Anna Marie Sorenson's Secret Affair (3 page)

As it turned out, Cameron’s easy-going, steady calmness was a perfect foil for Pepper’s ambitious and forceful nature. His soothing, low-key personality tended to blunt her demanding aggressiveness and bring some tranquility and order to her fast-paced life. He certainly proved to be much more suited to raising children than his wife, whose already highly sensitive nerves were always set on edge whenever the kids were around. Cameron’s composed and easy

temperament was more able to withstand kids’ constant bickering at one another and incessant demands for attention.

Pepper looked at her watch. “They should be here by now. I bet they’re still before the county line. I blame it on Cam. He drives so slowly. I can’t stand riding with him, the way he drives makes me want to scream.”

Anna Marie did not point out that when Pepper drove, people do actually scream, those who are in the car terrorized by her demon driving as if she were on the Indy 500 race track, and those outside of the car frantically avoiding getting hit.

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“I wonder if I should have gone with the filets,” Pepper said. “Perhaps I should have chosen the veal like I originally wanted to. And he might not like mushroom, or risotto, for that matter.”

Anna Marie watched her sister walk around the kitchen as she second-guessed herself.

That was very rare for a person like Pepper, who always was so self-assured and confident of every decision she made.

“Are you nervous about this dinner?”

“I guess I am. It’s the first time Cam’s brother, Dallas, is coming to dinner. He hasn’t been home for more than five seconds in thirteen years, gallivanting around the world on those missions of his.”

“That’s right. I don’t think I ever met him. He wasn’t at your wedding.”

“No, you haven’t. The times that he was here, he was only here long enough to stop by his parents’ house and then going off gallivanting across the seas or report back to Washington D.C. for his next order. The two times I met him for lunch with Cam at SFO and the other time, he and Cam stopped by my restaurant before Cam took him back to the airport. I don’t know why he bothers to have a family if he’s going to be so cavalier about them.” Pepper melted a third cube of butter in a frying pan to begin mushroom sauce. “Cam thinks that his brother walks on water. Apparently, Dallas was the original wunderkind in his youth. He excelled in everything he did, sports, academics, girls, partying. He graduated from the Naval Academy in Annapolis with top honors. Because of his high I.Q., nerves of steel, and physical strength, the government tapped him for Special Forces. I don’t know. Sometimes the way Cam talks about him, you’d think he invented the wheel.”

Anna Marie noted the acidity of her sister’s tone. Pepper hated to be eclipsed by anyone.

Anna Marie herself had never met Cameron’s younger brother, but she had seen pictures of him at Cameron’s parents’ house. Although she could not remember the details of his face, she had an impression of a lean, swarthy face that would have been quite good looking if the man had smiled in the picture. The face had not been a face of privileged ease and confidence that his brother’s face wore. Instead, his expression had been dead-on serious, as if he faced life as a grim struggle between life and death.

Great, Anna Marie thought as she sipped her cosmopolitan, that’s all she needed at the table, another overly serious person.

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“I suppose you still blame him for ruining your wedding,” Anna Marie commented.

Pepper had not taken too kindly the brother’s canceling out on her and Cameron’s

wedding as the best man a month before the wedding.

“The bastard. All because he was on some stupid mission,” Pepper said with resentment.

“So, we had to settle for one of Cam’s disgusting college friend. Dick or Donnie something.

Remember how he botched up his speech? And I had written it all out for him, too.”

Anna Marie hid a smile as she drank her cocktail. She remembered the best man. Dougie was his name, and one of the handful of men on earth who was not awed by Pepper’s tall, dazzling beauty. In fact, she now remembered, Dougie had disliked Pepper intensely and her tendency for bloody mindedness.

By the time he had to make his speech, Dougie had been quite drunk, having totally

ignored Pepper’s strict orders not to drink until he had made his speech, weaving his way up to the microphone. He had let out a huge belch as he stood on the stage, setting peels of laughter from the kids in the room. Then he proceeded to noisily dig in his pockets for Pepper’s written speech, still emitting uncontrollable burps as he did so, setting the kids off again as well as some of the adults behind their hands. In her seat, Pepper’s teeth were grinding in rage as she struggled to maintain the newlywed smile on her face. Dougie finally pulled out a crumpled paper that looked to have dirt and grease stains.

