Kiana Cruise

by Jody Studdard

  “What are you talking about?” Kiana asked.

  “It’s true. Your hair and your eyes, they’re almost identical.”

  That’s when things got really interesting.

  Holley and Olivia exchanged quick, uncomfortable glances, and Holley turned to Michael. Her expression had changed completely. A second before, she had been jovial and lively. Now, she was as serious as ever.

  “Actually, Michael, this would probably be a good time to tell you why we came to Seattle. It was actually Olivia’s idea. She’s wanted to come here for quite a long time.”

  “Really?” Michael asked. “What for?”

  “She wanted to see her father.”

  “He lives here in Seattle?”

  Holley smiled again, then looked straight into Michael’s eyes. “Her father is originally from California. But he lives here now. He moved here this past year.”

  The minute she said it Kiana’s eyes got big. She had figured out what Holley was saying and she was completely floored.

  Amazingly, however, Michael was oblivious.

  “Does he work for the agency?” he asked.

  Kiana couldn’t control herself. She had to tell him. “Dad. You’re her father.”

  Michael was normally an intelligent, articulate person. But in that particular instant, with all three of them staring straight at him, he was absolutely dumbfounded. And speechless. And confused. Clearly, a million different thoughts and emotions were racing through his mind. All he could manage to say was, “How is that possible?”

  Holley turned to Kiana. “You seem like a bright girl, Kiana. Can you tell your dad how babies are made?”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Michael said. “Why didn’t you tell me? It’s been almost twenty years.”

  “I know. And I apologize. I made a terrible mistake. At the time we were going our separate ways. When I found out I was pregnant I didn’t really know what to do. And you were so focused on your career back then, and doing so well at the agency, I didn’t want anything to interfere with that. And then when I finally decided to tell you, a few years after Olivia was born, I learned you had married Danielle. You were so happy and I didn’t want to interfere with your marriage so I kept everything quiet. And then the next thing I knew, here we are twenty years later.”

  “Why now?”

  “Olivia wanted it. To be honest, she’s wanted it for years. But I kept making up excuses and putting it off.”

  Michael still didn’t know what to say. Finally, he placed his napkin on the table in front of him, drained his wine glass in a single gulp, stood up, and said to Holley, “We need to step outside for a second.”

  Holley didn’t look too happy about it, since she knew the ensuing conversation was not going to be pleasant, but she rose and followed him out the restaurant’s front door. Kiana and Olivia were left sitting there, by themselves, directly across from one another. It was silent for several minutes and they did little more than look at one another. Neither of them really knew what to say.

  “I guess that makes us sisters,” Kiana said.

  It was a pretty dumb thing to say, since it was completely obvious, but it was all she could think of at the time.

  “I guess it does,” Olivia said.

  And in that way, on that day, Kiana got a sister. She didn’t realize it at the time since it had been so unexpected and it had happened so abruptly, but it ended up being one of the best things to ever happen to her.

  Chapter 41

  Holley and Michael returned about twenty minutes later and they both looked a little ruffled. Clearly, their conversation hadn’t gone well and it looked like there had been some yelling. Regardless, they both tried to remain as cordial and as polite as possible in front of Kiana and Olivia. Michael called the waiter over and took care of their check and they all prepared to leave. As they reached the restaurant’s exit, Michael stopped briefly and turned to Olivia.

  “I’m going to need a day or so to digest all of this. But we have a spare room and I’ll have Kiana prepare it for you. I’d like it a lot if you’d come over and stay with us for a few days while you’re in town. It would be nice to get to know you a little better.”

  Olivia’s eyes got big the minute he said it. Kiana could tell this was exactly what she had been waiting (and hoping) for. Her response was immediate.

  “Okay.”

  “Good. Please understand, Olivia, I have no issue with you and I really look forward to getting to know you better. And I apologize if I upset you in any way today with how I reacted. It was just a big surprise. To say the least.”

  She smiled. “No worries. I understand.”

  They said their goodbyes and departed. The car ride home was deathly silent for the first twenty minutes. Kiana kept waiting for Michael to say something but he just sat there, behind the wheel, staring straight ahead into nothingness, clearly lost in his thoughts. Finally, she couldn’t take it any longer and had to start a conversation.

  “That was interesting.”

  He turned to face her. One of his eyebrows was raised. “Interesting?”

  She giggled. “Maybe interesting wasn’t the best word. How about unforgettable.”

  He nodded.

  They were silent for a couple of minutes before he spoke again.

  “How am I going to explain this to Christine? She’s going to freak out.”

  Kiana wasn’t certain she agreed with him. “I’m not so certain about that. Christine seems pretty decent to me. I think she’ll understand. And it’s not like you did something wrong or cheated on her. You were seeing Holley long before you started seeing Christine.”

  “True.” There was a bit of relief in his eyes. Clearly, he didn’t want anything to jeopardize his relationship with Christine, especially since things were going so well between them recently. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe she’ll be okay. Will you tell her for me?”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah. You two seem like you’re getting along really well lately. She’ll probably be cool if you tell her.”

  “This is your responsibility. You need to tell her.”

