Knowing You

by Maureen Child

  While the other girls and Margie walked a few feet ahead of them, enthusiastically murdering one of Britney’s latest hits, Stevie slowed her pace. As she’d hoped, Debbie slowed down, too, until the two of them were really walking alone.

  “Did you like the pizza?”

  “It was terrific,” Stevie said, smiling.

  “And the movie, too?”

  “Uh-huh.” But truthfully, she wouldn’t have been able to tell anyone what the movie had been about. She’d spent most of her time in the darkened theater watching her sister’s shifting expressions. Everything Debbie felt was written on her face. She held nothing back, laughing or crying as she felt it. Smiling, Stevie remembered the girl’s shriek of surprise during the movie and how she’d grabbed at her big sister’s arm.

  In that one instant, Stevie had been swamped by love for the girl she hadn’t even known existed until the day before. There was a … connection between them. Shared blood, if not shared lives. Her heart ached for all the time lost. All the years when they’d been apart, neither of them knowing about the other. Each of them assuming they were alone.

  But no more.

  Taking a deep breath, Stevie said, “Debbie, I was thinking—”

  “’Bout what?”

  “We’re sisters and—”

  “I know.” She laughed and shook her head slowly.

  “Don’t you think sisters should live together? Be a family?”

  Debbie stopped dead and looked at her. A huge delighted grin spread across her wide face. “You wanna come and live with me?” She reached out and briefly squeezed Stevie hard. “You could work at the aquarium with me and stay in my room and we could—”

  “No,” Stevie said, interrupting the excited flow of words before Debbie had her packed and moved. Though she’d gotten it wrong, the girl’s reaction sent pleasure darting through Stevie. At least she knew Debbie liked her. “No, honey, I meant I’d like you to come and live with me. In Chandler.”

  Debbie stared at her. In the lamplight, her eyes glistened and she looked suddenly worried. Unsure. “But I have a house.”

  “I know, but—”

  “And I have a room and you saw it.” Debbie’s chest heaved with the frantic pounding of her heart and the quick, gasping gulps of air whooshing in and out of her lungs. “You said you liked it,” Debbie accused.

  “I do, honey, it’s just that—”

  Debbie rubbed her mouth and chewed at one finger. “And I have friends and a job and—”

  Her voice cracked as it hit a high note she couldn’t quite contain. She reached up and jerked at her pony-tail, tugging at it nervously, as if she needed to be doing something, but she couldn’t quite figure out what.

  “I don’t wanna leave,” she said, her voice hiccuping out of her and trembling as it hit the air. “I like it here. You can’t make me go,” she said. “You can’t. ’Cause I can’t. I can’t go and leave Margie.…”

  Worried, Stevie stepped in closer and wanted to cry when Debbie moved back—away from her. Pain twisted Stevie’s heart and she wondered where this had all gone so wrong. She hadn’t meant to upset her sister. She’d only wanted to help. To bring Debbie home. To give them both the family they’d never known.

  “Ah, honey, don’t be upset—”

  “I don’t wanna move. I like it here. I know it here.” She shot an anxious look up ahead to where Margie and the other girls had stopped beneath a streetlight. The three of them were watching and Stevie felt like she’d kicked a puppy in front of the ASPCA.

  “This is my place. I live here. And … and…”

  “It’s okay, Debbie. Honest. It’s okay,” Stevie said quickly, letting the words flow, hoping they’d get through. Hoping she could somehow fix what she’d unthinkingly broken.

  “I don’t have to—”

  “No, honey. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. Honest.”

  Debbie still looked worried, but at least she wasn’t breathing quite as hard and the frantic gleam in her eyes had dimmed a little. “Okay, ’cause I don’t wanna go. I wanna stay here.”

  Then she hurriedly walked ahead to join Margie and her friends, keeping a safe distance between her and Stevie.

  Stevie had to fight back her own tears, now. The sting of them had her blinking. Her sister didn’t want her. Debbie had a life that didn’t include Stevie.

