Her Sister (Search For Love series) Read online

  However, when she saw that mo-ped new concerns poured in.

  She didn't slam her car door, just quietly closed it, then mounted the two steps to her kitchen door. She heard music pounding from inside. Music meant Shara was home. It meant she'd cut classes.

  Trying not to jump to conclusions, considering the fact she might have forgotten a school holiday, teacher's meetings, early dismissal, Clare laid her purse on the counter and headed for the primitive thumping of the bass. The lyrics of some of the music Shara listened to made Clare's skin crawl. She could ban it from the house, but she couldn't control what her daughter listened to outside of the house...or when she wasn't here.

  Clare's living room usually invited her into its comfort. When she'd finally managed to scrape together a down payment for a house of her own, a house Shara could grow up in, she'd had a very tight budget but lots of imagination and the intense desire to create a place that really felt like home. Although she'd bought secondhand furniture and made slipcovers from material bought at Wal-Mart, the dark blue and beige colors, the surplus of plants, the repainted and refinished wood furniture beckoned to Clare at the end of her work day.

  The rancher had two bedrooms. Shara's was at the end of the hall. Her door was open, and music—Clare used that term loosely—blasted from inside.

  Clare knew that for the rest of her life, as she pushed Shara's door open, the scene in front of her would be indelibly printed on her brain. Shara and Brad were naked. Her daughter's brown hair lay tousled across her pillow, while she looked up at a boy that Clare believed she didn't really know, her hands gripping his shoulders.

  Rage propelled Clare forward first. She wanted to throw the kid off her daughter, knee him where it would hurt most, and shake him until he understood that Shara was too young to know what she was doing.

  Reason told Clare that confrontation in anger never turned out well.

  But how could she be reasonable when her daughter was having sex in front of her eyes?

  Shaking, holding onto her temper with both hands, biting back words before they could spill out, she finally shouted, "Get off of her. Now!" Her voice seemed to get lost in the song lyrics, so she yelled louder. "Get off of her before I call the police."

  The two kids on the bed froze. Their heads swung toward her.

  Then in fast forward, Brad scrambled to the side of the bed.

  Shara squeaked, "Mom! What are you doing home?" and pulled up the covers while Clare went to the iPod dock and switched it off.

  Her insides churning, her head pounding although the music had stopped, she pointed a finger at Brad. "I could have you arrested for rape. You're eighteen. She's sixteen. Do you have any idea what you're doing?"

  "She wanted it," he snapped defensively.

  "Statutory rape," Clare declared, her voice rising. "My father's a lawyer. Do you think I don't know the law?"

  Brad slid off the bed and reached for his jeans that were heaped on the floor. He didn't seem at all embarrassed and that made Clare even angrier. "This isn't the first time," he declared to Clare, looking her straight in the eye. "And it's up to Shara whether it's going to be the last."

  Clare had felt powerless before. Having a stranger sneak into her house and steal her sister had taught her what violation felt like...what lack of control felt like...what uncertainty felt like. She'd tried so hard to make Shara feel secure, safe and protected. Staring at her daughter now, however, she knew Shara didn't want to be protected by her. And that hurt.

  "Get out. I'll be calling your parents."

  He shrugged into his shirt. "I only have a dad. He lets me do what I want. What else can he do? I'm over eighteen." After he slipped on his boots, he looked at Shara. "My condolences, kid. Call me when you get out of jail."

  When he exited the room, the smell of testosterone was strong. The silence that permeated the bedroom held everything in the world that Clare had ever said to Shara, everything in the future she might say. She knew if she didn't do this right she could lose her daughter. She didn't want the degrees of separation that she felt between her and her mother come between her and Shara, though she was afraid they'd already started piling up.

  While she peered out the window and took a calming breath, she heard the vroom of Brad's bike start up. Why hadn't God sent a manual with every child born?

  "So I'm grounded, I guess?" Shara asked with a look that was a tad too guileless, a tad too light.

