“What?” he asked.
“There,” she whispered. “At the counter. That’s one of them. It’s the one named Nikki.”
Noah glanced over his shoulder. A woman stood by the cash register, dressed in checked chef pants and a starched tunic. Her brown hair was streaked with gold and worn in loose braids on either side of her head. In that baggy getup, it was hard to say if she had the same sleek body as Juliet. It was impossible to tell if they were related at all.
A trickle of relief coursed through him. If Juliet was wrong about being related to the chick at the counter, then she could be wrong about never loving ag—
The woman he was watching turned. As her gaze roamed around the room, Noah’s thought process seized.
He stared.
Oh, hell. It looked as if it was going to be like Juliet had said after all. She’d go on with her life, he with his. And she’d be the ghost that haunted him forever, the ache that he’d remember every morning as he woke from his dreams.
Just that.
Only that.
Because she was certainly right about this. That woman at the counter, the woman with braids and with one blue and one green eye, just
had
to be Juliet’s sister.
Three
Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.
—ROBERT FROST
Malibu & Ewe’s front door was propped open and as Juliet and Noah crossed the threshold she detected a faint chemical smell over the salty ocean scent pouring through the sliding doors at the rear of the shop. Lingering a few steps inside, she could see what she’d missed the night before. Those sliding back doors led to a balcony overlooking the sunlit expanse of the Santa Monica Bay.
Yet while the outside view was stunning, the store’s interior had its own charms. The afternoon sun bounced against the sand-colored walls and lit up like jewels the many-hued skeins of yarn that were tucked in wooden bins stacked on the floor and reaching to shoulder height. A seating area of overstuffed furniture took up the center of the room, each piece draped in a knitted throw of lush colors and textures.
Last night, she’d wandered in, a stranger. Today, the store felt almost familiar. Familiar . . . like family. Is that what she’d truly find here?
She’d missed the closeness of other women. As the media dubbed “Deal Breaker” and “Happy Widow,” not to mention the wife of a man with a daughter near her very own age, she’d come up against blatant criticism. But there’d been subtler snipes from the older women in their social circle as well.
Put their distrust together with the onset of Wayne’s illness early in their marriage, and you ended up with the fact that she’d become reclusive during the past few years. Over the last eleven months it had only gotten worse.
But no longer! As the sun rose that morning, she’d resolved to make changes. Changes like a job. Changes like taking real action to ensure Wayne’s book succeeded. And she could do both of those with or without sisters.
One of whom seemed to be MIA anyway, she realized, as she made another perusal of her silent surroundings. The shop appeared to be absent its owner.
Noah walked up behind her and she glanced at him. “Maybe we should visit another time.”
Before he could answer, a woman’s voice drifted from a back hallway. “You’re amazing,” she said with a little laugh. “Who would have thought we could be together like this?”
A male grunt responded. “It’s because you’re following orders for once, just as I like it. Now rub.”
In the telltale silence that followed, Juliet’s face burned. The front door was open, they were here during regular shop hours, yet still it sounded as if she and Noah had walked in on something very private indeed.
“Rub harder.”
At the second low growl of command emanating from the hallway, Juliet shuffled in retreat, only to be stopped by the warm wall of Noah’s body. She wobbled, and his hard forearm clamped across her hips to steady her.
Oh, God, she thought, swamped by the sudden awareness of his heat, his height, the maleness of the muscles cradling her. It was happening to her again, just like it had been happening since she’d seen him naked in her pool. That deep, undeniable consciousness that she was a woman and he was a man.
A hard, virile man.
“Damn it, Cassandra, I said rub harder.”
Juliet jolted in Noah’s arms, trying to get away from her own response and the images the disembodied voices were painting in her head. With a hard swallow, she pulled free of the strong arm holding her.
“I think we should go,” she whispered, darting a quick look at him. “And come back later.” After a cold shower or something.
“What?” Noah’s eyebrows rose. “Why?”
Another “Rub harder,” echoed in the room, turning up the heat on her face.
