The Other Sister (Sister Series, #1) (31 page)

She shook her head, and slowly, carefully rose to her full height. She shucked off her ruined garments, and slid her skirt into place and tucked in her
crumpled blouse. Her chest hurt. It ached and burned, as did her lower extremities and her left shoulder. She glanced at the decorative mirror hanging over the couch, and gasped at the reflection.
Who was that?
It could not be her. This woman with tangled, ratted blond hair, falling from her once neat French twist. Her clothes wrinkled, and in disarray. Her eyes haunted, harried, and vacant. She was as vacant inside as the reflection of her was.

She had once been beautiful. Everyone thought so. She was Lindsey Bains, General Travis Bains beloved, adored, perfect daughter. She was everything that Jessie was not. And she reveled in being so. In having her father’s complete and utter devotion and approval. She had disdained of her rebellious, trouble causing, slutty sister. As Jessie deteriorated year after year from the age of sixteen on, she had done nothing but agree with her father on what a horrible person and sister Jessie was. She understood as her father so desperately tried to do right by Jessie and discipline her. Correct her. Stop her.

Little did Lindsey accept, her father was beating her sister. He was using her to repay debts owed to a variety of high power men who her father cultivated long-term relationships with. Senators, army officers, cabinet members, there was a vast many who he forced teenage Jessie to have sex with. And what had Lindsey known as her sister started acting out? Nothing. None of it. She was off at college on an ROTC program. She was then finishing her army service, set to make it a long-term career, with hopes of rising in rank like her father. Perhaps not as far, but as far as she could, all with the end game to make her father proud. She used to yearn for his shinning recognition.

She met Elliot
Johanson when she was twenty-four- years old. She had been swept away. And her father loved him. So she had thought she had found and married the perfect man.

And then, she learned the truth about Jessie. And in one afternoon, her entire life, identity and future was changed, altered and damaged. Everything she believed was wrong. Jessie wasn’t bad or insane. Jessie was the tragic victim of so much, to this day, she could hardly grasp what her sister had lived through. First her father, and later a brutal, three days of torture and rape before soldier Will Hendricks rescued her. Will who saw it all. And he was who finally believed Jessie, helped Jessie and rescued Jessie from the monster that was their father. It was Will, not she, who finally
saved Jessie. What a joke that all those years, she, Lindsey Bains, was considered the good sister. She wasn’t. She was shit. She was total and complete chicken shit. She never stuck up for her sister as their father bullied and berated her. Though she had not known of the physical abuse, she had known of his terrible verbal assault on Jessie. But… she had been too afraid her father would turn on her to do anything for Jessie.

And the thing was, she really hadn’t known. Any of it. It was a startling, shocking discover. And the longer it went on, the more she learned about her father, the more her life had been torn apart. Her father was truly a monster.

But he hadn’t been to her.

She never knew what to do with that knowledge. Why didn’t her father abuse her like he did Jessie? Why did he act so gallant, and noble towards her, yet pimp out Jessie? How could she never see what was right under her nose? Though it came out that Jessie was not really the generals daughter, it still didn’t explain how he could raise Lindsey will decency and Jessie with horror. It was impossible to reconcile the two generals she now knew about.

Denial.
That was how. And perhaps why she had married Elliot, never once seeing his controlling, rage-fueled, domineering and violent side. Not until she was married to him. And he started the very night he took her virginity in the honeymoon suite of the hotel he married her in. She started to learn right off who she had married.

Elliot didn’t want her to be in the military. It wasn’t lady like. It wasn’t something he foresaw his wife doing. Her father had just been disgraced at the time her term of service was up. So she was honorably discharged and no longer a soldier.

She glared her face in the mirror.
Some fucking soldier
. Look at her. A beaten, fragile, sad woman who couldn’t even a raise a hand in defense to tell her husband not to rape her in middle of the afternoon on their living room floor.

No doubt Elliot had spontaneously dismissed the entire staff, probably acting as if he wanted to surprise his wife in a romantic afternoon interlude. They probably all left here smiling in their hands at how sweet Elliot was and how lucky she was to have him. He never touched her if anyone was home.

She turned from her image to upright the table. She picked up the broken lamp and ran it to her car. She’d discard it in some faceless dumpster so no one would realize it broke. She replaced the lamp with a flower arrangement to cover the hole it created. She slowly, made her way around the room dusting and vacuuming, straightening the scene of her latest humiliation.

She quickly showered all of it off her too. Her soiled make-up and the semen that pooled and ran down her legs. Elliot’s loving attempts to create a child. After five years of marriage did he really think she would ever let an innocent be under his care?

The phone rang as she was making herself presentable for tonight’s dinner. It was a fundraising charity event at Georgetown University. Elliot was
the guest of honor. Therefore she had to be at her absolute best.

“Lindsey?”

“Jessie! Oh my God, it’s so good to hear your voice.” She collapsed on the floor careful to not disturb the covers on their king size bed. Tears pricked her eyes again. She pushed her lids shut. Her heart filled with lead. She wanted to tell her sister. So badly, she wanted to say, simply:
he beat me, Jessie. He might have dislocated my shoulder. And it hurts so much. I hurt so much
.

But she didn’t. She never said a word.
Denial.
It was what she had learned best at the hand of her father. She could keep quiet about anything.

“Hey, sis, are you okay? You sound
kinda weird.”

Jessie was casual, honest, open, funny and direct. She was everything Lindsey wasn’t. She wasn’t quiet, obedient, reticent, and willing to accept the unacceptable, as good, little Lindsey Bains was.

