MisplacedLessons by Mari Carr and Lexxie Couper

you’re making progress on yours. This trip is my
first and, given my rather limited income, I think it will probably be my last
for years.”
    Her comment made him realize how little he actually knew
about Amy. “That’s right. You’re a teacher. Like Harper. Guess they’re
underpaid all over the world.”
    She hesitated for a moment, then replied with more detail
than he’d expected. “I’m a teacher on a cattle station.”
    “That’s like a ranch, right?”
    “Except it’s a station,” she teased. “Full of jackaroos and
stockmen. Not a cowboy in sight.”
    “Gotcha.” He took another swig of beer. “Sounds like an
interesting place to live. I haven’t seen an Aussie cattle station on my
travels. Maybe I need to add that to my list.”
    “If you ever want a tour, just ring me up. I think my bosses
would get a kick out of being on American TV.” Amy looked around the kitchen.
“Although my little cottage is nowhere near as nice as your house.”
    “It’s more accurate to say this is Harper’s house. I’m not
here more than a dozen weeks or so each year. The rest of the time, I’m either
on the road or at my own apartment in L.A. Feels sort of odd to be here this
week without her. Unlike you, my sister has an aversion to traveling.”
    “I know she hasn’t done a lot of it, but she was super
excited about traveling to Oz.”
    “Really?” Andrew frowned, wondering when Harper had started
changing. The sister he knew would never drop everything for two weeks to head
off for parts unknown alone. He could only assume Amy had been a big influence
on her. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. He worried about Harper’s
introverted ways.
    He and his sister were long overdue for a chat. “Usually
she’s a homebody. While she’s done some traveling in the States, she’s never
ventured into another country, with the exception of the time our family went
to Niagara Falls in Canada. Even then, she was only little. I doubt she even
remembers it.”
    Amy noticed his empty beer bottle and handed hers to him
with a grin. “Harper loves you, Andrew, but that doesn’t mean she has to tell
you everything.”
    Damn. So much for his poker face. Amy must’ve recognized his
concern. “I used to think we were really close. This secret trip of hers is throwing
me for a loop.”
    “She’s a big girl. Heading out on her own is probably a good
thing for both of you.”
    He knew his sister was an adult, but that didn’t make it any
easier for him to let go. There was too much history between them, too many
painful memories. “Harper’s the most important person in my life. We tend to
cling to each other, considering our family fell firmly within the
dysfunctional category. Did she tell you she’s actually my half-sister?”
    “No. She didn’t. What do you mean by dysfunctional?”
    He stretched out in the chair, leaning back, grateful for
the downtime. He felt like he’d run a marathon today rather than merely going
sightseeing with Amy. “My parents were married for several years before they
had me, then my mom died when I was eight.”
    “Oh Andrew. I’m sorry.”
    “Cancer.”
    Amy reached over and grasped his hand, squeezing it. “That’s
what got my dad too. Just a couple years ago.”
    Her kindness touched him, made him want to open up to her.
Typically his past was one of those books that remained firmly closed. He
hadn’t spoken about his parents in years. “My dad waited all of four months
after burying my mother before he married his secretary. Dad and the secretary
had Harper, which is why I’m ten years older than her. She’s the product of a second
marriage.”
    “The secretary? She doesn’t have a name?”
    Andrew hadn’t called the woman by her given name in years,
and he was using the term secretary to keep things clean for Amy. Truth was
nowadays he usually thought of his stepmother as that whore or the
bitch . It was one of the reasons he never talked about family