Noah gave a sudden grin, as if now he could see the story playing out in her imagination. “Juliet Weston. Get your mind out of the gutter.” Still grinning, he returned to the front door, where he grasped the string of bells hanging from the handle. At his tug, they rang out.
From the hall, the woman’s voice instantly responded. “Be with you in half a second,” she called out.
“Thanks a lot.” The unseen man groused. “It might take a little longer than that.”
The woman laughed, and from his renewed place beside Juliet, Noah did, too. For her part, the situation seemed serious. Last night her shell had crumbled, freeing at least one thing she would rather have stayed safely under wraps. Before now, her mind had never wandered into the gutter!
Clearly she needed another focus in her life besides Noah.
On that thought, Cassandra came hurrying around a corner. “Juliet!” Her big blue eyes widening, she stopped short and her fall of rippling brown hair settled about her shoulders. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”
“We didn’t have anything else going on today,” Juliet said.
The other woman came closer. “And you wanted to make sure you hadn’t dreamed it all up?”
“Something like that.”
“I know
I
wondered,” Cassandra said. She was dressed in a pair of jeans and a sleeveless cotton hoodie sweater that she had surely knit herself. “You can’t imagine the jump my heart gave when you walked in last night and I glimpsed another pair of Nikki’s eyes looking back at me.”
It had been a jolt for Juliet, too. But it had taken a naked Noah to bring her completely awake. She carefully kept her gaze away from him now. “We just saw Nikki at the fish place next door. They’re still the same blue and green as mine.”
Cassandra nodded, a smile playing around her full mouth. “The same. Though I think I see something of myself in you, too.”
“Yes? Well . . .” Juliet hesitated. “I hope we’re not interrupting.”
“No, no. Gabe and I are rewallpapering the bathroom. It’s going to look so cute when we’re done.”
“Cute?” A dark-haired, dark-eyed man came around the corner. He was very lean and his hair was scruffy. It looked as if he hadn’t shaved in a few days and his whiskers only made his scowl appear fiercer. “Tell me you’re kidding.”
Cassandra lowered her voice and leaned toward Juliet and Noah. “I think he’s color-blind. I told him the pale blue and yellow stripes are black and silver—he’s a Raiders fan and it seemed to make him happy.”
Juliet didn’t think the whiskered man would ever be happy, even with a bathroom inspired by his favorite football team. Especially as his scowl was only turning more menacing as he stomped over to confront the other woman.
“Damn it, Cassandra. Cute is going to drive my property values down.”
“Nonsense,” she said calmly. “Your nasty temper does that all by itself.”
He sucked in a breath and stiffened with what looked like outrage.
Cassandra ignored that, too. Reaching out to balance herself on one of his heavy forearms, she came up on tip-toes to kiss his bristled cheek. “Just kidding.”
At the touch of her lips, he arched back, as if her mouth was fire. “I’m outta here,” he muttered. “The last strip is up and holding.”
Cassandra called to his retreating back. “That’s two dinners I owe you then.”
He waved without turning or even slowing his stride. “For your information, I see colors just fine. Which means if the rice is that brown crap, I’ll know it. I want red beef and white starchy stuff, Froot Loop.” Then he was out the door.
With a little sigh, Cassandra returned her attention to Juliet and Noah. “I hate that nickname. It’s a toss-up as to whether it’s his diet or me that will kill him first.” Then she reached out toward Noah. “I’m Cassandra Riley, by the way.”
He gripped her hand. “Noah Smith.”
Cassandra’s gaze shifted to Juliet’s face, and then to the hand that Noah had placed on her waist when Gabe had come marching into the room, trailing his black mood along with him. “Your boyfriend?” she asked Juliet.
She felt Noah’s hand drop, as if she was as fiery to him as Cassandra’s lips were to Gabe. “My friend.”
“And no boy,” Cassandra added. Then she lifted her arms to gesture around the shop. “Welcome to Malibu & Ewe.”
An awkward silence descended over the trio. Juliet’s stomach jittered, her nerves reminding her she’d made a promise to be cautious. She was here on an exploratory mission only, she told herself—not to forge any formal ties.
