by Amy Knupp
“Geeky sister? Really? That’s what you’re going to come up with?” He stared into her eyes, his full of angry fire.
“I’m not ‘coming up with’ anything. It’s ancient history, Cale. Just check the pictures if you need proof.” She pointed to the yearly photos hanging on the wall above the stairs.
“Let’s get a couple things straight, first off. I don’t see you as geeky by any stretch of the imagination. You’re smart as hell, yes. Damn good at saving lives. And pretty and sexy.”
“I’m not—”
“Save it, Rachel. This is me. Not some guy who doesn’t know you.” His features softened from anger to a determined intensity. “I was with you because I like who you are. I care about you. You get to me like a woman is supposed to get to a man.”
Rachel swallowed, unable to come up with a reply to that. Affected by his words even though she didn’t want to be. She was such an easy mark where he was concerned.
With great effort, she sacrificed the glorious heat and stepped away from him, easily reminding herself of the bigger issue here.
“I care about you,” he said in a voice that was barely there. “That never would have happened if I didn’t. But it can’t happen again.”
Rachel gritted her teeth together and nodded. “Obviously.”
He took a few steps in the opposite direction, chin raised, gaze pointed to the ceiling. “I still love Noelle. I probably always will. I don’t know. I do know that what we did felt like betraying her.”
That awful B word had been taunting her all night, and just like that, her control shattered again. Her eyes teared up, her throat closed and the physical ache in her chest nearly leveled her. “I know,” she whispered, not looking at him.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry,” she managed to say before she was overcome by the awful, suffocating emotions. She bit her lower lip till it bled in an attempt not to cry yet again. The stupid tears fell anyway. God, she was so sick of tears. “It’s my fault. Everything is my fault.” She swallowed a sob and straightened. “She died because of me, Cale.”
He frowned and narrowed his eyes at her, then tilted his head in question. “What are you talking about, Rachel?”
She wished with all her heart she hadn’t said that last bit, and yet she needed to tell him. Needed to tell someone before the guilt burned her to nothing. And on some level, she knew telling him would make it easier for him to walk away from her.
Leveling a stare at him as she tried to get control of herself enough to speak coherently, she felt every amplified, accusing heartbeat in her temples. She lowered her gaze, swallowed down the taste of bile.
“When I tell you what I have to tell you, you won’t be able to stand looking at me,” she began, her voice coming out extraordinarily even, if hollow.
She dared a glance at him and saw he was staring at her intently. Doubtfully.
“Trust me,” she assured him.
“Try me.”
Rachel’s heart raced as she pondered her options. Escape was the preferable one. God, if she could run away, she would never have to face this, face him.... But she’d still have to face herself.
She took three steps to the right to put space between them then turned and faced him. “The night Noelle died...”
He started to move toward her again and she gave a single insistent shake of her head to stop him.
“We fought,” she said.
She saw him nod out of the corner of her eye. “Siblings do that.”
“I was home for a few days because I’d gotten lucky on the residency schedule and finally succumbed to my mom’s and sister’s pleas to visit, but I had so much reading to catch up on, it was ridiculous. Typical, but ridiculous.” She took a fortifying breath.
“I was sitting on the couch right here in the living room, my files spread out on the coffee table and beside me on the cushion, my laptop on my lap. I was my usual stressed-out self and Noelle came in and sat down hard on the chair. I could sense something was bugging her, but I wasn’t in the mood. Didn’t have the time.” She blinked against tears. Damn never-ending tears. “She wanted to know why I didn’t spend any time with the two of you. Why I didn’t want to get to know her fiancé better. She accused me of not caring about you or her future or the family.” She broke off as her voice cracked.
Pivoting forty-five degrees so she was no longer facing him, she noticed an empty nail hole in the wall, the paint scraped off around it, and she latched her gaze onto it. Stared at it intently as she forced herself to continue.
“All our lives, Noelle has been the pretty sister....”
“You’re her identical twin, Rachel.”
“The social sister. The popular one. The one with all the fashion sense and social grace. You know exactly what I mean, Cale. Don’t pretend you don’t.” Rachel crossed her arms over her chest as if she could shield herself from age-old wounds. “She’s always been the one with the boyfriend, the countless dates and guys calling her and asking her out. More than once, we liked the same guy, and I’ll give you three guesses who won every single time. Here’s a hint—it wasn’t the shy, studious, geeky sister.”
“I told you there’s nothing geeky about you.”
“You didn’t know me in high school. None of this justifies anything that happened that night, but I’m just telling you how it was. How it’s always been. Most times, I let her get away with it. The guy-stealing. Because let’s face it, she couldn’t really steal them from me if they were never mine to start with, right? I can’t tell you how many times I told myself that.”
“It must’ve been hard to handle, though,” Cale said, his voice brimming with sympathy that made her stomach hurt.
“I loved her so much,” Rachel said, her voice breaking. “Don’t think that I didn’t. I would have done anything for my sister. And she felt the same about me—I know it.”
“You’re right, Rachel. Whenever she talked about you, it was obvious she felt the same way.”
