Best Kept Secrets (Complete Series)

by Kandi Steiner

  I searched her expression, wondering if she wanted me to come to dinner, or if she was only asking out of obligation to her parents. I couldn’t decipher, and either way, I loved Max and Gloria Reid. I’d grown up with them as a second set of parents, and I wondered if seeing them might bring back that bit of home I longed for.

  “Are you kidding? Your parents are the best. I’d love to come.”

  “Really?”

  I scoffed. “Charlie, who in the history of ever in Mount Lebanon has turned down your mother’s cooking?”

  At that, her eyebrows raised in agreement. “Fair point. Well, dinner is at six tonight. I hope that’s not too early?”

  “Six is perfect.”

  She swallowed, watching me for a moment before she lifted one small hand in an awkward wave.

  “Okay, then. See you at six. I assume you don’t need the address?”

  “I think I got it.”

  Charlie turned, and I told myself not to ask, but the question was already halfway out.

  “Will I get to meet Mr. Pierce tonight?”

  She stiffened, her hand catching on the frame as she quarter-turned, not facing me all the way, just casting a glance over her shoulder.

  “He’s a Penguins’ season ticket holder, so he’ll be heading into the city tonight. But he’s dropping me off. I’m sure he’ll come in and say hello.”

  I shouldn’t have assumed anything. I didn’t know a single fucking thing about her husband — his name, what he looked like, if he made her happy. Still, the way her eyebrows pinched together, the sad turn of the song in her voice, it clued me in to the fact that I didn’t need to know much to know something was off.

  Was he the reason she didn’t smile anymore?

  “Great. Can’t wait to meet the lucky guy.”

  Charlie flushed, almost imperceptibly, just the faintest tinge of pink shading her cheeks. “See you later, Reese.”

  I watched her walk away until Matthew played the last note.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  * * *

  Charlie

  I stared at Cameron’s right hand on the drive over to Mom and Dad’s.

  It was resting on the gear shift in his Audi, which was silly, because it was an automatic car and he didn’t need to shift. His left hand was on top of the steering wheel, keeping the car steady on the road, turning us easily whenever needed. That hand, his left one, was doing all the work, like it had ever since I first met Cameron at Garrick University — because his right hand belonged to me.

  The first night he took me on a date — a real date — he drove me in his beat up clunker of a car. It was an old Pontiac, one that he spent nearly every weekend trying to keep running. I’d been so nervous, the book worm going on a date with one of the most popular guys on campus; captain of the hockey team, our star player, and he was aloof to all the other girls. Cameron Pierce was a mystery, and I didn’t know a single girl who had been granted more than one night in his bed to try to figure him out.

  Until me, that is.

  My hands shook that night in his car as he drove us to a small Italian diner off campus. I’d tucked them between my thighs, trying to keep them both warm and still. Cameron had asked me if I was nervous, and I’d only blushed and nodded. Then, he’d reached over and placed his right hand on my knee.

  That one touch had set me on fire and calmed me all at once.

  And ever since then, whenever he drove us anywhere, his hand always found me — my knee, my thigh, my hand. It was always there, it was always mine.

  I couldn’t remember when that stopped.

  My brows drew together as I stared at his hand, trying to remember the last time that hand had touched me, the last time it’d comforted me.

  “Are you okay?”

  Cameron was watching me, and I cleared my throat, peeling my gaze away and pinning it on the road. “Fine. Just a little cold.”

  He stared at me a moment longer before shifting in his seat. My heart skipped with hope that he’d read my mind and was reaching for my hand.

  But he leaned forward to adjust the heat instead.

  I glanced outside the passenger side window just as my old house rolled into view. Maxwell and Gloria Reid lived in a mansion, but it just looked like home to me. I didn’t bat an eyelash at the tall, intricate metal gate that we had to wait for Mom to buzz us inside of. The long drive with beautiful flowers and trees lining each side didn’t leave me in awe. I barely looked at them before we were parked in front of the grand entrance to the west wing.

