Just Fooling Around: Darcy's Dark Day/Reg's Rescue\Cam's Catastrophe/Devon's Dilemma by Julie Kenner, Kathleen O'Reilly Page A

own entourage of hero-worshipping girls, but the idea of going after Cam’s little sister—and a freshman, no less—was unthinkable. So he’d consoled himself with talking to her after school at Cam’s house, arguing about cool books they’d read, like the works of Stephen Hawkings or Carl Sagan. After he graduated, he’d see her occasionally on the local college campus, taking dual-credit courses. Each time, he’d feel that familiar twist in his gut, but again, he never did anything about it. She was a high-school girl, and he was in college. She was still Cam’s sister. And he was dating an English major he’d met at registration.
    Now, the English major and Evan had gone their separate ways, Darcy was all grown up and the simple sound of her name still made his skin tingle. “She’s in the city?” he asked. The last he’d heard, she was at MIT working toward a Ph.D. in mathematics.
    “On the way to my apartment,” Cam said. “And unless my little sister has changed, there’s no way I’m going to convince her to stay here for the day.”
    “What do you want me to do?” Already he was out of bed. Already, he was imagining a day with Darcy.
    “I need you watch out for her, buddy,” Cam said, voicing the words that Evan so wanted to here. “I need you to take care of her. I know it’s a lot to ask—following my kid sister around—but I’d really appreciate it if—”
    “No worries,” Evan said, his voice in a rush. “I get it. You’re worried about her. She’s alone in the city on April first.”
    “The kid’s brilliant,” Cam said. “But she can be scattered. And tunnel-visioned. And she’s determined to pretend like the curse doesn’t exist.”
    “Don’t worry,” Evan said. “I’ll keep an eye on her.”
    “How?”
    “Huh?”
    “She’ll have both our butts in a sling if she realizes I asked you to keep an eye on her. And it’s not like you’re going to play James Bond in a trenchcoat and tail her from afar. So what’s your excuse going to be? To hang out with her, I mean.”
    “Right,” Evan said, scrambling. “I’ll think of something.” Heck yes, he’d think of something. The idea of spending the day with Darcy beat pretty much anything else he could think of doing that day, and that included winning the lottery.
    “How about an article?” Cam said. “Tell her you’re doing a feature on the family curse.”
    “That’ll go over well,” Evan said. He might believe in the curse—how could he not?—but he knew damn good and well that Darcy was the hold-out in the family. And the truth was that antagonizing her wasn’t what hehad in mind. No, his image of the perfect day was something significantly different.
    “She says she doesn’t believe in the curse,” Cam said. “But she can’t deny what happens to us every year.”
    “I’ll tell her I want to write a feature piece from her perspective. Holding the line in a family of believers.”
    “You’re a good man,” Cam said. “There’s no one I trust more to keep an eye on my baby sister.”
    An eye, Evan thought. He’d keep an eye on her, all right. On those flashing green eyes and that mass of wild, untamable curls.
    He imagined brushing her hair out of her eyes and stroking her cheek, taking her hand and walking through the park. Sharing a kiss on the top of the Empire State Building.
    And, yeah, he imagined a hell of a lot more than that, too.
    Cam sighed. “It’s just that she can be so damn naive, you know? I don’t want her to get hurt.”
    “Right,” Evan said, reining in all of his fantasies, because he could have none of them. This was Darcy he was thinking about. Cam’s little sister, who’d never once shown the slightest hint of interest in him. “I’ll keep her safe.”
    Safe, he thought. And at arm’s length.

2
    “Y OUR PURSE WAS STOLEN ,” Cam said. He spoke the words as if they constituted mathematical proof, and punctuated them with a scowl, the effect of which was only