My Front Page Scandal (7 page)

As with many issues in their family, the whole truth remained unspoken. The revelation about Daisy’s other daughter had upset Josephine’s ordered vision of the family history. She’d been probing for explanations ever since, under the guise of offering to help clear out Daisy’s closets and desk.

Brooke also wanted to understand. But the task daunted her almost as much as facing her mother’s hidden past.

“I’ll get to it.” She’d been living in the family home like a lodger, keeping to a bedroom and the front sitting room where she’d set up the fish tank, her easel, bookshelves and the TV she’d hauled over from her old apartment. Not healthy. It was time to shed the family ghosts and get on with her life.

“It must be done. Sooner is preferable to later.” Great Aunt Josephine wasn’t one to mince words.

Another must. Brooke’s life was filled with them. Only David had given her a choice.

Was it possible she’d made the wrong one, running out on him? Josephine mistook Brooke’s stricken expression for grief. She patted her niece on the shoulder and made soothing sounds. “There, there. It’s a difficult process, I know.” She’d become more friendly to Daisy after they’d both been widowed. “But one must face up to these issues lest they fester.”

Brooke took a deep breath. “I disappointed my mother. If I’d married Marcus, she might have had a grandchild before…”

Marcus Finch, the son of family friends, had been her boyfriend throughout college. A nice young man, the older generation fondly said. He’d expected to marry her after graduation.

“Now, Brooke. That’s no way to think. None of us know how our choices might have turned out. We must simply soldier on, doing our best.”

She gave her aunt a weak but appreciative smile, recognizing Josephine’s version of her father’s credo of “No looking back, full speed ahead.”

“All we can say for certain is that Daisy was too young to go.” Brooke nodded.

Her mother hadn’t reached sixty, not quite twice Brooke’s age. Until the news had come down about Lindsay, she’d never fully considered that Daisy might have lived an entirely different life before she’d become a Winfield. In retrospect, the odd friendship with Reba and the way Daisy had avoided discussion of her life before marriage should have given Brooke and her sisters a clue. Yet they’d been content with their views of Daisy Winfield as a loving wife and devoted mother, a full-time homemaker with seemingly no regrets.

But now there was Lindsay Beckham. And the Martinis and Bikinis club, which was suddenly looming large for Brooke.

And there was David.

Or at least the memory of him.

Something to build on.

CUTTING HER DAY even shorter, Brooke left work a half-hour early to beat the happy-hour crowd to Chassy. The Beaumont Street bar was owned by Lindsay, who’d turned the rundown neighborhood watering hole into a swank nightclub. The interior was had been updated and polished to a sheen, with a black granite bar and tabletops, Japanese lanterns and a cherry hardwood floor.

Chassy was also the headquarters for the Martinis and Bikinis club. Brooke had attended only one meeting thus far. The evening had been fun despite her reservations about the dares that the other women seemed to enjoy. No way had she planned to sign up to dance on tabletops or wear a string bikini to Old Silver Beach.

Brooke’s interest in Lindsay was what kept her involved. Initially, she and her sisters hadn’t known where to begin after their mother’s drug-induced ramblings had revealed the existence of a fourth daughter. Then Katie had discovered Lindsay’s birth certificate and adoption papers in Daisy’s keepsake box, and suddenly the Martinis and Bikinis club invitations they’d received out of the blue had made a lot more sense.

They’d met with Lindsay to let her know that they’d learned the truth. Katie had tried to rush in with open arms, but Lindsay wasn’t that kind of woman. She was guarded, not easy to know. The sisters had decided that they would stick with the Martinis and Bikinis club to keep the lines of communication open, but let Lindsay set the pace of their relationships. Eventually, she would grow more comfortable with them, and they with her. She would be won over.

They might, one day, feel like real sisters. All four of them.

Brooke swung her bag behind her and slid onto one of the leather and chrome bar stools. “Is Lindsay around?” she asked the bar manager, who was setting out stainless-steel bowls of munchies. Her stomach rumbled. Lunch had been half a banana and a carton of yogurt.

