The Sister-in-Law: An absolutely gripping summer thriller for 2021 by Pamela Crane (best romance novels of all time .TXT) 📗

Until now.

For months I had dreaded the possibility of ever reliving those awful nights, and yet here I was. Stuck in my own personal hell. And Candace wasn’t making it any more tolerable.

I felt myself nodding off from my mere three hours of sleep the night before when Candace’s voice suddenly jarred me awake.

‘How about a toast?’ Candace raised her water glass from her place beside Lane at the dining room table. A large, three-wick candle burned as a centerpiece, while a platter of hacked up chicken filled one end of the table and two bowls of side dishes filled the other.

‘To my beautiful wife,’ Lane adulated, clinking his wine glass against hers. ‘And this wonderful meal she cooked.’

I lifted my glass in a halfhearted salute. How do you applaud a child’s effort when they come home with a big, fat F on their test? Good job! Well done on that lovely failing grade! Because that was exactly what Lane expected me to do with Candace over tonight’s family dinner. I simply couldn’t praise mediocrity. It wasn’t in my nature.

Holding up their milks, the kids exchanged a confused look. They knew the meal was terrible too.

‘Do we get wine?’ Elise asked.

‘Are you of legal age yet?’ my mother, sitting at the end of the table, said with a flash of bleach-white teeth. She looked overdressed for this meal in her purple pantsuit over a gray silk blouse. But that was Mom; always proper, always put together.

‘I dunno, Grandma, am I?’

‘If your mom’s okay with it, one sip each.’

I nodded permission for my mother to offer Jackson first, then Elise, a sip. They winced and coughed with disgust. If anything, the dry merlot would deter them from ever wanting to drink alcohol again.

‘To Candy,’ my mother added with a flourish, her glass raised, ‘and this wonderful family meal.’

I nearly choked on the bite I had been chewing for the last five minutes. The roasted chicken was bland, dry, and overcooked, but I swallowed it anyway with a grim smile. I aim to please. Across from me, Elise’s chicken remained untouched along with her burned broccoli – how does one even burn steamed broccoli? – but her instant mashed potatoes were about halfway eaten. On my left, Jackson’s food was stirred together in a mushed medley without a single bite taken. I couldn’t blame him.

‘Why aren’t your kids eating?’ Candace directed the question at me.

I pointed my fork at the kids. ‘Ask them. They can speak for themselves.’

I hadn’t intended such kick to my reply, but my irritation was oozing out. I knew all about women like Candace. Trap a good man with a pregnancy. Then use guilt and empty promises to force marriage on him. Top it off with a hefty dose of make-believe. Play house. Lure him into compliance with insincere efforts of date nights and adventurous sex so that you could later use it against him. This was the foreplay before ripping his heart apart when you announced you’re leaving him … and taking half of everything with you.

I knew her game well. I had come close to leaving Ben once, but I didn’t follow through. I was more concerned about losing him than I was about losing my dignity. Dignity wouldn’t pay for my huge house, or keep our family together, or give me freedom to run the PTA. I liked my house, my intact family, and my status, so I turned my head the other way when Ben began drifting.

Candace, on the other hand, I could see taking everything and running. Just as I could see her faking her way through this silly family meal. We have a big announcement to make, I had overheard Candace telling my mother on the phone earlier today. And I’d like to share the news with you over a homecooked dinner tonight. I wondered just how much Mom knew about the whole charade.

At the head of the dining room table sat Lane, at the other end, Mom. Or as Candace called her, Monica. Mom had always insisted that Ben call her ‘Mom’, but had never corrected Candace after that first ‘Monica’ came out as my mother swept in through the front door, unloading goodie bags into the arms of each of the kids. I wondered if it bothered Lane that Candace would never fit into our family.

Elise sat at the corner closest to Grandma, chatting about her bestie at school, her favorite class, the boy she had a crush on, Nathan, God help me. Grandparenthood fit my mother like her tailored suits. After missing out on so much of my and Lane’s childhoods, owing to the stressors of single parenting and working, she certainly made up for it with Elise and Jackson.

Children gravitated toward Mom. And she gravitated toward them. Maybe it was the relatable way she knelt down, always face-to-face as she asked questions she knew they’d have answers to. What’s your favorite animal, sweetie? Do you like candy, honey? Every child was a sweetie or honey or sugar or pumpkin. I had told her she never should have set the precedent of always showing up with gifts when she saw the kids, but their happy squeals of ‘Grandma!’ every time she popped over muted anything I said.

‘Grandparents are supposed to spoil their grandkids,’ she always insisted. And spoil them she did. But one look at those smiles – and knowing how sugar and toys helped bury the unjust pain they had already suffered in their young lives – and I let them have it. Kids deserved a win every once in a while, even if it gave them a sugar buzz right before bed.

‘Elise, Jackson,’ Candace threw her words between Elise and Grandma’s conversation about how all boys are trouble, especially Nathan, ‘don’t you like the food I worked hard to prepare?’ Candace shifted up straight as she said it, as if being an inch taller than she already was would demand their respect and obedience.

As