  "Will grounding do any good, Shara? Will handcuffing you to your desk, locking the door, barring the windows teach you anything about what you should be doing as a sixteen-year-old?"

  "Mom..." Frustrated teenage impatience was evident in Shara's voice.

  Well, Clare was just as frustrated. "You didn't just stay out past your curfew. You didn't just go to a movie that I thought you were too immature to see. You didn't just forget to hand in an assignment. You were having sex—an act that's supposed to happen between a man and a woman when they care about each other, when they're committed to each other, when they love each other and want to spend their life together."

  "I guess that's what you believed when you had sex before you had me?"

  The barb cut. "I was stupid, Shara. I was trying to get attention from a boy. And not just attention, but love, because I didn't feel my father loved me. Is that what you want to hear? If I thought telling you all about my mistakes would keep you from making them, I'd lay it all out. But you don't listen to me. And if you do listen, you don't hear what I say."

  Shara's eyes had widened and she looked speechless for a moment.

  Clare waved at the kitchen door. "That boy doesn't care about you. Oh, he might want to have sex with you again because it felt good. But three minutes after he's done, he couldn't care less about you."

  "You're wrong."

  "No, I'm not. But as I said, you're not going to hear what I'm saying. That's a sign of you not being adult enough to do what you were just doing. So, yes, you're grounded, until I can figure out how to make you grow up a little bit. You belong in school, learning what you need to learn so you'll have a future. Do you want me to call the school every hour to check if you're still there? Do you want me to take you to school and pick you up? Do you want me to come and sit in your classes beside you to make sure you pay attention, you learn and you study? Push me any farther, Shara, and that's exactly what I'll do."

  Her daughter looked horrified at the thought, and Clare felt elated that she'd finally made a dent in her daughter's blasé attitude.

  Shara got out of bed, plucked her robe from the chair and slid it on. "You can't come sit beside me in school. You have to work."

  "If I have to, I'll get my shift changed to evening. And I'll find a babysitter who can stay here with you to make sure you don't step out of this house."

  With that threat hanging between them, Clare crossed to Shara's door, stepped into the hall and closed it behind her.

  She was shaking all over.

  Still, she went to the kitchen, pulled her address book from the drawer and found her gynecologist's number. She'd make an appointment for an examination for her daughter. Maybe the doctor could give her some guidance.

  Along with a prescription for birth control pills?

  Clare dialed the number, shut her eyes and wished she could talk to her mother about this. But she couldn't.

  She'd just have to talk to a stranger instead.

  ****

  Amanda's doorbell rang Monday evening. She looked around the kitchen in the apartment above her shop as if she were seeing it through someone else's eyes. It was ten p.m. and everything was out of the cupboards—all the spices, all the canned goods, all the packages of pasta, all the bags of beans.

  She'd called Natalie and left a message. She'd known her friend would be out with the Red Hat Society tonight, but she'd had to talk to someone. Natalie would understand that when she heard the message.

  Fully expecting to see her old friend, she stared through the peephole onto the
stair's landing and almost jumped back. Max's face stared at her.

  She'd actually thought about calling him yesterday and earlier tonight, but had rejected the idea both times it had popped into her head.

  When she pulled open the door and he stepped inside, he didn't seem surprised by the condition of her kitchen. "I should have known you'd be reorganizing. You always do that when you're shook up."

  "I'm relining the shelves."

  "You're trying to take control of something you can control."

  Max was six-foot and mostly silver-haired now...but thickly silver-haired. His hairline hadn't receded one little bit. His eyes were as dark brown as they'd ever been. Just looking at him—"

  Just looking at him brought back too many memories. "Don't psychoanalyze me, Max. It won't do either of us any good." Crossing to the counter, she began to stack spices on the shelf she'd just lined.

  "Have you heard from Clare?" he asked her.

  She shook her head. "Have you?"

  "No."

  "She'll deal with this in her own way, just like she's dealt with everything else."

