Had she made a mistake coming here in the middle of everything that was going on at home? Lorelei wondered as she gazed out at the onslaught of white flakes pummeling the windshield and sticking to the road.
That was possible. But she’d needed an escape, some time to think about what she was going to do. And the hope that she might have support from family—something she’d never been able to count on before—had been too tempting to resist. Even if she ultimately chose not to share her situation with Serenity and Reagan, it was nice to have a neutral place to go while she figured things out. A safe haven where no one really knew her and she wouldn’t have to field all the questions she’d face at home as soon as word began to spread.
It was possible she’d never go back. To Mark, anyway.
Stifling a sigh, she shoved her phone in her purse. “Look at this traffic,” she murmured as though she wasn’t under so much pressure she felt she might start sweating diamonds.
Lines of concentration creased Reagan’s forehead. “It’s ugly, all right.”
Lorelei had been so curious about her newly discovered half sisters. For the sake of comparison, they’d exchanged pictures and provided their heights and weights months ago. All three of them had dark hair and blue eyes, which was unusual, given how rare that combination was. Like Serenity, Lorelei wore her hair long. Reagan’s had been buzzed into a dramatic yet stylish cut that fit her more assertive and gregarious personality. They were all three close to the same height, at five foot nine to ten inches, and weighed within twenty pounds of each other—she being the heaviest, thanks to the baby weight she’d never quite lost, and Reagan being the skinniest. If they were to walk through a mall together, most people would guess they were sisters, because of their lanky builds. But Lorelei wondered if there were other, less obvious similarities. How would her new siblings behave? Would they have the same likes and dislikes? The same mannerisms?
As a child who’d never had any real family, who’d been alone and adrift for so long, Lorelei had been beyond excited to find Reagan and Serenity. The wondering and waiting, the painstaking research and the hope that had driven her through it all had paid off. Finally. Now she had not one but two other human beings, besides her daughter, who shared her DNA. She’d thought having these connections, being more like other people, might eventually fill that terrible void inside her.
But her thrill over finding Reagan and Serenity had dissolved the instant her husband had blindsided her with such a painful admission that she no longer cared about anything else. She’d lost the very foundation of her life, and she hadn’t seen it coming.
“Should we call Serenity?” Reagan asked. “Let her know we landed?”
“Good idea.” Lorelei pulled up her contacts and tried the number she’d been given but couldn’t get the call to go through. “I guess I don’t have enough service.”
Being careful not to take her eyes off the road for too long, Reagan fumbled around in her oversized bag situated between them, and eventually located her own cell. “Do I?” she asked as she handed it to Lorelei.
Lorelei checked the signal. Reagan had a different carrier, but her coverage didn’t seem to be any better. “No more than I do.”
“Damn.” She hunched forward to gaze up at the mountains towering on either side of them. “Maybe it’s because we’re in this narrow gorge. Let’s try again in a few minutes.”
“I might be able to get a text to go through,” Lorelei suggested, giving Reagan back her phone. “Sometimes that’ll work even when you can’t make a call.”
Lorelei sent Serenity a message to tell her they were caught in the storm and to see if she was having the same problem.
It seemed to deliver, so she dropped her phone in her lap and once again frowned at the weather. “Looks like it went through, but we’re going to need GPS, so I hope we get a stronger signal before too long. How else will we find the cabin?”
“For now, I’m following the signs to King’s Beach, which Serenity said will take us to Incline Village.”
“Okay.” Lorelei smiled as though she believed everything was under control. But it was hard to trust a total stranger to drive in these conditions, especially with Lucy in the car. Since Lorelei lived in Florida, she wasn’t used to snow. That was the logic Reagan had used for taking the wheel, but that wasn’t the reason Lorelei had agreed. Once again, she’d sacrificed her own best judgment because of her past. She’d been shuffled around to so many homes when she was a child, had grown up with the harsh knowledge that if she wasn’t always sweet and compliant her foster parents could decide at any moment that they no longer wanted her. And even though she was now an adult and didn’t have to worry about being returned to a group home to await the next foster placement, she couldn’t get past the deeply rooted fears that situation had created. So she spent her life trying to build what she’d been missing, which meant she’d probably compromised too often, and now she was riding in the passenger seat while Reagan, who worked as an ad executive and came from New York City, drove.
Reagan didn’t even own a car! How long had it been since she’d driven before today?
Lorelei’s phone buzzed, signaling a new message.
“Is that Serenity?” Reagan asked.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t. “No, it’s my husband.”
I wish I’d never given you that DNA kit, he’d written. But it was too late for regrets. He had given it to her—last summer—so she could possibly discover where she came from.
After she’d taken that test and received her results, there was no one on the list of matches they’d sent her who could be her mother or her father. But she’d never forget the email letting her know there was someone designated a “close match” at 1957cM named Reagan Sands. When she logged on to the company website, there was a link to Reagan and they’d been in touch ever since. That was last August.
Then, in November, she was surprised by another notice from the DNA company showing a small, circular picture of someone named Serenity Alston, who looked very much like her and Reagan, under that same “closely related” category. Serenity didn’t respond to the message feature—she’d since said that she never even opened the many emails the DNA company sent her—so Lorelei had checked Facebook and found her there. And right after that, she brought Serenity and Reagan together, and they began a group chat in Messenger.
What a year. Would she one day discover other siblings? That was the thing about sperm. It went pretty far when it was from a donor—and since she, Reagan and Serenity were all born within two years of each other but came from such different situations, Lorelei could only assume that was how they’d been conceived.
Reagan seemed completely engaged in navigating the storm, so this time Lorelei allowed herself to respond to Mark, who had ruined her wonderful, momentous year by dragging her into the depths of sorrow.