Secrets & Lies

by Lauren Landish

  “Watch it, oniichan,” I half-growl, straining as I pull on the rope that hangs from the rafter. I'm no superwoman like Katrina though, and I end up wrapping my feet around the rope to help me climb all the way up. “I can still drop feet first onto your head from here. That might even get through your thick skull.”

  “Doubt it,” Jackson teases, then smiles. “Come on Andi, we all can see it. You two are diggin' on each other. Hardcore.”

  “You're picking up Katrina's lower Ninth Ward talk,” I reply as I lower myself down the rope. When I'm low enough, Jackson smacks me. It's supposed to be my leg, but he catches me in the butt, and I'm up the rope again. “Hey! That's sexual harassment! And pervy on your sister!” I grumble.

  “Only if I meant something behind it,” he says, not apologizing in the least. “Seriously though, why get bitchy about it? He's not deformed or anything.”

  “He's kind of our brother, remember?” I hiss, touching the overhead beam and lowering down again. Jackson lets me off the rope, which is good because my hands are burning. “Or did you forget that part?”

  Jackson shakes his head, unconcerned. “Nope. What you apparently forget is that Carson Sands shares exactly zero DNA with you or me. Hell, Peter never even acknowledged Melissa as his. Now, if you had a thing for Melissa I'd be concerned, not because she's a woman, but because of the DNA thing. But Carson is family only through an emotional bond with 'Lissa.”

  “And she's got issues of her own, so I don't need to be fucking with her head any more than it's been fucked with,” I add, going over and starting a set of jumping lunges. Seriously, where did Katrina come up with some of this shit? It's good torture though, I gotta give her that. “I don't want to hurt her. You like her too, admit it.”

  “We all do,” Jackson agrees, bringing over the log that I'm supposed to use for my next walk across the barn. “One more of these, and we start the Spiderman Walks.”

  “You wife loves pain,” I grunt as I try my best to actually get off the ground with each step while I try to balance the log in my arms. “If I check out your dojo in Baton Rouge, would I find other implements lying around?”

  “Hey, the handcuffs and whips are just for training purposes only,” Jackson shoots back, making me laugh. Still, his remark is too close for comfort, and I shut up, forcing myself to focus on my workout. “Seriously though, I've got no problems with it, Andi. Katrina either, we talked about it this morning. Think about it, okay?”

  Jackson leaves while I go through the solo portion of my exercise, my mind spinning with what he talked about. Think about it? Thinking about Carson is about all I do in my spare time, and for the past few days I've had a shit-ton of it. Melissa isn't the only one who's having trouble sleeping through the night. Like her, my solution involves Carson joining me in bed, but unlike her, my motives aren't innocent.

  I drop into the dust for my yoga moves and meditation, and I'm mostly done when the door to the barn opens again. “Jackson, I said I'd... oh, sorry 'Lissa.”

  “It's okay,” Melissa says, coming in. She's dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, although I see she's got her untied work boots on, which means she wants to work on her sculpture in the other half of the barn. Fair enough, I've been hogging her workspace for far too long.

  “I'm almost done, sorry 'Lissa. Thanks for letting me use your barn again,” I say, getting up and grabbing my t-shirt. I've started taking after Katrina, stripping down to just a sports bra during my workout sessions, since the barn is too hot otherwise.

  “No, please... stay?” Melissa says shyly. “I mean, you don't have to go. With Carson gone, and Nathan not around either, I feel best when you're hanging out with me. It helps with my work, too.”

  I nod, and use my towel to wipe off. I've already gotten used to Melissa's total lack of shyness when it comes to her body around the house. All of us have gotten partially flashed at least once. Actually, Katrina got a full moon two days ago, all of it totally by accident. So when Melissa drops her jeans before pulling her coveralls off their hook, I barely flinch, and instead just pull my t-shirt on while she gets dressed. “Okay. Mind if we hit the exhaust fans though? I could use some air.”

  “Sure!” Melissa says, perking up now that she knows I'm going to hang around. I can't say I love her, not yet, but I do like her a lot. The past week has also shown me that Carson has the devotion and patience of a saint to be able to have dealt with 'Lissa's challenges for so long. It's good to see, and comforting as well, since it reinforces the other feelings that I have about him. “Actually, would you like to help?”

