LITMIR.BIZ

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like in contrast to her red hair. She thought not. In a second attempt to distract Rad, she said, “Nice hairdo.”

      He flashed her a grin. “Thanks. There’s a lot of product up there.”

      “Excellent match with the tie.”

      Rad fluttered his hand an inch above the spikes. “I had to work on the color for over an hour. I could do something quite wonderful with yours.”

      “I’d rather you found me a table.”

      Rad glanced over to where Rory was beaming at the reservation hostess. “I think your sister has taken care of that. I’ll run interference for you.”

      Straightening her shoulders, Natalie followed Rad through the crowd. Tonight she and her sisters were going to celebrate their mutual birthdays, and she was bringing them a surprise present.

      The envelope she carried in her purse had arrived this morning. It had contained a note from her father’s attorney and three separate sealed envelopes for Harry Gibbs’s daughters. Inside were messages from their father—messages that he’d written six years ago and had wanted them to read on their twenty-sixth birthday.

      All day long the letters had been weighing on her mind and her heart. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about them. Harry Gibbs had walked out on his family when she and her sisters were ten years old. When they were twenty, he’d died in a fluke climbing accident. Her father had always been taking risks. Within six months of receiving the news of Harry Gibbs’s death, their mother had died, too.

      Natalie had always known that her parents had loved one another—and there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that her mother had died of a broken heart. But ten years before their deaths, Harry and Amanda Gibbs had split up because of “irreconcilable differences.”

      In this case the difference they couldn’t reconcile was the fact that Harry Gibbs was a master jewel thief who found it impossible to settle down, and their mother Amanda wanted to raise her daughters in a stable, conservative environment.

      Six years ago their father had suddenly decided to send them some kind of message they would receive on their twenty-sixth birthday? Personally, Natalie felt half pissed and half saddened by that, and she suspected that her sisters would feel the same.

      Just then, Rory spotted her and called out, “Nat! This way.”

      Not content with waiting for Natalie to reach them, Rory grabbed Sierra by the hand and began to muscle her way through the crowd. The picture that they made moving toward her was one she’d seen so often—Rory rushing forward and Sierra having to be dragged along. Natalie had sometimes wondered why Rory hadn’t made it first out of the womb.

      “Happy birthday,” Natalie said when they reached her.

      “Happy birthday,” Rory echoed.

      “Ditto,” Sierra said as they exchanged hugs.

      “It’s not every day we all turn twenty-six,” Rory said in an undertone. “When I explained it to the hostess, she agreed that we should have a table on the patio. C’mon.”

      The patio was the last place Natalie wanted to be, but she didn’t have the heart to spoil Rory’s delight with herself. Still, as they moved down the short flight of stairs, she had to put some effort into keeping her eyes from straying to the spot behind the potted trees where Chance had drawn her to make his proposition.

      “You all right?” Sierra asked as they followed Rory across the dance floor.

      Natalie managed a smile. “Absolutely. How’s the research going, Dr. Gibbs?”

      “It’s going. Of course, all the data isn’t in yet.”

      “Don’t pay any attention to her. Her research is going brilliantly,” Rory said. “It always does. The big news is that my job at Celebs magazine is going well. A first for me. There’s a senior reporter there who’s taken me under her wing and I’m really enjoying the work.”

      “This calls for champagne,” Sierra said.

      “Agreed,” Rory said as she sat down and picked up a menu. “And I’m starved.”

      Natalie waited until they were all seated before she said, “Maybe we ought to hold off on the celebration.”

      “What is it?” Sierra asked.

      As Natalie explained the package she’d received that morning, she took the sealed envelopes out of her purse and placed them on the table. For a moment, all three of them simply stared at the white rectangles.

      “To open them or not to open them, that is the question,” Sierra finally said.

      “Exactly.” Natalie could always depend on that fine analytical mind of Sierra’s to cut to the bottom line.

      “They’re from our father,” Rory pointed out.

      “So what?” Natalie said, letting a little of her anger show. “We agreed to stop calling him ‘father’ when we were ten because he left us.”

      Silence stretched between them again.

      “It’s been sixteen years since we last saw him and six years since he died.” Sierra placed one finger on the corner of her envelope. “Why now?”

      “Exactly,” Natalie said again. “He’s never once gotten in touch with us—not when we were sick, not for a birthday or a graduation. Not for anything. Why did he instruct the attorney to get those letters to us now?”

      A waiter appeared, pen poised at the ready. “Drink orders, ladies?”

      “A martini,” Natalie said without taking her eyes off the envelopes. “Very dry with an olive.”

      “I’ll have what she’s having,” Sierra said.

      Rory sighed. “Ditto. Champagne just isn’t going to do it. And bring us one of those appetizer samplers with three of everything. I’m definitely going to need food before I deal with this.”

      After the waiter hurried off, the silence descended again for a moment.

      “Neither of you has to deal with this right now,” Natalie finally said. “But I think I do have to open mine. I’ve got too much of Harry in me just to throw it away.”

      “We all have too much of Harry in us,” Rory said.

      Sierra drew in a quick hitched breath and let it out. “I’m afraid to open mine.”

      Natalie reached for her sister’s hand. “Are you all right? Do you need your inhaler?”

      Sierra shook her head. “I’m not having an asthma attack. I’m just a coward.”

      “No, you’re not.” Natalie and Rory spoke in unison.

      “Tell you what,” Natalie said. “We’ll make a plan and you can jot it down on one of those note cards.”

      Rory nodded in agreement. “Even I could use some kind of plan for this.”

      Sierra pulled a blue card out of the canvas bag she always carried with her.

      “We’ll go in the order of our births. I’ll go first,” Natalie said.

      Rory patted Sierra’s arm. “Number one—Natalie, our fearless leader. And put me down for the number two slot.”

      “And I’m number three,” Sierra said as she added her name to the list.

      “And I’m the only one who’s going to open her letter tonight.” Though Natalie could sense that Rory might want to open hers tonight, she willed her to go along. “The two of you can wait. For a few weeks, a year, five years—take all the time you need. Harry certainly took his time getting these to us.”

      “Good plan,” Rory said.

      As Natalie slipped a finger under the flap, she could see some of

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