  Amanda knew that wasn't right. She knew the three of them should be handling this together, should be holding onto each other, should be praying for the best. But when she and Max had fallen apart, Clare had been the casualty. Neither of them had realized it until she'd become an angry teenager—rebellious, defiant, and intent on getting her way any way she could.

  "An FBI agent named Jacobs called me this morning. He told me basically the same thing Grove did. He said he wants to keep me informed. Did he call you?"

  "Yes. This afternoon."

  The silence stretched way too long between them, creating the awkwardness that was always there now. Max was dressed in black sweats tonight and she wondered if he'd been working out to control his stress level.

  "Did you work today?" she asked, just to make conversation.

  He raked his hand through his hair and unzipped his jacket, as if he intended to stay. "This morning. But I spent most of this afternoon on the phone. I called contacts to see what more they could find out about Luther Brown."

  That would be just like Max, needing to be in the center of what was going on.

  "I couldn't get any more than what Grove and Jacobs told us. If I thought driving to Pittsburgh or flying to Texas would do us any good—"

  "You've got to let the authorities handle this."

  "Like they did before? Maybe I could get those records unsealed faster. I'm the expert in juvenile law."

  "Maybe Grove doesn't need an expert. Maybe he just needs a little time."

  "Time? We've waited twenty-seven years!"

  Her ex-husband's voice was sharp. At one time his tone would have hurt her. Now it didn't.

  They stared at each other—long, hard moments as they remembered other words...other times.

  "I shouldn't have come. I thought it would do us both some good, but I was wrong." He strode to the door.

  "Max."

  With his hand on the knob he turned to her. "What?"

  "Why can't we just be people together? Why can't we just be parents together?"

  "Because we still blame each other for losing Lynnie."

  Before she could say, "But I don't blame you anymore," he was gone. Just like that.

  Arranging the spices in alphabetical order just didn't have the allure it had fifteen minutes before.

  Trying to ignore the mess, she went to the refrigerator, took out the carton of orange juice, found a stray glass on the counter and poured. Max had always stirred up more emotion than she ever wanted to feel.

  Crossing to her living room, a feminine haven of cream roses, fern-green drapes, a pale pink and white Aubusson rug, she headed straight for the mahogany end table and opened the drawer. She removed a round tin with the picture of a saddle on the lid. Opening it, she took a whiff of the candle inside. Leather. Actually, it was more than the smell of leather. Mingled with it was a scent like old wood.

  She'd found the candle on a buying trip last winter. It had been tucked into the corner of a hutch in a little shop that had sold secondhand items. As soon as she'd uncapped it, the scent had taken her back to a time and place where happiness was still a butterfly that could land on her shoulder.

  Sinking down onto the sofa she took another whiff, and there she was, eighteen, helping her dad with the summer crop of tobacco. She'd lived on a farm in Pine Hill with her parents. Her dad had raised tobacco for many years, along with corn and hay. He'd also raised turkeys, and every Christmas opened his fields for anyone who needed a Christmas tree. Farming had been tough even back then.

  The summer after her senior year in high school she'd been helping her mom make sticky buns when Max had come into the kitchen with her father. She'd recognized him, of course. They'd taken an advanced geometry class together. Physics, too. There were lots of stories buzzing about Max, but she didn't know which ones were true and which weren't. She'd heard his mother had died in childbirth. She'd heard his mother had left when he was just a little boy. She'd heard his dad drank a lot and couldn't hold a job. That day she hadn't cared what she'd heard.

  When her gaze locked to his, the sensation she experienced was as if the hot, gooey syrup from the sticky buns was running through her, making her feel all melty and weak.

  Her father, a short balding man who was getting heftier each year, gave his wife and daughter a grin. "Just wanted to introduce you to my new help. Max Thaddeus, meet my wife, Mrs. Fogelsmith and my daughter, Amanda. Do you two know each other from school?"

  "Yes, sir," Max answered without hesitation. "Amanda and I had a couple of classes together."

