Susan Mallery - Sweet Talk

Nicole didn’t know what to say. Jesse had to be kidding. “You twist everything around to suit yourself.”

“Who do you think I learned that from?” Jesse yelled. “You know what? I’m glad I slept with Drew. Glad. If he wasn’t such a loser jerk asshole, I’d do it again. But he’s not worth the trouble. I should have figured that out. He married you. And now you don’t even have him.” Jesse’s eyes filled with tears. “I’ll hate you forever.”

Nicole’s anger returned, burning bright and hot like the sun. “Back at you,” she snapped. “Get the hell out of my house.”

“Gladly.”

Jesse stalked away. The front door slammed and then there was silence.

C LAIRE ARRIVED HOMEto find Nicole fuming.

“Jesse was here,” she announced. “Our conversation didn’t go well.”

“What happened?”

Nicole filled her in on the details, then said, “Don’t you dare take her side.”

“I won’t. I know this has been hard for you.” For both of them, but Claire knew better than to say that. It was easy for her to be rational and see both points of view, but much harder for Nicole. And while she cared about Jesse, she had to agree that her baby sister had messed up big-time more than once in the past few weeks.

“It sucks that it’s too early to get drunk.”

“You’re on pain medication,” Claire said.

“I’d pass on it for a vodka tonic. At least I would if it was four, or even three. What time is it?”

“About nine-thirty in the morning.”

Nicole groaned. “I have hours to wait.” She hobbled over to the sofa and collapsed. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Claire settled across from her. “Me, too. Whatever happens, I want us to stay close. We should have before.”

Nicole’s face scrunched up.

Claire smiled. “What are you holding back?”

“I want to jump into my ‘you left me’ routine, but I won’t. You were six. No one gave you a choice. I missed you more than I could say.”

“I missed you, too. We’d never been apart. I felt like someone cut off my arm. I was so lonely. That never went away.”

“Me, too, though I was busy. Jesse was born a few months after they took you away. She changed everything.”

For Nicole, Claire thought. Not for her. She learned about her new sister from her grandmother and saw a few pictures.

“I wanted to call more,” Claire admitted. “But we didn’t have the money back then. I’m sure it was expensive, plus with the time difference.” Later, when she’d been able to make her own decisions about calling, Nicole hadn’t wanted to talk to her.

Her sister sighed. “Okay, I was very annoyed with you and unforgiving.”

Wow-an apology from Nicole? “I believe the word you’re looking for is bitch.”

“Maybe.”

“There’s no maybe, honey. You were the queen bitch.”

“I’ll accept being in the royal court, but I won’t accept being the actual queen.”

“Works for me.”

They smiled at each other. Claire risked the moment by asking, “What are you going to do about Jesse?”

“I haven’t got a clue. I want her to be different and that isn’t going to happen. I want her to accept responsibility. Another chance for me to be disappointed. I wish she’d grow up, which makes me zero for three.” She pulled a throw pillow to her stomach and wrapped her arms around it.

“I don’t know what to do about the charges. One side of me says to drop them. She’s family, blah, blah, blah. Another part of me wants her to understand that there have to be consequences for what she’s done. Your thoughts?”

“I don’t know,” Claire admitted. “I agree with you. She is family and she has totally messed up. I’m the wrong person to ask.”

“You’re as right as I am. Which is part of the problem. I’m in such a weird position,” Nicole admitted. “I’m as much her mother as her sister. I never know what role to play or what I should be doing. I can’t help thinking I really messed up somewhere for her to have done what she did.”

“No,” Claire told her. “You’re not at fault. Nicole, you’re only six years older than her. You are her sister and not her mother. You did the best you could.”

“I don’t think it was good enough. That’s my guilty secret. Want to share yours?”

Claire hesitated. Nicole’s eyes widened.

“You have one?”

“Maybe. I’m in love with Wyatt.”

Nicole looked stunned. “The sex was that good?”

That made Claire laugh. “It’s not about sex.”

“It’s always about sex. Especially for you. Wyatt is your first. It makes sense you’d feel something for him. Are you sure it’s love?”

“I’m not sure of anything anymore. I know I’ve never had these feelings before. I know I want to spend every minute with him and not just while he’s in a good mood. I want to learn about him, plan a future. I want to get so tangled up with him that neither of us knows where we start individually or where we end as a couple.” She paused. “Does that make me a stalker?”

“Not unless you start spray-painting that on his garage wall. Wow. You really have fallen for him. Does he know?”

“No. I realized this morning when he was talking to me about the other men in my life.”

“What other men?”

“The ones that are supposed to follow him. He says he’s just my vacation fling or something. That we have nothing in common.”

“Wyatt does always resist getting involved.”

Not words Claire wanted to hear, but ones she needed to accept. “You told me and he told me. No relationships. He’s convinced he’s bad at them. What does he say? That he comes from a long line of men who pick the wrong woman?”

“Something like that,” Nicole admitted. “But it’s just what he says. It doesn’t have to be what he believes.”

“You’re his friend,” Claire said. “What do you think?”

Nicole hesitated for a second. “That he’s so used to hiding that he has no idea what he wants.”

“The politically correct answer. You’re sweet to try to make me feel better.”

“Wyatt could change. People change.”

They could, but they didn’t all that often. “Do you really believe, in your gut, that Wyatt could fall in love with me?”

“Yes,” Nicole said firmly.

Claire didn’t believe her for a second, but the fact that her sister would be so supportive was enough. At least for right now.

“M RS . O LIVE SAYSthe counselor will talk to Daddy and me,” Amy said, so excited that she was difficult to understand. “I’m going to need…” She paused to finger spell at the speed of light.

“Slower, please,” Claire signed. “You’re going to need what?”

“T-h-e-r-a-p-y.”

“Oh, like what Nicole is getting for her leg but for you it will be your ear and your brain.”

“Uh-huh.” Amy grinned. “Daddy says we’ll do my bad ear. It’s a comp…Compy something.”

“Compromise.”

She nodded again. “After the counselor, we’ll meet with the doctor.”

Amy climbed out of the car and ran up to the front door of Nicole’s house, where she would wait until Wyatt came by to pick her up.

Amy hurried over to the sofa to greet Nicole, then signed about her impending surgery.

“Are you happy with just one ear?” Nicole asked. “One and not two?”

“Uh-huh. I need to wait until there’s better ways for me to hear with the other ear. I’ll still be able to hear good with the one implant.”

She spoke with a combination of signing and speaking.

“You’re very mature,” Claire told her.

Amy dimpled.