Secret Sister

SECRET SISTER

EMELLE GAMBLE

SOUL MATE PUBLISHING

New York

Praise for
 
Secret Sister

“Secret Sister is compulsively readable.  I defy anyone not to race through the pages to find out what happens to Cathy and Nick -- and Nick and Roxanne!”

—
Patricia Gaffney
, New York Times Best Selling author of 
The Saving Graces

“Lovers of women’s fiction have a new must-read! Secret Sister by Emelle Gamble has it all...romance, drama and suspense... I could not put it down.”

—
Beth Harbison
, New York Times Best Selling author of 
Chose The Wrong Guy, Gave Him The Wrong Finger
and
Shoe Addicts Anonymous

SECRET SISTER

Copyright©2013

EMELLE GAMBLE

Cover Design by Ramona Lockwood

This book is a work of fiction.  The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the priority written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher.  The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law.  Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

Published in the United States of America by

Soul Mate Publishing

P.O. Box 24

Macedon, New York, 14502

ISBN-13: 978-1-61935-
251-3

www.SoulMatePublishing.com

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

For Allen Nuccio, my prince,

who always has my back,

and my heart.

For Olivia Rose Nuccio,

daughter and friend,

whose faith and support comfort my every day.

And for Philip,

who is in all ways my truest love.

Acknowledgements

With love and thanks to ….

The
Lifesavers
(Mary Blayney, Elaine Fox, Lavinia Kent, and Yvonne Pinney), critique group
extraordinaire
, dearest friends who helped me keep my head up and never let me down.

Char Chaffin
, acquisition editor, whose efforts and constant encouragement made this book stronger, and this writer forever grateful.

Chapter 1

Saturday, July 9, 10:30 a.m.

Cathy and Roxanne

It was sunny and mild the July morning Roxanne and I headed up the state highway into the Verdugo Hills. But the Santa Anas were blowing in from the desert, and those aptly called
devil winds
rocked our car with gusts of heat and dust that caused tiny sparks of electricity to snap against my fingertips every time I touched my hair.

I looked forward to the Santa Anas each summer because they cleared every trace of smog from the vast L.A. basin and left the air sparkling. But that day they were weeks early and their intensity increased a sense of foreboding I’d awakened with.

I squeezed my hands together and glanced at the woman sitting next to me, for she was the true reason for my uneasiness.

My best friend and I should have been relaxed and chatty, but we hadn’t been either lately. There was tension between us. She was distracted and distressed by calamity in her personal life and I felt at a loss to help.

Roxanne had recently broken up with the guy she’d been seeing for years, and her mood alarmed me. She had barely said a word at the front door when she picked me up, and nothing at all since we’d been in the car.

Slowly I turned my head from side to side, trying to ease the knot of anxiety in my neck. I reached up to massage my shoulder but the seatbelt held me snugly, so I undid it. The lock made a sharp click as it released.

“What’s wrong?” Roxanne asked.

“Nothing.” I spoke quietly. “Just a kink. I must have slept weird.”

She snorted and shifted gears and the road rose higher in front of us.

I noticed then that she wasn’t wearing lipstick. Roxanne always wore lipstick, a shade called
Dangerous When Red
. For her to have left the house without makeup of any kind was one more sign she wasn’t in a good place. Though even without it, Roxanne was gorgeous.

I stared out the windshield and thought about how wrong the cliché was that drop-dead beauty guaranteed happiness. If it did, Roxanne would have been delirious from birth. She was so stunning that people stared at her wherever she went. Men and women and kids. Even animals liked her.

Wasp-waisted but voluptuously curvy, she had dark hair and chocolate brown eyes and possessed a laugh described in our high school yearbook as ‘midnight sexy with whipped cream on top.’ While that teenage compliment was hormone-fueled and extravagant, I had actually seen men stop in their tracks when they heard her laugh, noses in the air like bloodhounds intent on tracking her down.

I joked once that the only body parts of mine that were better looking than hers were my hands and feet. Roxanne laughed and gave me a hug, but we both knew it was true.

Our physical inequality could have made me envy or resent Roxanne, but I didn’t. I’d loved her since she befriended me in seventh grade, and had never regretted it. Yes, she was ridiculously good looking, but she was also the most loyal friend a girl ever had.

I wondered if I should just ask her what I could do to help. Roxanne seemed oblivious to everything but what was going on inside her head. Whatever that was.

“What time is it?” she asked suddenly.

I glanced at my watch. “Ten-thirty. What time is your appointment?”

“Now.”

“We’ll be there in five minutes. Seth will wait.”

She gripped the steering wheel tighter. “Hell with it. I’d rather go shopping this morning. It will do me more good than sitting in a doctor’s office.” Roxanne hit the brakes and steered toward the edge of the road.

“Wait a minute,” I replied. “What are you doing?” 

