Holiday In The Hamptons

“Hey, if he was hot enough I’d be willing to stretch it out a few days, at least until we’re both dying of thirst or starvation.”

“How are you ever my twin?”

“I ask myself the same question frequently.” About as frequently as she counted her blessings. How did people survive without a twin? If her childhood had felt like being trapped in a windowless room, Harriet had been the oxygen. Together they’d discovered a problem really did seem smaller if it was shared, as if they could carry half each and make it weigh less. And if Fliss knew, deep down, that her sister shared more than she did, she comforted herself with the knowledge that she was protecting Harriet. It was something she’d done all her life. “It’s because I’m your twin that I know your dreams as well as I do my own. Yours would be a white clapboard beach house, picket fence, a sexy doctor who adores you and a menagerie of animals. Forget it. If you want that kind of relationship, you’re going to need to read about it in a book. And now back to business. I think the Bark Rangers could legitimately offer pet sitting and even possibly dog grooming and obedience training. Think of it as an extension of what we do. We can offer packages where we—”

“Wait a minute.” Harriet frowned. “Are you saying you think romance only exists in books?”

“The type of romance you want only exists in books.”

“You only have to look at our brother to know that isn’t true.”

“Daniel fell in love with Molly. There’s only one Molly. And they’re basically together because their dogs are best friends.” She caught her twin’s eye and shrugged. “All right, they seem happy, but they’re the exception, and it’s probably because Molly is a relationship expert. That gives her an unfair advantage over the rest of us.”

“Maybe instead of expanding the business, you could take more time for yourself. You’ve been working at top speed since we started this business. It’s been five years, and you’ve hardly paused to breathe.”

“Six years.” Fliss grabbed a yogurt out of the fridge. “And why would I want time to myself? I love being busy. Busy is my drug of choice. And I love our business. We have freedom. Choices.” She nudged the door shut with her bare foot and saw Harriet wince.

“I love our business, too, but I also like the parts of my life that have nothing to do with the business. You’ve made a huge success of it, Fliss.” She hesitated. “You don’t have anything to prove.”

“I’m not proving anything.” The lie slid off her tongue while the voice inside her head shouted more loudly than usual. Useless, worthless, never make anything of yourself…

“Don’t you ever want more out of life?”

“More?” Fliss thrust a spoon into the yogurt, deciding it was time she shifted the conversation. This was starting to feel uncomfortable. “I’m young, free, single and living in New York City. What more is there? I have the world at my feet. Life is perfect. I mean, seriously, could life be any more perfect?”

Harriet looked at her steadily. “You didn’t do it, did you?”

Fliss’s heart started to pound. Her appetite vanished.

This, she thought, was one of the disadvantages of having a twin. She could hide the way she was feeling from everyone else in the world, but not from her sister.

She put her yogurt down and decided she needed to work harder at it. She didn’t want Harriet to know that she was terrified. It would make her anxious. “I was going to, I really was. I had the building in sight and I’d memorized what I was going to say—”

“But?”

“My feet wouldn’t go that way. They were glued to the spot. Then they turned around and walked in the opposite direction. I tried arguing with them. I said, ‘Feet, what do you think you’re doing?’ But did they listen? No.” And since when had she been so pathetic? She gave what she hoped passed for a careless shrug. “Please don’t say what I know you’re about to say.”

“What was I about to say?”

“You were going to gently point out that it’s been three weeks since Daniel bumped into him—”

“Seth,” Harriet said. “At least say his name. That would be a start.”

The start of what? She didn’t want to start something she’d worked hard to put behind her.

And she couldn’t blame her sister for pushing because she hadn’t been honest, had she? She hadn’t told Harriet how she felt.

“Seth—” His name stuck in her throat. “It’s been three weeks since Daniel bumped into him—Seth—at the vet practice. The plan was that I’d take control of the situation and go and see him in order to avoid an awkward encounter in the street.”

“You’ve changed the plan?”

“Not officially. It’s more that the plan isn’t working out. It’s awkward.” It was okay to admit that much, wasn’t it? Finding something awkward wasn’t as bad as finding it terrifying. “And I don’t think an encounter in the street could be any more uncomfortable than a face-to-face in the clinic.”

“I can imagine it feels a little awkward, but—”

“A little awkward? That’s like calling a hurricane a light breeze. This isn’t a little awkward, it’s mega awkward, it’s—” She floundered for a description and gave up. “Forget it. No word has been invented that correctly reflects this situation.” And even if it had, she wouldn’t be using it. She didn’t want Harriet to know how bad she felt.

“‘This situation’ being bumping into your ex.”

“You manage to make a highly complex and delicate situation sound simple.”

“That’s probably the best way to look at it. Don’t overthink it.” Harriet lowered the puppy to the floor and stood up. “It’s been ten years, Fliss. I know it was a traumatic time.”

“No need to dramatize it.” Why was her mouth so dry? She took a glass from the cabinet and poured herself some water. “It was fine.”

“It wasn’t fine. But everything that happened is all in the past. You have a whole new life, and so does he.”

“I never think about it.” The lie came easily even though a day rarely passed when she didn’t think about it. She also thought about what Seth’s life might have looked like if he hadn’t met her and occasionally, when she was indulging herself, what her life with Seth Carlyle could have looked like if the circumstances had been different.

Harriet studied her with a mixture of concern and exasperation. “Are you sure? Because it was a big deal.”

“As you say, it’s been ten years.”

“And you haven’t been seriously involved with a man since.”

“Haven’t met anyone who interested me.” Anyone who measured up. Anyone who made her feel the way Seth had made her feel. There were days when she wondered if what she’d felt had been real, or if her teenage brain had augmented those feelings.

“It upsets me when you don’t share your feelings with me. I can understand why you hid everything from Dad, and even from Daniel, but this is me.”

“I’m not hiding anything.”

“Fliss—”

“All right, maybe I hide some things, but there’s nothing I can do about that. It’s the way I am.”

“No. It’s the way you learned to be. And we both know why.” Weary, Harriet stooped to remove Fliss’s shoe from the puppy’s mouth.

Fliss stared at her sister, the urge to confide momentarily eclipsing her quest for privacy. “I—I think about it sometimes. About him.” Why had she said that? If she opened the door a crack, her emotions were likely to come pouring out and drown everyone around her.

Harriet straightened slowly. “Which part do you think about most?”

That fateful birthday. The kiss on the beach. His mouth and hands. The laughter, the sunshine, the smell of the ocean. Passion and promise.

She could still remember it vividly. Almost as vividly as she remembered everything that had followed.

“Forget it. I don’t really think about it.”

“Fliss!”