  “Me?” I ask, surprised. “You must have the wrong half-sister. I've got absolutely no artistic talent.”

  Melissa laughs and goes over to her workbench, pulling out a giant sponge sanding pad. “Actually, all I had planned today was some sanding and polishing work on the copper parts. I'm not so crazy that I need to do all of it myself. And I'll do the power tool part, so you get to come behind with this sponge and the cleaning compound. Nobody can screw that part up.”

  “Oh, I don't know, I'm pretty sure Jackson could,” I joke while we get started. As we go to work, I'm amazed at how focused Melissa is as she works. Watching her face open up, the peace that comes to her and the strength, it's like looking at a whole different person. Outside the barn she's usually so timid and insecure, but in here she's completely confident. It's nice to see her like this, and I wish she could be like this all of the time.

  Melissa goes over the whole portion she's working on with a big buffing wheel attached to a power drill while I watch. The piece looks like it'll eventually be an angel. The noise is too loud for us to say anything, so we don't talk while she's working for the next half hour, although I'm perfectly fine just watching.

  Finally, Melissa sits back, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand. “There we go. Now, time for the buffing compound. You still up for it?”

  “Wax on, wax off, Mr. Miyagi,” I crack, and Melissa's smile dims a little. “Sorry. Yes, I'm ready.”

  As we work, Melissa's smile reappears, and she gives me some glances. “You know, getting to know Jackson, Katrina and BA is nice, but I've really appreciated getting to know you this past week, Andrea. You seem to understand me better.”

  “Maybe, but remember, we're not totally the same. I can barely remember my mother at all. You at least have some good memories, right?”

  “I know,” Melissa says, scrubbing with her pad right next to me. “I don't know which is better though. I wish I could get through a week without disturbing Carson with my nightmares.”

  “I wish I could get through a week without wondering if my mother really did jump, or if she was thrown off that roof,” I reply without thinking. Melissa's pad slows, then stops, as she looks at me in shock. I take a deep breath, and nod. “There's evidence that I dug up that my mother was murdered, not that she committed suicide. I can't prove it, but I believe it.”

  “Murdered? Was... was Peter involved?” Melissa asks, her eyes wide with disbelief.

  She doesn't know how many times I've wrestled with that same question, all the sleepless nights with only that question keeping me company, and never finding an answer. I eventually decided to try not to dwell on it any further, but to still try and take down Peter. Regardless of whether he had my mother murdered or if he just pushed her to suicide, he killed her either way.

  I can't say that though, so instead I bear down with my scrubbing pad, huffing. “I'd be a pretty cold-hearted bitch to have stayed in his house for eighteen years without trying to stab him at least once, if I knew for sure.”

  Melissa blinks, going silent before going back to work. When she talks again, I can hear that she's trying to force being cheery, but I'm still raw over her last question. “So you guys all seem to be really into fitness.”

  “Handles the stress. You poured all your pain into becoming one hell of an artist. Jackson, until he met Katrina again, poured it all into being an asshole with a penchant for bodybu
ilding. Katrina became a goddamn ninja. Me? I poured it into hitting the books. I mean, I'm half-Asian, I'm supposed to be good at school, right?”

  Melissa doesn't say anything else, and I feel bad as I realize that she wasn't trying to rub me the wrong way, she was just trying to find out more about me and to share about herself. We finish the polishing in near silence, and when we stop, she takes the sponges and tosses them toward the workbench. I watch her miserable face for a moment, then go over, putting my hand on her shoulder. “Melissa, I'm sorry. I know you didn't mean to touch a nerve.”

  She shakes her head, shy and insecure again, which is even more painful than knowing I hurt her. This barn, her artwork, has been her refuge for her entire life, and I pretty much went and pissed in the middle of it. Great job, Andrea. Real fucking smooth. “It's okay.”

  “It's not, but maybe we can talk later about it?” I say, trying to be cheery. “I mean it, I'd like to share more.”

  Melissa looks up, hope in her eyes, and gives me a hesitant smile. “Really?”

