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Noah coughed on his latest swallow of Sam Adams.
“Not that I’m surprised, you understand,” Gabe continued. “But yes, she is.”
“New topic, please,” Nikki ordered. “Quick, before the children start squabbling again.”
Cassandra straightened in her chair. “Hey, I’m older than you are, little sister. And Juliet—oh.”
Juliet looked up from the scrap of cocktail napkin she’d twisted into a small circle and slid onto her left ring finger. Upon moving to Malibu, she’d removed her wedding band and her unadorned hand still looked odd to her. Both her sisters were staring at her fingers as if they looked odd to them, too.
Jay did a fair rendition of the Twilight Zone theme. “Do do do do, do do do do.”
Puzzled, Juliet glanced over at Noah. He nodded toward Cassandra. “Check out what she’s been doing with her napkin.”
On the other woman’s left thumb was a rolled ring of paper. Juliet’s gaze jumped to Nikki. She shook her head. “I have a ring, thank you,” she said, flaunting the boulder of an engagement bauble on her left hand. In her right, though, she held out a little snake of paper. “I was thinking maybe a bracelet?”
“No.” Juliet frowned. “There’s no way.”
Cassandra shrugged. “Nikki and I noticed our common quirk when she lived with me after her surgery. Looks like you have it, too, big sis.”
“That’s not possible ... is it?” Juliet looked to Noah again.
“If it’s a legal question, I’m your man. But genetics? You’re going to have to find some other expert.”
“Actually,” Jay put in, “it’s not all so surprising to find commonalities like that among siblings…even those who grew up apart. There are dozens of separated sibling studies that support the notion that nature can hold its own against nurture. I notice the way you three smile is the same, too. Starts on the left first, then makes its way to the other side.”
Nikki swung her napkin snake in little circles. “Though I hate to swell his already oversized and too-handsome head, he’s probably right. He edits a magazine, and so vast quantities of information cross his desk every day. Some time you should ask him about weasels.”
Bemused, Juliet’s gaze drifted around the circle of people. The men had common qualities, too: They looked to be close in age and were all attractive examples of their gender. But nothing more. And that’s how it had been for her and every other woman—every other person—since her parents had died. There’d been no one with whom she shared a genetic link.
Now, according to Jay, she smiled like her sisters. She knew she played with napkins like her sisters, too. Were these signs that she should let them into her life?
Unsettled and still undecided, she excused herself and hurried into the kitchen to finish the dinner preparations. A few seconds later she felt another presence behind her. “Noah, would you mind—”
“He was out of his seat by the time you were two steps toward the kitchen,” Nikki said. “But I wrestled him back to his chair by playing the professional chef card.”
Turning, Juliet grimaced. “Yikes. I didn’t think about that when I asked you to dinner tonight.”
“No worries. It smells terrific.” She hesitated, then took a breath and rushed on. “I came inside because I want to talk to you about something.”
“What?”
Nikki glanced over her shoulder to where the others were gathered on the patio, then looked back, her expression serious. “I want you to be careful with Cassandra.”
Juliet frowned. “Be careful with her how?”
“Be careful with her feelings, with her dream.”
“ ‘Her dream’?”
Nikki pulled a stool away from the butcher-block island and dropped onto it. “Argh. I’m not good at this touchy-feely girl-talk stuff.”
“What dream are you talking about?”
“When you were a kid, did you sometimes make up wild fantasies for yourself? You know, like pretending you were really the progeny of a roguish pirate and a runaway princess?”
Juliet thought of herself at thirteen, of how she’d met a dashing man in uniform and given her heart to him. She smiled. “I had a fancy or two.”
Nikki’s voice lowered and she leaned toward Juliet. “Well, this is Cassandra’s fancy. The dream she’s had for as long as she can remember. Her mother had always told her she was donor-inseminated and that big old marshmallow heart of Cassandra’s has caused her to wonder her entire life about siblings that she could meet and make a family with.”
