Wayward Dreams by Gail McFarland Read Free Book Online Page B

multiple business- and real estate-related degrees. It couldn’t have been as easy as Julia made it look, but she’d put in the work and excelled. Starting out smart and ambitious with no money, she’d secured an international fellowship that took her to Japan and then brought her back to Atlanta. Like her sister, she knew she wanted more, so it was in the city of their birth that Julia set about rebuilding communities and making money in the process.
    Now, we’re all the family we have. Our parents were only children from small families, and her real father is gone. Julia and I are all that’s left. Bianca shivered. I should have stayed closer to her.
    Maybe it was maturity that made Bianca think of her sister’s face when she’d tried to explain why she was going to Chicago. Finding her original birth certificate had changed the truth of everything Julia knew, and leaving her sister to find her own way, Bianca didn’t understand why. Not then, but now…
    Years later, slinking out of New York on the heels of a failed design attempt, Bianca was left licking her wounds and counting pennies. Coming home, she’d told herself that Atlanta was the perfect place to start over. She’d called her sister and shared a mandatory lunch. Stiff and uneasy, the sisters had sat across from each other like polite strangers, nibbling at a meal that neither of them wanted.
    Baffled by her sister’s willingness to trade on her looks and sex appeal, Julia had finally said what was on her mind and then pushed for answers. Wasn’t it bad enough, she insisted, that their mother had taken the same path? Why couldn’t Bianca see where her life was headed? Why was she so willing to take the road of least resistance?
    Bianca had spent many sleepless nights wondering the same thing, but the words wouldn’t cross her lips, and Julia pushed harder.
    Aggressive and heavy-handed, Julia had crossed another line by demanding to know her sister’s financial condition. Insulted, Bianca had slammed money onto the table and stalked from the restaurant, her spine straight, her feelings bruised. Then she had ignored Julia’s phone calls and investment advice when she cashed in the small retirement account she’d inherited from their stepfather and invested in her own designs.
    Wishing that the motel towels were larger and thicker, Bianca stepped from the shower and onto the pad of thin white towels she’d placed on the floor. Working the bath-sized towel over her body, she tried again to think of the right words. Julia was no pushover, so how easy would it be to shut the door in the face of someone who hadn’t tried to cross her threshold for so many years?
    Tipping her wrist to check the time, Bianca missed her watch, even as she remembered that she and Julia had not come from the perfect two-parent home, but they always had one. They had been the kids with the matching life, the kids with the peanut butter and jelly life. They always had the mother and father, the home and church, the school and the play clothes, the shoes and socks. The love and the laughter.
    That was when the first tears fell.
    She thought back to her childhood, and for just a tiny slice of time, Bianca Coltrane was so lonely that she would have given anything to ease the unbearable pain. Crying, clutching the edge of the scarred vanity counter, she sank to her knees, dropping the towels as she fell. Landing naked in the nest of damp white towels, she pulled her knees to her chest and rocked.
    How does anybody with so much manage to throw it away with both hands? How did I do it so easily?
    It had seemed so easy, walking away from Julia and never looking back. Yes, she still felt pride when she saw her sister interviewed on TV, or saw her billboards. But that was different. She’s my smart, capable, reliable sister. She’s got her life together on her own terms, and never depended on anyone else to do it for