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

praying Lane had returned home. As the vehicle continued on down the road, I exhaled, unaware I had been holding my breath. Damn, I missed him, and it had only been a day. When had I fallen so far for him? I thought back to the day we met, a day that wouldn’t stand out to me until much later. He had left only a small imprint on my life back then, but now he was the mold I wanted to fit my life into.

When I decided he was The One, I had already given my heart away, so I lent him mine to borrow; I didn’t expect him to keep it. It had been too easy to fall for each other. We both had empty gaps that needed to be filled, so he picked a needy, jaded woman and I picked an easy target. But it became real somewhere along the way, despite the secrets.

The mug of tea on the bistro table in front of me had turned cold and bitter. Like my heart had become, thanks to Noah. Then I found a second chance. But now I’d lost it. Now everything felt wrong and nothing felt right and all my anger and pain and regret and loss swirled inside my skull like a tornado. The iron frame of the bistro chair dug into my lower back. I needed sleep. I cupped my tummy and felt a swish inside me. Was that the baby kicking back at me? A fighter – she got that from me. The baby needed sleep. But I needed Lane more.

I counted my mistakes along with the stars and held my breath while waiting for a sign that everything would be okay. I was a rear-window hostage, crying in the back seat while watching home dwindle into the background. Lane was home. It was my fault that I lost in love, wasn’t it? Every mistake was a noose that I wrapped around my own neck. I held the end of the rope. I kicked the chair out from under me. I squeezed until I died, then squeezed until I brought myself back to life, only to repeat the process.

My grandmother once told me that heartbreak makes the heart stronger, if you play your cards right. But I had never been good at poker, at pretending I was strong. I gave too much and loved too deeply. I got overinvolved. It was a bad habit of mine, letting love control me.

Closing my eyes, I remembered my second-grade crush, Damian. It was the first day of school, and he smiled at me and said he liked my dress. The dress came from a secondhand store, but in that moment, I felt like a princess. I told my mom about my feelings for Damian as she tucked me into bed that night.

‘Mommy, I’m in love!’

She had laughed it off, like she did every time I had fallen for a new boy since kindergarten. ‘Your heart is like a bottle floating in the sea, letting the tide of emotions take it where it wills,’ she told me. We were sitting in my bedroom on my rainbow, tiger-print bedspread. I was always crushing on someone new, but Damian felt special. By the fourth day of school I’d discover he wasn’t. ‘You fall too easily,’ she added. ‘You can’t give boys control over your heart. That’s yours to keep, darling.’

Words of wisdom, Mom. Sitting up, I decided I wouldn’t let Lane do this to me, make me wait for him, pine for him. I didn’t need him, I might not have ever really wanted him. He was a convenience, that’s all.

The penny in my hip pocket dug into my thigh. I was outgrowing all my clothes lately, and loving it. I pulled it out and stared at its brassy polish. There was a wishing well in the town I grew up in, a forlorn wooden well that needed a paint job and some TLC. When things were hard – harder than usual – Mom would take me to the well, hand me a penny, and tell me to make a wish. I wished for all sorts of things: a pony, Mom and Dad to stop fighting, for my current crush to like me back. I now realized true love was like throwing a penny in a wishing well and believing it would make a difference, a fantasy.

I had been blinded by the beauty of make-believe, but I wouldn’t toss my penny in again. It was mine now, and it would stay in my pocket. I was finished with fairy tales. I had thought our love stood a chance when Lane reached out to me, a needy woman who wounded with words and ceramic plates. I was heavy in his arms, and he had held me anyways. But the reality was there was no ‘till death do us part’. I would always be one mistake away from losing him, and I had only myself to blame.

It was the fastest slow-fall from grace.

Another flutter of movement inside my tummy startled me. My eyes opened as I pressed my fingers against the quickening. The baby was moving, swimming inside me. Shifting uncomfortably on the tiny cushion, I propped my feet up on the bistro chair cattycorner to me and relished the tremble of tiny arms and legs stirring within. Then the utter stillness of the street, the call of crickets, and the Sherpa blanket draped over me lulled me into sleep …

***

With $500 and a mishmash of clothing stuffed in the duffel bag at my feet, I watched my derelict small town in rural Pennsylvania blur into wheat fields and rugged hills outside the Greyhound bus window. My breath left a moist patch on the glass, and in it I drew a heart. Love – that was my goal. All I needed was already buried within me, inside my womb.

This time I wouldn’t fall in love. I would choose carefully, a man I could