She brought the car to a full stop. “Can you dig out my cell and call Seth? Tell him I have to reschedule. His number is in my contacts.”

“For heaven’s sake, Roxanne! We’re almost there. You can’t cancel now.”

“Yes, I can. I don’t need to see him anyway. It won’t help.”

“You don’t know that. And Seth will charge you for canceling. And you’ll have to wait a month to get another appointment.” I crossed my arms. “And by the way, I changed my plans with Nick because you asked me to come all the way out here with you today. Remember?”

“I know. You and hubby and ‘date-day Saturday.’” She grabbed her sunglasses from the visor and stuck them on. “Sorry, but you’ll have tonight, like you have every night with Nick. But today I get to buy you lunch. And some new jeans.” She looked down at my legs. “What are you wearing anyway, Wranglers?”

“I love these jeans.”

“Why?”

“What’s wrong with them?”

“Nothing if you’re forty and the mother of two.” She craned her neck to see behind us and turned the steering wheel hard.

I clutched my stomach and felt a small bulge under my tee shirt. I wasn’t fat, but my jeans were too tight, though that wasn’t the reason Roxanne had commented on them.

“Okay, my jeans are kind of frumpy. But you’re trying to change the subject, which is that you’ve been a wreck for weeks. Don’t you think it’s time to get serious and get help for what’s bugging you?” I put my hand on her shoulder.

She shrugged it off.

“Come on, Rox. You’re suffering, but you always say Seth helps when you’re feeling depressed. So go see him.”

The car idled rough and another wave of devil winds rattled the windows.

Rox turned to me. “I’m not depressed, Cathy, I’m broken-hearted. Which is a normal way to feel considering I’ve lost the only man I ever really loved, isn’t it?”

I lowered my voice. “No one thinks you’re not normal.”

“Then I don’t need to see a shrink, do I?”

“I don’t know what you need.” I pointed toward the road. “But Dr. Seth might. He’s that way. Let’s go.”

Rox sighed, but straightened out the wheel and stepped on the gas. The car fishtailed in the gravel along the road before jumping back up to speed.

“So you do think I need a shrink?” Her voice was flat.

“Seth isn’t a shrink.” He wasn’t. He was a psychologist who used a holistic approach with his patients. Meditation. Exercise. Therapy for the mind, body, and soul.

“Okay, but all he wants to do is talk. I’m sick of myself. Too sick of myself to rehash everything I feel bad about.”

“Then let him talk. He likes to talk. That’s been my experience.”

She stared straight ahead. “There’s really no point. I know what’s wrong. I want Michael. I want to get married and live happily ever after. Like you. I can’t see how Seth can help with this, unless he knows someone who will pull a gun on Michael and order him to marry me or die.”

This remark upped my nervousness. Roxanne’s humor was usually wry, not morbid. “Well, if marriage is what you want, then you should consider changing your taste in men.”

“My taste in men is fine. Michael is perfect for me; it’s just that I’m not enough for him. If I were, he would have asked me to marry him by now.” A sob caught in her throat. “I don’t seem to be enough for any man.”

“Come on, that’s bull, and you know it. Before Michael, three different men asked you to marry them.”

“None of them were Michael.”

“No, they weren’t. But hasn’t Michael always said he didn’t want to get married? Didn’t you tell me Seth said you’re picking the wrong man, out of the hundreds willing to date you, to punish yourself for something? You need to work with Seth and find out why you keep doing that.”

“Oh, screw Seth! I’m sick of shrinks. My mom. Him. All five of them before Seth. Everybody has problems, I know. I just want the normal ones. The ones normal people solve. I could handle those. It’s all these other flaws I have that get me down.”

A warning flickered in my brain. For all her physical beauty, Roxanne was self-conscious about being treated for mental illness early in her life. She’d been diagnosed as bi-polar before she was a teenager.

I wondered if Roxanne had gone off her medications. If so, the situation was serious. Roxanne had attempted to commit suicide twice in the past sixteen years. Both times after she’d stopped taking her antidepressants.

I rubbed my palms against my knees. “Look, don’t get mad at me for asking, Rox, but have you been taking your meds?”

She snapped on the radio and filled the air with the Rolling Stones, who were in the midst of reminding us that we can’t always get what we want.

I turned the music off. “Come on, talk to me, okay?”

Roxanne turned it back on and upped the volume.

I should have reacted with the anger I felt, but I didn’t, because Roxanne was crying. And Roxanne rarely cries. I could count on one hand the times she’s cried in my presence since we’ve been friends. Instead, I pinched the back of my hand to stay calm.

Seth was a few minutes away. All I had to do was get her there and hopefully he could stop this meltdown before it happened.

Ahead of us the road narrowed. “Don’t judge all men by Michael,” I yelled over Jagger. “That guy’s an asshole.”