“She’s in back.”

Brooke picked out a couple of cashews. “Thanks.” While she nibbled, she eyed the man whose air of mystery and tendency to garb himself in black had led her to mentally nickname him Zorro. She’d heard the club members calling him Denver.

And drool-worthy. “I’m Brooke Winfield, by the way.”

He gave her a nod. “Denver Langston. May I get you a drink?”

“Maybe later.”

A bartender emerged from the back with a case of bottles. Brooke watched the two men load them into a frosty cooler, then add a bag of crushed ice. Her thoughts were as slippery as the sharp chunks of ice that escaped and skidded across the floor.

Denver wiped his hands on his pants. “Is it later yet?”

Brooke opened her mouth to answer and instead found herself saying, “Did you know that Lindsay is my sister?” She didn’t stop to think that Lindsay might not want the news to become common knowledge, even to her employees. The question had been an impulse. Brooke had wanted to test her reaction, not his. And…nope.

She wasn’t used to it yet. But getting there.

“Is she?” From Denver’s expression, she couldn’t tell whether or not he’d already known. There seemed to be a little something sexual between Lindsay and her bar manager. Electrons jumped whenever they were in proximity.

“Technically, my half sister.”

Denver’s gaze lingered on Brooke’s face. “You look alike.”

She was surprised. Even pleased, though she didn’t know why. Lindsay was arresting in an unconventional way but not beautiful. “Do you really think so?”

He nodded. “Ready for that drink?”

“No, thanks.”

Brooke considered his statement. Lindsay was a cool Hitchcock blonde with a contemporary edge. She was steely. Not rude, but reserved, difficult to approach. Brooke was none of those things. They were both slender and tall—taller than Joey and Katie at any rate—but that was the only resemblance she’d noticed.

Denver gestured with a thumb. “You can go around back if you like.”

Brooke nibbled a nut, stalling. “Why don’t you tell her I’m here?”

“If you prefer.” He put aside a neatly folded bar towel and disappeared through the back entrance, every movement silent and economical.

Brooke swiveled, taking in the club. Early-bird patrons were trickling inside.

Many of them stopped at the bar to place a drink order before wandering to the booths and tables. A waitress came out and began circulating. No sign of Lindsay.

She’s busy. Brooke rooted through her bag for change. I’m practically a nobody to her.

But she didn’t believe it. Lindsay was not disinterested in the Winfield sisters, only cautious. She was dealing with the sudden shock of having three new sisters after being an only child and orphan for all of her life. That had to be even more difficult to absorb than Brooke’s learning that she wasn’t the oldest after all.

She still didn’t have a firm handle on that, yet her identity had begun to shift. Not that she’d ever completely give up being the responsible one—that was too ingrained in her character. But maybe she didn’t have to be the proper example all of the time.

Brooke fed a quarter into the jukebox and searched the song list for Nirvana.

“Come as You Are” was appropriate. She and her sisters were not only rediscovering their mother, they were learning to accept Lindsay.

The music poured its energy into Brooke. She did an impulsive whirl and an experimental hip shimmy. Her elbows flew akimbo, bringing to mind a childhood chant. I must, I must, I must increase my bust.

She retreated to the stool, chuckling at herself. Where had that come from? Never well-endowed, she’d learned the exercise mantra from Reba-of-the-D-cup-implants, of all people, and had practiced in the back yard behind the shed, until her cousin Eve had caught her and tattled to the entire neighborhood. One of the more humiliating events of her adolescence.

“What’s funny?”

Brooke spun to face Lindsay, who was looking over the bar with her brows arched and her lips pulled into a tight curve. “Not much. The trials and tribulations of puberty.”

“Hmm.” Lindsay’s eyes were arctic blue. “I suppose there are worse trials to endure.”

“Not for me. I was the first of us to reach adolescence. The process wasn’t pretty.” Brooke stopped, realizing that she’d forgotten again. Lindsay was the first. “Uh, you know what I mean.”

While Lindsay measured her reply, she tapped a nail on the bar, keeping time with Nirvana. She had long fingers, long limbs, like Brooke, who warmed at the thought that Denver was right—they bore a sisterly similarity.

