me and yanked me down! And that’s when I flailed.” She waved her arms around wildly. “I was trying to get you off of me and get to my feet at the same time!”

“Lina!” Marissa hushed her through her teeth and stiff lips. Angelina was in the process of embarrassing her in front of the entire precinct. And of course she picked shift change to do it, when everyone was present in the building for clocking out or briefing before shift. There was an audience growing in the distance behind Weiss and Lina.

“Is she under arrest?” Marissa asked coolly.

“Well … not yet.”

“Why not?” Marissa wanted to know.

“Hey!” Lina protested.

“Hush!” she commanded her sister. Then she looked at the bruised officer. “Why isn’t she under arrest?”

“Because she didn’t do anything wrong,” Lina grumbled, absolutely unable to keep her own countenance. It was perhaps her most infuriating trait.

“Well …uh … the incident in question…it’s kind of a gray area.”

Lina turned back to her sister and looked smug. The girl didn’t have the first idea how to be careful for her own good. But it did seem as though her sister was perhaps in the right here. If Weiss had been convinced of malicious intent he wouldn’t have brought her to Marissa. The department was very strict about giving preferential treatment to friends and relatives. The town was too small and everyone knew everyone. They had to stay as professional and as impartial as possible.

“You mean you don’t believe she hit you on purpose.”

Weiss hesitated, clearly debating with his injured ego for a moment, but Marissa believed that he would be fair if it was warranted. She did know him a little and had never heard of him being accused of being a hardnosed cop.

“I’m willing to believe it was accidental,” he grumbled at last.

Angelina exploded into a beaming smile and, instead of gloating over her victory, she leapt up with a bounce and hugged the officer so hard he grunted.

“Thank you!” she exclaimed. She pulled back and patted his cheek as if he were a child. “You’re a good man, Officer Weiss.”

And the burly officer colored, his entire posture turning “Aww shucks!” as a smile grew across his lips.

“Just you stay out of trouble, little miss,” he scolded her, reaching out to pinch her on her chin. Then he turned and walked off, shaking his head and grinning.

Lina wins again.

Always. It was that ingenuous face and disarming smile, Marissa thought. Not to mention the rest of her ebullient personality. She didn’t blame Officer Weiss for his reactions to her sister. He wasn’t the first to be taken with her charm and spirit.

Lina turned back to her sister, all white smiling teeth. “So? Show me Mr. Delicious!”

Marissa grabbed her sister by the arm and yanked her into her office, slamming the door behind her.

“I wish I’d never told you about him,” Marissa hissed at her. But she was talking to Lina’s back. Lina was already hurrying across to the closed blinds that blocked Marissa’s view of Jackson Waverly. At least Lina was circumspect enough to peek out between the slats and not press her whole face and body against the glass. Marissa needed to be glad for small favors.

“Oh my freaking god!” Angelina exclaimed.

“Will you lower your voice,” Marissa hissed, her face burning with inexplicable embarrassment. Well … actually … it wasn’t exactly embarrassment that made her skin heat up. She knew exactly what Angelina was seeing. She’d peeked out that window endlessly these past weeks. And that moment didn’t turn out to be any different. She moved up beside her sister and peeked out at Jackson right along with her sister.

“Jesus, Mari, he’s gorgeous! Look at that ass! You could bounce a quarter off that thing.”

“Lina!” But the scold was ruined when she laughed behind it. “He is pretty,” she said as she made herself move away from the window and pick up her tepid coffee. “I’ll give him that.”

“Pretty? He’s a god. He’s the kind of guy that makes you wish to be a bar of soap in his shower.”

Coffee sprayed across Marissa’s desk as the remark hit her mid sip. Marissa dissolved into a coughing fit and half-inhaled coffee swam in her lungs. “Oh my god!”

“You said it sister,” Angelina said with a giggle as she turned away from the window. “So what are you going to do about it?”

Angelina waited patiently as her sister recovered a normal breathing pattern.

“I’m doing nothing about it of course!” she croaked out. “Jackson is a patient. Doctors don’t date patients. It’s a matter of ethics.”

“Please,” Lina said rolling her eyes. “I’d quit for that.” She nodded toward the window.

“Well I’m not you. And it’s a good thing too because someone has to pay the rent.”

“Oh. Ow. Low blow, sis.”

Marissa frowned. It was a low blow. Times were tough across America, and Angelina’s personality couldn’t fill just any kind of job. Oh, her smiling eyes and sunny strawberry-blond looks made it easy for her to get a job, but the opinionated champion of underdogs and lost causes everywhere eventually got on nerves and infuriated or exasperated her bosses. The fact that Lina was just too sweet for words and was as compelling as the day was long … that made it really hard to fire her as well. But eventually she got on a last nerve or crossed an inappropriate line and the employment opportunity would dissolve around her.

“I’m sorry. I know you try.”

That was part of the problem. Lina tried too hard to champion the world. She came dead last on her own list of things that needed taking care of. Everything else came first, whether it was the Hudson River, the homeless or the extinction of Siberian tigers … just to name a few.

“Angelina you really need to be more careful,” she said with a sigh, fingertips rubbing at the ache throbbing at her temple. Marissa knew she was wasting her breath, and in a way she was proud of her sister for that. She stood for something. She wasn’t ever afraid of anything.

Marissa couldn’t say the same. In fact, she was the overcautious, straight-laced, serious one of the family. Yes, that’s exactly how she would describe herself.

“You need to loosen up,” Lina said, for the thousandth time. “Before you know it your youth will be gone and bam!”—she smacked her hands together—“You’re old and decrepit with cobwebs in your vagina and you’ll be sitting there wondering why you never actually lived your life. I constantly hope you’ll throw caution to the wind one day and just embrace your life.”