His First Choice

Her parents had a beach cottage. So did his. A place for family to gather.

For some reason the thought bothered him.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

IF LACEY DIDN’T love her sister so much, she’d strangle her.

“Face it, Lacey, you’re glad I did what I did.”

She wanted to argue, but knew it was pointless. “Part of me is still angry with you.”

“I know, but that part of you needs an attitude adjustment.”

“Offering to take Levi to the park while Jem and I go over the plans was overkill.”

“To the contrary, it gets me out of here.”

“I don’t need you out of here, Kace. It’s okay. I’m not twenty anymore. You and I are connected at the hip, which means that any guy who likes me is going to see you, too. If I can’t trust him in that situation, then what’s the point in liking him?”

“So you admit it. You do like him?”

“No! I’m telling you that the things I said when Ramsey dumped me for you as soon as he met you...they were wrong. It wasn’t about you. Or me, either. It was him. That was more than ten years ago, and I can’t believe I brought it up last year. I am disgusted by and so sorry for the horrible and stupid and childish things I said.”

She’d hoped, at least, that the memory had faded with time. She wasn’t proud of herself for going off on her sister, her soul mate, when it was herself and the world’s reaction to her that had really had her upset.

“But you were right, too,” Kacey said. Her eyes clouded over as she tucked her heels up to her butt on the side of the hot tub, where they were ending their Saturday night with a glass of wine. They’d walked back to the beach. Watched a movie. And still hadn’t been ready to turn in.

Lacey’s next-door neighbor was out of town for the summer and, in exchange for her watching the house, she’d been granted unlimited use of the hot tub.

“I was the one who got to ride in the race car. Every single time we went on a job where they could only take one of us, I was the one who was chosen. There wasn’t one boy in high school who asked you out first. And when you brought your college boyfriend home to spend Christmas with the family, he met me and dumped you. It all happened, Lacey, just as you’d said. There were things that you left out, too. We walk into a room, people reach out to shake my hand. Not yours. I feel guilty as hell. I hate it. But I don’t know how to change it.”

“You aren’t going to change it,” Lacey told her. “You aren’t meant to. Your personality is just different from mine. More bold. You’re outgoing. I’d rather stand in a corner. You always know the right thing to say. I tell the truth even when it’s best to keep my mouth shut. You shine, Kace. I don’t.”

Silence fell for a time. They both sipped their wine. And then Lacey chuckled. “Remember the time you insisted that I put glitter all over my skin so that I’d stand out more than you would?”

“That was a disaster,” Kacey said. Lacey’s skin had had a reaction to the spray; she’d itched like crazy and had welts all over by the end of the evening.

“But it made senior prom memorable!” Lacey really could laugh about it now. She hadn’t liked the guy she’d been with any more than Kacey had liked her date. But they’d loved the chocolate ice cream their dad had gone out to get for them as a consolation prize. It had been waiting for them when Mom had finished rubbing the topical antibiotic all over Lacey’s welts after the twenty-minute shower she’d insisted Lacey take.

“Mom and Dad were going to ground me for that one,” Kacey said now.

“Which wasn’t fair. You were only trying to help.”

“And you ended up coming to my rescue. Like usual.”

Funny that Kacey would say that. Lacey had always felt like Kacey was the sister who solved their problems. But maybe she hadn’t been. Maybe Kacey’s bright light, her always coming in first to Lacey’s second, had blinded Lacey to a truth or two.

And maybe this new sunroom, this attempt of her sister’s to do something big for Lacey, was as important for Kacey as it could be for her.

“Anyway, it seemed like the decent thing to do, offering to take the little guy to the park, since Jem’s coming out on a Sunday to look at the project. It’s not like there’s a day care open or anything.”

It was all highly unusual. A contractor making a nonemergency house call on a Sunday. A woman buying her sister a room for her birthday.

Lacey being so obsessed with Jeremiah Bridges.

“Just make sure you don’t stay gone too long,” she said. And hoped she hadn’t just given her sister any more bad ideas.

* * *