Dirty Sexy Knitting

by Christie Ridgway

  “We went to see Dr. Frank Tucker,” Juliet said quietly.

  “Oh.”

  “I didn’t like him much,” Nikki added.

  “You don’t like anybody much,” Cassandra pointed out. “At least not at the beginning.”

  The younger woman made a face. “Okay, true, but I’m starting to get tired of being the mean one.”

  “Let’s leave that to Marlys,” Juliet suggested. “Gabe invited her and Dean today, you know. But they were off to Las Vegas.”

  “Sealing the deal?” Nikki asked.

  “Sealing the deal.” Juliet nodded.

  Cassandra fingered the envelope in her lap. “Speaking of seals—”

  “We asked him why he decided to make contact with his donor offspring,” Nikki interrupted. “With us.”

  Cassandra shifted in her chair. They were back to Dr. Tucker, not exactly her favorite subject. “And?”

  Juliet looked down. “He said it was because his two sons didn’t look anything like him. His wife couldn’t have children, so they adopted, but he really wanted kids who resembled him.”

  “Oh.” Cassandra didn’t know what to say to that.

  “I think it’s the plastic surgery angle,” Nikki said. “He’s all about the surface stuff.”

  They went quiet. All about the surface stuff, Cassandra thought. Her hand crept over her belly. If she and Gabe had their spring flower, she couldn’t imagine it would matter who he or she resembled. And if they found out she couldn’t get pregnant, she was certain that she and Gabe would consider adoption.

  All about the surface stuff.

  Her hand tightened on the envelope in her lap. “Let’s not open them,” she blurted out.

  Nikki and Juliet turned to her. “What?” they said together.

  “I don’t need to know what the results are. Do you?”

  Nikki blinked. “This was all your idea, Froot Loop. Juliet and I never wanted to waste our time with this. We never doubted you’re our sister.”

  “Then let’s not look at them.” Cassandra gripped the envelope. “Let’s just . . . just . . . rip them into pieces and throw them out to sea.”

  Smiling, Juliet stood up. “Sounds good to me.”

  “Me, too.” Nikki jumped to her feet.

  Cassandra joined them at the rail of the balcony. “I love you guys.” The threat of tears was at the back of her throat and in the corners of her eyes again. “You know, we did it. We knit together a family.”

  Nikki groaned. “Corny.”

  Juliet made the first tear in her envelope. “It’s her birthday party so she can be as corny as she wants.”

  “Yeah, but—” Nikki started.

  Juliet shot her a look. “I thought you didn’t want to be the mean one anymore. Get ripping.”

  And so they did, all three of them tearing their envelopes into little pieces that they tossed over the railing where they caught the breeze like confetti. Another celebration.

  When the paper had blown away on the ocean breeze, they sat down on the chairs again, Juliet, then Cassandra, then Nikki.

  “Wow,” Cassandra said. “I can’t believe how free I feel.”

  They listened to the waves wash in and out against the bluff below them. Then Nikki spoke up in a small voice. “I have a confession to make.”

  Frowning, Cassandra looked over. “Another one? What is it?”

  “I peeked.” She said it quickly. “I looked at the results before I brought them here.”

  “Me, too,” Juliet said.

  Cassandra straightened her spine and whipped her head in her older sister’s direction. “But . . . but you’re Goody Two-shoes.”

  She shrugged. “Not always.”

  After a moment, Cassandra flopped back in her chair. “I looked, too.”

  No she hadn’t. But it didn’t matter, did it? They’d decided to be sisters. They’d decided to be family.

  Her sisters were smiling at her. Maybe they guessed she was lying. Maybe their smiles meant they were pleased they were biological sisters or maybe their smiles meant they were pleased that even though they weren’t, Cassandra was happy.

  “Froot Loop?”

  She turned to see Gabe in the doorway. Now she smiled, her heart swelling. She held out her hand to him, his touch the anchor her life needed.

  She was no longer rootless or alone. With friendship and love in her life, there wasn’t any room for loneliness, only possibilities.

  Epilogue

  A baby is God’s opinion that life should go on.

  —CARL SANDBURG

  Playing in the Malibu sand under the hot summer sun, seven-year-old Riley Rosemary Kincaid decided this was the best day of her life. “I’m never going to forget it,” she said, looking over at her mommy, who was lying under the shade of an umbrella.

  “That’s nice, baby,” her mother murmured, her eyes closed.

  Riley scratched her skin where the tag of her bikini bottoms—Hand Knit By Mommy—rubbed. The swimsuit was the best, too. Her mother had finished it last night. It was as yellow as her older cousin Annabelle’s long blond hair, and the ties of the top had little crocheted pink flowers attached to the ends. When her other girl cousin, Aunt Nikki and Uncle Jay’s daughter, Serena, had seen it, she’d begged her mom to make her one just like it.

