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

shaky but firm grip. ‘Is tonight date night? What’s on the agenda?’ she asked with a raised eyebrow, then sent the kids off to the kitchen for homemade chocolate chip cookies. ‘Go help yourselves to cookies while your mommy and I chat!’

She always spoke with such enthusiasm to the kids, even over the simplest things.

A moment later the din of Elise and Jackson fighting over the remote, followed by the headache-inducing sound effects of cartoons filled the small house.

‘So?’ Mom probed in the sweet-and-sour way she always used to bait me for information. ‘Do you have a special night planned for Ben?’

‘You could say that.’ Or I could say the truth, which was that Ben had a special night planned, but not with me. But I had a surprise of my own for him.

‘No need to lie to your mother.’ She possessed the unique ability to see through me. I spent my adolescence trying to mask my tells, but she had maternal X-ray vision. ‘You can be honest with me. I know you’re’ – she cupped her mouth and lowered her voice to a whisper – ‘having marriage troubles.’

‘Mom, we’re fine. We just need to figure some things out.’

‘Like how to keep his dick faithful?’

‘Mom! The kids!’

She waved off my protest. ‘Oh, they can’t hear anything over the racket of that television. I just wish you’d leave that man once and for all. I know what he’s doing behind your back. Lord knows after being married to your father I can sense such things, and you deserve better.’

‘I don’t want better. I want Ben. And we’re going to work things out. You’ll see.’

Mom’s lip curled down in a scowl. ‘Whatever you say, dear. Tell Ben I said hi. Or go to hell. Whichever suits you.’

‘Mom—’

‘Don’t defend him. I know what you’re doing, and you better not cut him any slack, Harper. That cheating bastard doesn’t deserve it. Neither does the homewrecker he’s sleeping with.’

I heaved a sigh. ‘What makes you so sure he’s cheating?’

Glancing at the beige carpet, she fluffed her hair, fiddled with her necklace, anything to avoid looking at me. ‘I wanted to tell you, honey, but I didn’t want to break your heart. A couple weeks ago I saw him … with a blonde tramp. I spotted them out at lunch when I was with a client.’

‘What? How could you not tell me?’

Mom rolled her eyes. ‘I didn’t want to say anything until I knew for certain. It was lunch and it could have been his secretary, for all I knew. Why cause drama if there wasn’t any? But I think all of these late nights “working,”’ – she air-quoted the word – ‘is proof enough of what he’s doing. I would know. Your father did it to me too.’

I sniffled back the pain threatening to leak from my eyes.

‘And what if it’s true, Mom? I don’t want to lose him. I’ve already lost so much. I don’t know what to do.’

Mom frowned at me, anger in the stern clench of her jaw. ‘I’ll tell you what you should do. You show that man no mercy.’

Chapter 28

Candace

Does it scare you that I watch you when you sleep?

Does it frighten you that I inhale you when you’re close?

Sometimes it terrifies me how intensely I feel about you.

There are three rules to successful stalking. One: Stay out of sight. Two: Be discreet. Three: Don’t drive a car that your stalkee would recognize. Apparently Noah hadn’t read the handbook, because he was breaking all three rules. But I would not be shaken by a man who didn’t even know how to properly stalk me.

I had just finished my afternoon laps in the pool, minus a few due to pregnancy fatigue, and had thrown on my coverup and sandals. The mailman had just made his rounds, and I couldn’t wait to open the package of custom baby onesies I had ordered online. Harper called them extravagant, I called them adorable.

The path along the side of the house led to the driveway, where the mailman had left the package. I picked it up and headed toward the mailbox to grab the rest of the mail. Across the street an old man sat on his John Deere riding mower, zipping up and down his lawn wearing nothing but jeans, a cowboy hat, and his wrinkled skin for a shirt. Two doors down a Chihuahua yipped frantically at a car parked in front of the house. Something felt familiar about the car. A black sedan, strikingly similar to the one from the hair salon. Although it faced away from me, I could make out a silhouette in the front seat.

How blatantly suspicious.

I had just about enough of this crap, and I was fuming for a confrontation. Noah’s passive-aggressive threats were no match for the new me. The stalking, the text, now showing up at my house! Hell no. I had endured his fists, his anger, his fake apologies for years. No more! Since leaving him, I had found the fight within me, and I was finally ready to use it.

Tugging my coverup down to hide my bikinied rear end, I marched across the street toward the car, my sandals angrily flapping against the concrete. The suburban cowboy watched me storm past his freshly-mown lawn and lustily leered – yuck – and the dog ran to the corner of its yard nearest to me, still yipping, but stopped at the edge of the grass, as if held back by an invisible fence.

The sideview mirror was angled away from the driver’s face, and the sunlight streaking across his window sliced him into fragmented shadows. By the time I reached the bumper I was jogging, my sandals nearly sliding off my feet with each step as I clung to the mail with both hands. When I closed in on the back door of the car, he took off, his tires squealing, leaving a black patch of tread in their wake. The mail