me. What is up with that? And why aren’t you around taking care of things?”
“Nicole and I are having some issues.”
“Guess what? I don’t care about that. How could you lie to me?”
Jesse, tall and thin, pretty, with hair down to her waist, straightened. “I didn’t lie. Nicole did have surgery and she does need you.”
“But she hates me. She’s not interested in reconciling and everyone she knows hates me.”
“Well, that’s true.” Jesse actually grinned. “She tells some great stories about you.”
“Great from whose perspective?”
“Anyone listening. Probably not you.” Jesse sighed. “She needs help. I know she thinks I don’t care about her, but I do. I didn’t know who else to call. You’re here and that’s what matters.”
Claire groaned. “It isn’t what matters. I don’t belong here.” Not that she was leaving, but still. “Every moment is uncomfortable. And who is Wyatt? He hates me, too. Did she spend all her time telling him horrible things about me?”
“Not all, but some. Wyatt and Nicole are friends. Have been for a long time. His stepbrother, Drew, married Nicole. They, ah, just broke up a couple of weeks ago. I don’t know if they’re going to get back together.”
Jesse crossed her arms over her chest as she spoke. Claire felt the undercurrents but didn’t know what they meant.
“She never even invited me to the wedding,” Claire murmured.
“Did you expect her to?”
“Of course. I would have come.”
“Assuming you weren’t playing for the queen that night.”
Claire glared at her. “Don’t you dare take any attitude with me, Jesse. Most of this is your fault.”
“I’m not the one who took off and left her family behind to go be famous.”
There was a bitterness in her sister’s words. Claire frowned. “Is that what you think happened? That I simply decided to go off and be famous? I was six years old. I didn’t get to decide anything. They decided for me.” Her parents, her teacher. One day she’d been living in Seattle and the next she was on a plane to New York. “They took me away from my family and no matter how much I begged, they wouldn’t let me come home.”
“Poor little prodigy,” Jesse said. “Is the fame too much? Are you having too much fun?”
“It’s not like that.”
But she didn’t bother explaining. No one wanted to know the truth. Not the past or the present. No one wanted to hear about the hours spent practicing, the late nights and early mornings, the delayed flights, the grueling schedule. No one cared that after a while, all the hotels rooms looked the same and that the only way she could tell what city she was in was by looking at the newspaper on her breakfast tray. That while she’d visited some of the most amazing places in the world, she’d never seen them. There wasn’t time.
“I’m a trained circus animal,” she said at last. “Nothing more.”
“You were the princess.” Jesse’s mouth twisted. “Fussed over, pampered. Wanted. Probably still are. It wasn’t like that here. At least not for me.”
“What do you mean?”
Jesse shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”
Claire had a feeling it did matter a lot. “Why did you and Nicole fight?”
Jesse stiffened. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“You’d better. It’s the reason you lied to me. You dragged me all the way out here to deal with some mess you couldn’t. So what happened?”
“I…” Jesse drew in a breath. Her expression turned defiant. “Nicole caught me in bed with her husband. She wasn’t happy.”
Claire opened her mouth, then closed it. Shock flooded her. “You slept with your sister’s husband? You had sex with him?” It was impossible. Who did that sort of thing? “She’s family.”
“She would disagree with you about that. She disowned me.”
Jesse sounded so calm about all of this. As if what she’d done didn’t matter. Claire wanted to shake her. “Do you blame her? What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t doing a lot of things but no one wants to hear that.”
Claire glared at her. “You need a better excuse than that. Sex doesn’t just happen. You didn’t stumble into him and suddenly you were having sex. It requires a plan, a relationship of some kind. I can’t believe it. How long were you seeing him?”
“We weren’t seeing each other. I told you. It just… It’s not…” Jesse straightened and walked back toward her car. “I don’t want to talk about this with you.”
“Ask me if I care.” No wonder Nicole was upset and crabby. Her own sister and her husband. “Are you in love with him?”
“Oh, please. Give me a little credit. Besides, I have a boyfriend.”
“But you slept with Drew?” None of this made sense to Claire. “Why?”
“I didn’t sleep with him.”
“What? Nicole walked in before you consummated the deal and that makes it okay?”
Jesse looked at her for a long time. “I know you won’t believe me. Nicole didn’t, either. I don’t know why it happened. Why it had to happen. Maybe because I’ve been a screwup my whole life. This is just one more way I’ve made things worse.”
“That’s not good enough.”
Jesse looked at her for a long time, then opened her car door. “Pretty funny. That’s what Nicole said.”
WYATT BUTTONED the back of his daughter’s blouse, then reached for the brush. She signed as he worked, but he pretended not to see. Amy wasn’t saying anything he wanted to hear.
But when she turned to face him and put her small hands on her hips, he knew he didn’t have a choice. He set down the brush and held out both hands, palms up, signing “What?”
“You know what,” Amy signed in response.
He did. He didn’t want to, but his daughter’s message had been clear enough.
“Not a good idea,” he signed back.
Which earned him the inevitable, “Why?”
Why? There were a thousand reasons, none of which he could explain to an eight-year-old.
“I want Claire,” she signed, her face getting that stubborn look he dreaded.
As
