was too warm, the air conditioner wasn’t working again. Amanda reached for her glass of iced tea and took a long drink as she studied her sister. Pam looked awful. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying. Her hair was in a tangle as if she’d forgotten to brush it and misery pumped off of her in waves.
Right now, Amanda told herself, she should be furious. Should be raging at her sister for all the damage Pam had done over the years. But the bottom line was, Amanda’s heart was already too broken to break again. And fury seemed to require more effort than she had the energy for at the moment.
“God,” Pam said softly, “I was always so jealous of you.”
“Why?” Amanda shook her head and stared at her. “You’re my big sister, Pam. I always looked up to you.”
Pam winced. “And I resented you. You were always the favorite. With Mom and Dad, with our teachers at school. With Nathan.”
“I don’t even know what I’m supposed to say to that,” Amanda said quietly. “Mom and Dad loved us both and you know it.”
“Of course they did, and I’m an idiot for clinging to all that junk from when we were kids and letting it chew on me until I lost it.”
“Pam …”
“There’s nothing you have to say. It was all me, Mandy,” Pam whispered, unconsciously using the name Amanda hadn’t heard since she was a little girl. “I got so twisted up inside, I couldn’t see anything but my jealousy of you. And even if you don’t believe me, I am really sorry.”
“I do believe you.” Funny. She could accept Pam’s apology but she couldn’t trust Nathan’s proclamation of love. A very weird day.
Pam looked at her from where she was sprawled in the overstuffed, faded chair. “You do?”
“Yeah.” She shook her head tiredly. “Not that it’s okay with me, what you did. And we’re going to have to talk about this more, figure out where we go from here, but you’re still my sister.…” Heck, Amanda understood better than anyone what it was to be so crazy about Nathan that you could lose yourself in the emotional pool. And, there was the fact that Amanda was going to need her sister in the coming months. She could raise a child alone, but she wanted her baby to have a family. An aunt to love him or her.
Pam drew a deep breath and let it out on a relieved sigh. Her lips curved in a tired smile that looked quivery at the edges. “I didn’t expect you to forgive me so easily.”
Amanda tried to find a return smile, but couldn’t. “I didn’t say it would be easy. You’re paying for the damage to the diner.”
“Agreed,” Pam said.
“And,” Amanda continued, since she had her sister at a disadvantage at the moment, “you’re taking over the paperwork again.”
Pam nodded. “I only dumped it on you because you hate it. I actually sort of like it. I was always good with numbers.”
“I know, I used to envy that,” Amanda mused, realizing that for the first time in years, she and her sister were having a real conversation. “Maybe you should think about going back to school. Getting an accounting degree.”
Pam thought about that for a second and then smiled. “Maybe I will.” She pushed her hair back behind her ears. “Gotta say, Amanda, you’ve been a lot nicer to me about this than I deserve.”
“You know,” Amanda said thoughtfully, “you’re lucky you picked today to dump all of this on me.”
“Why?”
Amanda frowned and tapped her fingernails against the glass she held. “Because I’m too tired from dealing with Nathan at the moment to work up any real rage for you.”
“I’m so sorry, Amanda,” Pam said again. “I know you and Nathan were having a hard time and I didn’t make it any easier. But he made it clear today that you two were getting married and—”
Amanda went still as stone. “He what?”
Pam shrugged. “He said you would be marrying him as soon as he told you his plan and—”
“He told you he was going to marry me even before he bothered to mention it to me?”
“Yeah, apparently.”
There was a part of Amanda that was excited to hear it. After all, he’d seen Pam before he knew about the baby. So he had planned to propose anyway—that was something. It didn’t change the fact that he’d mentioned nothing about love, though, until he was forced to by the situation.
“Well,” she murmured, “it doesn’t change anything. I already told him I’m not going to marry him just because he decrees it to be so.”
“You said no?” Incredulous, Pam’s voice went high.
“Of course I said no. I’m not going to agree to marry him just because I’m pregnant again.”
“You’re pregnant?”
Amanda wrapped her arms around her middle as if giving her unborn child a comforting hug. “I am, and I can raise my baby all by myself. The baby will have a mom and an aunt, right?”
Smiling, Pam said, “Absolutely. Aunt Pam.”
Amanda nodded. “I can do this and I can do it without Nathan Battle if I have to.”
“If he lets you,” Pam muttered.
“Lets me?” Amanda repeated, staring at her sister. “Did you just say if he lets me?”
Pam lifted both hands. “You know Nathan. He doesn’t usually hear the word ‘no.’”
“Well, he’ll have to hear it this time. I’m going to live my life my way. I’m not going to be told what to do and where to go and who to love.” She walked over to the window and stared down at Royal. It was dark and streetlights created puddles of gold up and down the street. Overhead, the moon hung like a lopsided teeter-totter and the stars winked down on the world.
And over on the Battlelands, the man she loved was alone with his plans. She hoped he was as lonely as she was.
“Sure am glad the diner’s back open.”
It was a couple of days later when Hank Bristow lifted a cup of coffee and took a long, leisurely sip. He sighed in pure pleasure before picking up his coffee and heading for a group of his friends at a far table. “Didn’t know what to do with myself when you girls were closed.”
“We’re glad to be open again, too, Hank,” Amanda assured him as he walked away.
She glanced at her sister. Pam was like a different person. The old bitterness was gone and she and Amanda had spent the last couple of days building a shaky bridge between them. Someday, Amanda hoped the two of them would be close. It wouldn’t happen overnight, of course, but at least now there was a chance that the Altman girls were finally going to have a good relationship.
“Earth to Amanda …”
She jolted a little and, laughing, turned to look at Piper, sitting on a stool at the counter. “Sorry. Mind wandering.”
“It’s okay, but since I’m starving, how about a doughnut to go with this excellent coffee?”
“You bet.” It was good to have friends, Amanda thought as she opened the door to the glass display case and set a doughnut on a plate. Piper had been the one Amanda went to after Nathan’s abrupt proposal. And Piper was the one who had insisted that Nathan did love Amanda, that he was just being male and sometimes that had to be overlooked.
Amanda wasn’t so sure. She’d missed Nathan desperately the last couple of days. He hadn’t called. Hadn’t come to her. Was he waiting for her to go to him? How could she?
She set the doughnut in front of Piper