The Lemon Sisters Read online

  Millie ran down the hall. They heard the bathroom door shut and then the lock clicked into place. And out of place. And back into place. Four times.

  So maybe Millie was more Brooke’s Mini-Me than Mindy’s . . . Brooke didn’t know much about kids, and she was certainly in no position to tell her sister how to live her life, but things did seem out of control—something Mindy had never been a day in her life. Her car was parked in Brooke’s short driveway, the doors open. Two little boys were rolling around on the grass. One was naked.

  “Yours, I presume,” Brooke said.

  Mindy was staring at them like one might stare at an impending train wreck. “Yeah. Want one?”

  She ignored the way her stomach clenched. “Tell me more about Linc.”

  Mindy sighed. “I keep up the house, work at the shop thirty hours a week, and handle all the kid and life stuff. I’m the heavy. The bad cop. And I get that Linc and his brother, Ethan, had to take over their dad’s medical practice when he had a stroke, but that wasn’t in our life plan. And now Ethan’s having some sort of midlife crisis and taking a lot of time off, which leaves Linc working seventy hours a week. When he finally walks in after a long day, I’m invisible. And the kids, they love the good cop. I want to be the good cop.”

  “So be the good cop,” Brooke said.

  “I can’t be the good cop. I’ve tried. I’m too anal.” Mindy lowered her voice to a whisper. “I want to be you, Brooke. You get to bounce all over the planet, living out wild adventure after wild adventure, and you get paid to do it. No wonder you never come home.”

  It wasn’t adventure that kept her away from Wildstone. Shame, maybe. Okay, definitely. And regrets. Lots of regrets. She’d been haunted by them for seven years, throughout which she’d stayed away from her childhood town, only four hours north of here.

  But sometimes in the deep dark of the night, she dreamed about going back.

  Pushing those thoughts aside, she stared into her sister’s red-rimmed, despairing eyes. She knew despair. She knew it to the depths of her soul, and some of the pent-up resentment she’d been holding for Mindy and her very perfect life shifted slightly. It didn’t fade away, not exactly; more like it just moved over to make room for a teeny-tiny amount of compassion and empathy. “Why don’t you head into the kitchen and pour yourself a glass of wine,” she said. “I’ve got the kids for now.”

  “You do?” Mindy asked with clear disbelief.

  “Yeah.” If there was one thing Brooke had down, it was the ability to bullshit her way through any situation. She’d summited Mount Kilimanjaro, the roof of Africa. She’d been one of the few to get to and photograph the limestone formations of the Stone Forest in China. She’d gone swimming with giants—migrating humpback whales—along the waters of Ningaloo Reef in Australia. Certainly she could handle her sister and her kids. She waited until Mindy had vanished inside before calling out to the boys wrestling in the grass. “Hey.”

  Neither of them looked at her.

  She put two fingers in her mouth and whistled. Loudly. All destruction and mayhem stopped on a dime and two sets of eyeballs turned her way. “Inside,” she said. “Everyone to the couch.”

  The boys met up with the freshly washed-up Millie in the living room, and they all sat, even the naked one. Brooke winced, but let it go. She opened her laptop and scrolled her way to a menu of Disney flicks to stream. They were rated by viewer age, which was helpful. “Okay, so you’re almost three,” she said, pointing to the nudie-patootie, Maddox. “And almost four, right?” she asked the one with clothes, which meant he was Mason. He nodded, and she turned to the oldest. “Millie?”

  Millie didn’t answer.

  Brooke looked at Mason.

  “She’s almost eight,” he said.

  Brooke looked at Millie. “Is this movie okay?”

  Millie didn’t answer this question, either.

  “You have to call her Princess Millie,” Mason said. His knee was bloody. “She only answers to Princess Millie.”

  “Right.” Brooke sent a glance toward the kitchen, but heard nothing from Mindy. Either she’d made a run for it through the garage, or she was hiding out, drinking her wine in peace. Brooke went to her backpack, pulled out the first-aid kit she always carried with her, and grabbed the antiseptic.

  Mason covered his knee. “Only need a Band-Aid.”

  While she could appreciate the sentiment more than he knew, the cut was dirty. She doctored him up and looked at Millie. “Back to the movie. The Lion King or no?”

  Millie shook her head. “The dad dies and it makes Mad Dog cry.”

  “Yeah, me, too,” Brooke said, and scrolled to Toy Story 3.

  “That one makes all of us cry,” Millie said. “And you can’t play Frozen, either. Mason will sing it for three straight days until Momma says she needs a pill.”

  They finally settled on Cars 3. Brooke brought Maddox his clothes.

  “Don’t forget a diaper!” Millie said. “Or we’ll all be sorry.”

  Right. A diaper. Brooke helped the kid into everything. She then tented a big soft blanket over the back of the couch to the coffee table, pinning it in place with several heavy books, one of which was filled with her own photography. From the old days, back when she was actually having the adventures Mindy thought she was still having.

  “Yay, a fort!” Mason yelled enthusiastically.

  Maddox barked with equal enthusiasm, flashing a smile and a devastatingly adorable dimple while he was at it.

  “Aunt Brooke is the best,” Brooke heard Millie whisper to her brothers.

  She smiled with pride, and felt a sense of warmth and affection that had been all too rare in her world lately. But along with the goodness came something else. A sense of dread. Because blood or not, family or not, this couldn’t happen. She couldn’t fall for Mindy’s kids, no matter how much she wanted to.

  “Mad Dog!” Millie suddenly cried out, voice muffled like maybe she was holding her hand over her mouth. “You pooped!”

  This was followed by a giggle. Mad Dog, presumably. Thank God for diapers.

  “You’re supposed to do that in the bathroom!” Millie yelled. “Mom said!” And then she yanked the blanket down around them to dramatically gasp in some fresh air.

  Mason and Maddox were rolling with helpless laughter.

  “Boys are disgusting,” Millie announced.

  Brooke shrugged. “You might think differently in a few years.”

  “No way.” She jabbed a finger at Maddox. “He needs changing. If you don’t do it right away, he gets a rash and screams bloody murder.”

  Brooke slid another look toward the kitchen. Still nothing from Mindy. So she scooped up Maddox and then nearly staggered back from the stench coming off the sweet little boy.

  At the look on her face, Maddox giggled again and drooled down her front.

  “You know what would be even funnier?” she asked, walking him out to Mindy’s car to find his diaper bag and then changing him outside on her porch lounge so that she didn’t have to hazmat her place afterward. “If you used the toilet like a big boy and showed your siblings what you’re capable of.”

  He stared up at her, not committing to anything, but clearly considering it.

  When she was done, she brought him inside, sprayed some Febreze, and re-created the blanket fort. Then she walked into the kitchen.

  No Mindy.

  Troublesome. Brooke filled a bowl with cut-up apples and a pile of almond butter for dipping, and thrust it into the fort.

  It was immediately accepted with squeals of delight.

  Proud of her aunting skills, Brooke went in search of her sister. It was with great relief that she found Mindy in her bedroom, sprawled out on the bed with a bottle of wine.

  No glass.

  “You’re drinking in my bed,” Brooke said, trying not to hyperventilate.

  “Do you mind?”

  Her OCD sure did. “Um—”

  “Mom called,” Mindy murmured,