  “Really. Just let me go calm down, and maybe after dinner, the two of us can have a girls' pow-wow. If you want, we can even invite Katrina, she's got stories that'll make your hair curl.”

  Melissa shakes her head, then takes my hand. “No, that's okay. I like Katrina, but I'd like to get to know you more first. Besides, I heard her and Jackson talking while I was getting ready, I think they're planning on... a date?”

  I chuckle, nodding. “They're still head over heels for each other. I guess with a baby, they have to plan romantic time now. Maybe they roped Carson into babysitting? If not, I guess you and I will be on BA duty tonight. How's that sound?”

  “I'd like that. Okay, I'll see you later then. I've got some welding to do first before I wrap up here.” Melissa smiles, more confident again, and points toward the pile of steel and copper plates, along with the welding rig. “I'm putting the wings on soon.”

  “Sounds good.”

  The arrow flies straight, but I'm still getting the hang of this bow. There's too many fucking bells and whistles for my taste. I learned on a stick bow, just a piece of fiberglass and plastic, and this thing that Carson found for me to use has gadgets, sights, and every other thing under the sun hanging off of the aluminum handle. Never mind that the limbs are made of carbon fiber, and the string is actually made of Kevlar. Also, despite his best efforts, the lowest weight bow Carson could find me has a forty-eight pound draw.

  All of this throws off my aim, and another arrow goes high, hitting only the upper edge of the target. Thankfully, I haven't put any arrows so high as to totally miss the safety backstop, although I have no fucking clue how I'm going to get that one down from the wooden beam at the top.

  “Your pull is good, but your aim point is way off,” I hear behind me, and I turn to see Carson standing in the field behind me, his own bow in hand, dressed as I've never seen him before. Normally, he dresses like you'd expect an art dealer to dress, not quite prissy, but certainly cultured. I've seen him in jeans once or twice this week, but normally it's twill and tweed for Carson. Not that it makes him look weak. He still makes my knees go watery when he looks at me with those silvery eyes of his. The contained power, the self-assured glances, the contemplative questions hidden in his face and his eyes, like he's trying to decide if he can truly share himself with me the way I think he wants to. It's heady.

  But now, in the golden red twilight, he's not the cultured art dealer. Instead he's wearing heavy BDU pants and jungle boots, along with a long sleeved t-shirt that hugs his slim, but still muscled torso. He's got a forearm guard on his left arm, and his right hand is partially covered with a three finger shooting glove. “I said that you're shooting high.”

  “No shit, Robin Hood,” I reply, taking another arrow out of the quiver I've staked to the ground. “Takes a while to adjust to new stuff, you know. Especially when you've got more accessories than a pimped out Lincoln on this thing.”

  “You know you can take them off,” Carson says, coming next to me. He holds out his hand and I hand him the bow, and he examines it. “What's screwing you up?”

  “Loaded question,” I reply, grinning, but at the look in his eyes my grin falters. “Okay, fine. I learned bare bow. All this extra stuff is a giant fucking mess.”

  “Okay,” Carson says, reaching into the quiver he's got strapped to his right leg. He pulls out a tiny Allen wrench and starts taking off the sight before simply unscrewing the other pieces. It takes him about three minutes before he hands it back to me, mostly stripped. “I can't take off the arrow rest, that's held on with adhesive. Besides, I'd recommend that you shoot off it anyway, otherwise it can fuck with the arrows.”

  “Thanks,” I say, taking the bow back before setting it against my quiver stand. “Help me retrieve what I shot?”

  “Sure. Then five and fives? I wanted to get a little work in, too.”

  “Deal.” I head toward the target area, and with a little difficulty pull out the eight of the nine arrows I can reach, pointing toward the tenth high above me. “Sorry about that one.”

  “I'll get it tomorrow,” Carson says. I struggle with the last of the arrows, and he takes a little rubber gripper out of his quiver and grabs the shaft, pulling it out easily. “Nice accessory, I got it as a throw in last time I bought arrows.”

  “Didn't think you had any problems with grip on your shaft,” I tease, and Carson's face goes dark. “What? Just giving you shit.”

