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Chapter 9

9

“How is she?” Gene asked from behind him. Chad turned, from where he’d been straightening the blankets over his own sister. “Is Chantal okay?”

There was worry on Gene’s face.

“She’s going to be fine, Gene. Just squirming. She’s always squirmed in her sleep. She used to kick like crazy. I thought you headed out already?”

“No. I left Genesis—Genny—in the cafeteria.” He gave a rueful smile as he settled in the chair next to Chantal’s bed. “It’s going to take me a while to get used to calling my sister that.”

“Why would you?”

“Apparently, we—my entire family—were idiots. Well, I don’t know if Gia and Greer are, but the rest of us… apparently Genesis has been introducing herself to people as Genny for years now. I never knew.”

“Neither did I. Why did she change her name?” He couldn’t recall hearing anyone call her Genny. Well, Chantal did, he thought. And maybe his own mother.

Chad hadn’t really paid much attention. He’d rather deliberately not paid attention to Genesis Hiller through the years, after she’d been around seventeen or so, and become incredibly annoying. She’d been scrawny, mouthy, and a pain-in-the-ass back then.

A lot had changed in ten years. Chad certainly had.

Gene’s mouth tightened. “Bullying. Some girls at school when she was in junior high apparently told her repeatedly that she wasn’t even special enough to get her own name. Just Gene’s sister. And they were ruthless about taunting her, about her name, her size, her glasses, at a time she was especially vulnerable. Little bitches.”

“That’s why it bugs her so much, that old Gene’s sis joke?” Her brothers used to break her name down to Gene’s-sis and tell her Gene was in charge of her whether she liked it or not. Just being kids. “And being called the Hiller runt, and shrimp.”

“Apparently my little sister doesn’t know how special she is to all of us. Chan said Genny has always felt invisible in our family of stars.” Gene stood and pushed the chair closer to the bed. “Insecure and a bit ignored. Your sister informed me of how we, and I suspect you are lumped in with the rest of my brothers, have been idiots where all the girls were concerned.”

“And Chan? How have we been idiots where she was concerned?”

“I think maybe we’ve missed what has been right in front of us all along. Maybe we just didn’t pay enough attention to any of them once we got older.” Gene covered Chantal’s free hand with his own, running a thumb over the back gently. Almost reverently. “They’re not little girls any longer. And damn it, Chad, I don’t know any of them, not really. I’ve been so caught up in my own problems, I don’t think I’ve seen everything going on around me for a while now. Genny lives in my own damned house and does half the work of raising my son, and I didn’t even know what name she thought of herself as. Or that she doesn’t see herself as the wonderful woman she actually is. I think she hides. Right there, with me and the rest of my brothers, at the ranch, away from the world. The only person who really seems to know her is Chantal. And I don’t know Chantal at all. Not like I thought I did, anyway. I’ve been wrong about the both of them for years. My own sister. Yours. I’m still trying to understand that.”

“But you want to?” There was something in the way Gene was looking at Chad’s sister. Something most definitely not platonic.

But Chad couldn’t identify exactly what it was.

Gene looked at Chantal again. That’s when Chad got exactly what his friend was saying.

“I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything more. But Chantal doesn’t want to know me at all, I think. I’m going to work on that. Show her I’m not the same asshole I was just a week ago. Somehow. I think I owe her that much. And I’m going to make sure my sisters know that I love them, and I always have. My brothers, too. I think… I think I stopped showing them that fifteen years ago, when… Greer was hurt.”

Chad nodded. He remembered the horror of that day, too. They’d almost lost Greer and Gene had had to watch it happen firsthand. To think he’d been responsible, even if everyone knew he hadn’t been.

Maybe Gene had pulled back that day. It had changed all of them. But it didn’t explain why Chad was feeling like his world was sitting on its side now, too.

He had almost lost his sister—and he hadn’t really known her at all. Gene wasn’t the only one who had some things he needed to change. Chad was going to make sure his sister knew he loved her, too.

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