Unravel Me by Christie Ridgway Read Free Book Online

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.”
    “And you’re not?” Noah asked. Juliet could tell that he was trying to get a clearer picture of the situation. “Married, that is?”
    “No.” Cassandra seemed perfectly comfortable with the idea. She eased back against the couch and raised her brows at him. “Never. How about you?”
    Juliet froze, then darted a glance at Noah. God, she’d never thought . . . never considered, even though she knew he’d been in Iraq and it wasn’t uncommon for young soldiers to marry their girl before deploying to a battle zone. Had he ever . . . ?
    “Thought about it at twenty-one.” Noah’s expression was as noncommittal as before. “Then thought better of it.”
    Juliet’s tight chest loosened, and wasn’t that just a warning in itself about the trouble a lonely widow could get into? What kind of person didn’t want the man living across the pool to have once fancied himself in love enough to marry?
    She put the yarn and needles aside and got to her feet. “Maybe we should go.” New to this awake-and-in-the-world business, her emotional state was rocky, as these weird responses to Noah proved. She had her answers from Cassandra so it was time to leave.
    “Good idea,” Noah said, rising. “But before we take off, Cassandra, I want to make something clear.”
    Juliet’s donor sibling stood, too.