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“Zane!” His sister ran out the front door and greeted him the second he and Sophie started up the walkway. Her arms went around his waist and she held on tight. He squeezed back tighter. Eight months was too damn long to go without seeing her. “I’ve missed you,” she mumbled into his chest.
“I’ve missed you, too.”
Julia let go and put her hand out to Sophie. “Hi, I’m Julia.”
“Sophie. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Sophie’s running the film festival and had a little time to spare today. It’s her first time to California so I thought—”
“You’d show off our coastline?” Julia narrowed her eyes and gave her trademark smart-aleck smile. “Or something else?”
His baby sister’s good mood relaxed the muscles getting a workout in his neck and shoulders since he and Sophie had left the beach.
“Oh, we’re not…” Sophie started to say, her cheeks turning pink.
“I’m here to talk about you, little sister, not me. What happened this morning?”
The light in her eyes faded some. “Come on, Mom’s waiting out back with lunch. Mark had to head to work, but he says hi and he’s sorry he missed you.” She linked her arm with his. “We’ll fill you in while we eat.”
“Tell your husband-to-be I said thanks for taking care of you.”
Julia smiled, and they moved quickly through the house, Zane grateful to spend as little time as possible inside the four walls. The second his mom saw him walk out the patio door, her face brightened. “Hey you,” she said, coming around the glass table with her arms outstretched. Her blond hair was shorter and she looked a little thinner, but eyes still sharp and the same color as his swept over him.
“Hey, Mom.”
She put her hands on his cheeks and looked her motherly fill before giving him a hug. “It’s been too long.” He didn’t dare move a muscle, happy to let her hug the life out of him if she wanted to. They may talk and text often, but that didn’t mean his mom didn’t need the real thing in front of her.
Mom stepped back and turned to Sophie. “You must be Sophie.”
Sophie shot him a surprised glance. He’d texted his mom early this morning to give her the heads-up and tell her not to read anything into it.
“Hi, Mrs. Hollander. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Please, call me Claire.”
“Claire.” Sophie smiled at his mom. A genuine, companionable smile that Zane didn’t see very often—if ever—from the women he spent time with. No ulterior motive, no forgery, just the real deal.
“Come sit. I’ve made all of Zane’s favorites.”
“This looks wonderful.” Sophie took the seat next to him at the round table under the oversize blue umbrella. “And the view is amazing.” She looked out toward the sea close enough to be wet in in less than a minute. “Thank you. I’m sorry if we’ve kept you waiting. It’s my fault. We stopped at the beach and I fell asleep.”
His mom and sister gave him identical looks, their mouths screwed up, eyebrows arched. But this lunch wasn’t about him whatsoever, and he needed to know what was going on with his sister.
“What happened at the doctor’s?” he asked, lifting the plate of pesto pasta and handing it to Sophie.
Julia took a deep breath and handed him the bowl of strawberries and blueberries. “I’m going to have surgery in three weeks. They’ll remove my entire thyroid. After that I’ll wait a few weeks and then have a radioactive iodine treatment to kill any remaining thyroid tissue.”
“Iodine treatment?” Zane asked.
“It’s a pill I swallow. Easy peasy.”
“And you’ll be cured after that?”
“Most cases are, yes.” Julia looked him straight in the eyes when she spoke, knowing, no doubt, that he needed nothing but honesty from her. They’d always been each other’s sounding board and rock. Julia, though, she’d been so much more when they were kids. She’d put him on a pedestal when he thought he’d be better off with the ground swallowing him.
“Let me know the date and I’ll be here.”
“I’d really like that.” She rubbed at the corner of her eye. A split-second gesture that crammed his heart against his chest. “Having you, Mom, and Mark there means everything.”