“It was just a fact—she was the social one and I was the brainy one. Most of the time, I liked it that way. But...I guess it was one time too many.”
“What was?”
“When she accused me of avoiding you and making me sound like I was doing it because I was selfish, I lost it. I threw the truth at her. Listed all the guys she’d gone out with that, at one time or another, I had been interested in. Then I told her she was doing it again.” She stopped, bit down on the inside of her lip because, damn, this was embarrassing and impossible to get out.
Cale waited quietly, the tension in the room becoming tangible.
“I met you first,” Rachel said. “You probably barely noticed. Most likely pushed it right out of your mind that you and I talked outside before you ever ran into my sister.”
“I remember. You were intimidated by the crowd and didn’t know anyone but your sister. And she was surrounded by people all night.”
Rachel nodded. “And then I watched when the two of you met. I knew within seconds what was going to happen.”
“What are you trying to say, Rachel?”
“You know exactly what I’m saying. As I very bluntly explained to Noelle that night, I had feelings for you. From the very first night and the nights afterward when I was still at home on my visit and she came in gushing about you. When the three of us went to the beach together and I watched her flirt with you for all she was worth. Watched the two of you kiss and touch and...”
Keep your eyes on the nail hole and ignore the tears. Don’t let the tears get you now.
“The night Noelle ran out of this house with nothing but her keys, she left because I made her feel like complete, utter crap for once again getting the guy. The guy that I wanted. You.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CALE BACKED UP to the chair and lowered himself heavily. To say he was stunned by Rachel’s admission was the understatement of the decade.
His mind spun into overload as so many thoughts and emotions and Go
d knew what else hit him at once that he couldn’t get a grasp on any one thing. He ran his hand over his mouth, his fingers remaining on his lips as he tried to make sense of what Rachel had said.
He could imagine how upset Noelle must have been that night. Though she was carefree and rarely serious, she never wanted to hurt anyone, least of all her twin sister.
And Rachel... For her to lash out, it had obviously been a long time coming, resentments that had built up for years. To think she’d held all of it in until that moment.
He couldn’t wrap his brain around his role in it, in between sisters. He’d never had any notion of Rachel’s feelings in all that time. Nearly a year between when he and Noelle had met and the day she’d died. Nearly a year of Rachel suffering silently. Of Noelle being understandably oblivious.
Until that night.
That god-awful, horrible night.
And Rachel had been living with it ever since. No wonder she’d been fighting so hard to keep it all at bay.
Cale’s eyes veered to her then, and he was stricken yet again by the pain on her face. It was evident she stood there torturing herself. Still.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Rachel,” he said, his voice sounding unfamiliar. “Being honest with someone isn’t a bad thing.”
She closed her eyes and tears overflowed at once, gushing down both her cheeks. He automatically went to her but her eyes popped open and she shook her head adamantly.
“Don’t.” The single word was full of so much torment and heartache, he flinched. “Just because she’s not here, that doesn’t make it okay for you to touch me.”
“She’s—” Cale broke off, bit down in frustration. He couldn’t sort through everything he was feeling enough to argue with her. But there was one thing he was 100 percent certain of. “Noelle’s death was not your fault. Do you hear me? Not. Your. Fault.”
Rachel collapsed onto the couch and pulled her knees into her chest. After watching her for a couple of minutes, trying to figure out what to do for her, Cale sat next to her, put his hand on her leg.
“Rachel. Come here.”
She shook her head.
He muttered a curse to himself out of frustration. “Baby, we’re not going to let what happened last night happen again. Just let me hold you.”
She didn’t respond either way, which seemed like a step in the right direction.
“Do you think Noelle would ever want you to sit there feeling so horrible and alone?” He pulled her to him and she didn’t fight it. “Would you ever want her to feel the way you do now?”
He was surprised when she relaxed into him, her forehead resting on his upper arm, her hand clutching his shirt at his waist as if her life depended on it.
They sat like that for some time. The only sound in the entire house was the sound of the rain, which had turned into steady, heavy drops, pounding on the roof and against the living-room window. Cale closed his eyes and tried to absorb what Rachel had revealed.
He’d always known she and Noelle had had a disagreement before Noelle had run out of the house that night. He’d not thought anything of it because, as he’d told Rachel, sisters argued. In the overall scheme of things, the topic of their argument wasn’t important. If they’d fought about leaving the car windows open in a rainstorm, it would have had the same result.
But knowing the truth of what had happened, he tried now to imagine how Noelle must have felt that night. More than once, she’d confided in him about how much she wished for Rachel to find happiness with a guy. He remembered when he’d been with Noelle during one of her frequent phone calls with Rachel. Rachel had mentioned a guy, apparently, and Noelle had grilled her in her overenthusiastic, well-intentioned way about whether there was potential for this guy, whether they’d gone on any dates, and more.
For Noelle to find out the guy Rachel wanted to be happy with was him... That Noelle had unwittingly come between Rachel and other guys in the past...
It must have hit her like a wrecking ball.