  “That's exactly why I came out here, actually,” Carson says, handing me the one arrow I missed. His face is solemn, and I see the protective side of him flaring up in the sunset light. “Melissa told me about your little work session in the barn.”

  “Yeah... I feel bad about that,” I admit, walking with him toward the shooting line. “I keep forgetting that she doesn't have the same sense of sarcasm I do.”

  “She doesn’t do sarcasm,” Carson counters, his voice intense. He steps to the shooting line and takes out his first arrow and brings up his bow, nocking the arrow before drawing. He holds his draw for two seconds then lets fly, his arrow thwocking home dead center of the target. “And she's letting you into her life more than anyone, other than me. Faster, too. She's vulnerable right now, Andrea. I don't want to see her hurt.”

  “You think I want that?” I ask hotly. “I like her, too! I've felt like crap since I let my mouth get away from me in the barn.”

  “I know,” Carson says, drawing his next arrow. He shoots, and again smacks the middle of the target. “Which is why I'm asking you to please try and control that wiseass inside you. I can take it, and I understand why you do it. But with 'Lissa, just be honest. She can understand and appreciate honesty.”

  “And why do I do it, Dr. Phil?” I ask. Carson fires his remaining three arrows before answering. When he does, there's no desire in his voice, none of the dark attraction that I've been feeling. Instead there's an intelligence, a wisdom that sounds more suited to someone older than his twenty-five years, and it's just as attractive and sexy as the other feelings I get from him.

  “You do it to protect yourself. We've all got our compensation methods. I spend way too much time and money on target shooting skills that have very little real world application. Well, my pistols might actually get used, I hope not though. But I shouldn't need to spend nearly fifty thousand dollars on pistols and about half that on archery and crossbows just to get decent enough to protect my sister. Your shots.”

  I take my place on the firing line, nocking my first arrow, and try to use what I can recall from the mess that was my last ten, taking my half-breath and holding it before letting fly. Not too bad, my horizontal drift is fine, but I'm still high, though not as bad. I adjust, and over the next four arrows I walk my shots down, the last one burying in between two of his arrows in the X ring. “That's more like it.”

  A pattern emerges as we keep trading groups of arrows back and forth. With his familiarity with the gadgets, his groups are tighter,
but I'm not far behind. After letting one arrow go that hits with a distinct sound on impact that tells me I actually hit one of his tightly grouped arrows, he whistles softly. “You've got talent.”

  “All sorts of it,” I agree, smirking. “What? My sarcasm extends that direction, too. Maybe I'm still trying to cover some feelings.”

  “Maybe. Maybe I am, too,” Carson says, the two of us walking toward the target. We see the X-ring first, and Carson shakes his head. “Shit. One of my carbon fiber shafts, too.”

  “You've got the cash,” I reply, pulling my arrow. I look at the tip, which is unblemished. “So what are you covering up?”

  “Hmm?” he asks, pulling his arrows. I follow suit, but one of them is deeper, driven through the foam padding of the target and punching into the plywood backer. I tug, but my hand starts to slip, and Carson's there, his hand over mine. As soon as our skin makes contact, we stop, looking at each other in the sunset. His eyes gleam, and he unconsciously licks his upper lip. Letting go, he steps back, shaking his head. “All right, fine. Fuck it. Andrea, I'm having problems dealing with the fact that I'm so attracted to you that I feel like I'm barely in control of myself whenever we're in the same room. Hell, I was wondering if I could even come out here to say something to you about Melissa. Don't tell me you don't feel the same way, I see it in those amazing eyes of yours.”

  “Eyes? You're the one who's got a set of silver-grays that leaves me feeling asthmatic, and you're talking about my eyes?” I ask, glad to at least let it into the air. “You know, in case you were wondering.”

  Carson sighs and looks at the arrow shaft in his hand, then whips it down, the point burying into the ground at his feet. “So what the hell do we do? Because the one thing I want to do about this is the one thing that I feel is the wrong damn thing to do!”

  “And what is that?” I ask. I'm feeling a bit better, I'm used to having men off balance, but I'm still not totally back to normal. At least this isn't one-sided, I can be happy about that.