Sisters by Danielle Steel Read Free Book Online Page A

grandchildren. It looked that way so far.
    Sabrina always assumed that one of the younger girls would get married first, probably Annie. Candy was still too young, and her head was all over the place about men. She was always meeting the wrong ones, drawn to her for her looks and celebrity alone. Tammy seemed to have given up dating in the last two years, and never seemed to meet decent men in the crazy business she was in. And she and Chris weren't going anywhere, they were happy as they were. Annie was the only one who seemed even remotely likely to get married. And as she drove out of the garage, Sabrina found herself wondering how serious this new boyfriend of Annie's was. She sounded pretty keen on him, and said he was terrific. Maybe not terrific enough to marry. She had said vaguely to Sabrina that he was moving back to New York at the end of the year. Sabrina figured it was probably the only thing that might get her to leave Florence. She loved it so much there, which worried Sabrina too. What if she never moved back from Europe? It was even harder to get to Florence than it was to get to L.A. to see Tammy. She hated the fact that they were all so spread out now. She really missed them. She saw Candy now and then when they both had time. Sabrina made a point of meeting her for lunch or dinner, or even coffee, but she hardly saw the other two and seriously missed them. Sometimes she thought she felt it more than the others. Her bond to her sisters and sense of family was strong, stronger than her bond to anyone else, even Chris, much as she loved him.
    She called him from her car phone once she got on the highway. He had just come home from playing squash with a friend and said he was exhausted, but happy he had won.
    “What time are you coming out tomorrow?” she asked. She already missed him. She always missed him on the nights they didn't spend together, but it made the nights they did spend with each other even sweeter.
    “I'll get there in the afternoon, before the party. I thought I'd give you some time alone with your sisters. I know how you girls are. Shoes, hair, boyfriends, dresses, work, fashion. You have a lot to talk about.” He was teasing her, but he wasn't far off the mark. They were still like a bunch of teenagers when they got together, they laughed and talked and giggled, usually late into the night. The only difference now from when they were young was that they smoked and drank while they did it, and they were a lot kinder about their parents than they had been as kids. Now they realized how lucky they were to have them, and how great they were.
    As teenagers, she and Tammy had given their mom a tough time. Candy and Annie had been easier, and had enjoyed the freedoms that Tammy and Sabrina had fought for earlier—and that in some cases had been hard-won. Sabrina always said that they had worn their mother down, but she had held a hard line at times. Sabrina knew it couldn't have been easy to raise four girls. Their mom had done a great job, and so had their dad. However, he often left a lot of the difficult decisions to their mother and often deferred to her, which always made Sabrina mad at him. She had wanted his support, and he refused to get in the middle of their battles. He wasn't a fighter, he was a lover. And their mother had been more outspoken and more willing to be unpopular with her daughters, if she was convinced she was right. Sabrina thought she had been very brave, and respected her a great deal. She hoped she'd be as good a mother herself one day, if she was ever brave enough to have kids of her own. She hadn't decided yet—it was another one of those decisions she had decided to put off for now, like marriage. At thirty-four, she hadn't found her biological clock yet. She was in no hurry.
    Tammy was the one who was nervous about missing out on having kids, if she didn't find the right guy. At Christmas, she had admitted that she would go to a sperm bank one day if she had