The Other Sister (Sister Series, #1) (13 page)

“How could you agree to marry her? I don’t understand. We were just on a date, now you’re marrying my sister?”

Will sighed and opened the door to Lindsey Bains a few nights after his proposal to Jessie. She pushed past him, into the foyer of his small apartment. She had tears in her eyes. She looked so heartbroken, so fragile, that his gut quivered. Why couldn’t Jessie just tell her sister the truth? All of it? There were a few moments, here and there, when he considered dating Lindsey, a few moments when he wondered what they might become. But now he owed Jessie, through no fault of his own,
and felt responsible for her. She deserved that much from him.

Lindsey stalked around his apartment. She paced and felt betrayed. Will felt terrible for her, but Lindsey didn’t harbor half the grief her little sister did.

“She told you?”

“No. My father told me. How could you? I don’t understand. We were on a date just last week. How could you be engaged to my sister this week? Why would you marry her? My God, it’s crazy and stupid. What could possibly make you do this?”

“She’s pregnant.”

Lindsey paused. Her mouth fell open, and her eyes widened. Then she said,“No. She’s lying.”

“No, she’s not.”

“And it’s yours? It’s your baby my sister is carrying?”

“Yes.”

“But how? When? How could you accept a date with me?”

Inevitably, the math would go back to Mexico. He could always deny it, or make up some more stories. But he needed to protect Jessie from the one thing in her life that wasn’t her fault.

“I didn’t know she was pregnant then.”

“But you knew you slept with her!”

“Understandably, you’re upset. You hate me. I get it. It happened in Mexico. We were under extreme circumstances and stress. I guess I didn’t put much stock in it.”

“So let her have the baby. You don’t have to marry her.”

“And how she’s going to afford it? She’s a broke, college drop-out. What else can I do, but try and help her?”

“No one can help her. She’ll destroy you.”

“She won’t destroy me. She won’t even hurt me.”

“Yes, she will. I know. I’ve watched it time and time again.”

“No. I have control over her. She listens to me.”

“But you can’t do this. Marry her? You don’t even like her.”

“Actually, I do like her.”

“How? How can you like her?”

“Because I understand her.”

“Then why did you go out with me? I can’t believe I thought I was in love with you.”

Will went still. So did Lindsey. She slapped a hand over her mouth. Will closed his eyes and shook his head. “I didn’t plan any of this. I’m sorry.”

“She ruins everything. She’ll ruin this too.”

“It’s not at all like you think.”

She laughed bitterly. “It’s exactly what I think. Jessie wins again. She ruins something I care about again. Mark my words, she’ll taint you, this marriage, everything.”

Lindsey came nearer and stopped right before him. She looked up into his face, into his eyes. She had the same large shaped eyes as Jessie, but hers were blue, beguiling and innocent. She suddenly, surprisingly, lifted her mouth to his, and kissed him. She kissed him long and deep until he responded, following her lead, opening his mouth to hers. He finally pulled back. She was in his arms. How did he manage that? “I can’t do this.”

“Of course you can’t. You are a good, decent, honorable man. A leader among men, just like my father. And so far above my sister, it makes me sick to think of her with you. She will never make you happy. Once the sex wears off, she has nothing to offer. Trust me, I’ve watched her show enough times to know.”

Lindsey walked around him and slammed the door.

The shock of his engagement to Jessie Bains rippled through the ranks of soldiers, and eventually trickled down to the media. He tolerated the surprise, the shock, even the disdain over his choice in a bride. No one could believe it. How could it happen? He wasn’t talking. Somehow, he felt he owed Jessie for not stopping what happened to her in Mexico. It might not have been his fault, but on a visceral level, he didn’t stop it. And look what Jessie’s life had become.

“I don’t get it, man, how did this happen?”

Tony was Will’s best friend since
childhood. They had joined up together and had each other’s backs for everything from boot camp to ranger school to officer training to war. Tony had seen Will through almost everything, including his divorce. Tony was stung Will didn’t confide he was sleeping with the general’s daughter, especially the bad daughter. The scandalous daughter. Lindsey’s sister.

Will
glanced at Tony, and sighed. He hated lying to a man he considered a brother. “She needs my help.”

“You need to marry her because she needs your help? Did you really knock her up?”

“Not me. You gotta trust me, I’ve gotta do this. I need you to be the one person I can talk to, whom I can trust.”

“You trust me wi
th your life, yet you doubt I can keep your gossip to myself?”

Will smiled, that’s why Tony was his friend. He was a straight shooter. Will told him his story. He kept out any details that weren’t necessary, like what happened in Mexico. But he managed to tell him enough to deal with his current crisis. At least, Tony could understand how Will came to his decision without thinking he totally left Tony out of the loop.