Cassandra broke the silence. “Why don’t you come sit on the couches where we can talk more comfortably.”
The cushions
were
comfortable, and Juliet darted a glance at Noah as he took a seat beside her. His chiseled face and calm expression didn’t betray a clue to his thoughts, even as Cassandra crossed to a big basket and drew from it needles, yarn, and a half-started swatch that she held out to Juliet. “Do you, um, knit?”
Obviously Juliet wasn’t the only one feeling nervous, and that settled her a little. “Not for a long time,” she said, taking hold of the big needles and the soft wool. “I think I learned in Girl Scouts.”
“It’ll come back to you.” Cassandra plopped down on the couch across from her and grabbed another piece from the basket. “It’s calming.”
Her needles started clacking away, but she could stitch without looking at them. Her gaze met Juliet’s. “Whatever you need to say, to ask, I’m here. Ready.”
With that, Juliet plunged ahead. “You said you began some Internet research a few months ago,” she said. “Why did you start then, if you’ve known all your life about the artificial insemination?”
The corners of Cassandra’s mouth lifted. “Wait until you meet my mother.” Then she quickly went on. “That is, if you want to meet my mother someday.”
“She discouraged you from finding out more about your roots?”
“Not quite that. While I was growing up she was adamant that we didn’t need anyone but the two of us—mother and daughter.”
Juliet let her needles and yarn fall to her lap because she couldn’t focus on them and Cassandra at the same time. “She’s changed her mind?”
Cassandra shook her head. “She’s changed continents. A two-year backpacking trip around the world. I got to feeling a little lonely . . . so I started looking into who else I came from. Does that make sense?”
As a widow, a little lonely was something Juliet knew a lot about. She leaned forward. “I—”
“Why didn’t you make a phone call to Juliet?” It was Noah, his voice not suspicious, exactly, but not warm and friendly either. “Or you could have sent her a letter with a few Internet links so she could have pursued the information herself if she was interested.”
The flush deepened on Cassandra’s face. Her needles stilled. “I chickened out. I couldn’t make myself directly contact a stranger out of the blue. So I sent invitations to both Nikki and Juliet, hoping to entice them into the shop where I could get a look before making my approach. Underhanded, I’ll admit.”
Noah folded his arms over his chest. “How did Nikki take it?”
Cassandra looked away. “Not as calmly as Juliet—but that was partly because I delayed telling her until after we were becoming friends. That’s why Nikki and I told Juliet right away when she came into the shop. Before I told her about her parentage, Nikki had never suspected the truth—”
“If what you say
is
the truth,” Noah interjected.
Juliet put her hand on his arm. “Noah, seeing Nikki, do you really have doubts?”
He hesitated, then shook his head. “I see you in her,” he nodded at Cassandra, “as well.”
The other woman—God, she truly was Juliet’s
sister!
—released an audible breath. “I can show you what I found on the Internet. I’d be happy to let you see the steps I took and how I linked we three—and it’s only we three, by the way—to our father. Donor 1714.”
Donor 1714. That sounded so sterile, Juliet thought. So without feeling. But she’d had a father. And a mother. Both had loved her and she’d yet to figure out what she thought about them keeping this from her. “Like Nikki’s, my parents never hinted at anything unusual about my conception—other than they’d waited a long time for it.”
“Most families of that era didn’t talk openly about infertility. Many donor-inseminated kids don’t come to find out their biological beginnings until they’re into adulthood, like you and Nikki.”
Nikki. Nikki and Cassandra. Two women that she knew so very little about.
“Tell me . . .”
Everything.
She hesitated—would the request signal a closeness she was unsure of pursuing?—but then gave into the urge. “Tell me about Nikki.”
Cassandra grinned. “Oh, stick around and be entertained. Our little sister is the prickly one. She’s a professional chef and she recently had knee surgery that’s going to allow her to do some great things in whatever kitchen she chooses. For now, she’s heating up the life of one of Malibu’s natives and its one-time überbachelor Jay Buchanan. They’re engaged and would be married tomorrow if he had his way.”