  He thought about it for a minute. “Yeah, you’re right. How should I do it?”

  “How am I supposed to know? It’s not like I’ve dealt with something like this before. But if I were you I’d tell her soon, to get it over with, and I’d just be straight forward and honest with her. After all, it’s not like you’ve done anything wrong.”

  He nodded.

  Kiana had always had a mischievous side to her so she couldn’t let things end right there. She had to give him a little grief.

  “If I were you, though, I’d make certain she doesn’t have her pistol on her at the time just in case. Beckman told me Christine is a great shot.”

  Michael did not look amused.

  “Haha. That’s not funny. But you’ve got a good point. She is a great shot, one of the best at the agency, so I better not take any chances.”

  They drove in silence for another minute or so before she decided to tease him some more. “Christine told me there were a few girlfriends back in the day. Before mom.”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “Christine said you had a few girlfriends back before you met mom. She said you were quite a playa.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” But then he thought about it a little and apparently decided to clarify things. “There were a couple of women. But it was no big deal. Just a couple.”

  “A couple?”

  “Maybe three or four.”

  “I heard something about a woman in Brazil. And another in Japan. A fellow operative.”

  “She told you about Asa? Yeah, I saw her for a while, but it really wasn’t that big of a deal. We weren’t that serious. Well, kinda.”

  Kiana smiled. As far as she was concerned, teasing him was great fun and she had him right where she wanted him. “So is there any chance I have any other sisters out there other than Olivia?”


  The look on his face was precious. He was totally caught off guard by the question and he hardly knew how to respond. “That’s ridiculous, Kiana. Totally ridiculous. I can’t believe you just said it.”

  It was all Kiana could do to keep from bursting out laughing. She had always loved teasing him, but this absolutely took the cake. She had never seen him so defensive and so caught off guard in her entire life. But then again, she had to give him a little credit. After all, he had been through a lot. It’s not every day a man learns he has a nineteen-year-old daughter he’s never met before.

  But then, much to Kiana’s surprise, he turned the tables on her.

  “Actually, now that I think about it, there was this one woman I knew in Berlin. I always wondered about that.”

  Kiana’s eyes got big. She couldn’t believe what she had just heard. “Oh my god. If I find out I have another sister out there, one that I never knew all of these years, Christine won’t have to shoot you. I’ll do it myself.”

  They laughed and continued for home.

  Chapter 42

  As far as Kiana was concerned, the next few days were great. As soon as they got home, Michael called Christine, had her come over, and told her what had happened. Kiana stayed upstairs in her room but she kept the door ajar so she could hear how things were going downstairs. And just like she had predicted, Christine was surprised and shocked, but at the same time she wasn’t angry or upset at all and she assured Michael that Olivia would not affect their relationship in any way. Her only real concern was how to proceed from there, and she was adamant that Kiana and Michael needed to spend as much time as possible with Olivia to make up for all of the years they had lost.

  “If you think you feel bad,” she told Michael, “imagine how Olivia must have felt. She went nineteen years without having a father.”

  Kiana was excited. Like most ‘only-children,’ she had always wanted a sibling and now that she had one she was going to make the most of it. She went in their house’s spare bedroom and cleaned it from top to bottom. The room wasn’t really that dirty since normally no one used it, but at the same time she wanted it perfect anyway. That way Olivia would be as comfortable and as happy as possible during her time with them.

  The visit itself turned out to be immensely fun. Holley dropped Olivia off at 5:00 pm the next day. Michael introduced her to Christine, then they had dinner, which was excellent. Christine made lasagna and a side salad, and she topped the salad with a mango dressing that neither Kiana nor Olivia had had before, and they both thought it was dreamy. It was one of the first times Kiana had ever asked for seconds of salad (normally, she considered it rabbit food). As they ate, Olivia told them all about her, including the places she had lived and the schools she had attended in Greece, England, and Australia. Currently, she was in her second year at a small university in downtown Sydney.

  “What are you studying?” Michael asked.

  “Just general studies so far. I haven’t decided on a major yet.”

  “Any hobbies?”

  “A few. I like hiking. And taekwondo.”

  Kiana’s eyes lit up. “Really? Taekwondo?”

  “Kiana likes taekwondo, too,” Michael said.

  “Sweet,” Olivia said. “One day we should spar a little.

  “Be careful,” Christine said. “Kiana is pretty intense when it comes to her taekwondo. And her kicks are downright nasty.”

  Olivia smiled. “Nice.”

  After that, they had Olivia do her accents again, both Australian and British, and they laughed heartily as she did each one. She even started teaching Kiana how to do it and that was a complete blast. Unfortunately, Kiana really wasn’t any good at it and both of her accents sounded exactly the same, and neither of them sounded Australian or British at all. Christine, however, was another story. They were all amazed when she jumped in and started rattling off sentence after sentence in an absolutely perfect British accent.

  “I spent three years on assignment in London. Learning the accent helped me fit in a little better.”

  After dinner, they went to a local mall to catch a movie. They got their tickets, then Kiana and Olivia waited in the theater’s lobby as Christine and Michael went to the restrooms.

