The Sister-in-Law by Pamela Crane (best books to read in your 20s .TXT) 📕

‘Dessert would be lovely.’ But I could tell Mom was put off. Her chin jutted out in that passive-aggressive way it always did when she was not-so-secretly upset.

Lane scooped up the silverware, making his way around the table while Candace shadowed him.

‘Let me clean up and serve the dessert while you rest, dear.’ Mom waved Candace back to her seat. ‘The cook doesn’t clean where I come from. Especially a pregnant one.’

I helped Mom finish clearing the table, carrying the cups to the kitchen sink.

‘Do you know anything about her family?’ Mom whispered to me as she dumped a handful of dishes into the soapy water.

‘No, she’s been so secretive about everything. Is it me, or does all of this seem kind of … off to you? Like she’s hiding something?’

Mom glanced behind us, her forehead wrinkled all the way up to the inch of graying roots leading into fading fake blond. I’d never seen her roots so unattended. ‘That girl has more secrets than the CIA. I thought it awful unusual that she has no family to speak of … won’t even explain what happened. That kind of aloofness is not normal for kids your age, is it?’

By kids my age Mom was referring to grown adults encroaching on forty. But I guess your kids will always be your kids, no matter how old they were.

‘No, Mom, it’s not normal to hide major details from family. Maybe it’s something embarrassing.’ I pointed to Mom’s roots. ‘Speaking of embarrassing, I distinctly remember you saying a lady never goes out in public with her roots showing. Is there something I need to know?’

She waved off the joke with a laugh. ‘Oh no, I just haven’t had the time to make it to the salon. I’ll probably schedule an appointment next week. But I can’t shake the feeling that Candace is covering up something big. Something Lane doesn’t even know about.’

‘And you can’t trust a person who hides things.’ My mother had often said these same words to me – first about my father, later about Ben.

‘So true, dear. So true.’

If only Mom knew what her own daughter was hiding. But this wasn’t about me and my demons. This was about the woman who had wormed her way into our family. The woman who was dismantling Lane’s life.

I couldn’t prove it, but my intuition was rarely wrong. Candace’s past had holes filled with secrets. And we would uncover them one by one and burn her lies down to ashes. I was the match and Mom was the gasoline.

‘You know how protective I can be over you and Lane,’ Mom murmured beneath the splash of the water. ‘And the Good Lord has my back on this. Look at where Ben ended up.’ She clucked, water sloshed. ‘I’d hate the same thing to happen to Candy.’

And just like that, I had no idea what my mother was capable of.

Chapter 10

Harper

Gray days reminded me of Ben, the rain dousing me in loneliness and the clouds trapping my cries. It poured the day I met him. And it poured the day I fake buried him at his memorial service. It was as if the rain mocked me.

Droplets rolled down the kitchen window in tiny streams. The thunkthunkthunk of the knife hitting the cutting board was the only sound in the house, aside from the pattering of rainfall on the roof and windows. I chopped the head off the last carrot, then sliced it into long, thin strips. The kids called them carrot fries, and it was the only way they’d eat them. I collected the handful of carrot sticks – I mean fries – and dropped them into a bowl. I didn’t quite feel like inviting the kids down for their snack yet. I appreciated quiet, calm moments like this … maybe a little too much lately. All I wanted was to be alone. And yet the loneliness was torture. That couldn’t be healthy.

Being alone took me back to life before Ben.

Before I met him, my life was darkness. I had almost given up on love when Benjamin Paris trekked into my store with his muddy boots and grass-stained jeans. Naïve me, a part-time employee at a plant nursery, fell for enigmatic him, a master’s-bound college kid working for a landscaping business that summer. It was crush at first lopsided grin. Beneath the caked-on dirt, days-old scruff, and sunburn lines on his neck, he had a magnetism that drew me instantly. Maybe it was my hormones blaring You haven’t had a boyfriend in years, so take what you can get! or maybe it was the sizzling connection we had, but I knew within five minutes of talking to him as I rang him up that he was The One.

Ben asked me out across the cashier counter while a downpour tapped the metal roof like restless fingers. Afraid of being used by this man who was out of my league, I told him we could only be friends, but I agreed to dinner. That same night, we ran across the parking lot toward Piedmont Restaurant, covering our heads with our jackets while droplets pelted us. We drank too much wine and ate rich, seared tuna and shared chocolate mousse and kissed across the table for the very first time. So much for just friends. I still vividly remembered the bittersweet taste of dark cocoa on his tongue, and it was the first of many more tastes we’d share. I pushed him away after that kiss, and I offered him a deal. He’d need to work for my heart before I was willing to hand it over. The silly boy agreed, unaware that he would woo me for three years before I finally said yes. The whole time I knew what I was doing, and I was doing it well. I was securing my spot in his heart.

‘You were worth the wait,’ he had told me. And I believed him back then. I wasn’t so