  "Well, good, because you two will be working side by side some of the summer. Amanda helps with everything around here, including spearing the tobacco leaves on the laths. I don't let her have anything to do with hanging them up to dry, but she works beside me whenever she can."

  Amanda felt like an idiot, standing there staring at Max, as if she didn't have a brain in her head. "Are you going to be working here today?" she asked, then realized maybe she shouldn't have. Maybe she shouldn't have sounded as if she'd be glad if he was.

  "If I do a good job this morning, your dad might keep me on for the afternoon."

  George Fogelsmith chuckled. "Ain't that the truth? You come with good references, boy. I don't think we'll have a problem. First I'll show you around the barn, then we'll head for the turkey pen."

  Quickly, Amanda tore off a large piece of aluminum wrap, slipped three of the already baked sticky buns onto it and folded up each end until she had a small package. Then she crossed to Max and held it out to him. "For your lunch break."

  George planted his hands on his hips. "Don't I get any?"

  Amanda felt her cheeks go red. "Sure you do, Dad. I'll wrap yours up separately." She did that quickly and gave her dad a small package, too.

  He winked at her and suggested, "Come find us when you're done helping your mom with the buns. You can teach Max the fine points of mucking out stalls." Her dad's eyes twinkled at her and she knew he knew she'd be glad just to be around Max.

  If her dad got busy and they'd have to do chores alone, maybe she'd find out which rumors were true about Max and which weren't.

  The phone rang.

  Amanda came crashing back to the present. Returning to the kitchen, still holding the candle in her hand, she picked up the receiver.

  "Amanda, it's Max."

  She closed her eyes and saw the boy he used to be...the girl she used to be. "I wish you hadn't left so...abruptly."

  He didn't reply right away, but then he said, "I'm flying to Dallas as soon as I can arrange it."

  "Does Detective Grove know?"

  "No. I'm going to see what I can find out."

  "Max."

  "Don't worry, Amanda. I'll be discreet. I have to do all that I can to get to the truth, sooner rather than later."

  "Good luck," she whispered, her voice catching. Old memori
es always did that to her...made her wish for a time she could never have back again.

  When Max said "goodbye," she closed the lid on the candle.

  ****

  "Finally," Shara muttered as she sat at her computer late Monday night. A reply to her e-mail had finally come in. She read it greedily, so grateful she had this one friend she could count on.

  Shara—I'm so sorry to hear about what happened. You must have been so embarrassed, not only by your mother, but by your boyfriend. If he's still your boyfriend. You told me that you love him, but do you? Do you really? Can you love someonewho's so cavalier about you and your feelings and what's good for you?

  Shara had no idea what "cavalier" meant. She could look it up on the dictionary app. But it didn't really matter. She read on...

  I know you're a beautiful girl. Anyone seeing your pictures on Branches knows that. If Brad can't see your beauty then he doesn't deserve you.

  If you were here with me I'd take you for a cable car ride to the top of Sandia Peak. You could look down onto the whole world and maybe put it all in perspective. Since you can't be here, I'll put a couple of pictures up on my page and you can take a virtual trip.

  Why don't you come to the chat room and have a little fun? We'll talk about everything that doesn't matter.

  Justin

  Justin was so different from Brad. She could tell him anything. She could tell him everything. He seemed to understand it all, from cutting classes to wanting to wear trendy clothes, to hating how her mother kept tabs on her. His profile said he was a year older than Brad. Nineteen.

  She typed in, Let's go to the chat room, and hit SEND. At least there she could be herself. At least there, her mother couldn't tell her what to say, do or feel.

  ****

  Chapter Three

  "Yes, I'm Mark Hansen, but if you're selling something—"

  Clare squared her shoulders, ready to take on Brad's father Wednesday evening. She'd been leaving phone messages for him for two days and he hadn't bothered to answer them. She hadn't gone into detail, not wanting to put him on the defensive.