Susan Mallery: Only His

She couldn’t fix the past. There was no game plan for going back in time and undoing a bad decision. The reality was, she’d been crazy in love with the man and she’d acted rashly. The fault was hers. She could accept that. What really fried her was having to pay for it now.

She finished her drink and motioned for another. Before it arrived, the door to the bar opened and her sisters walked in. A quick glance at her watch told her that less than fifteen minutes had passed since she’d sat down in the booth.

“Impressive,” she called to Jo.

Her friend shrugged. “You know how I feel about people drinking alone.”

“It’s medicinal.”

“If I had a nickel for every time I heard that.”

Nevada turned her attention to the two women walking toward her. They were exactly her height, with the same blond hair and brown eyes. Hardly a surprise, considering they were identical triplets.

When they’d been kids, telling them apart had been a nightmare for nearly everyone, including family. But they’d since cultivated distinct differences, including how they dressed and their personal style. Montana wore her hair long and curly, favored flowy dresses and all things soft. Dakota went the more tailored route, although the fact that she was currently pregnant would make identification even easier.

Nevada had always considered herself the more sensible sister — her present condition notwithstanding. She spent much of her days on job sites, where jeans and work boots were a requirement rather than a fashion choice. She made smart decisions, thought things through and did her best to avoid having regrets. Tucker was the biggest bump on the otherwise smooth, slightly lonely course that was her life.

“Hey,” Dakota said, sliding into the booth across from her. “Jo called.”

Montana slid next to Dakota and tilted her head. “She said you were drinking.”

Nevada waved her empty glass toward Jo. “Maybe a quesadilla, too,” she called.

“I thought you didn’t want to eat.”

“I changed my mind.”

“Good.” Jo walked toward her and grabbed the empty glass, then took orders from Dakota and Montana. “If only you were smart enough to stop while you could still avoid a hangover.”

“Sorry, not happening.” Nevada waited until Jo had left, then looked at her sisters. “You two got here faster than I expected.”

“It’s this new invention called a phone,” Montana told her. “It speeds up communication.”

Dakota placed both her hands on the table. “What’s going on? This isn’t like you. You don’t drink in the middle of the day.”

“Technically, it’s past the middle.” Nevada squinted. Ah, there it was. The faintest of buzzes moving through the back of her brain.

“Fine. Normally you would be at the office, but instead…” Dakota sighed. “Your interview. That was today.”

“Uh-huh.” She glanced toward the bar, wishing Jo would hurry.

“It had to have gone well,” Montana said, loyal as always. “Didn’t Mr. Janack realize how qualified you are? He needs someone with your experience to deal with the local factor. Plus, you look really nice.”

Nevada inhaled the scent of grilling tortillas and cheese. Her stomach growled. She hadn’t eaten lunch — nerves about her interview had caused her to work instead.

“What happened?” Dakota asked, apparently less interested in Nevada’s appearance than her sister was. “Why do you think the interview didn’t go well?”

“What makes you think I believe that?” Nevada asked, the buzz getting stronger by the second. Even so, when Jo brought the second drink, she took a big gulp.

“The drinking was my first clue.”

Having a trained psychologist as a sister was a double-edged sword, Nevada thought. “I don’t want to talk about it. If I did, I would have come to see you both. But I didn’t. I’m here, getting drunk. Leave me alone.”

Her sisters exchanged a glance. If Nevada put her mind to it, she could probably figure out what they were thinking. After all, they were genetically the same. But right now all that concerned her were the smells drifting back from Jo’s small kitchen.

“Nevada,” Montana began, her voice gentle.

That was all it took. A single word. Nevada shook her head. Why couldn’t she be like other people and hate her family? At the moment, a good estrangement sounded like the perfect plan.

“Fine,” she grumbled. “The interview wasn’t with Mr. Janack, aka Elliot, the father. It was with Tucker.”

“That’s the guy who was friends with Ethan all those years ago?” Dakota asked. She sounded as if she wasn’t completely sure of her facts. That was reasonable, considering her only encounter with Tucker would have been over a summer, back when they were kids.

“I don’t get it,” Montana said. “He’s in charge now?”

“Running the whole project,” Nevada said, still watching the door leading to the kitchen.

“Why is he a problem?” Dakota asked.

Nevada abandoned her hope for food anytime soon and faced her sisters. “I know Tucker. When I went off to college, Ethan told me to look him up, which I did.”

“Okay,” Montana said, sounding confused. “But isn’t knowing him a good thing?”

“I slept with him. Let me just say, that makes for an awkward interview.”

Jo appeared with the quesadilla and several napkins. She set herbal tea in front of Dakota and gave a diet soda to Montana. After placing a basket of chips and bowl of salsa in the middle of the table, she left.

Nevada picked up a slice of the quesadilla and took a bite, ignoring her sisters’ wide-eyed stares.

“Not today,” Montana said in a whisper. “You’re not saying you slept with him today.”

Nevada finished chewing and swallowed. “No. I didn’t have sex during my interview. It was before. Back in college.”

She ate some more while her sisters stared at her expectantly. Montana cracked first.

“What happened?” she demanded. “You never told us this.”

Nevada wiped her hands on a napkin, then took a sip of her drink. The buzz was stronger now, which would make exposing her secret easier.

“When I left for college, Ethan asked me to look up Tucker. He was working in the area.”

Although she and her sisters had been extremely close, they’d made the decision to go to three different colleges. The four years apart had given them the chance to solidify their identities, or some such crap, she thought hazily. While it had seemed like a good idea at the time, now she wondered if things would have gone better with one of her sisters around.

“I wasn’t especially interested in spending time with a friend of his,” she continued, “but he kept bugging me, so I did. I called Tucker and we agreed to meet.”

She still remembered walking into the huge open room in the industrial complex. The ceilings had probably been thirty feet high, with light spilling in from all the windows. There’d been a huge platform in the middle and a beautiful woman wielding a blowtorch. But what had caught Nevada’s attention was the man standing by the platform. The grown-up Tucker was very different from the kid she’d remembered.

“It was one of those things,” she said, taking another bite of the quesadilla, chewing and swallowing. “I took one look at him and fell head over heels. I didn’t have a chance.”

Montana leaned toward her. “That’s not a bad thing, right?”

“It is when the guy in question is madly in love with someone else. He had a girlfriend.” If one could give Cat such a pedestrian title. “I was crazy about him, and he was wild over her and she wanted to be my friend. It was hell.”

“Who was she?” Dakota asked. “Another student?”