All this time, he’d assumed Noelle had rushed off in anger, had imagined her spitting mad as she’d driven off the island and northward, out of town. But in light of Rachel’s revelation, it had to have been much more complex.
Knowing the difference in Noelle’s mindset that night didn’t change a thing. Not in what had happened. Not in the loss he still felt. The only thing that changed was his understanding of Rachel.
Now he grasped it better, comprehended her on a different, deeper level. After learning the nature of their argument, he could understand—not agree with, by any means, but understand—how Rachel might feel such guilt. How she could convince herself she was responsible for her sister’s death.
“I’m so weak,” she said in a quiet, high-pitched voice. “I take full responsibility for what happened last night.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said roughly.
“I...started everything.”
“I was right there for it to start,” he said, remembering how he’d had to hold himself back from touching her. “Right there. And I continued it.”
“I took my clothes off.”
Just the memory made his pulse pick up inappropriately. “Rachel, there’s no point in throwing around blame. We’re attracted to each other. Things got out of hand.”
“You’re attracted to her, Cale, not me.”
He sprung off the couch at that. “Oh, hell no, Rachel. We need to get one thing straight. Noelle was not there with us yesterday. I didn’t mistake you for her. I wasn’t imagining her. I wasn’t even thinking about her.”
She met his eyes defiantly, accusingly.
“No,” he said again emphatically. “You can accuse me of a lot of things, but not that. It was you and me yesterday, Rachel. I don’t want you to ever think otherwise.”
Rachel averted her gaze. He went back to her side and sat, not about to let that one drop. “Are we clear?” he asked.
She blew out a breath. “If you say so.” She didn’t act altogether convinced, but Cale didn’t know what else he could say to make her believe him.
“The rest of the world may see you two as identical but I never have. Not since the party when I met you both. Sure, you look damn similar on the surface, but you and Noelle...” He shook his head. “You’ve always been different to me. I could never look at either of you and not see your personalities coming through.”
Rachel seemed to take that in, and after a while, she nodded once. Only a half nod, but he’d take it for now.
“You’re not weak,” he said, settling back into the cushions. “It must’ve been hard to live with Noelle at times. To watch her go out all the time, whether it was with the guy you liked or not.”
She studied him as if assessing his sincerity on such a personal subject. “Yeah,” she finally said. “Sometimes it was. Sometimes I convinced myself it was a more noble pursuit to get straight A’s, to get into a good college. I don’t know. It was easier that way. Easier to try to ignore it. Some people would call it being a doormat.”
“I’ve never thought of you as a doormat.”
Quite the opposite, in fact. She could be as stubborn and assertive as anyone when she needed to be. You didn’t become an emergency-medicine doctor without having some cojones.
“Her social life was so much of who she was,” Rachel said. “It somehow seemed more important to her. So...” She shrugged. “To keep the peace, I didn’t make a big deal out of it.”
She’d turned a blind eye to Noelle “winning the guy” to keep peace, yes, but also out of love. He’d seen firsthand the sisters’ bond, directly and indirectly, and this was just further proof of that.
“When I was in high school, a Podunk rural school in Hill Country, my best friend at the time, Pete Loggins, knew I had a thing for Lexie Montague,” Cale said. “Junior year, Lexie and Pete got assigned as lab partners in science. Before I knew what was going on, he moved in on her. Asked her out. They dated for half of junior year.”
&
nbsp; “And? What happened?”
“I haven’t spoken to Pete since.”
“It’s different when it’s your sister.”
“It’s different when you’re a better person, as you are.”
“Don’t say that. Please.” Her voice sounded pained. “A better person might have called her on it every time she did it. Then it wouldn’t have blindsided her that night. Wouldn’t have made her run away...”
He put his arm around her and drew her into his side again. “Shh. Rachel, you have to stop. Do you really think Noelle, who loved you just as much as you loved her, would want you to sit here blaming yourself? Imagine if you switched places. Would you want her to shoulder all this guilt?”
Rachel shook her head quickly. “But that doesn’t make the guilt go away. Nothing does.” She sat up and turned to face him directly. “And right now, being with you makes it worse.”
“We’re friends, Rachel.”
“We crossed a line.”
“We won’t cross it again.”
“You’re right about that,” she said hoarsely. “I need some space. Breathing room. When I’m with you, I want to touch you. I want to be with you like this.” She motioned to how close they sat, to where her knees overlapped his thigh. “Can you give me a few days at least to sort everything out in my head?”
“Of course.” He hated the thought of it, but he understood where she was coming from. He was struggling not to touch her, as well, and while that might have been “friendly” enough in the past, last night had changed things. “I’ll give you some time, and you let me know when you’re ready. Then we can put our mistake behind us.”
She tried to smile at him, but there was no joy in it, and that twisted something inside of him. He stood to leave before he could reach out for her again. Even though he understood her better, grasped a little bit of what she was going through, that didn’t make feeling helpless sit any better with him. Resisting the urge to hug her, he walked out of the Culver house.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
RACHEL HAD RUN dry on excuses at the very worst time.