The Imposter Marin Montgomery (rom com books to read TXT) 📖

ball cap off, Fletch motions toward a dark back corner. I watch as he brings back a beer and pushes a vodka tonic with lime across the wobbly table toward me.

The bar is relatively empty for the middle of the week. A couple plays darts in the corner while another group of women wearing scrubs looks like they just finished shifts at the hospital. Their incessant laughter is earsplitting, their conversation even louder.

“Play your hand, Fletch.” I drum my fingers on the table. “What’s the price for your silence?”

“Depends. I don’t buy you came home after sixteen years on a whim after a freakish car accident.” He wrinkles his nose. “They always say if something smells like shit, it probably is.”

“That a pig joke?”

“Sorry! That’s right: I forgot you forgot where you came from.” Fletch grunts. “I’m just worried there’s a deeper fissure somewhere. I can’t imagine any sane husband telling his wife to go ahead and drive thirteen hundred miles solo after she wrecked her car and lost her license.”

I shrug.

“Give me your phone,” Fletch demands.

“What?”

“You heard me.” He gives me a mischievous grin. “I want to call this husband and confirm he okayed this.”

“What’s it to you?”

“I just want to make sure you didn’t come back to stir up trouble.”

“Fuck off.”

“No worries, Sibby.” He takes a swig of his beer. “I’ll call him tomorrow. It’s not like I can’t use my talent to find your hubby’s phone number or workplace.”

I really want to flip the bird at him, but instead, I wave my bare left hand in the air. “Maybe, Officer Dipshit, your investigative skills should home in on why I’m not wearing a ring.”

“I noticed it before.” He rewards me with a glare. “So what? You left it at home.”

“If you must know, I pawned it in New Mexico.”

He stays silent.

“Tulsa, to be exact.”

“I’m sorry,” he says with false brightness.

“Don’t be. I needed the money.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“Not particularly.” I guzzle my drink down.

“Okay.”

“I’d appreciate it if we could keep this between us, Fletch. I don’t want to tell my mother I’m struggling financially and my own husband kicked me out,” I say sharply. “I don’t want her to worry about me. I’m just going to get on my feet and then . . .”

“Disappear.” He narrows his eyes at me. “Per the usual.”

“Why? You prefer I stick around?”

“Not with that stick up your ass,” he grumbles. “Anyway, why’d your husband kick you out? That seems unusually cruel.”

Blowing a strand of hair off my face, I say, “Because he thinks I had an affair.”

I watch his stunned jaw drag on the floor. He resembles a cartoon character, and it’d be comical to watch if it weren’t about my life.

“And it wasn’t just any old affair. It was with a client.”

He leans forward, warily waiting for my next admission.

My eyes unleash a torrent of emotion, the floodgates opening. “So not only do I not have a license, Holden kicked me out, and I’m stuck figuring out my life in my thirties.”

“Hey, that’s not all bad.” He unearths a crumpled tissue from his pocket and hands it over. “We all have shit to figure out. There’s no age you suddenly become immune to problems.”

“Thank you.” I dry my eyes and blow my nose. “And you’re right.”

“This is some heavy shit.”

“I know.” I sniffle. “I’m confident it will all be sorted out. Or at least most of it.” I sigh. “So where does that leave us?”

“Look, if anybody asks, we never had this conversation.” He stares at me with his puppy dog eyes. “But you can’t hide out here forever, Sibby.”

“I know.” I wipe a hand over my face. “I know.”

He settles his ball cap back on his head when we leave and tips it when he drops me off at home. “Always a pleasure to see you, Sibby Sawyer.”

I nod.

“And Sibby?”

I turn to face him. “Yeah?”

“Don’t let me catch you driving.” He salutes me. “Or I’ll have to frisk you like I’ve always wanted to.”

“You wish,” I say, rolling my eyes as I head for the unlit porch.

When I knock on the front door, I expect to hear my mother’s shuffled movements, but the house is completely dark.

Confused, I shake the door handle.

For some reason, my mother left it unlocked. Probably for you, I remind myself. I’m going to have to ask her about a spare key. With all that’s been going on, it makes me nervous to think someone could walk right in.

I swallow the lump in my throat.

I’m guilty of breaking a window now covered in flimsy plastic, which isn’t any safer. If I had known she’d been attacked, I never would have pulled a stunt like that. Even if she lied to me about Jonathan. I’m not sadistic. I’m going to have to get it replaced ASAP.

Inside, I holler her name again. She doesn’t respond, but I notice her bedroom door is shut.

I drag myself upstairs. It’s time for me to retire to my room. So much has happened, and I can’t believe I’ve been here less than twenty-four hours.

Restless, I pace the room’s length. I need to refocus my energy on something other than the cataclysmic change in my lineage.

Anxiety causes the gnawing pit in my stomach to grow, gripping my insides with its sharp claws.

I need to figure out who this Edward man is and how to find him. If he was so quick to shirk his responsibilities as a father, I might not want to know him, but I still have to apply logic where there isn’t any.

And how could he be so callous to my mother?

I never heard Deborah say he was married at the time of my conception, but maybe Edward was in a relationship or had moved on and didn’t want to dredge up drama.

It should be easy enough to locate someone, but I don’t have his last name. I wonder if my mother has anything in storage that might give his identity away.

She was so young when she had me;