Strangers Like Us Read online

  Strangers Like Us

  Mary Campisi

  Mary Campisi Books, LLC

  Contents

  Introduction

  Letter to Readers

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  In Case You’re Wondering

  Introduction to A Family Affair

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  About the Author

  Other Books by Mary Campisi

  Introduction

  Readers who loved Mary Campisi’s bestselling Truth in Lies series also known as the “A Family Affair” books, won’t want to miss Strangers Like Us, Book One in Mary’s new Reunion Gap series.

  Yes, there’s heartache, betrayal, forgiveness, redemption, and second chances. But…this small town doesn’t open its arms to strangers and wayward drifters. Why? Because years ago, many of the residents were swindled out of their life savings by the smooth-talking stranger they trusted.

  So, what happens when a beautiful woman arrives in Reunion Gap, bent on helping the town and those in need? Well, a person can only fight the laws of attraction so long…and good deeds should not go unnoticed, should they?

  When the son of the man who lost everything falls in love with the daughter of the man who stole it all, there can only be heartache ahead when she’s exposed. And she will be exposed. It’s only a matter of time, and no matter how good her intentions, heartache is coming.

  Will forgiveness and redemption follow?

  Stay tuned! It’s going to get very interesting.

  * * *

  And for A Family Affair fans, remember the private investigator Lester Conroy? He’s promised Mimi Pendergrass he’ll find out what happened to her daughter. Guess what? The trail leads him to Reunion Gap!

  * * *

  Reunion Gap series:

  Book 1: Strangers Like Us

  Book 2: Liars Like Us

  Book 3: Lovers Like Us

  More to come!

  * * *

  BONUS MATERIAL: Included with this e-book is the first chapter of A Family Affair, Book One in my bestselling Truth in Lies series.

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers:

  * * *

  Welcome to the Reunion Gap series. I’m so glad you’ve decided to join me as we head to the small town of Reunion Gap, Pennsylvania. If you’ve read my work before, you know I love writing about hope and second chances in small towns where the residents have known their share of heartache and betrayal. I grew up in a small town in northwestern Pennsylvania, so it feels very natural for me to write about a place where everybody knows everybody and a handshake is your word.

  * * *

  And I know all about close families and sibling dynamics and that blasted pecking order! (Can you tell I’m a middle child?) But I also know about sticking together, and that while my brothers and sister and I live hundreds of miles away from that little town in Pennsylvania, it is still part of us—it will always be part of us—because that’s where we learned the true meaning of family and friendship, and the importance of honoring your word.

  * * *

  Enjoy!

  * * *

  Mary

  To Brenda: a woman of courage, strength, and resilience. Godspeed!

  1

  Rogan Donovan once believed in the power of possibility and the beauty of a dream. But that was before a stranger came to town and ripped a hole in his father’s good name, shredded the man’s self-respect, and left him with nothing but a mountain of debt and a guilt so deep it could only be relieved through a bottle. It was the bottle that became his constant companion and possibly, his ultimate demise.

  Rogan poured a whiskey, tossed it back, and stared at the grayness of the pre-dusk sky. The May breeze lifted the edges of the financial reports he’d been reading. In another life, he would not be sitting in a rocker on the front porch of a rundown farmhouse at the edge of town. He’d be married with a child, living the dream life he and his fiancée had mapped out. They’d spent many a night enjoying the view from their penthouse as they sipped Chardonnay and talked about the magnificent future they’d share.

  That future was gone, along with the dreams and the fiancée, strangled by the phone call from his mother two years ago. Oh, Rogan, something horrible’s happened. She’d cried so hard she couldn’t get the words out. But his sister could. That was one thing about Charlotte; she was never at a loss for words. Dad’s gone and lost everything, Rogan. Everything that’s ever mattered to him and Mom, including their reputation. Now what’s going to happen? What are they going to do? Huh? They’re almost broke. You have to help them. Somehow, you have to figure a way out of this mess. Please, Rogan, you’re the only one who can.

  “Two pennies for your thoughts.”

  He hadn’t heard the screen door open or his uncle’s six-foot-three frame slide into the rocker next to his. Rogan turned, shrugged. “No thoughts, just enjoying the quiet.”

  Oliver Donovan shook his head, his gray ponytail bobbing with the action. “You feed that BS to somebody who doesn’t know you.” He crossed a booted foot over his thigh, rubbed his jaw. “I know where that brain of yours is going. It must be downright exhausting to rescue people from their own mistakes, even if they don’t want to be rescued. Don’t you ever take time off?” His deep voice shifted. “Have a little fun with one of those young ladies who’ve been asking about you? Hallie or Leah?”

  Hallie Richards wanted a commitment, and word had it, Leah Boardman wanted a baby, not necessarily, the man who went with it. “Uh, no thanks.” Besides, after Deborah broke their engagement, he’d decided the no-strings, casual approach was the way to go. Enter Alyssa. They met up every Thursday, discussed the latest stock trends, and then enjoyed each other’s bodies and a bottle of Merlot. Nice and neat. No strings. No expectations. No chance to get hurt again.