  It was where Mom and Dad hosted their guests, where the nice china and newest furniture was housed. It was where I’d helped them host parties my entire young adult life, where I’d celebrated my graduation from Westchester and Garrick, both.

  It was where Cameron had asked me to marry him, with little fuss, in front of the people who mattered most to me.

  Cameron parked the car and cut the ignition before jumping out and jogging over to open my door for me. He helped me out of the car, his left hand reaching for mine. I still stared at his right one.

  “There they are!” Dad called from the front door, his voice booming. He stood with the front door open waiting for us, the same door that was usually answered by the butler or the maid. But on family dinner nights, my parents would give the help the night off. Mom always insisted. She wanted to be the one to wait on and cook for her family.

  “Hi, Dad,” I said, leaning up to kiss his cheek as he took my coat.

  “Hey, sweetheart. How’s my girl?”

  “Just fine.” I forced a smile, crossing my arms over my middle as we both turned to Cameron. He was already reaching forward for my dad’s hand, and Dad pulled him in for a bear hug before Cameron could protest.

  My dad was a bear of a man, standing a few inches taller than Cameron and weighing about a hundred pounds more, too. His belly had grown in size over the years, which I didn’t mind. If anything, he seemed even more jolly now that his belly shook a bit when he laughed. His brown hair had grown gray over the years, his mustache matching it, but he always dressed to the nines. My dad’s philosophy: Be ready to impress, because you never knew who you’d run into, even if it was at home.

  Dad and Cameron were already talking about the Pittsburgh Penguins match against the Tampa Bay Lightning that night. I didn’t know much about hockey, other than what I’d picked up over the years watching Cameron play at Garrick, so I took my coat from Dad and hung it on the rack by the door.

  Cameron had always loved hockey, even before his grandparents had helped him get started playing in high school. He was well behind the curve of the other players by that point, but the coaches couldn’t teach the other kids to do what Cameron could do from natural talent alone.

  He’d stopped playing after college, assuring me his only interest was in me and our future family, but I’d still purchased a Penguins season ticket for him and renewed it every year since. I’d offered several times to get him a second ticket so he could take someone with him — my dad or another friend — but he’d insisted he’d rather go alone.

  That was Cameron. He was a loner, and he preferred it that way.

  “I see it didn’t take them long to start talking about sports,” Mom teased as she rounded the corner into the foyer. She’d been in the kitchen, no doubt, the pastel pink apron still tied at her waist as she leaned in to hug me.

  “Never does,” I said as she hugged me. “How are you, Mom?”

  “Just wonderful,” she said with a sigh, squeezing me once more before pulling back. “I’m so happy to have you here for dinner.”

  “We come for dinner at least three times a month,” I reminded her.

  “Well, it’s never enough. And with Graham living in Arizona now, you’re going to get twice the dinner invites.”

  My brother, Graham, had moved to Arizona shortly after his wedding the previous summer. His wife had her own dental practice there that had been handed down through the family, and he’d moved to supp
ort her. I missed when he was around for family dinners, too.

  Mom held me there, hands on my arms as she looked me over, questions hidden behind her eyes. If my dad was a bear of a man, my mom was a bird of a woman — just like me. Her bones were petite, waist tiny enough for dad to wrap his hands around with thumbs and fingertips touching. Her hair was the same color as mine, a chocolate brown, though she wore hers down in a classic bob while mine always stayed tied in a bun on top of my head.

  I tried to smile as she searched my eyes with a concerned gaze. She’d looked at me that way for five years now, like she was trying to find her little girl beneath the woman who stood before her. But before she had the chance to ask if I was okay, the way she always did, Reese appeared behind her, holding a dark cocktail in one hand and a glass of wine in the other.

  His eyes found me first.

  Something happened in that moment, in that instant where I saw him standing in such a familiar place. He was back in my home, in a setting I’d seen him so many times before, only back then he was younger.