He was. My mind flashed on one particularly uncomfortable ‘Michael’ memory. He hit on me at last year’s New Year’s Eve party. Nick was sleeping like a baby under the dining room table, and Roxanne was drunk, dancing like a madwoman outside on the patio with our friend, Bradley.

Michael walked up behind me and whispered, “Happy New Year’s, Cathy.” When I turned he kissed me on the lips, open-mouthed, his hands on my ass before I could register an objection. The image of a quick, hard toss in the bedroom we were standing next to had roiled through my mind like a shot of tequila, which I’d had way, way too much of.

For a second I had considered Michael on me.
In me
. I felt a physical jolt of lust as surprising as it was real. Then the party sounds shifted back into my brain, reminding me of who I was.

I put my hands against his chest and pushed. “Michael, don’t be an asshole.”

“You’re begging for it, babe.” He took my hand and pressed it on the bulge in his jeans. “Give me twenty minutes in the dark and you’ll be a new woman.” He pulled me into the bedroom and shut the door behind us.

“You’re crazy!” I reached around to grab the doorknob but he held the door closed. “Michael, get out of my way. Roxanne’s right outside, for Christ’s sake.”

“So?”

“So open the door.”

“Is that the only reason, Cathy? Because you’re friends with Roxanne?”

“You’re insane. And I’m very married. Remember?” I waved my left hand, my tiny diamond glittering. “You know Nick and I don’t play around.”

“I don’t know that.” He kissed me again.

I slapped his face.

He didn’t seem to feel it. “Tell yourself the truth at least. You want me and you know it.” He grinned and walked out.

Now, I yelled, “Michael
really
is an asshole.” I heard more disgust than anger in my voice.

“Okay. Don’t rub it in.” Roxanne snapped off the music.

“I’m not. I’m just trying to get through to you.”

“Yes, you are rubbing it in. You always compare how Michael treats me to how Nick treats you.”

“If I do, it’s only to remind you that you don’t have to settle for someone who cheats.”

My words were tactless, but I didn’t care. Michael had cheated on her for years. “Nick doesn’t lie to me
.
I trust him, which is the most important part of a relationship. We don’t have a perfect marriage, and you know that as well as anyone, but we get stronger together every day because we’re true to each other. You deserve that kind of relationship, Rox. You deserve to be happy.”

“No I don’t.” Roxanne cried harder.

When she cries she isn’t beautiful. She looks like a sick kid, all swollen and blotchy. I put my hand on her arm and squeezed. “Come on now, don’t cry. He’s not worth it.”

She sobbed louder and made the last turn toward Seth’s office, veering onto Arroyo Crest.

“You’ll feel better if you work through this with Seth,” I continued. “You’ll get your confidence back and enjoy the rest of the summer. Why don’t you come stay at the house for a few days again, like you did last November? We’ll watch
That Seventies Show
. Or
I Dream of Jeannie
. ‘Nic at Night,’ here we come.”

“My life is more like
Night of the Living Dead
. Maybe someone needs to shoot me in the head and put me out of my misery.” She didn’t sound as if she was joking.

“Since when are you watching crap like that?”

“I love horror. Always have.”

“You do not. You like American classics.
Casablanca.
The Thin Man.
You’ve watched those twenty times with me.”

“Tastes change. You don’t know everything about me, Cathy.”

“Really? Well, whatever you want to watch, I’m game. We’ll sit on the sofa all night and be scared silly and Nick can make us blueberry waffles for dinner.”

“I hate waffles.”

“That I know is a lie. You love waffles. Last time you stayed at my place, you and Nick were up in the middle of the night eating them cold. Remember?”

Roxanne made a strangling sound.

I lifted my hand to pat her arm again but stopped midair when I noticed the speedometer. It registered 66 mph. In a 25 mph zone.

I pointed to the dashboard. “Hey, slow down. Even you won’t be able to talk yourself out of a ticket going this fast.”

“I’m the one driving the car,” Roxanne yelled. “And why would you care if I got a ticket? Because it would take time out of your weekend? Do you actually care about
me
at all anymore? All you talk about is Nick, Nick, Nick. Who is so perfect. Who you spend
all
your spare time with. Don’t pretend to care about me or my problems when you don’t.”

Her words cut deeply. While I hadn’t made as much time for her as I used to, she was still a huge part of my life.

But maybe there had been too much talk about Nick. I suddenly felt terrible, realizing how smug I must seem. “Rox, I don’t pretend anything with you. I never have. You’re my dearest friend, and you know that. Haven’t you always said we’re as close as secret sisters? Nothing’s changed.”

“I say a lot of things. And so do you. Just stop lecturing me, Cathy. And don’t think you know everything. You don’t. Not about men. Not about me.”

“I never said I know everything.”

“You act like you do!”