“You’re in love with him, aren’t you?” Jody asked, pretending to study her nails but actually aiming her gaze toward her older sister.

“Yes,” Marjorie answered honestly.

“Have you gone to bed with him yet?”

“Jody!”

“Well, have you?”

The heat in Marjorie’s face intensified a hundredfold. “Of course not! What kind of question is that?”

Jody’s eyebrows rose suggestively. “But you’d like to, wouldn’t you?”

“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.” With as much composure as she could muster, which wasn’t much, Marjorie reached for her glass of iced tea and took a large swallow.

Amused, Jody pinched her lips together in mock disapproval. “Come on, Marjie, would you stop being my mother long enough to talk to me like a big sister? Tell me everything. I want to know the most intimate desires of your heart.”

Despite the subject matter, Marjorie relaxed. “My desires? That’s easy.”

“Sam?” Jody coaxed.

“Sam,” Marjorie repeated. “I can’t believe this is happening to me after all these years of being so sensible about men. With Sam, everything’s different.” She paused and then continued, telling her sister how Sam Bretton had stayed with her in the hours following her surgery. “I didn’t know any man so wonderful existed. I feel giddy every time I’m with him.”

Jody nodded knowingly and smiled through a haze of tears.

“Honey, what’s wrong?” Marjorie asked quickly.

Jody wiped the moisture off the high arch of her cheekbones. “This is the first time I can remember when you’ve talked to me like a…sister. You never shared anything with me before—at least not like this. I’m happy for you, really happy.”

Marjorie blinked back her surprise, ready to argue the point. Then she thought about how right her sister was. She had never felt she could share with Jody; her sister was so much younger that it hadn’t seemed right to burden Jody with her problems. Jody had to be protected, and because of that, their relationship had to be part parent, part sibling. She’d had to be Jody’s mother and sister both.

“You know something,” Jody said, her voice unsteady. “I love Sam already.”

“Wait until you meet him,” Marjorie answered, her own voice wavering. “He’s been so good to me.”

“You deserve him, and he deserves you.”

They wrapped their arms around each other and squeezed tightly, neither willing to let the other go. They had reached a deeper understanding of what it meant to be sisters, and for that Marjorie would always be grateful.

—