Lindsey licked her lips and forced a fake smile and her voice to come out even. “No, not weird. Just getting ready for a dinner tonight.”

“A dinner. What dinner now is Elliot the golden boy at? I swear you two are royalty. Here and there and everywhere, aren’t you?”

She bit her lip to keep the cry of anguish back. Jessie was teasing her. But there was nothing teasing about what Elliot did to her. “Yes. You know how badly he wants this. So we do this.”

Jessie laughed. “Oh, don’t I know it. President Elliot
Johanson, of the United States of America. I can’t believe I’ll be related.”

Despite everything, their entire fucked up history, and the serious consequences their child hood caused both of them, Jessie never lost her humor. Her zest and spark for life. She could always now, make Lindsey smile. How Jessie had guessed that’s exactly what Elliot had planned for
the long term, she didn’t know. She never told Jessie. She told no one because Elliot said not to. He was, for now, running as the state governor. But he had far more reaching goals than that. This was just the beginning. “Not there yet.”

“Oh, you’ll get there. Elliot doesn’t take no, now does he? So, you’ll be first lady of the United States. And you’re made to be, Lindsey. No doubt.”

“You… think he doesn’t take no for an answer?” Her voice faltered. Jessie had noticed Elliot was controlling?

“Well, no offense,
Linds, but Elliot gets his way no matter what. He even tries with Will.”

She pressed on her tongue to keep from adding to Jessie’s description. “So, what’s up. Any reason you’re calling?”

“I want you to come here. It’s been a really long time. And I may need to go on bed rest soon, and I want nothing more than to hang out with you.”

Simple. Direct. Honest. That was Jessie. She was
seven months pregnant. She had been talking the entire time how she wanted Lindsey to stay with her and be there for a few weeks after the baby was born. Will, her soldier rescuer turned loving husband, thought it was a good idea. For obvious reasons, of Jessie’s history, he worried how she’d deal with this baby. She’d had to give her first baby up, because it was the result of her being raped when she was kidnapped.

“You know I’d love to, but there is so much going on here.
And isn’t it a little early yet for me to come?” And my husband won’t let me.

“I know. But the election isn’t for a so long and you said Elliot has all that traveling to do before he really starts campaigning.
We could hang out before it all gets crazy. For both of us. And won’t it look good you’re off to help the hero’s baby? After all isn’t Will Hendricks as his brother-in-law, part of Elliot’s appeal?”

Jessie was sharp. She saw that, huh? That Elliot liked the national hero that was Will Hendricks due to how he saved, then married Jessie and finally took down the father that so publically destroyed Jessie. Elliot did not like Will personally. Mostly, because Will was quiet, honorable, courageous, brave, kind, gentle and… well, everything that Elliot was not. Will used his strength as super hero would, not his position to do whatever he wanted as Elliot did.

But… maybe, just maybe Elliot would let her go if she presented it like that. He had traveling come up to before he started really campaigning.

“I’ll discuss it with him and let you know.”

“You mean ask him?” Jessie’s tone was light, as if kidding. But she sensed there was something Jessie wasn’t saying.

“I mean, I’ll let you know.”

There was a pause over the line. Jessie sighed. “Okay, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have sounded so bitchy. I’m full of rocketing hormones. I just hope you’ll come. Even if it’s for only a week. Whatever time you can get. That’s enough.”

She shut her eyes and gulped in her sob. She wanted to come too.

“I’ll try,” she whispered.

“Sis, you know, there’s nothing we wouldn’t do for you.”

We, being Will and her. She knew. She did. But they couldn’t help this. Or save her. They’d have to know first.

“I know. I’ll come soon.” She didn’t know if was true. But for a few moments, today of all days, she needed to believe it.

Stay tuned to my website for
The Good Sister
release date.

The Seaclusion Series published through The Wild Rose Press

Poison
Book One
- Buy Link:
http://amzn.to/ZBrTvM

On the run from her violent ex-husband, Cassie Reeves will do anything to keep her son safe, even if it means turning to a man she betrayed a decade ago. John Tyler now hates her as much as he once loved her—but Cassie has no choice.

John's quiet life as a small town doctor in Seaclusion, Washington has no place in it for the woman he turned his back on ten years ago. But when Cassie and her son land on his doorstep, he can’t turn them away. The longer she stays, though, the harder it is to remember why he stopped loving her.

With her ex-husband closing in, Cassie soon realizes that only she can end what he has started.
And as John and Cassie's mutual attraction reignites, she vows to do anything to protect her son and grab the happiness that has escaped her for so long.

Excerpt:

Cassie sighed and pushed the flowers onto the
counter between them. She tidied her desk, avoiding his gaze. Finally she stood and gathered her things. He watched her. He didn’t like hearing Tim was scared his mom wouldn’t come home from work. What kind of knowledge was that for a kid to have? Hell, he didn’t like that Cassie was scared that she wasn’t going

to come home from work. He didn’t think anyone could fake the fear she had of the innocuous floral arrangement. Cassie was just about to hustle past him, when he put a hand on her arm to stop her. She paused, looking at his hand, then up into his eyes. Her lips trembled. She quickly dropped her face from his view. She raised a hand to wipe at her cheeks. Tears? Damn it all to hell. A stab of genuine sympathy filled him. He put a knuckle under her chin and forced

her to look up him. Her eyes were glazed in moisture. She was trying not to cry. He swallowed, unsure why her efforts to hold back tears from him put a knot in his throat. Had he become so heartless with his anger that he couldn’t let her fear a man she seemed to think wanted to physically harm her?

“Cassie—”