“It wasn’t pretty in my case, either. For different reasons, I suspect.” Lindsay didn’t wait for Brooke’s response, only flicked aside a swoop of her pale hair with the shrug of one straight, slender shoulder. “What are you drinking?”

“Nothing.” Brooke shuddered. “I’m still recovering from last night. I had most of a bottle of Barolo.”

Lindsay seemed amused. “I thought Katie was the party girl.”

“I can bust a move when I need to.” I must, I must…

“Bust a move?” Lindsay was definitely amused. “You’re so out of it,” she chided.

“I know. I’d even say I was hopeless, if…” Brooke blinked. Oh, so that was why she’d sought out Lindsay.

“If what?”

“I met someone. The night before last. He smashed his motorcycle in front of Worthington and I brought him to the hospital to get patched up. He was, umm, really kind of scrumptious. But not my type. Too dark and rebellious and hell-bent for leather, if you know what I mean.”

For a couple of seconds, Lindsay wore a “Why are you telling me?” expression.

Then she scowled. “Wait a minute. Are you talking about David Carerra? He’s been in the papers the last couple of days.”

Brooke blinked. “In today’s papers, too? I—I haven’t seen them.” She was afraid to ask. “Was there a photo of me?”

“You? Not that I remember. Why? Ohhh.” Lindsay snapped her fingers. “There was one in today’s Insider. Carerra was entering a hotel with a woman. But she wasn’t you.”

Brooke felt the blood drain from her face.

Lindsay stared. “Was she?”

“It wasn’t what you think.” Or maybe it was. “The first night we met, I happened to be wearing this wild designer dress, leather, very short and revealing, nothing I’d ever wear under normal circumstances, and there were the shoes—it’s a wonder I didn’t break an ankle with the shoes. Then last night, he surprised me. I went out with him on a whim.” Brooke stopped to take a breath. “The point is, I wasn’t acting like me. That must have been what David liked. Don’t you think?”

“If you weren’t yourself, who were you?” Lindsay asked carefully.

“I don’t know. A little bit Katie, a little bit Joey, a little bit you.”

Lindsay studied Brooke. “And possibly a little bit you?”

“I rode around the city on a back of a motorbike with the wind whipping up my skirt. That’s not the tiniest bit me.”

“Are you certain?”

An odd sensation dipped and swirled inside Brooke, riding the music that had always been her favorite. “I had been, until lately.”

“A lot’s changed for you lately.” Abruptly, Lindsay turned to go. Pressed front to front, she slid past Denver, who held two frosted pilsner glasses aloft. He cast a lingering look after her.

“A lot’s changed for all of us,” Brooke said to herself. She moved restlessly, swiveling to face the crowd, then swinging back again when a man in a Harvard club tie smiled at her. She didn’t want a Harvard man. She wanted the adopted son of Italian sugar beet farmers.

A male hand appeared on the bar beside hers, plunking down a bottle that bore the label of an obscure microbrewery. “What are you drinking?” Harvard asked.

“I’ve been sober for eighteen days, ever since I left jail, but if you insist…”

He backed off, beer in one hand, the other upraised.

“Nice brush-off,” said a familiar woman on a neighboring stool. Sherry, a club member who’d made Chassy her second home. She was loud and brassy in a way that reminded Brooke of Reba Koldowski. “But he was cute. Do you mind if I take a shot?”

“Be my guest.”

“Prob’ly out of my league.” Sherry didn’t let that stop her. She preened on the bar stool, showing a lot of leg and cleavage even in her work clothes. “Let’s give him a look at the goods first. You know?”

“I’m vaguely familiar with the process.”

Sherry laughed as if the comment was one of the best jokes she’d heard in days.

“Keep coming to the Martinis and Bikinis meetings. You’ll get to be an old hand.”

Lindsay had said that the club was about challenging yourself, not snaring dates, but the process did seem to serve both results. Certainly for Katie, whose dare had put her in Liam’s arms—and bed.