Anna Marie Sorenson's Secret Affair Read online

  complain. What could she do about it, she thought with her usual practical view of life. Her face may be plain and non-descript with a small narrow face, pale skin, a nose that she thought was a bit too large for her face, and sleet-gray eyes that tended to be a bit too large. The only feature that might be called arresting was her mouth that was shaped perfectly into a Cupid’s bow with sensuously full lower lip.

  All in all, she thought her less than stunning looks suited her just fine. Just as Pepper’s tall, strong body and magnificent beauty suited her aggressive, forceful nature and her pension for the spotlight, Anna Marie’s more sedate and ordinary appearance suited her quiet, unassuming nature and her simple wish to live her life in books.

  Her general satisfaction with her lot in life was something she could never get across to her family. She knew that her parents and Pepper often pitied her for what they believed was life shortchanging her, and that she went around perpetually harboring a secret jealousy of her sister.

  She had long ago realized that it was useless to try and disabuse them of their beliefs. Early on, they had developed a certain image of her, without ever really taking a hard look at her, or bothering to talk to her to get an idea of her thoughts. Instead, they maintained in their minds the image of her that they were comfortable with. They were too inured in the idea that life only had one purpose and one purpose only, and that was to conquer it, to overcome its obstacles, to fight to surpass their human limitations to achieve personal and professional success. Anna Marie’s family never really understood that in her own way, she had goals and ambition and that in her own quiet way, she worked towards them.

  For her parents and sister success was inevitable. Her parents had successful law

  practices, were active in their community, and had raised a family. Pepper had been awarded one success after another from the time she entered the progressive pre-school that her parents had enrolled her and Anna Marie in. After high school, she decided that she wanted to spend her life being a celebrated chef and own a chain of restaurants. Twelve years later, Pepper had obtained her goals. She was a popular chef with her own television show and was about to open a third restaurant in Portland, Oregon, the other two being in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

  Far from being jealous of her sister, Anna Marie was just as proud of her as their parents were. Rarely envious of Pepper, she instead admired her immensely and was happy for her. Just Secret Affair 11

  like everyone, she was dazzled by her sisters beauty, her talent, her unflagging drive and energy, and her self-assurance that allowed no failure in life but only success.

  She certainly appreciated her sister’s culinary talent, because it allowed her to dine on very fine food and wine, which would not have been possible on her limited income as a public servant.

  Being able to eat like a king as often as she did was one reason why Anna Marie was

  willing put up with her sister’s overbearing ways. Such as right now, she thought, as she sniffed with appreciation at the aroma that was wafting in Pepper’s kitchen. Yes, there was definite advantage to having a sibling who was a talented chef, she thought, as she watched her sister flip the filet mignons in their marinating juice and then slip the pan back into the refrigerator.

  “Mom’s worried about you, you know,” Pepper said. “So’s Dad.”

  Rather than counter that with a flip remark, Anna Marie didn’t say anything but instead sipped her drink. It was something that her sister said to her whenever she was over for dinner.

  She had come to think of it as a ritual, part of the routine between siblings whenever they got together.

  “Cam’s office is having a party next weekend. Why don’t you come along? There’ll

  surely be some guy there who you might like,” Pepper suggested.

  Anna Marie barely kept herself from rolling her eyes. She supposed it was a common

  curse for all single adults to be constantly thrown at them unwanted suitors by their happily and safely married siblings. “I’ll think about it.”

  In her domineering way, Pepper took that as an ascent. “Good. Then you and I can go

  shopping for a dress. That’s another thing you need help on.” She looked at her sister’s striped dress shirt and black wool slacks with barely concealed distaste.

  No way was she going to be put through the wringer while on a shopping trip with her sister, Anna Marie thought with grim determination. She would never go through that torture again in whatever time she had left on earth. Once she had her sister in her clutches, Pepper would bully, yell, sharply criticize, lecture her throughout the course while putting her through the grueling pace of putting on one outfit after another, shuttling her from one store to another.

  And it wouldn’t stop at the clothes, either. Pepper would take the opportunity to point out her sister’s other faults besides her choice of clothes, such as Anna Marie’s figure which had too much flab from no exercise and a very inactive life, her dark, thick hair with its uncontrollable Secret Affair 12

  waves and in desperate need of cutting and styling, and her face that was crying out for a good facial and some expert tutoring on makeup and coloring.

  Pepper refilled her glass with more cosmopolitan. “Honey, I don’t know why you insist on living in this rudderless way that you do.” She laid a hand on Anna Marie’s arm. “Is it because you’re not over him, yet?”

  Anna Marie frowned, puzzled. “Who?”

  “Cam. You’re still not over Cam, are you?”

  “Cam? That was nearly twelve years ago.”

  Pepper shrugged. “I know, but you were pretty serious about him. And why wouldn’t you be? He was a very good catch with his rich parents, Yale educated, good-looking, and well spoken. I know I must have broken your heart when I pinched him from you.”

  Anna Marie gritted her teeth at the pitying look that her sister was giving her. “I wasn’t broken hearted, and even if I were, I think I would have gotten over it by now.”

  “Darling, there’s no need for you to go on pretending that it meant nothing to you. I know how painful it must have been for you, losing a man that you loved, and to your own sister, at that. Especially when Cam wasn’t the only one.”

  Anna Marie’s gray eyes widened. “You mean to say that I had more than one boyfriend

  that you stole from me? Funny, I don’t seem to recall.”

  Pepper slid her hand up Anna Marie’s arm and gave it a kindly squeeze. “We never really talked about it, did we? Oh, I’m sorry, honey. I should have talked to you years ago, let you express all that anger that you must have been harboring against me all these years. Instead, you’ve kept it all inside you, haven’t you, letting it fester like a nasty boil, but not letting it bubble out of the skin so that all that puss remains locked in until it turns thick and sour.”

  “I hope that’s not a recipe you’re working on,” Anna Marie muttered and took refuge in her cosmopolitan.

  Since her sister was determined to play the superior but sympathetic sibling who decided to be remorseful for pinching her love interest, Anna Marie decided that it would be a waste of effort and time to try and convince Pepper that Cameron Trenton had not meant a great deal to her by the time Pepper had got her hooks into him. For some unfathomable reason, it was important to Pepper to think that she had been a femme fatale wrecking havoc in her hapless sister’s practically non-existent love life.

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  The actual truth was that Anna Marie could barely remember dating Cameron twelve or

  so years ago. She remembered that she thought him a very nice man, quite well mannered on a date, very good-looking, and cultured and informed enough to carry on an intelligent conversation. They had few pleasant dates that had ended without any smoldering looks or kisses. Then, after the third date, she somehow introduced him to her sister. Anna Marie couldn’t really remember the exact day or the place where she introduced the two, but she remembered at one point she had realized t
hat Pepper had, as the old fashioned term would have put it, set her cap for Cameron. What she didn’t remember was ever feeling any hurt or anger against Pepper for her encroachment.

  Anna Marie, though, remembered feeling surprised that her sister would go for a guy like Cameron. He had not been her usual run of men, who were usually as flamboyant, aggressive, and competitive as she. Instead, Cameron was quiet, gentle, low-key, soft-spoken, and thoughtful. If he hadn’t been rich, their parents would have objected, because he hadn’t Pepper’s ambition and drive. However, Cameron was no slouch, having obtained a law degree from Yale and after he passed his bar exam, the County of Sonoma hired him as the Assistant District Attorney. Three years later, he was the District Attorney. Being rich already, he saw no need to open his own law practice, and was satisfied with his county job and its salary, which was paltry when compared to the lucrative money in private practice.

  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.

  Secret Affair 15

  “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 yo
u 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.”