  All of the dreams Stevie’d been entertaining since yesterday splintered into tiny jagged shards that tore at her heart.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  STEVIE DROVE DOWN THE short alleyway and parked behind the Leaf and Bean. Shadows crouched at the corners of the building, and when she flicked off her headlights the darkness reached out for her. She shut the engine off and the silence surrounded her, pulsing as if it had a life of its own.

  “Better get used to it,” she whispered, and her own voice was quickly swallowed up by the quiet. Heart aching, she leaned forward and rested her forehead on the steering wheel. Her hands fisted around the cold black wheel and she squeezed it tightly. With her eyes closed, she could still see Debbie’s shocked, scared expression.

  “You went too fast,” she said on a groan. “Too far, too fast. You pushed her and she ran.” Now she’d be lucky if her younger sister wanted to see her again at all.

  Oh, Margie had assured her that Debbie would be fine. That she’d settle down and by Stevie’s next visit would have forgotten all about how upset she’d been. But Stevie couldn’t help thinking that she’d blown it. She’d had a chance for a family of her own, and in her rush to claim it, she’d ruined her own chances.

  She should have given the girl time. Time to get to know her. Time to get used to having a sister. Time to visit Chandler, see the shop, see what kind of life they could have together.

  In short, she thought, disgusted with herself, she should have listened to Paul. Damn it. He’d warned her not to make plans so quickly. Encouraged her to go slowly. But how could she have been expected to be patient when she’d finally been handed the one thing she’d hungered for her whole life?

  A family of her own.

  “Stevie?”

  “Jesus!” She jumped a foot off the car seat, swung her head to the left, and saw Nick’s face nearly pressed against the rolled-up window. As her heart slid down from her throat and back into her chest, Stevie narrowed her gaze on him and counted to ten. Then she’d kill him.

  Flinging open the car door, she watched with satisfaction as he back-stepped to avoid getting hit. Clutching her purse, she climbed out, keeping her gaze locked on him. “What the hell are you trying to do? Scare me to death?”

  “Didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, giving her that million-watt smile that used to turn her knees to liquid.

  “Well, you did,” she said tightly, and headed for the back door of the shop. Walking a wide circle around him, she sighed to herself as he fell into step behind her. Oh, yeah. The fates had a great sense of humor. After the day she’d had, to now be faced with the mistakes of her past was just too much.

  “Look, Stevie,” he said, and leaned against the wall as she jammed the key into the dead bolt. “I’m sorry I scared you, but I had to wait for you. Had to tell you my great news.”

  She turned the lock but didn’t open the door. The fastest way to get rid of him would be to let him say what he’d come here to say and be done with it. In the yellow glow of the fog lamps, Nick looked excited and pleased with himself.

  “Okay,” she said, emotional fatigue coloring her words, “what is it?”

  He reached out to push her hair behind her ears and only let his hand drop when she pulled back from his touch. Nick frowned slightly but didn’t let her recoil spoil his moment. “I’ve got an interview. With CBS Sports. I’d be doing color commentary for their football coverage.”

  There was a gleam in his eyes that Stevie remembered. And even emotionally drained as she was, she realized that a few years ago, she would have been delighted for him. She would have praise
d him and offered support. She would have wrapped her arms around him and taken him off to bed to celebrate.

  Now?

  There was nothing.

  Strange, she thought. How so much could change in a person’s life in so little time.

  “That’s great, Nick,” she said, and turned the doorknob, ready to be alone with her misery. “Good luck.”

  He reached for her, grabbing her forearm just tight enough to keep her from slipping away from him. “Hey, wait; that’s not all,” he said, and she could tell from his expression that her reaction had disappointed him. Well, it was a good day for disappointment, wasn’t it?

  “Nick,” she said, “I’m tired. I’ve had a long, miserable day and I want to go to bed.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not finished,” he said quickly.

  If she’d had the strength, she might have laughed. How like Nick. He wasn’t finished; therefore, no one else was, either. He hadn’t noticed the weary sadness in her eyes. He hadn’t picked up on the fact that she’d been crying all the way home—and the light in the alley was bright enough to show off her smudged mascara, she knew. He hadn’t heard the distress in her voice or noticed the slump in her shoulders.