“Ah, here it is,” he said unfolding the paper. Then it took another several seconds of him squinting his eyes hard at the paper through the thick champagne haze to make out the writing.

“We are here, tonight, to honor the new Mr. and Mrs. Trenton. As Cameron and his new wife face bravely the new horizon of marital life…” Dougie broke off. Still swaying, he said, totally forgetting who gave him the paper, “God, who wrote this crap?” He crumpled up the paper and threw it to the ground. “Well, folks, you know what we’re here for, to celebrate the hitching of Cameron and Mandy. When he told me he was getting married to her, he told me that he was the happiest man on earth, even when she wasn’t very good at giving men head. But Cam said that now that they were married, there was plenty of time for him to improve her technique.

Personally speaking, though, if I found myself married to such a strident harridan, I’d think that I had just been handed down a life sentence. That’s why I tried hard to talk Cam out of it. I told him that just because he’s been banging a girl for several months doesn’t mean he has to marry her.”

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Pepper rose to her feet. “I’ll kill him!”

Sitting beside her, Anna Marie had her hand pressed hard to her mouth, her shoulders shaking as she desperately tried to suppress her laughter.

Cameron pulled his new bride down in her seat and then rushed up to the microphone. He pushed Dougie into the hands of the other ushers who hauled him off. “Thank you, Dougie, for that…interesting speech.” Then he proceeded to do a brief impromptu speech himself, then raised his champagne glass and made the toast.

For rest of the wedding, both Cameron and Pepper could barely restrain themselves from wringing Dougie’s neck, Pepper because she felt that he had ruined what should have been the most magical day of her life, and Cameron for having to spend several hours trying to convince his new wife that he found his wife more than adequate in bed.

Even now, after ten years, it was hard for Anna Marie not to burst out laughing. But she fought hard to keep her face sober not wanting to draw her sister’s ire.

“So, the prodigal son is finally coming home, hmmm?” she mused. “And have you killed the fatted cow for the feast in his honor?”

Pepper’s blue eyes snapped with irritation. “I wish you wouldn’t always indulge in such whimsical nonsense, Anna, especially when they serve no purpose. Cam’s brother is merely coming home, which has been long overdue. Now, there’s another person, like you, who hasn’t learned to settle down.”

Anna Marie, to show that she was properly chastised, lowered her eyes. What little

humor Pepper possessed flew out the window during moments of distress.

“And make sure that you don’t get carried way on one of your side trips on an obscure subject that nobody knows about, or cares. You don’t want to be boring the pants off the poor guy on his first trip back home, now do we?”

“No, of course not,” Anna Marie murmured. She emptied her martini glass. “Is there

more cosmos? I hope there’s a lot more, because I’ve a feeling I’m going to need a whole gallon of it tonight.”

“You drink too much.” But her sister poured more of the cocktail in her glass.

“Thank you. It’s a talent of mine.”

Pepper gave her a crushing look but turned her attention to sautéing the mushrooms.

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As she silently drank her cocktail, Anna Marie thought it was too bad she didn’t have more talents, such as the talent of telling others where they can stick it to counter her sister’s tremendous one for telling others how they should run their lives.

The front door opened followed by sounds of keys and footsteps.

“Honey, we’re home,” Cameron called out.

“Well, it’s about time,” Pepper called out peevishly.

Cameron appeared through the door. He was quite tall, around six foot two, dark blond hair, hazel eyes, and quite good-looking. As result of his privileged upbringing and his own hard-earned success, he exuded ease and confidence of a man who found life generally to his liking.

He went over to his wife and, ignoring her accusatory eyes, he bent his head to kiss her cheek. “Hi, honey.”

“You’re late,” Pepper snapped, although she let him kiss her.

“No, I’m not,” Cameron countered calmly. “It took us about ninety minutes from SFO to get up here, and that’s pretty reasonable considering evening traffic. Plus, you just started on your sauce.” Then he went over to Anna Marie and gave her a peck on the cheek. “Hello, Anna, sweetheart. You’re looking good.”