  “She’s nice,” Olivia said, referring to Christine.

  Kiana nodded. “I didn’t like her at first. But I was completely wrong. She’s a good person. And she seems to make my dad - I mean, our dad - pretty happy, so I can’t complain.”

  “They’re a nice couple. Do they have any plans to get married?’

  Kiana shrugged. “I’m not certain. They haven’t mentioned anything.”

  “Speaking of couples, what about you? Any guys worth mentioning?”

  “I like this boy named Jacen. He’s a senior on the baseball team at my school. We just started going out a while back and so far things are dreamy.”

  “Sweet. I’d like to meet him sometime.”

  “How about you? You must have a boyfriend. I bet those Australian guys are all over you.”

  Olivia grinned. “Unfortunately, I’m between boyfriends right now. I was seeing this guy for about six months but things went sour and we broke up. And I’ve been pretty busy lately so I haven’t had much time to find a replacement.”

  Michael and Christine returned a few minutes later, they all got candy and drinks at the concession stand (Kiana and Olivia shared a bag of jelly beans and a bucket of popcorn – it was so big it had to have its own seat), then they watched the movie, which was an outrageous (and extremely crude) reboot of a television show from the eighties that neither Kiana nor Olivia had heard of. They had a good time and on the way home Kiana showed Olivia some photos on her phone of Jacen. Olivia’s eyes got big the minute she saw Jacen’s picture.

  “Nice. He’s a hottie.”

  So far, Olivia had only been with them for a day but already Kiana was convinced of one thing.

  Having an older sister was awesome.

  Chapter 43

  The next day, as Kiana, Olivia, Michael, and Christine were finishing their breakfast at the dining room table, Christine said, “Let’s show Olivia around town a little. After all, this is your first trip to Seattle, right?”

  Olivia nodded. “It is.”

  “Anything in particular you’d like to see?” Michael asked.

  Olivia thought about it for a second, then said, “I’ve always wanted to see the Space Needle. It looks so cool in movies.”

  Kiana’s face went pale the second Olivia said the name ‘Space Needle.’

  Christine shot a quick glance at her, then turned back to Olivia. “The Space Needle is nice but it’s really overrated. Maybe we’ll try a few other things first, for starters.”

  Olivia looked a little disappointed but not overly so. She was really just happy to be with them. In the meantime, Kiana was relieved and to be completely frank, there was no way she was going anywhere near the Space Needle again.

  So they spent the rest of the day travelling around downtown Seattle basically doing the tourist thing, including a stop at the Pike Place Market, which was Seattle’s version of an old-fashioned farmer’s market. It was right in the downtown area, not too far from the piers, and it was made up of a bunch of small food stalls and vegetable carts, and everyone loved the fish stands where men tossed large salmon around. After that, they walked to Westlake Center, which was a fancy, multi-level shopping mall just a few blocks to the east.

  “I’ve always liked malls,” Olivia said.

  “Me, too,” Kiana said.

  “Me, three,” Christine said.

  The all looked at Michael.

  “They’re okay,” he said.

  After Westlake Center they went to the Seattle Great Wheel, which was a large Ferris wheel that sat on a pier overlooking Puget Sound. It was one hundred and seventy five feet tall, with forty-two fully enclosed gondolas, and since each gondola could hold up to eight people at a time they were all able to ride in one of them together. When
their gondola got to the top of the wheel they could see all of downtown Seattle, including the areas they had just been walking through. The Space Needle was also visible, just to the north, but Kiana kept her back to it the whole time.

  As they rode the wheel back down Michael pulled out his phone and began checking something on the internet. He looked up as soon as he found what he was looking for. “It looks like the Mariners are in town today and the game starts in a couple of hours. Are you guys up for it?”

  They all nodded. None of them had been to a baseball game in Seattle and it sounded like fun.

  “I can order the tickets right here on the website.” He started typing, then stopped briefly and looked at Kiana.

  “What’s Jacen doing today?”

  Kiana’s eyes got big the minute he said Jacen’s name.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Send him a text and see if he’s free. If he is, I’ll get him a ticket.”

  Kiana shot a quick glance at Christine. At first, she thought Christine had talked to him beforehand and put him up to it, but when she saw Christine’s face it was clear she hadn’t. Christine looked as surprised as Kiana.

  As such, Kiana wasted no time. She sent Jacen a text and he responded and said he was free and did indeed want to come. So they made arrangements to meet him at the field just prior to the start of the game and Michael ordered tickets for them all.

  “This will be great,” Kiana told Olivia. “Now you can meet him.”

  “Sweet,” Olivia said.

  “You’ll like him,” Michael said. “He’s a good kid.”

  Kiana’s jaw dropped. She could not believe what she had just heard. “Who are you and what have you done with my dad?”

  It was true. Michael was not acting like himself, not at all. As far as Kiana was concerned, the person standing in front of her had to be an imposter or a doppelganger of some sort.

  “I’m trying to turn over a new leaf,” he said. “It’s not easy, but I thought there was no better time than the present. Especially since so much has changed lately and especially now that Olivia is here with us.”