  Had he ever? She wondered now. Had Nick ever once looked beyond his own needs, his own feelings, to be concerned with hers? Nope. Not even when it came to sex. Man. What did that say about her? That she’d been so hungry for love that she’d been willing to take whatever cast-off affection Nick had offered?

  Good God.

  She didn’t know which of them she disliked most at the moment. Herself? Or Nick?

  “The interview’s in San Francisco,” he was saying, talking faster now, as if he finally understood that she’d already stopped listening. “I was thinking that you and I could go. Stay at that B and B on the Bay you liked so much?” He ran his fingertips up her forearm until she jerked back from him like she’d been burned.

  “For God’s sake, Nick,” she blurted, far too tired and unhappy to care how she sounded. “What does it take to get through to you? We are not together. I’m not interested in going to San Francisco with you. Going anywhere with you.”

  “Stevie.…” He winced at her tone but apparently couldn’t bring himself to believe she was serious. “We were good together once, and—”

  “No, Nick,” she said quietly, anger gone now, replaced by a deep well of loneliness that threatened to swallow her whole. “We weren’t good for each other. And it’s been over for a long time.”

  “It doesn’t have to be.”

  “Yeah, it does.”

  He stared at her and she could see the disbelief shining in his dark eyes. And a part of her realized just how hard it was for Nick to accept that there was something—or someone—he couldn’t have. She just didn’t have the patience to listen to him anymore.

  “There’s somebody else, isn’t there?” he snapped.

  “What?” Stevie reached up and rubbed at a spot between her eyes. Pain pounded there, in time with her heartbeat, and Nick wasn’t helping.

  “You’ve got some new guy.” He pushed away from the wall and threw his hands wide. “I knew it. I knew that’s what was going on. That’s why you don’t want to see me.”

  Again anger fluttered to life in the pit of her stomach. Honestly. Nick never had been able to just let something lie.

  “Who is he?”

  She shook her head. “Go away.”

  “Tell me, damn it.”

  She considered it for a second. And for that one brief moment in time, she wondered just what his reaction would be if she told him that she’d been sleeping with his twin. But in the next instant, Stevie realized that that would only keep her standing here in the dark listening to Nick, and open a can of worms she wanted kept sealed shut. Besides, all she really wanted now was to go lay her head down on a pillow.

  “This is none of your business, Nick.”

  “The hell it’s not.”

  Apparently, it was going to take an anvil on the head to get through to him. And she was in just the right mood to do it. “We’re over. Have been for two years. Who I’m seeing or not seeing is none of your business. Do you get it yet? Do you understand that I don’t want to see you anymore?”

  Nick snorted a choked-off laugh and took a step back, away from her, shaking his head as he went. “I knew it. Some guy outflanked me.”

  “Jesus, will you just go home?”

  “I told Paul,” he said. “I told him just today that there was some other guy—”

  She stopped, one foot into the kitchen of the shop. Though a part of her was urging her inside, to ignore what Nick had just said, she couldn’t do it. Call her a masochist, but she had to know. Looking back at him, Stevie asked, “And what did Paul say?”

  “Said he didn’t know anything and if he did, he wouldn’t tell me.”

  “Well, that’s perfect.” Of course, what had she expected? That Paul would tell his twin that it was him she’d been seeing? That they’d been hopping in and out of each other’s beds? That Nick was out and Paul was in? No. But somehow, no matter how irrational it sounded, she wished he had. Even though she didn’t want Mama to find out, she wished that Paul had cared enough to tell his twin the truth. Didn’t make any sense at all, she thought. But then, what had, lately?

  Stevie nodded slowly, gave Nick a grim smile, and walked into her shop. “Thanks a bunch for stopping by.”

  Then she closed the door and locked it.