  Back then, he wore basketball shorts and old t-shirts with the sleeves cut off. Tonight, he wore black dress slacks and a charcoal gray sweater with a light blue button-up shirt peeking out from underneath it. The collar of it poked out above the neck of his sweater and the wrist cuffs were the only other part of it visible.

  He looked grown, sophisticated, and my eyes drank him in along with the memories he caused to resurface just by being in the place he once used to be.

  “Your wine, Mrs. Reid.”

  “Oh! Thank you, Reese,” she said, taking the glass from his hand with a shake of her head. “And stop it with that formal stuff. You used to call me Mom, what happened to that?”

  Reese chuckled, lifting his glass to take a sip. His eyes were still on me.

  “Sorry. Gloria. That better?”

  “It’ll do,” she conceded.

  “Hello, Charlie,” Reese said next, reaching for my hand with the one not wrapped around his glass. “You look beautiful.”

  He lifted my hand to his lips, pressing a soft kiss onto the back of it. He used to greet me with high fives and a ruffle of my braids that I’d have to fix when he was done.

  “Thank you. I see you found the cocktails.”

  “At your mother’s request, of course.”

  “Surely,” I teased, and he grinned before finally letting go of my hand.

  “Reese, my boy,” Dad said, joining us in the middle of the foyer. “This is Cameron Pierce, my daughter’s husband. Cameron was the captain of the hockey team at Garrick where Charlie went to college. Hell of an athlete,” he said proudly. “And hell of a man, too. One of the top associates at Reid’s Energy Solutions.”

  Dad was the Chairman of the Board and former CEO of an energy company he’d started with his brother. They’d built it from the ground up, riding the solar energy revolution, and Cameron joined the company right after graduation. He’d quickly moved up to be one of the top project managers. It was another part of his life I didn’t understand, but one I was proud of nonetheless.

  “Treats our little girl pretty great, too,” Mom added with a sweet smile, leaning over to kiss Cameron’s cheek.

  Then it was just him and Reese left to greet.

  Cameron was quiet, his smile a little forced, as it always was when Mom and Dad doted on him. He hated attention, but was always too polite to say so. His eyes were hard as he reached for Reese’s hand.

  Reese’s smile had fallen, too, but it reappeared as they finally clasped hands and shook firmly. “Pleasure to finally meet you, Cameron. Charlie has told me amazing things about you.”

  I looked at Reese then. I hadn’t told him anything.

  “All fabricated, I’m sure,” Cameron said with a smile of his own. “Nice to meet you, Reese. Charlie told me you’re teaching at Westchester now, and I hear you’re an old friend of the family, too.”

  “Grew up in the house one block over,” Dad said, beaming. “Well, one yard over, really. He and Graham were best friends, and Charlie here was the same with Reese’s younger sister, Mallory. Four peas in a very tight pod, they were.”

  Dad laughed a little at that, but I didn’t miss the shadow of grief that fell over Reese’s face at the mention of his sister. I cleared my throat, threading my arm through Reese’s.

  “Make me a Wild Walker, for old time’s sake?” I asked, referencing the mystery concoction he’d branded with his last name when he was a teenager. It was the drink responsible for many of our friends’ first hangovers — mine included.

  Reese’s eyes fell to where my hands rested on his bicep before they lifted to mine, and he smiled, seeming grateful for the change in subject. “You have a death wish before dinner?”

  “I can handle it,” I assured him, and he barked out a laugh.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Cam, you’ll join us for a cocktail before you head out?” Mom asked.

  We all turned to face Cameron then, and he was watching Reese curiously, in a way I’d never seen him watch anyone before. “Afraid not,” he answered, but he only looked at Reese. “Game starts at seven-thirty, and you know how traffic is.”

  Dad clapped Cameron on the shoulder to walk him out. “Shame, but you’re right. Don’t let us keep you. I’ll text you once dinner is finished and I’m parked in front of the television in the study.”