  Just the way he liked it.

  “You ever going to get past that girl who dumped you?” Oliver’s words grabbed him around the throat, squeezed. “The way I see it, you’re hanging onto a dead end. If the woman you’d planned to spend the rest of your life with couldn’t understand why you came home, maybe even admire you for it, she might have been the wrong one for you. Did you ever consider that?”

  No, he hadn’t considered the brilliant brunette with the long legs and witty sense of humor was wrong for him. In fact, she’d been exactly right up until he told her he had to take a leave of absence from his job and head back to Pennsylvania to help his family. Deborah hadn’t liked the sound of that, especially the part about leaving Los Angeles and heading to a small town. But once she found out money was involved, as in a disastrous situation that had flattened his parents and left his father in a semi-stupor? Well, that was a little too much emotion for her, and worse, she wasn’t ready to take on his family’s debt or their time requirements. Too messy, she’d told him. Too complicated, and nothing personal, but I didn’t sign up for life in the boonies and the parent bailout program. She’d returned his ring with a kiss on the cheek and a wistful smile. Call me if your situation changes, and maybe we can discuss things.

  That was the last time he’d heard from his ex-fiancée, though one of his buddies told him that six months later she moved in with a stockbroker pulling down seven figures a year.

  “Rogan? You still dreaming about the West Coast?” His uncle’s voice gentled. “Maybe you should close that chap
ter and think about settling down, find a wife, have a kid.”

  Rogan tossed his uncle a look that, even without words, could be interpreted as not happening. He ignored the question and asked one of his own. “I could say the same to you. Did you ever think about finding a wife and having a kid?”

  That made his uncle laugh. “Never entered my brain, not in fifty years.” Another laugh. “Besides, I’m not about to start sharing a bathroom or the remote control with anybody.”

  The last laugh held a hint of what sounded an awful lot like regret. Did his uncle wish there had been a woman and a child in his life? If Oliver Donovan wanted either, it was hard to believe he couldn’t have had them. The man was a mix of mystery, musician, and philosopher, with a live-and-let-live attitude who played a mean keyboard. Women in their twenties all the way to their seventies stopped by his music shop to hear about the time he spent touring with his band, playing keyboard and writing music. He had a collection of vinyl records in a temperature-controlled room, and he played them every Wednesday and Friday from 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Passersby stopped to listen, no matter their age or music preference, and Oliver welcomed them into the shop, told them a story, made them feel like they belonged. Money had come and gone in his life, but Uncle Oliver, who preferred to be called “Oliver,” was never owned by the gain or loss of it. Maybe that’s why he didn’t “disown” his oldest brother, when Jonathan miscalculated the sincerity of a stranger and lost a chunk of his money.

  “You talked to your aunt lately?”

  Camille Alexander, the aunt who’d once declared that not all Alexanders were lying, cheating connivers and married one to prove it, found out before her first anniversary that, while some might be trustworthy, her husband was not. The desire for money and power had blinded her to Carter Alexander’s philandering ways and though she threatened divorce at least once a month, no one believed it would ever happen. Camille would rather be miserable than broke, broke being a relative term for someone who’d grown accustomed to caviar and private planes. “I heard she was in New York.” Rogan paused, added, “Again.”

  “Of course she’d be flitting around instead of trying to figure out what she’s going to do with the rest of her life.” A long sigh, followed by an even longer one. “At some point, a person’s got to stop hiding behind designer duds and past hurts and take responsibility for what happens next.”

  “Yup.” Rogan reached for the bottle of whiskey, poured another glass.

  “Better watch that stuff. It’s taken down more than one Donovan.”

  Oliver meant his brother, Jonathan, Rogan’s father, who’d died last year from an eighty-foot fall off Shadyside Rocks. Nobody needed to review a blood alcohol test to figure out he’d been drinking. The man had barely seen a sober day since the scam that ruined his life. The real question that had no answer was whether the fall was an accident or intentional. Rogan’s father wasn’t the only one who’d had his troubles with the bottle. Oliver had a scare a while back, but since the night he refused to talk about, the former “sex-drugs-and–rock-n’-roller” had cut the drugs, including alcohol, from his go-to list. Now, he drank straight-up water, grew herbs and vegetables in his back yard, and advocated recycling, composting, and repurposing. The man still wore a ponytail and earring, sported tattoos from his younger days, and he’d never give up his rocker T-shirts, but life these days was more about compassion, clean living, and the environment. “You think Camille went to New York to hire a lawyer?”

  “For what? To talk about the divorce she’s never going to get?”

  Rogan sipped his drink, shrugged. “Maybe. I mean, why would you stay married to a serial cheater?”

  “Why?” His uncle slid him a look that said he still had a lot to learn about human behavior. “The guy’s a doctor, and he’s an Alexander.”

