pay was docked double if they weren’t back on time. That was another one of Aaron’s unpopular new policies. Honestly, they could barely get out of the company’s large parking lots in half an hour. Since he’d taken over management, the Nibble Nook’s profits, while consistently respectable, had skyrocketed. They were located just outside the main gate, provided easy access to and from the road and could handle a feeding frenzy during the staggered factory meal breaks.
“Peggy must fill in a lot,” she said after a moment. “I understand one of your commitments included a date with a former winner of the Miss California beauty pageant. In Sacramento. Did you get home at all that night?”
“Not that it’s your business, but that was before Melanie arrived. And I didn’t realize you were monitoring my social life.”
Skylar rubbed unnecessarily hard on a smear of dried mustard. If only it was Aaron’s nose.
“Don’t flatter yourself, Hollister. Gossip in Cooperton is like ivy and blackberry briars, it’s everywhere. You can’t get away from it.”
He crossed his arms. “Maybe you should try harder.”
“Maybe you should remember how impressionable teenagers are.”
“Oh, right, you’re a fine one to talk, Skylar.”
She stared, wondering how he had the gall to say any such thing. “As I recall, you’re the one who did the talking.”
He had the grace to look uncomfortable, or perhaps it was her imagination. She had to wonder...how much did he remember about the past? Was she just one of many girls who’d foolishly succumbed to his questionable charm and good looks? If so, she probably was a stranger. Who knew how many of them he’d discarded like yesterday’s newspaper.
It was reassuring in a way; she didn’t actually want him remembering too much.
* * *
MELANIE HID WITH Karin under the front counter of the hamburger stand, her eyes widening as the argument continued between Mrs. Gibson and Aaron. Eavesdropping wasn’t nice, but she couldn’t remember anyone defending her the way Karin’s mom was doing. It was worth getting in trouble to hear it.
“Hey, I told you Mom was an honest-to-gosh redhead,” Karin whispered. “Listen to her go.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You should have heard when she went off on the principal. The school didn’t want me taking classes with sophomores and juniors ’cause I’m not fourteen yet, and boy, did she get hot. I was waiting in the secretary’s office and wasn’t supposed to hear, but they were talking real loud.”
A stab of envy hit Melanie. She didn’t think her own mother would do something like that. Aaron had acted as if she was buying drugs instead of studying, and now Mrs. Gibson was sticking up for her. Aaron was just like the other family she’d stayed with, though what he’d said about hoping to spend more time together was nice—not that she wanted to hang around a brother she hardly knew.
“It must have been awesome.”
Karin shrugged. “I guess. And I’m glad they gave me the classes I wanted. My...my dad used to calm Mom down when she got upset. He’d tease her, saying she had a hair-trigger temper and knew how to use it. That made her laugh, though I’m not sure why it was funny.”
Her face was really sad, and Melanie didn’t envy her any longer. Karin’s dad was dead; he’d died in a car crash a year ago in August. Her father wasn’t around much, but he was alive.
“I know what you mean. It’s like when they say my mother has a credit card and knows how to use it,” she said quickly. “That’s totally lame. Everybody knows how to use a credit card.”
“Maybe it’s a gag from an old movie. Not a cool movie like Star Trek, but something else.” Karin wrapped her apple core in a napkin and tucked it into her pocket. The argument outside had ended, or gotten quieter, and they couldn’t hear it any longer. “Your brother won’t keep you from coming here, will he?”
“I hope not.” While Aaron hadn’t forbidden her to visit the Nibble Nook, Melanie knew he didn’t like it. “But he’s just my half brother. My mother is our father’s sixth wife. Um...his sixth ex-wife. So we hardly know each other,” she said hurriedly. Aaron was unpopular in Cooperton; she didn’t want anyone thinking they were close.
Karin blinked. “Ohmigod, your dad’s gotten married six times?”
Melanie cringed. People were curious about her father getting married and divorced so often. The newspapers called him “S. S. Hollister, the man with an ex-wife in every port.”
“More than six now. He gets married a bunch.”
“I’m never getting married,” Karin announced. “I’m going to be a scientist and find the cure to everything. Like colds. I hate colds.”
“Me, too,” Melanie agreed, relieved at the change of subject. She liked that Karin didn’t seem to know or care about the crap about her family.
It was strange to feel like an only child when she had four half brothers and three half sisters, all with the same father and different mothers. Well, except for April and Tamlyn, who were twins. You couldn’t talk about “our” parents, just my mother, and their mother, and our father. And some of her ex-stepmothers had kids by other marriages, making it even more tangled.
Of course, since Aaron was the oldest, he probably had it the worst. She wasn’t the youngest, though; Pierre was just seven and he was an obnoxious brat.
“We better get out of here.” Crouching, Karin crept back to the rear storage room to keep from being seen through the windows. She straightened and opened the refrigerator. “Do you want milk or anything?”
“No, thanks,” Melanie said absently. She was looking at a photograph on the wall over a small desk in the corner. It was Karin and Mrs. Gibson, a smiling man she knew was Karin’s dad and two older people. She pointed to them. “Are they your grandparents?”
“Yup. My dad’s mom and pop. They live a few miles away in Trident where they run the Nibble Nook Too. The Nibble Nook also used to be their hamburger stand, but they gave it to my dad when he married my mom.” She sat on the desk and swung her legs as she drank a carton of milk.
“What about your grandparents on your mom’s side?”
Karin shrugged. “She doesn’t like talking about them.”
That made Melanie feel better.
Maybe everybody had family who weren’t so terrific. And most of her brothers and sisters weren’t too embarrassing. There was Aaron, and after him, Jake and then Matthew. Jake and his mother were famous photographers, and Matt was a playboy, same as their father.
After Matt came the twins—April and Tamlyn were gorgeous like their Las Vegas showgirl mother, but didn’t act bigheaded. It would be fantabulous to have their figures. Melanie had never met Oona, who was closest to her in age, but she’d had to watch Pierre once when they were both visiting their father. The little monster. She was personally in favor of putting him in a cage and feeding him through a hole.
“Melanie,” called Aaron from outside the hamburger stand. “Get your books. I’m going home early.”
“Coming,” she called back, wrinkling her nose.
* * *
AARON TRIED TO make small talk with Melanie as he drove to the house, but her monosyllabic responses didn’t help.
One of his biggest challenges was figuring out how much freedom his sister should be given. Her mother had mentioned a need for strong discipline, which struck him as ironic since Eliza only saw her daughter a few weeks out of the year. How would she know? Still, while he didn’t want to treat Melanie the way he’d been treated as a kid, for her sake, he also didn’t want to make the wrong choices.
He