Seeking Carolina. Terri-Lynne Defino

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СКАЧАТЬ “Good to see you, Jo.”

      She tried to laugh. “It hasn’t been that long.”

      “Almost a year.”

      “No it hasn’t. Nina and I just…oh…” She pressed cool fingers to her burning cheeks. “I guess it has been a while. New Year’s right?”

      His smile crinkled in the corners of his blue eyes. “Right. Nina said you had a hard time getting here.”

      “It was insane. But I’m here now.” She slipped one arm around his waist, the other around Emma’s. “We all are. Gram would love it.”

      “Yes, she would have. At Thanksgiving.” Emma slipped out of her embrace but kissed her cheek. “You’re here now, and Christmas is in less than a week. You will stay, won’t you?”

      “I sup—”

      “Good. Eat. I have to go. Snow day. Got to get home to the boys so Mike can go to work.”

      Johanna let her arm slip from Gunner’s waist. Emma had every right to be upset, despite their tearful reunion. To go unchastised indefinitely was too much too hope for. She pulled out a vinyl chair and plucked a slice of bacon from the plate. Julietta dropped onto the chair beside her. “Emma’s been cranky lately,” she exaggerated a whisper. “I think she’s prego.”

      “I am not cranky,” Emma said, putting on her coat. “And I am definitely not pregnant.”

      “You and Mike not having sex again?”

      Emma froze. Johanna cringed but Julietta sat poker-straight, head cocked and her expression concerned.

      “Sex isn’t the issue,” Emma said, resuming her struggle with the zipper. “It’s…nothing. Nothing that needs discussing now. Supper at my house tonight. Nina, you and Gunner, too.”

      “We’ll be there.”

      “What about me?” Julietta asked. Emma kissed both her cheeks.

      “You are a given, darling.” She headed for the door. “Seven o’clock. Bring wine.”

      Gunner’s cell rang just as Emma closed the door. Bits of her brother-in-law’s hushed conversation drifted back into the kitchen. Nina poured another round of coffee before sitting down herself, her attention focused on her husband.

      “He’s going to have to leave,” she said quietly. “It was nearly impossible for him to get out of the city to come here at all. Huge things happening at the gallery.”

      “How huge?” Julietta asked. “Da Vinci huge?”

      “Not art-wise. There’s been this firm out of Sweden wooing us for years. They want to buy us out, and I think temptation is starting to get to Gunner. If they succeed, the good news is neither one of us will ever have to work again.”

      “And the bad news?”

      Nina smiled into her coffee. “Neither one of us will have to work again.”

      “How tempted are you, Nina?”

      “I love the gallery. We’ve worked really hard all these years to grow it from that stinky little artist co-op into what it is now. But I’m ready to let it go, maybe travel a bit. I just don’t think Gunner would last a year living the life of the idle rich.”

      The sisters ate and chatted, but Nina’s attention remained on Gunner. When he came to the doorway and motioned her to him, she went without a word. The pair of them, arms around one another, shared the phone. Gunner’s hand moved up and down his wife’s spine, as unconscious an act as it was sensual. Johanna forced herself to look away, a little embarrassed and a lot envious.

      “Could you imagine the world devastation should those two ever have kids?” Julietta was still staring in that unnerving way she had. No self-consciousness, no apologies. “We’d all have to wear sunglasses or suffer some sort of beauty-blindness.”

      “Is that like snow-blindness?” Johanna joked.

      “No.” Julietta snorted. “Photokeratitis is real. I made up beauty-blindness.”

      “Well, they’re not going to have kids, so the world is safe.”

      “It’s not too late. She’s only forty-one.”

      Johanna let it go. Nina had vowed to never have children, to never pass along the genes they all inherited lest any child of hers suffer their parents’ fate. Emma seemed determined to prove her sister’s fears wrong with three sons in quick succession. And if Julietta’s suspicions proved right, perhaps another.

      Left alone with her youngest, unflappable sister, Johanna hedged, “So, Emma and Mike were having problems, you know, in bed?”

      “It was a few years ago.” Julietta bit into her toast. “When Gio was a toddler. She wanted another baby. He said they couldn’t afford any more, and didn’t trust her not to accidentally-on-purpose sabotage their birth control. So,” she shrugged, “no sex was the only way to make sure it didn’t happen.”

      “He didn’t trust her?”

      “I wouldn’t have either. She really wanted another baby.”

      In the next room, Gunner and Nina were laughing. Julietta’s attention diverted quickly, always too easily. She pushed out of her chair and joined them.

      Johanna sipped at her coffee, basked in the sunshine coming through the big kitchen window and the sisterly gossip she didn’t realize she missed. If I she were in Cape May, she’d have already put in half a day of work. Sleeping in, having her breakfast made for her, indulging in chatting with these sisters she loved, it let her, if only for a moment, forget all the reasons she had for staying far away from Bitterly.

      A soft knock on the back door opened her eyes. Charlie waved from the other side of the glass. She leapt too quickly to her feet and nearly spilled her coffee.

      “All done?” she asked as he stomped his boots clean.

      “Boys are just finishing up.”

      Johanna stepped aside to let him in. He put up his hands.

      “I’ll get snow all over the floor.”

      “Who cares? Get in here. And call your boys. I’m making them hot chocolate.”

      “No need to—”

      “It’ll take two minutes. Sit. Warm up. It’s the least I can do. Okay?”

      Charlie chuckled softly. “Sure.”

      Johanna called out to the boys who shouted in return. Head stuck in the pantry, she was relieved to find the ingredients necessary for a real cup of hot chocolate, and not the powdered stuff in an envelope.

      “Help yourself to the coffee,” she said over her shoulder, “unless you want hot chocolate.”

      “I’d love some. Thanks, Johanna.”

      He СКАЧАТЬ