Tony whistled at the end of the saga. “You’re playing with fire, the general’s daughter and all.”

“I’m aware. I need your word.”

“You got it. But you’re more man than I am to volunteer for this duty.”

“I didn’t volunteer, I was ordered from day one.”

“You could have said no.”

“Not if you knew what I know.”

Jessie tried in vain to talk to her sister. She called, she e-mailed, she texted, all of which were ignored or deleted. She made two trips to Lindsey’s apartment. Lindsey refused to give her the time of day. The tape on
YouTube
, only made the sex tape that was already out about Jessie worse.

The rest of the time, Jessie huddled in her bedroom, very afraid, terrified even, to cross her father. The ideas Will planted in her head about Mexico took root, and blossomed into full bloom. Did her father really have her kidnapped?
Did her own father do this to her
? She shuddered every time the thought entered her brain. The numbness became a constant. She didn’t cry. She didn’t even think. She hid. She cut. She tried to figure out what could be so wrong inside her, and so twisted, that her father would resort to having her kidnapped.

But now she was Will’s fiancée. For that reason alone, she didn’t physically fear her father. It was liberating. For years, she tiptoed around him, but now, she had Will looking out for her.

Will called to ask if she’d been to any kind of doctor since Mexico. She hadn’t, of course. He insisted she make an appointment, and confirm it with him.

Jessie answered the knock at the door one afternoon to find Will there. She hadn’t seen him in the few days since his “proposal.” She suddenly felt strangely shy with him, if that could be possible. He’d seen it all, and heard it all. Why was she so shy with him now?

“I’m driving you to your appointment.”

“I told you I would go. You don’t have to babysit me.”

“Just get your coat.”

The October weather was cool and gray. Gusts of wind blew wayward leaves off the trees as they piled along sidewalks and scattered when cars passed. Will drove his black truck. They had nothing to say to each other during the short ride across town to the doctor’s office.

Jessie got checked in, weighed in, and tolerated the physical examination, and prenatal care instructions. There was a heartbeat. That stopped her. There in her stomach, magnified by the
sonogram, was the heartbeat of a live baby growing in her. It stunned her. The weird pregnancy tests didn’t mean much. They were so abstract, and so unwanted that being pregnant didn’t hold much meaning to her life. Suddenly, now it did.
A heartbeat.
It was alive. She struggled with what to do about that. She had always been careful about birth control, and this wasn’t because she was careless, this was a result of rape. She clearly, starkly, knew the difference, and that she didn’t deserve this.

Regardless, there was a heart beating inside of her.

Will was in the waiting room and stood up when she appeared. Her heart dropped at his look of concern towards her. He wore his uniform, and looked like every other soldier minion she so detested.

“Are you okay?”

“There’s a heartbeat. I don’t know what to do with that.”

Will paused and nodded. “I see.”

The thing was, he did see. He could see why she hated this pregnancy, even this baby, but was also so affected by it. He put an arm into hers and guided her outside where a drizzle began to fall from the low-slung clouds. He put her into the truck, started it, and looked at her again. They both stared towards the headlights cutting through the late afternoon gloom.

“You don’t want an abortion, do you?”

“Before, it didn’t feel like a baby. Now—”

“It does.”

“Its heart was beating. How can I stop that?”

“I guess you can’t.”

“What would you do if you were me?”

He glanced at her. “You know I can’t answer that. There’s no way anyone but you can know what to do.”

“It would be easier for all, especially you, if I just got rid of it.”

“You know you could give it up for adoption. If you can’t face raising the result of what happened to you, you could always give it up.”

“There can’t be a very hot market for Latino babies, and that’s what this one will be.”

“I think just baby is the key. There is always a market for a baby that couples want to adopt from birth.”

She lowered her head. “I don’t know. I just don’t know anything at all.”

“I guess we should hurry up and get married then, huh? Before you start showing.”

She couldn’t look at him. “I’m sorry.”

“The general say or do anything to you?”

She shook her head. “Not lately. He’s been preoccupied by something.”

“I’ll just bet he is. So next week?”

“He’ll require that we do some kind of ceremony or something.”

Will seemed to look harder out the windshield. “I know. He mentioned that.”

“What the hell? Next week it is. My glorious wedding day.”