  “Yeah, well, not everybody wants to be an Alexander.” His father had always said that name was synonymous with liar and cheat. Rogan had gone to school with a few of them, and the description was dead on, except for Tate Alexander. He’d been a decent guy who got caught up in his family’s dysfunction. Rogan hadn’t heard about him since Tate left town six years ago, the same day as his mother’s funeral. Talk about strange and full of secrets…

  “Your aunt’s messed up,” Oliver said.

  “You think she still loves him?” Now that would be messed up.

  Oliver nodded. “Sad but true. I’ve seen the way she talks about him, one part cussing him up and down, and the other hiding the hurt.” He rubbed his jaw, reached for his water. “Who needs that?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Hey, I’m not saying you shouldn’t try for the happily-ever-after. You might get it right, who knows? Your parents had it figured out—” he paused, his voice dipped “—for a while.”

  Yeah, right up until Gordon T. Haywood walked into Reunion Gap with his promises to fill Jonathan Donovan’s empty building with men and machines to reopen the plant. This month marked the second anniversary of the disaster that ruined lives, including his father’s. But Gordon T. Haywood stole a hell of a lot more than money: he stole his father’s hope. A man without hope is no better than a ghost, afraid to breathe, determined not to trust again, bent on blaming somebody for his misery, usually himself. Curious that the Alexanders stepped in and bailed out a select number of families who’d invested in the factory’s reopening by paying off their loans and making them “whole.” That caused its own pain, made the unchosen ones furious, and then it made them desperate.

  “You’re thinking again, and it’s not about balance sheets or month-end analysis.” Oliver pierced his thoughts, pulled him back. “I know what this is about. You’ve got to let it go, Rogan. Two years is a long time to do penance for a sin you didn’t commit.”

  Rogan sipped his whiskey, avoided his uncle’s too-knowing gaze. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Right. Then let me spell it out for you again, like I’ve been doing since you came home. What happened to this town isn’t your fault. It wasn’t your father’s fault either. The only sin he ever committed was trusting people too much. The one to blame is the bastard who came to our town and stole from us. Should we have made him take a lie detector test to prove his honesty? We were all ripe for the picking and he knew it. The guy probably homed in on towns like Reunion Gap, knew we were desperate for a chance to turn things around. He played all of us, with more skill than Donnie on vocals.”

  Donnie being the lead singer in Oliver’s old band.

  “That’s not the point.”

  “Sure it is, but you don’t care, do you? You’re hell-bent on trying to fix everyone’s misery, loading it on your back, or your computer, so they stop blaming your old man. Well, you know what? I lost money, too, and I don’t blame him. I never blamed him.”

  “That’s because you’re his brother.”

  “It’s because I’m an adult who made the decision on my own. Your dad didn’t force me to do anything, and since when did you ever know him to be the persuasive type? Huh?” His voice grew stronger, filled with conviction. “I’ll tell you. Never.”

  “People trusted him. That’s why they invested their money in a business Haywood never intended to bring to this town. Didn’t matter the business didn’t exist; my father made people believe it did because he believed it did. And look what happened. I’m going to do everything I can to help the people who lost out because of it.”

  “For how long? Ten years? Twenty?”

  “I don’t know.” Pause. “I just don’t know.”

  “Your father never wanted you to come back here. Neither did your mother. They wanted you to live your life and not worry about them.”

  “I couldn’t do that.” After his sister’s near-hysterical phone call begging him to come home, he knew he had to find a way to help his parents. People blamed Jonathan Donovan for their misfortunes, but what they didn’t know was that Rogan was just as much to blame. If he’d listened to his father’s requ
est to review Haywood’s proposal, maybe this could have all been prevented. Maybe his father would still be alive. But he’d ignored him, made ten different excuses why he didn’t have time to review the documents and give his opinion. And why was that? Oh, right. He and Deborah had been about to embark on an Alaskan cruise. It didn’t matter that Rogan was an accountant with a gift for finding inconsistencies, or that his father wouldn’t recognize an ill intention if it stood next to him. Deborah wanted to go to Alaska, see the glaciers…

  So, they’d gone and his father made the biggest mistake of his life. But so had Rogan. He’d never told anyone what he’d done, or rather, what he hadn’t done, not even his uncle.

  The pain was too deep.

  If Rogan had looked at the documents and asked a few questions, he might have saved his father and the town from a lot of misery. But he hadn’t, and his selfishness had been his father’s undoing.

  He would not be selfish again.

  No matter what.

  * * *

  Elizabeth Hayes knew what it meant to be alone, knew the difference between alone and lonely. She’d been both for much of her life. There’d been no siblings, no close friends, no pets, just her mother, her father, and Everett Broderick, a man she called uncle who was no blood relation. Uncle Everett was her father’s business partner and had been part of their lives for as long as she could remember. It was Uncle Everett who taught her to swim, play chess, and compose a proper photograph. He’d also shown her the difference between trying and commitment, and the importance of an apology. She’d stopped wondering years ago why her parents weren’t the ones bestowing the lessons. Weren’t mothers and fathers supposed to teach their children about responsibility, good citizenship, right from wrong?