  Never going to happen. Aunt Nikki was stuck forever at the knitting scarves stage.

  Riley glanced around for Serena now but didn’t see her. She looked toward the steps leading into Serena’s house and figured the other girl was inside, pestering her mother about recipes as she prepared lunch. Serena was nine years old and already working on her second cookbook.

  A trickle of sweat ran down Riley’s temple and she stared at the cool ocean just a short distance away. Glancing over at her dozing mother, she rose slowly to her feet.

  “Don’t even think about it,” her mom warned, her lashes still resting on her cheeks. “You don’t go into the water without Daddy.”

  Riley frowned. How did she do that? With a flounce, she plopped back to the sand and turned her gaze on ten-year-old Annabelle, the daughter of Aunt Juliet and Uncle Noah. The oldest girl cousin, she sat like a princess on one corner of the blanket and drew a comb through her length of beautiful hair. Riley frowned deeper and tugged on the ends of the stuff she’d chopped off herself last week. Her father had choked the first time he’d seen what she’d done, but her mother had only sighed and reminded him that artists found canvases everywhere.

  He’d made her promise never to get a tattoo or pierce anything but her earlobes, and then he’d taken her to the store and bought her new paints and brushes. He was so easy.

  “Hey, shrimp,” a boy’s voice called out. “Think quick.” A Nerf football bounced off the top of Riley’s head.

  She glared up at her brother Simon. He was just a few months older than Annabelle and the exact same age, of course, as his twin, Scott. A whole group of boys surrounded her: Simon and Scott; her other brother, eight-year-old Kyle; Annabelle’s younger brother Adam; and Serena’s brother Mitch. With a grin, Mitch tossed the volleyball he carried at her, and she barely batted it away before it hit her nose. What a dummy.

  “Are you okay?” Someone else kneeled down beside her. His black eyebrows came together over his dark brown eyes. Luis Santos. He was also ten, and much nicer than her brothers or her cousins. Annabelle thought so, too, Riley could tell, because she sat up a little straighter and tucked her comb under her hip. Luis didn’t notice the other girl though; he was still looking at Riley.

  She smiled at him. “I’m fine, Luis.” He lived just one house away from Serena and Mitch in a little cottage that was painted a pale turquoise. Garlands of shells and starfish were hung like curtains over the windows. Riley loved it there, because it was so colorful and smelled of the sweet blossoms from the plumeria plants that Luis’s dad had everywhere.

  “Who wants to go swimming?” another voice boomed out.

  Riley forgot all about blosso
ms and shells and even Luis as the man she loved most in the world approached. “Daddy!” She jumped to her feet and ran toward him. He swung her up in his arms and smacked a kiss on her cheek, his dark whiskers already a little rough.

  “How are you, Mommy Froot Loop?” he called over her head.

  Riley’s mother smiled sleepily. “Incubating just fine, Gabe, thank you very much.”

  Her mom was pregnant again, her belly as big as a beach ball. It was another male baby her parents said, but Riley didn’t mind. That would leave the three girl cousins in charge of all the boys, just as it should be.

  She scrambled around to grasp Daddy’s shoulders so he could cart her, piggyback-style, into the water. He loped toward it, the boys trailing behind. His feet splashed into the surf, but Riley was still high and dry. He turned his head to look at her. “Happy, honey?”

  “Happy, Daddy.”

  He smiled, shaking his head a little. “Those blue and green eyes.”

  Riley had them, just like her aunts Nikki and Juliet. None of the other kids did, which she was secretly pretty pleased about. Artists didn’t want to be like everyone else.

  Her father strode deeper into the water and Riley looked back toward shore. The other adults in her family were gathered around the blanket, her aunts Nikki and Juliet and her uncles Jay and Noah. Luis’s parents, Shana and Jorge, were there, too. Serena was sitting with Annabelle now, and they were playing with a baby. It had to be Marlys and Dean’s new one, because those two grown-ups were herding their other kids toward the group.

  Riley’s mom had gotten up though, and was standing at the edge of the water watching as they waded. She ran her hand over the sarong-covered bulge of her belly. Riley waved to her. Then she waved to the dark-haired little girl standing nearby. She was wearing pink tights and flat pink slippers. Riley saw her every once in a while, sometimes at the beach, sometimes at home. She was always smiling. The ballet girl waved back now, then pirouetted off down the sand.

  Cold water splashed Riley’s legs as her daddy went deeper into the ocean. She squealed just a little and held him tighter. His back was warm and solid and she rested her cheek on his shoulder for a moment, then peered over it to look out at the endless water. She was never going to forget this moment, this day . . .

  Oh, who was she kidding? She would forget today, she knew it, but only because there were a bazillion others just as perfect waiting on the horizon.