Jessie found a pair of scissors next to a sewing kit. She opened them, and lifted the white skirt of the dress she wore, digging the open scissors into her inner thigh. Beads of blood formed before they started to roll over her white skin. It helped. She did it again, a few inches lower. Even better. The blood streamed in a gooey line down her leg before dripping onto the tiled bathroom floor. She was sitting on a closed toilet lid, with her beautiful wedding dress pushed up, around her waist, out of the way. She was all ready to get married, but instead of fidgeting with her makeup or adjusting her hair, she was staring at the blood dripping off her leg.

She lowered her eyes, avoiding her reflection in the bathroom mirror. She looked so normal on the outside. Her hair was washed and curled around her face. She wore nice makeup. After slipping on the silky, slimming wedding gown she bought (off the rack) over her head, she looked lovely. Especially considering the short time frame she had. She handled it all so well, so far, so quietly. So different from how she usually did. She was trying so hard not to mess this up, or embarrass Will. And now, here she was. She could hear them calling her. It was time to finish the sham that had become her life
, that probably would always be her life.

“Jessie?”

The door suddenly burst open. Jessie dropped the scissors she was clutching in her hand. She grabbed the hand towels draped nearby for guests to dry their hands on and quickly pressed one onto her bleeding thigh. She blinked. Her sister? Was she really there?

“Lindsey?”

“What happened to you? Oh dear God, you’re bleeding.” Lindsey rushed forward,
and came to her knees where Jessie sat. Her hand grabbed the towel on her thigh, and lifted it high enough to inspect. She looked up into Jessie’s eyes, but Jessie averted hers. She was speechless, not at being caught cutting, but because Lindsey was there, for her.

Lindsey grabbed another towel and pressed it against the bottom of her thigh where more blood oozed. “Why are you bleeding? It’s on your dress.”

“I-I was silly, trying to cut off a frayed edge, and my nerves got the better of me. I accidentally nicked my leg.”

Lindsey stared at her leg in disbelief. It was the stupidest excuse Jessie ever made. She waited for Lindsey’s rebuke about the complete impossibility of her story. Only three-year-old children actually wind up cutting themselves in the leg
accidentally
with scissors.

“Stand up. I’ll see how badly the dress is stained.”

Jessie stood. Lindsey moved around her and took cold water to rinse the dress hem. Clumsily, Jessie held the towels to her legs.

“Sit down
, I’ll find a first aid kit. There’s not much to do about this hem.”

Lindsey came back a few moments later, and fell to her knees while Jessie began opening a bandage. She removed the towel, quickly pressing the gauze pad before taping it. Blood oozed out the sides. If Lindsey recognized the precision of the cut, as well as the other similar marks next to it that were too alike, and too telling, she didn’t say. Then again, Jessie knew Lindsey was the master of denial.

J
essie put a hand over Lindsey’s to make Lindsey pause and meet her eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m your maid of honor.”

“But how? Why?”

“Daddy. Obviously. He said I had to do this. It wouldn’t look right otherwise.”

A new stab of resentment overtook her. “So here you are. The good sister as always.”

Lindsey finished bandaging her leg, and mumbled, “I know why he’s marrying you.”

Standing up, Lindsey turned back to the sink and washed her hands. Jessie stared after her sister. Did her father tell Lindsey what happened in Mexico?

“What do you mean?”

Lindsey whirled around. She threw the paper towel in the wastebasket. “What do you think? That you’re pregnant, of course. That it happened in Mexico. That he feels like he owes this to you. He doesn’t love you. He doesn’t even like you. I can’t believe you’re doing this to him.”

Jessie stared open-mouthed at Lindsey. “How do you know?”

“That you’re pregnant? Will told me.”

Will told her? When did Will speak to Lindsey? He never mentioned anything to her, or that he told Lindsey she was pregnant.

“It’s nothing I want,” she said quietly, staring at the floor.

“Of course, you don’t. But
you still get it, don’t you? A baby? Will? How do you do it? Act as horribly as you do, and get everything wrong, but you still end up with everything.”

Jessie lifted her eyes up to her sister’s. How could her own flesh and blood be so wrong about her? And her situation?

Jessie took in Lindsey’s outfit. She chose a beautiful, elegant, plush, blue-colored dress. Her hair was pulled into a soft knot at the nape of her neck, leaving her face pristine, pure, and looking almost flawless with little makeup and no adornments.

Jessie felt guilty for how Lindsey felt about her. “Lindsey, I’m sorry about what I said and did that night.”

Lindsey shook her head. “I’m only here for Daddy.”

Jessie stood and nodded. “Of course you are.”

Picking up her bouquet, Jessie passed her sister, and opened the bathroom door. Her dress fell to the floor, and the soft trail of white train followed her. A train stained slightly pinkish from the red blood of her inner pain.