Call Me Wild by Robin Kaye

did you have to fix them up?”
    “Well…” Karma put her clipboard down and walked around him into the bar. “Jessie—that’s her name—just doesn’t know she likes Fisher yet.”
    “Karma,” he said, in his deep I-mean-business voice. “I thought you learned your lesson when you tried pulling this kind of crap with me and Sharon. I can’t believe you’re setting up your own brother.”
    “Hey. Look at you, Mr. Happily Married, new daddy. It all worked out in the end.”
    Kevin let out a bark of laughter. “Yeah. No thanks to you.”
    “Bullshit.” Karma slid under the pass-through of the bar and grabbed a bottle of champagne she kept in the back of the cooler just for days like these—to celebrate Violetta’s birth and tamp down her nerves. She cut the foil off the bottle’s caged cork. “You’re happily married because of me. If I hadn’t thrown you and Sharon together, you’d still be single.” She popped the cork and ignored his muttered curse.
    Kevin came around the bar and reached for the champagne glasses, checking to make sure they were dust-and spot-free. He took the bottle and poured. “Look, do your brother a favor, and stay the hell out of his love life from now on.”
    “I’d gladly stay out of Fisher’s love life if he had one. He hasn’t been on a date that I know of since Hunter got married.”
    “Is Fisher in the habit of telling you, his little sister, about his dates? I doubt it.”
    Karma laughed at that. “You know as well as I do, not one of my brothers or my cousin, for that matter, have a prayer of keeping anything away from my prying eyes and ears. I have a whole network of contacts feeding me information on a twenty-four-hour basis. It’s taken me a lifetime to establish, and it works like a charm.” She picked up her champagne glass and held it high. “Here’s to Sharon and Violetta. May they both have a healthy, happy, quiet, and sleep-filled future.”
    Kevin touched his glass to hers. “To Sharon and Violetta, the two females who rule my heart.”
    Karma took a gulp of her champagne and jumped when the Roadrunner theme song blared from her phone—Fisher’s ringtone. She forced a smile. She wasn’t sure if she was nervous or relieved, but at least the dreaded waiting was over. Too bad Kevin was there to witness the conversation. Of course, he wasn’t gentlemanly enough to give her some privacy. He knew Fisher’s ringtone as well as she did. Shit.
    “Hey, Fisher.”
    “Where is she?”
    Karma kept her face neutral, even though the tone of Fisher’s voice made all the hair on her arms stand up. “Where is who?”
    “Don’t play games with me, Karma. Jessica. Is she there with you?”
    “No.”
    “Fuck!”
    Karma couldn’t believe her ears. Fisher almost never cursed and certainly not in front of her. This was the first time in her life he let the F-bomb fly in her presence. “Calm down, Fisher. What’s the matter?” She turned so she wouldn’t have to see Kevin’s accusatory stare. Too bad there was a mirror behind the bar. She squeezed her eyes shut.
    “What’s the matter? Her car is sitting in the middle of the fucking road on the way to Hunter’s cabin—”
    “So?” Beads of perspiration gathered at her hairline.
    “And she’s not in it.”
    “Where is she?” She almost whispered.
    “How the hell do I know?” Fisher was yelling. He never yelled. “I thought she was supposed to be with you. You know, Jesse James, the big-time New York sports reporter you said you were spending the weekend with? You played us all like freakin’ windup jack-in-the-boxes, making Trapper, Hunter, and me think you were going off to play house in the mountains with some strange dude. What’s the deal?”
    Karma put her hand to her breast, trying to calm her racing heart, and went with her first instinct—plead the fifth or confusion, maybe both. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
    “Right. Sure. Look, I don’t have time to play your