C.J. Carmichael - A Sister Would Know

His stark judgment proved he didn’t understand. Amalie wasn’t surprised. He couldn’t realize that when their mother had told Helena she wasn’t capable of raising a child on her own, Helena had believed her.

Grant rubbed his face. He looked beat. Amalie remembered him telling Davin his day started at 4:30 in the morning. It was close to ten at night now. “It’s late. You must be exhausted.”

“No, I’m fine,” he said, but the physical evidence was to the contrary. As he fought back another yawn, she took their empty mugs to the sink.

He watched for a moment, then eventually he rose, too, looming large in Helena’s tiny kitchen. She dropped the dishrag, aware of his broad shoulders, barrel chest and powerful arms. Solid muscle, all of him. No wonder Denise had fallen against him for support. He was definitely up for it.

“You’re right. I’d better go.” His voice rasped in the quiet of the apartment.

Amalie turned, caught his gaze, and was surprised at what she saw in his eyes. Something tender she hadn’t noticed before. And intense. Almost as if…

But no, he couldn’t be attracted to her. True, they’d exchanged a few unsettling looks this evening. But they hadn’t meant anything….

“Amalie?” He took a step forward, not breaking eye contact.

She had to fight not to hold out her hands to him. When his gaze dropped to her mouth, she guessed he was wondering what it would be like to kiss her.

She turned away, knowing she was being foolish, that she had to be imagining his interest in her. He didn’t even like her—well, maybe he’d softened a little since their first meeting, but that hardly constituted—

“Are you serious about delving into your sister’s life?”

The question startled her, but her answer came quickly. “Yes, I am.”

“Tomorrow’s Friday. I could take you to the bar where she used to work. You could talk to some of the people there.”

“Helena worked in a bar?”

“Yeah. The Rock Slide Saloon.”

The name made her smile. “Yes, I’d like to go check it out.”

He moved a few inches closer. Maybe she hadn’t imagined that spark between them. For a moment it seemed he truly would kiss her. This time she resolved she wasn’t going to back away at the last minute.

But he surprised her by speaking, instead.

“I still think you should return to Toronto.”

The warning was mitigated by a new warmth in his smile.

“And I say I’m staying.”

“Then it’s a date? Tomorrow at the Rock Slide Saloon?”

“Yes.” A date with Grant Thorlow. She never would’ve guessed the evening would end like this.

DAVIN LISTENED TO THE SOUND of the door closing, then the scrape of metal as his aunt turned the dead bolt.

He rolled over in his sleeping bag, careful to stay on the foam pad underneath him.

So Grant was gone. Too bad he’d come so late. Davin had gotten up once for a drink of water, hoping his aunt would invite him to stay and visit, but they’d both been quiet until he went back to his room.

What had they talked about? He hadn’t heard their words, only the murmur of their voices.

But it was probably Helena. Everyone seemed to want to talk about her around here. And no one had much good to say.

Aunt Amalie kept telling him it was because folks didn’t know her. But Davin was beginning to think maybe everyone here did know Helena. It was his aunt who was wrong.

Helena had been a bad person. That’s what Grant thought. And so did the woman who’d been crying at the information center yesterday.

Davin agreed. Leaving your kid to be raised by your sister wasn’t normal. He’d figured that much out in kindergarten.

Sometimes he wished Aunt Amalie had never told him about Helena. He wished she’d just pretended he was hers, and they could be like a regular family and he could call her Mom, which was what she was, after all.

More than Helena, that was for sure. A mother wasn’t someone who wrote a letter or sent a present sometimes, only when she felt like it. And always something the wrong size or a toy he wasn’t interested in.

Some nights he made up stories to get himself to sleep. He imagined his aunt coming into his room and explaining that it was all a mistake. She really was his mother, and that woman who wrote the letters and stuff was his aunt.

Only it wasn’t that way.

Helena was his mother and now she was dead, and he didn’t even care.

Davin stared up at the ceiling, remembering his aunt calling him to their kitchen in Toronto to tell him about the avalanche, to explain that they had to drive to Rogers Pass.

At first he’d been excited. They were going on a trip, and he was going to miss school. It had seemed like an adventure, setting out to find where his mother had lived and what she’d been like.

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