“Where’s your brother?” Pepper asked.

Cameron took out the pitcher of cosmopolitan, got down more glasses, and poured a

round of drinks. “He’s right behind me.”

When the kitchen door opened and Cameron’s brother, completely dressed in Navy

white, walked through it, Anna Marie’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open with absolute shock.

Oh, god, was her one thought, aghast at herself, this would not do at all. And then her mind went completely blank.

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Chapter 2

Cameron’s brother was an inch taller than him, with near-black hair that was closely cropped and sharp green eyes. His face was thinner, darker, and had just missed the prettiness of his brother’s looks. But he would still have been considered good-looking if there wasn’t a dark, menacing quality about him that seemed to set his features into a hard, uncompromising mask.

The deadly calm in his green eyes that chilled the bone dispelled even further any impression of easy attractiveness. His broad-shouldered body was much leaner than his brother, which was only natural as he probably kept his body in tip-top shape running missions for the military.

“Everyone, this is my brother, Dallas Trenton. Dal, you remember my wife, Pepper, and that’s her sister, Anna Marie.”

Pepper went up to Dallas and threw her arms around him in a welcoming hug. “Finally, Dal, I meet you again. You don’t come around often enough. How long are staying this time? I hope it’s more than a few days so that we can get to know each other better.”

Dallas took off his cap and courteously kissed Pepper’s cheeks. His eyes briefly slid to Anna Marie whose eyes were still glued to him with a stunned look.

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He smiled down at his sister-in-law, but it looked as if the smile took an effort because he didn’t use it often. “I’m afraid it’s only for one day, then I have to fly out again.” Pepper tried to hide her irritation. “Oh, do you have to go on another mission, already?”

“He means D.C., hon,” Cam said, handing Dallas a drink. “Where are the kids?”

“They’re upstairs in the romper room with the nanny.”

Cam saw the harassed look on her face. He put his arm around her shoulders and kissed her again. “Have they been giving you a hard time?”

Pepper blew out a breath. “Not more than usual.” In her husband’s presence, some of her high energy and tension melted away.

“I think I’ll go up and see them.”

“I’ll go with you,” Pepper decided.

Anna Marie watched with horror as they both walked out of the kitchen, leaving her

completely alone with Cam’s brother. “Uhhhhh,” she croaked, but it was all she could get out.

She turned and met Dallas’s green eyes as he watched her from beneath his lids, watching with a patient stillness her face as she frantically tried to think of something to say to break the strained silence that fell between them.

What in the hell do you say to a Navy SEAL, Anna Marie thought. How did your last

mission go? No, they didn’t talk about their missions. Do you like your job? No, that was lame.

Are you married? Any kids? No, that sounded like she was trying to pick him up. Then, because her nerves were at the breaking point from the extended silence, Anna Marie gulped down her cosmopolitan and ended up in a violent coughing fit, so that Dal had to thump her repeatedly on the back.

“Are you alright?” he asked, a hint of amusement in his deep voice.

“Yes. Yes, I am. Thank you,” she managed to choke out as soon as she could catch her breath. She moved away from his hand. She put the empty glass in the sink, then said, “Excuse me,” and hastily left the kitchen.

It was probably about the most cowardly thing she ever did, but she couldn’t help it.

There was just something about Dallas Trenton that made her feel that being alone with him was the last thing she should do. Perhaps it was his eyes, that waiting stillness that seemed to be lurking perpetually behind the cool green eyes that were always watching. Or the mouth that was set in a hard, uncompromising line that hinted of ruthlessness and cruelty. Or maybe it’s because Secret Affair 20

he was about the most devastatingly attractive man Anna Marie had ever seen, and that she found herself in a very untenable and very unexpected position of being violently attracted to him.

She stayed out of the kitchen, and only returned when she heard Pepper and Cameron’s voices.

At the stove, her sister was doing her hostess best to bring out her brother-in-law, and Dallas was not being cooperative.

“So, Dal, Cam tells me that you’ve been a Navy Seal for nearly ten years. You must