  Before they left, Cameron turned to me with dark eyes and said, “I’ll pick you up right after the game.”

  He held my gaze a moment, as if he was trying to tell me something. I used to be so in tune with those looks, those little stares. I knew when he wanted to leave a party early, when he wasn’t feeling well, when he was making fun of someone with an inside joke between the two of us.

  I used to know with one little look when he couldn’t wait to take my clothes off.

  “I’ll be ready,” I assured him. “Have fun.”

  He held my gaze a moment more before his eyes flicked to Reese. “You too.” Then he turned, Dad talking business with him the entire way out the door as Mom, Reese and I made our way to the kitchen.

  “So, do I even want to know what a Wild Walker is?” Mom asked when it was the three of us. She immediately went back to prepping the salads she’d been working on when I arrived, and Reese threw me a devilish grin over his shoulder as he reached into the cabinet for a glass.

  “Just Reese’s famous cocktail from his party days,” I answered, taking a seat at one of the bar stools at the island. I’d always thought my kitchen was expansive, but Mom’s was straight out of a magazine. It was built for a professional, or rather, a team of professionals. I barely noticed it anymore, but I still remembered when Dad had the entire thing gutted and remodeled to be Mom’s dream kitchen. She’d practically lived in it my entire senior year of high school.

  “And the culprit in your daughter’s first experience being drunk.”

  I balked, unsure how my mother would react to that information, but she just laughed. “What? You mean to say my daughter had a drink before she was the legal age of twenty-one? Impossible!”

  “Not our sweet little Charlie!” Dad chimed in as he entered from behind us. He winked at me, taking the seat to my left.

  “You’re right,” Reese agreed, his back to us as he secretly mixed his famous concoction at the liquor buffet. “I must be mistaking her for someone else.”

  A warmth filtered in slowly in that moment, being in the kitchen with my parents and Reese. And for the first time in years, a small smile found my lips.

  A real one.

  “Very funny, everyone. I’ll have you know, I got so hammered that night that I threw up in Mom’s hydrangeas.”

  She paused, hands stilling where she’d been cutting the onion for our salads. “That’s why they died?! Poor Salina and I racked our brains for weeks trying to figure that out before we had to just pull them and replant.”

  They all laughed as Reese handed me the finished product. I took th
e first sip, cringing a bit at the sting of whiskey before the familiar warmth of spice and cinnamon tickled my tongue. It brought me back to that night, to that feeling of youth, and I shook my head.

  “Never thought I’d ever have one of these again.”

  Reese watched me take another sip, his eyes falling to my lips briefly before he ripped them away and took a drink of his own. “Yeah, well, surprises always were my thing.”

  “They were, indeed.”

  I noted the flecks of gold in his emerald eyes, the same way I had the first time I’d tasted a Wild Walker. He was watching me closely, like he wondered if I’d forgotten. He used to bring me books, little “surprises,” ones he stole from the parties he attended. He’d sneak into the libraries or studies at the houses and pick one out for me, even though he knew I’d yell at him for taking someone else’s property.

  Half the books in my library were from house parties at Mount Lebanon’s finest.

  It was strange having Reese back in my childhood home. It felt different than seeing him at Westchester, a place I’d never seen him before, a new place for us to exist in. That had been more formal, more professional. But now, sitting in my kitchen with my brother’s best friend, with a boy I used to watch play our piano in the next room, it was different — familiar. It was comforting. It was an old friend coming home, bringing all the memories we’d made over the years back with him.

  Mom laughed at something Dad had said, something I’d missed, and Reese smiled, lifting his glass into the air.

  “To surprises.”

  It was suddenly too warm.

  My cheeks burned, but I lifted my glass, anyway.

  “Surprises.”

  Our glasses clinked, and as we took a sip, Mom announced that dinner was ready.

  ***

  Reese

  “You did not,” Charlie accused, holding her coffee cup close to her mouth so the steam hit her nose.