Jane turned off the water and turned, standing with her hip against the sink as she stared back at Sara. This was familiar territory, though it had been a while since Sara had lodged this particular attack.
“I never took anything away from you, Sara,” said Jane softly.
“Fuck you.” Sara raised one perfect, delicate eyebrow. “You took everything away from me.”
Tears filled her eyes, as she remembered the awful day she’d been told that her life as she knew it was over: that she’d have to move to Boston to live with her uncle, aunt, and cousin.
She’d visited with her father’s brother and his family every summer, of course, but she was unprepared for the impact of seeing her uncle’s face after her father’s death. His face, practically identical to her father’s, had been so familiar, so beloved, such a relief. Looking into his eyes was the only thing that comforted Jane, and made sense in a world that had tumbled down around her. As a ten-year-old orphan, she had bonded fiercely to her uncle Mays, staring at his face unobserved for long moments, quietly pretending that he was her father returned to her. And her uncle, who grieved terribly the loss of his brother, tried to treat Jane as much like his own daughter as possible. That was a problem for young Sara, of course. She’d never forgiven Jane for “stealing” her father.
“I had nowhere else to go,” whispered Jane. “I was ten years old.”
“Poor little Janie,” Sara cooed, running the back of her hand over Jane’s cheek. “Poor little orphan. Plain Jane, my poor, pathetic, unloved, little cousin.”
Something snapped inside of Jane and she reached up and took Sara’s wrist, firmly moving it from her head. “I may have the distinct misfortune of being your cousin. And I may be plain and little. But I’m not pathetic—”
“And not that little,” Sara mocked under her breath, wrestling her wrist out of Jane’s grasp and massaging it.
“—and I’m not unloved,” she added, twisting the knife. “Your father loves me like his own. You know that better than anyone, Sara, don’t you?”
Her comment hit its mark soundly and she watched as Sara raised her head slowly, eyes narrowed, her lips in a tight thin line.
Jane’s heart skipped a beat and her face flushed. Where had that sudden backbone come from? Jane knew she had a backbone, but rarely did it surface in reaction to her cousin. Almost never. She had made it a point to treat her position with Sara with as much calmness, professionalism and forbearance as possible because she knew it was what her uncle expected from her. But, it felt so wonderful—and so liberating!—to strike back, she could feel one of several small, tight threads binding Jane to her cousin…snap. The relief of it made her quiver, almost made her sigh.
Looking up, Jane shivered, taking in Sara’s flinty expression, and while she didn’t regret her words, she braced herself for a slap, either actual or rhetorical.
Unexpectedly, Sara’s face neutralized before her, but her voice was a low, spiteful whisper when she spoke. “You can’t have him, Jane. Lars, the tour guide? He’s mine. You know that better than anyone, don’t you?”
Jane clenched her jaw, blinking at her cousin, hating her with every cell in her body.
“I tell you what, sweet, little cousin,” Sara continued, “if I have to stay here in this shit hole, you’ll have to stay here too. On the couch. In case I need you.” She smiled at Jane before turning on her heel and heading back to her bedroom. When she got to the bedroom door, she looked back at Jane and winked. “Front row seat for you, Janie. Hope you packed your earplugs.”
***
I hate her.
IhateherIhateherIhateher.
Jane took a deep breath and plopped back down on the couch. Her phone buzzed and she fished it out of her back pocket, glancing at it.
If Miss Thing gets on ur last nerve, come find me at the Ritz.
Jane couldn’t help a soft chuckle. Ray must be settling into the Best Western.
Lars would be headed back up to Bozeman by now to pick up the rest of Sara’s team. Jane would walk over to the hotel to make sure they were all settled in and up to date on tomorrow’s schedule. The Trend people were coming in today too, but they were renting vans at the airport to drive themselves to Gardiner. Anyway, Sebastian would coordinate with them; Jane was only responsible for managing Sara’s team.
I’ll be by later, she wrote back to Ray.
For the remainder of the afternoon, Jane busied herself finalizing shoot details on her phone, verifying that Sara’s on-location trailer had everything she needed and avoiding her cousin as much as possible. Mercifully, Sara stayed in her room, smoking cigarettes and watching TV.
Jane had to get out of the stifling closeness of the cottage, so she took a short walk around the four cottages, peeking in the windows of the other three. They were rough shells compared to the one Sara was staying in: the walls and ceilings weren’t finished, and the floors were concrete slabs. Pipes jutted out from the walls without fixtures and electrical wires went nowhere. It made Jane realize how much work went into fixing up Sara’s cottage in the week or two before her arrival.
Jane thought of Lars’s face the first time he showed her the cottage and how she had laughed out loud, insisting that Sara would throw a fit when she saw it. And she had, of course, but only after Lars had gone.
Jane hated herself for breaking things off with him. She hated herself for not being strong enough to roll the dice and see what happened, for not being confident enough in his words and intentions to believe that he might actually want her. But with all that giggling and touching on the ride from the airport, Lars was probably already falling for Sara, just as Jane had predicted. Not that knowing it would happen made it hurt any less.
Looking out at the meadow where she and Lars had seen the bison, she felt a terrible heaviness squeezing her heart. It felt like a million years ago. Waking up with him in her bed this morning felt like a million years ago, too. Like a different life, in which she was a different person: the cousin that was worthy of a beautiful man’s love. Somewhere in the universe—even if the odds were a million to one—that scenario must exist, right? Somewhere? At some point in time?
Suddenly, as Jane envisioned herself as the unlikely victor over Sara, a sudden, awful thought occurred to her:
What if Lars is the million to one exception?
What if, given the choice, he would have chosen me?
Would he have been true to me, if I had just let him make his own choice?
She caught her reflection in one of the picture windows as she passed by an empty cottage, and stopped to look at herself. She looked like a short, dumpy high school boy. Average height, baggy clothes, baseball hat. Shoulders rolled forward. Head down. Defeated.
What if Lars is the exception? she asked herself again.
She took off her baseball cap, folded it in thirds and shoved it in her hip pocket. She ran her hands through her curls, until they stayed back off her face. Her face was hazy in the glass, which made it easier to see the Felicity thing he had alluded to. She tilted her neck to the side, and caught the twinkle of diamond studs in her ears.
She took off her sweatshirt, straightened her back and tied it around her waist. Underneath she was wearing a simple V-neck t-shirt, and underneath that, the sheer black bra she’d been wearing last night. She couldn’t bear to take it off yet.