While She Was Sleeping.... Isabel Sharpe

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      “No.” Alana put both hands out toward her sister.

      “You slept with Sawyer last night?” she shrieked.

      Sawyer helped the situation not at all by clutching his head in his hands and groaning, which made him look guilty and contrite instead of hungover and tired of shrieking.

      “Melanie, this is not at all what it looks—”

      “Give me a break.” She came out from around the door, wearing a wrinkled short skirt and top she’d obviously slept in, and took two menacing steps forward, hands jammed on her hips, hazel eyes flashing. “Okay, I’ll tell you what it looks like, Alana, and you let me know how on target I am. You slept with Sawyer last night.”

      “No, I didn’t. I swear.” She realized that she was standing there with bed-head, wrapped in a bedspread, mostly bare shoulders showing, and that Sawyer was still half under the covers, clearly just awake and naked from the waist up, so her words wouldn’t carry much weight. “Sleeping, okay, sleeping, but that’s it, and that wasn’t on purpose. He got into bed with me. I didn’t even wake up.”

      “You know, that’s the nicest thing a woman has ever said to me.”

      She glared at him. He was smirking, the jerk. He’d cheated on Melanie with a member of her own family and thought this whole thing was amusing? “You’re not helping.”

      He put his hand up to block his mouth from Melanie’s view. “You want me to tell her what you can do in your sleep?”

      “Shh.” She looked around. Any weapons? Blunt or otherwise?

      “What are you whispering about?” Melanie shrieked. Shrieking must run in their family. Alana had never noticed before.

      “State secrets.” He turned to Melanie. “Alana is correct. She slept all night. I thought she was someone else when I woke up.”

      “You mix up women in bed?” Alana snorted. “Impressive.”

      Melanie looked crestfallen. “I didn’t realize you were that type when I asked you to move in, Sawyer.”

      “No, I meant…” He sighed. “I’m just saying. If I knew she was your sister, I never would have—”

      “Stayed.” Alana nodded at her sister. If he said anything about what he did to her, she’d show him what shrieking could sound like. She’d have a talk with Melanie later and bring it up only if Melanie needed proof the guy was a sleazeball. Why hurt her more? “If he knew I was me, he would have run. Far.”

      “That’s for sure.” He rolled his eyes. “Very far.”

      Alana ignored him. She was damn glad she’d delayed her trip to Florida and showed up here, because her sister definitely needed saving from Sawyer. If Melanie thought this guy was even close to someone she should get serious about…

      Melanie’s face crumpled; she hid her face in her hands. “I can’t believe you did this.”

      Alana and Sawyer exchanged glances. Sawyer pointed to himself, then to Alana, then shrugged, hands up. Which one did she mean?

      Alana pointed emphatically at him. Give her a break.

      “Why did you come here?” Melanie raised her tear-stained face, mascara already smudged from sleep making black tracks down her cheeks. “I told you not to.”

      Alana gaped. She was in trouble? Oh, that was just special. “I came so I could—”

      “And now look what you’ve done.” Melanie gestured to Sawyer.

      “What I’ve done?” He poked himself in the chest. “You’re mad at me?”

       “You slept with my sister.”

      He put his hands to his ears. “I did not realize she was your sister.”

      “Ha!” Alana turned on him. “Like that makes any difference?”

      “I’m sorry, did I take some vow of chastity I’m not aware of?” He had the gall to look bewildered. A sociopath, devoid of a conscience. Add that one to the other two and you got Womanizing Alcoholic Sociopath. The triple crown. Except don’t forget unemployed, which made it a home run, round all four base flaws.

      Alana strode across the room, nearly tripping on the bedspread, took Melanie’s shoulder and steered her to the door. “C’mon, Mel. Let’s get out of here. Give Mr. Kern lots of privacy to dress and hardly any time to get the hell out of here.”

      She led her sister down the hall, more angry and shaken up than she’d been in a long time. She hated that she’d been so vulnerable and had responded so thoroughly to Sawyer instead of punching him in the jaw and throwing him out of the house.

      The worst part? Standing there just now, wanting to throttle him for the way he’d taken advantage of both her and Melanie, a stupid hormonal part of her had been taking in his muscled body, warm and alive against the white sheets, his vivid brown eyes and strong, handsome features. No matter how much her brain said jerk, jerk, jerk this other part had only managed to come up with mmm-more.

      She needed to buy a marital aid. The largest they had. A plug-in that would dim the lights for blocks and give her an orgasm the size of Cleveland. Then her ridiculous libido should be happy and stop bugging her about a man who wasn’t worth her toenail clippings.

      In a way she was glad this fiasco had happened, because it made her job so much easier. Sawyer had shown his true colors. Hello, I’m a horse’s butt. End of story. He was history. Even Melanie had to see that.

      Now Alana could go back to her original plan, head out later on today with a clear conscience, having done her big-sisterly duty here. In two days she’d be in Orlando and could start her granddaughterly duty there.

       3

      MELANIE WAS GETTING READY to blow. She could not believe, not be-lieve that her darling big sister, Alana, had once again showed up to take over her life and tell her how she was screwing up. Most people only had one mother. Melanie had three: her real mother, who was sort of around for her first eight years, her grandmother, who raised her after that, and her big sister, who was a giant, bossy pain in her rear. Such a lucky girl.

      This time she had to make it clear to Alana that she was twenty-six, not twelve. That she had really sworn off losers and had really found a decent man, and if Alana screwed it up.

      She whirled on her sister. “You just had to come up here. You couldn’t trust that I—”

      Alana put a finger to her lips and pushed open the door to Melanie’s childhood room, which Melanie saw through Alana’s eyes and realized looked like the room of a…twelve-year-old. Dammit. She’d been keeping it neat, forcing herself to pick up every night before bed, but last night after drinks with coworkers Jenny and Edgar, she’d needed an outfit for Ray’s get-together and hadn’t been able to decide what to wear, tried on everything she owned, then it got late, and—

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