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She reached up and squeezed my hand. “You’re just so good at explaining things, especially with this being a medical thing and your area of expertise.” She blinked up at me, all wide-​eyed and pleading.

“Fine,” I said, huffing out a breath. She still knew how to play me. “I’ll give them a call on the way home.”

“Thank you!” Aisha practically squealed, throwing her arms around my neck with a squeeze before releasing me and waving Kerr and me off.

As we left the ward, he held the door open for me. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re the fixer for all your wee sister’s problems?”

I laughed as we headed for the lift to the ground floor. “Yeah, pretty much. I’ve always looked out for her. As soon as she was born I fell in love with her and I’d have done anything for her. Still would.”

He eyed me softly as the lift arrived and we went inside. “I always wanted a big brother or a sister. Someone to be my ally and perhaps protect me a little.”

I cocked my head to study him as the lift traveled down. Kerr always seemed so self-​assured, like he was the protector for everyone else. I hadn’t anticipated that inside there was a little boy yearning for someone to protect him in turn. “You were an only child?”

He nodded as the lift came to a stop and the doors opened. “It was just me and my parents when I was a little kid.” He hesitated. “Then it was just me and my dad.”

I opened my mouth to ask more, but just then my phone buzzed in my hand and I lifted it, irrationally worried that it would be Seb saying something had gone wrong with Aisha and we needed to get back up to the ward. But it wasn’t him.

“It’s a message from Drew,” I said, opening it as we stepped out of the lift. “I messaged him earlier, while you were working in the living room. Told him that he was mistaken about you being the one who hit Izzy with the car.”

“Oh yeah?” Kerr said, steering me through a crowd of people as we made our way across the main concourse, his hand warm and reassuring on the small of my back. “And what did he say?” His voice was guarded, and I didn’t blame him really.

“He says that’s weird. He was sure it was you. Must have been an error.” And that was it. No apology or anything, after accusing Kerr so clearly and letting me go on a rampage at him. Why the hell had he blamed Kerr so adamantly when now he admitted so easily that he was mistaken? “What an arsehole,” I muttered, annoyance and then anger rippling through me.

“Pardon?” Kerr said, distracted by guiding us to the front door.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’ll keep my eyes up front.”

He shot me a smile.

“I was saying what an arsehole Drew is. No apology for blaming you so easily when it’s clear he can’t have been as sure as he said he was at the time!”

Kerr shrugged. “I knew it wasn’t me, that’s all that matters.”

“But I feel terrible that I blamed you, and it was only because Drew seemed so sure. Now I find out that it was just some sort of assumption on his part, and he allowed me to be so nasty to you over it?” I shook my head. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“You’re forgiven,” he told me, gracing me with another smile. But I wasn’t sure I deserved his forgiveness.

My phone rang as we exited the building and I realized it was my mum on a FaceTime call. Which meant I’d better answer it. When she chose to FaceTime, it was because she meant business. I winced at Kerr. “Sorry, need to get this.”

He waved a hand in reassurance. “No problem.”

I answered the phone as Kerr and I headed out into the car park, making for his car.

“Hi, Mum.”

“Don’t ‘Hi, Mum’ me! When were you going to call to tell us your sister was in hospital?”

I decided that it probably wasn’t a good time to tell her that I could only see the roots of her hair and the picture on her wall above her head. Or that her roots needed doing. “Sorry. I was about to call you from the car. How did you know she was in hospital?”

“Seb let slip. Aisha wasn’t answering her phone and so I called him and he said that you were going to call to let me know about the hospital trip. Then he said, ‘Oh bugger! I wasn’t supposed to say,’ and told me to phone you.”

We reached the car and climbed in, Kerr helping me get strapped in with one hand holding the phone. “Thank you,” I mouthed to him, and he smiled in return.

“You should have called us as soon as you knew, Nisa.”

Kerr started the engine, frowning as he glanced at me.

“I said I was sorry. I didn’t realize that you didn’t know until about fifteen minutes ago, and then we were on our way out of the hospital, so I was planning to call from the car.”