  * * *

  Paul scowled at the knock on his front door. As he shot a quick glance at the clock on the far wall, his frown deepened. Eleven o’clock. Nobody delivered good news that late at night. But then, it had been a crappy day—why not have a lousy end to it, too?

  “If it’s Nick again, though,” he said through clenched teeth, “he’s not getting out of here again without a punch in the mouth.”

  He stalked across the room, grabbed the brass knob, and threw the door wide. Whatever he’d been expecting, it hadn’t been, “Stevie?”

  She lifted her gaze to his and he was lost. Those deep blue eyes were swimming in tears, and evidence of still more shone in the lamplight like silver on her cheeks.

  Paul grabbed her and pulled her inside. He didn’t care why she was here. It was enough that she was. But there was something going on here. She’d come to him in tears and he’d do whatever he could to help. He pushed the door shut with a quick kick and held on to her shoulders with both hands. “What is it? What happened?”

  She drew a long, shaky breath and blew it out through trembling lips. “I didn’t want to come here,” she said with a sniffle. “I mean, it’s too hard to come here. And then after Nick—”

  Everything in him tensed. “What about Nick?”

  “I don’t want to talk about Nick,” she said, and took another gulping breath. “He’s not important. This is, and … I just had to talk to someone … to you.”

  Her bottom lip quivered and Paul’s heart twisted for her. Whatever was going on, it had cost her a lot. She looked … broken.

  “Tell me,” he whispered, his hands on her shoulders gentling.

  “Oh God, Paul,” she said, leaning close until she could rest her forehead against his chest, “I blew it big-time.”

  “What, baby?” he asked, wrapping one arm around her and using his free hand to soothe up and down her spine.

  “Debbie,” she said, leaning more heavily into him. “I so screwed it up.”

  Paul winced and felt her pain like a lance to his own heart.

  “I went too fast. I asked her to move here with me and I shouldn’t have. I scared her and I didn’t mean to, but now it’s too late and she’ll never want to see me again and I finally found a family and now it’s gone again.”

  “Shhh.… ” Paul wound both arms around her and held her tight while she cried, while she let go of her dreams and tried to find hope in the rubble.

  “It’s a mess; it’s all a mess,” she whispered.

  “
No, it’s not.” He smiled and shook his head. “It’ll be okay.”

  “How?”

  He shifted one hand to her face and tipped her chin up until he could look into her eyes. Smoothing her hair back from her face, he said softly, “You’ll make it be okay.”

  “You think?”

  “I know,” he assured her, and held her gaze until he finally caught a glimmer of a smile teasing the edges of her mouth. “Now come on in, I’ll make coffee, and you can tell me the whole story.”

  She sniffed again, reached up, and brushed the tears from her cheeks. Giving him a watery smile, she managed a weak laugh. “I’m not that upset. I’ll make the coffee.”

  “Okay.” He waved her ahead of him, toward the kitchen.

  She stopped just in the doorway and looked up at him. “You should know, though … I didn’t come here for—”

  Paul cut her off with a finger on her lips. “Believe it or not, Stevie,” he said, “I’m not actually thinking about tossing you onto a bed right at the moment.”

  “No warning necessary, I guess.” She scooped her hair back from her eyes. “I don’t cry pretty. I get all puffy and red-eyed and—”

  “And beautiful,” he interrupted, then gave her behind a nudge. “Now make some coffee already.”

  * * *

  Three days later, it was Tina’s third birthday and there was no getting out of the party.

  Stevie clutched a can of soda and leaned against the white picket fence that circled Tony and Beth’s backyard. In the center of things, at an extravagantly decorated picnic table, sat Tina, a dark-eyed toddler with all of the Candellano charm and her mother’s smile. Reese, Carla’s stepdaughter, hovered close to the tiny girl, supervising the opening of presents.

  Any other time, Stevie would have enjoyed the party. But she was still so miserable, so sick at heart over how things had gone with Debbie, she wasn’t in much of a mood to be around people. She hadn’t even been able to contact her mother, since, as Joanna’s butler had assured Stevie time and time again, “Madam is unavailable.” Whatever the hell that meant.