Free The Secret Sin by Darlene Gardner

happen again.
     

    T HE TELEVISION in the family room of the gracious old house where Ryan had grown up drowned out his footsteps as he moved over the parquet floor, approaching the Queen Anne sofa from behind.
    His sister, Sierra, sat with her back propped against the sofa cushions, her right leg, encased in a ski-boot-style cast, resting on a cherry coffee table.
    She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue, then put the tissue to her nose and blew. On the television, a bright blue animated fish was swimming along with a smaller orange-and-white-striped fish in an idyllic-looking sea.
    “Are you crying over Finding Nemo ?” he asked.
    Sierra’s head whipped around, guilt written plainly on features that instantly reminded him of Lindsey. She plucked the remote from the coffee table and clicked a button, causing the screen to go blank.
    She wiped the tears from under her eyes. “I was not crying.”
    “You were,” Ryan accused. “Who would have thought I’d find the Frost Queen bawling over a cartoon?”
    “It’s an animated movie,” she said, “and don’t call me the Frost Queen. I don’t like it any better now than I did in high school.”
    He sat on the arm of the sofa, enjoying this glimpse of his usually unflappable sister. “I’ll stop if you admit you were bawling.”
    She glared at him. “A few tears is not bawling. And if you tell anyone, I’ll have to hurt you.”
    “I should tell everybody. It’d soften your image.”
    “My image is fine just the way it is,” she said. “Where have you been all day anyway?”
    He let her get away with changing the subject, even though he disagreed with her self-assessment. Word around the office was that she was exceptionally bright but abrupt in her personal interactions, both with patients and staff. She wasn’t any different with Ryan. Although only sixteen months separated them, they’d never been close.
    “At the office catching up on paperwork,” he said, reluctant to share the news about Lindsey.
    He doubted Sierra, who’d been a freshman at Dartmouth the year Ryan studied in Spain, even knew Annie had been pregnant. Their mother had been adamant that nobody find out, and Ryan certainly hadn’t told her.
    “Until seven o’clock?”
    “I ran some errands, too,” he said.
    She didn’t ask what sort of errands, probably because she wasn’t interested enough to find out. Ryan had moved back into their childhood home six weeks ago after Sierra had badly broken her right leg in a car accident. Most ofthe time they acted like polite strangers. It might have been different had their parents been present, but their mother had moved into a retirement community after their father’s death two years ago.
    Ryan stood up, reached into the bowl on the coffee table and tossed some popcorn into his mouth. “What are you doing tonight?”
    “Chad’s coming over and cooking dinner for me.”
    Chad Armstrong was Sierra’s long-time boyfriend. A pharmacist at a local drugstore, Chad was a nice enough guy but didn’t say much. Scratch that. A mime could outperform Chad in a debate.
    “You can join us if you want.” The offer sounded more obligatory than sincere.
    “I can’t,” he said, glad he had a reason to refuse. “I have a date with Annie Sublinski.”
    He wondered why he’d told her that. Sierra was back at the office on a limited basis so she probably would have heard eventually. He doubted she would have asked, though.
    “Wow. Really? Did she ask you out?”
    “I asked her,” he said. “Why would you ask that anyway?”
    “Because of the huge crush she had on you in high school.”
    That couldn’t be true. Annie had hardly said a word to him until the night he’d driven her home from one of the graduation parties that sprouted up every June like the yellow wildflowers over the mountainsides. He’d been watching her closely so had spotted her duckingout of the party after a classmate had made a drunken pass at her.
    He’d followed, afraid