Never the Cowboy's Lover by Amelia Wilde & Theresa Leigh

Author:Amelia Wilde & Theresa Leigh [Wilde, Amelia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-04-29T18:30:00+00:00

11

My sister is standing in front of me.

I know her in an instant. I don’t even have to confirm we have the right house, because the woman on the porch is so clearly related to me.

Even from down on the driveway I can see she has my eyes. Her face is wider, more heart-shaped, but we share the same narrow chin.

Looking at my sister is like looking at my reflection distorted in a funhouse mirror. I can see myself in there, and the similarities make the differences jarring. Exciting. I can’t wait to hug her and compare the size of our hands. Is she a finger waggler too?

I lift my hand and hesitantly wave my fingers.

My sister doesn’t lift hers in response. She crosses her arms, almost hugging herself. “So you’re Julie May?”

She sounds disappointed. No—worse. She sounds angry. My shoulders must have sagged because Luke’s hand immediately presses to the small of my back. “Want me…?” he murmurs, not needing to finish the question before I nod. Yes, of course I want him to smooth this over. This isn’t how I’d pictured it in my head at all and I’m afraid if I open my mouth right now, my voice will crack and I’ll start sobbing.

He swings into action as only he can. “Ma’am, it’s so good to meet you. I’m Luke Bliss and this here is Julie May Collins. We only found out about you last week, so it’s sure a pleasure to be standing in front of you now.”

“Nice to meet you,” she says faintly. She allows Luke to take her hand, but when he shakes it, her arm flops up and down bonelessly, like a fish. “Did y’all come far?”

“Not far at all,” I venture. I throw this line out hopefully, hoping she’ll catch it and run with it. As I lay awake last night unable to sleep, I imagined her being flummoxed by how close we lived to each other. “As I live and breathe!” my dream sister yelped. “All this time we were practically neighbors!”

My real sister does nothing like this. She gives us both a tight, pained smile, then sighs like she’s being asked to stay late at work. “I s’pose y’all had better come in.”

This is not the welcome I wanted, but maybe she just needs to warm up to me. Once the evening wears on, I’m sure we’ll get closer and closer.

That’s not what happens. If anything, things only get worse the longer we stay in Laura’s house. She barely makes eye contact, greeting every attempt at a joke with pursed, angry lips.

I try to ask her questions about her upbringing, but she stonewalls me at every turn. My questions are met with shrugs, or outright disagreement. “No, there aren’t,” she snaps at one point when Luke brings up whether there might be more of us out there, more siblings to find and reunite.

By bedtime I feel hollowed out inside. I desperately want to go home, but I get the feeling declining Laura’s grudging hospitality would only make her hate me more.

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