the street horns blared, pedestrians flowed around her, but Sierra didn’t let her focus waver as she continued on her way down the sidewalk. During the past month, ever since her sisters had opened their birthday letters from their father, she’d become more and more dissatisfied with her life. Not her professional life. That was humming along quite smoothly. She’d recently been appointed to a tenure-track position at Georgetown, and she’d also signed a book contract for her research on the sexual habits of single urban dwellers.
Sierra paused in front of a traffic light. The cars moved at a determined pace through the intersection. She ignored them.
It was her pathetic personal life that was the problem, and that point was driven home to her each and every time she met with her sisters and saw the contented expressions on their faces.
In the process of following their father’s advice, Natalie and Rory had both become involved in very satisfying sexual relationships with men.
Sierra’s own personal life, and indeed her sex life, hadn’t changed much since she was a child. As she had back then, she spent most of her waking hours reading books or watching movies. As an adult, in addition to that, she buried herself in her academic work. Bottom line—she researched sex instead of having any.
As a child, she’d had some excuse for letting life pass her by. She’d suffered from severe asthma, and she’d constantly battled high fevers and sinus infections. But at twenty-six, her only excuse was that she was a coward. If you remained on the sidelines, you never had to risk a thing. Or lose anyone.
Well, she was sick and tired of being Jane Eyre, the mousy little governess, content to observe life and never participate in it.
Jane, along with Hamlet, was another lousy role model. Closing her eyes, Sierra banished all pImages** of each of them from her mind. She needed to be imagining herself as someone much more assertive, someone like…like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The TV series had become one of her favorites. Now there was a woman to be reckoned with. Sierra pictured the feisty blonde with her kickass attitude. And Buffy probably always had great sex, too.
And Buffy’s nerve would come in handy, too, if Sierra was going to ride over the objections her sisters were sure to make when they heard her plan. Even though she was only fifteen minutes younger than Natalie and a mere seven and a half minutes younger than Rory, her family had always treated her as the baby. And despite that she was an adult now, her sisters still felt it was their duty to protect her.
Opening her eyes, Sierra let out another disgusted sigh when she saw that the little white man on the pedestrian traffic signal had changed to a blinking red hand. Not even Hamlet would have hesitated at crossing a street. And Buffy would have been at the Blue Pepper by now. She hurriedly stepped off the curb, but halfway across the street, paused and drew a blue note card from her canvas bag. Then she reread the heading. Five steps for initiating a sexual relationship with a man. For the first step in becoming a full-fledged participant in life, she’d decided that she wanted to learn more about her own sexual side. Her curiosity about that no doubt had grown out of her current research into the sexual practices of modern single urban dwellers.
Her decision to kick off her plan with a sexual adventure would not only satisfy her curiosity, but it was also very practical. After all, her research so far had provided her with some expertise—even if it was totally vicarious.
She’d collected hundreds of case studies, and completed nearly as many interviews. Plus, she had a five-step plan. If there was one thing that she could do in her professional life it was to stick to a plan once she’d mapped it out.
The sharp blast of a horn made her jump, and a quick glance around informed her that five cars were waiting for her to get out of the pedestrian walkway.
“Lady, could you hurry it up?”
Rush hour in Georgetown was not the best time to dawdle. Stuffing the blue card back into her bag, Sierra waved apologetically to the man in the silver convertible. The black sedan next to it revved its motor. She dashed to the curb.
Once she was safely on the sidewalk, she dug in her canvas bag for her inhaler. After using it, she dropped it back in her bag, then drew in a deep breath and continued up the street.
The Blue Pepper was only a block away, and her sisters had agreed on very short notice to meet her for the grand opening of Harry’s letter to her. She rubbed the heel of her hand against the little ache that always settled around her heart when she thought of her father.
She and her sisters had lost Harry Gibbs twice—once when they’d been ten and Harry had decided to follow the call to adventure and resume his career as a master jewel thief. That was when they’d made a pact to call him Harry. Then when they were twenty, he’d died in a climbing accident, and they’d lost him permanently.
Sierra had always blamed herself for the fact that Harry had left them behind. If she hadn’t been so prone to illness, her mother surely wouldn’t have been too worried about her youngest to go with him. Amanda Gibbs had loved her husband deeply, and she’d passed away within months of Harry’s death.
Then suddenly, on the day that they’d turned twenty-six, the letters from Harry had arrived. Of course, Natalie had read hers the night she’d received it. If there was a gene for courage, Natalie had inherited it. Her job on a special task force with the DC Police Department testified to that.
Rory who always met life head-on had only needed an extra two weeks to open hers. Then she’d been off and running, putting their father’s advice right into practice. If there was a daredevil gene, Rory had gotten it in spades.
The way Sierra figured it, she’d inherited nothing from her father. The one thing Harry Gibbs had never been was a coward, and she’d postponed reading his letter for almost a month because she was a chicken. She was sure that his advice to her would be different. Harry had always treated her differently than he’d treated her sisters.
Sierra stopped short when she realized that she’d walked half a block past the Blue Pepper. Nerves bubbled in her stomach. After reaching for her inhaler, she used it again and drew in several steadying breaths before she turned and walked back to the restaurant. Then she pulled out her blue card once more and began to pace. Five steps—she could do this. When she finally glanced up and caught her reflection in the glass door, her confidence wavered. The woman looking back at her had her hair twisted into a bun and wore a loose-fitting, drab-colored jacket and skirt. And sensible shoes. Sierra Gibbs—academic nerd.
Think Buffy, she reminded herself.
The moment the image of the vampire slayer was clear in her mind, she squared her shoulders. “I can do this.”
Sierra Gibbs was sick and tired of being a coward. If she had to imagine herself as someone else to find some courage, so be it. Striding forward, she pushed through the door of the Blue Pepper.
IN RYDER KANE’S mind, the Blue Pepper was a yuppie haven. And the kick of it was he fit right in. Fifteen years ago when he’d been fighting for survival on the streets of Baltimore, he’d never have imagined ending up in a trendy Georgetown bistro drinking a designer label beer and wearing the kind of finely cut clothes that allowed him to blend in perfectly with the other well-heeled clientele.
If his Aunt Jennie could have seen him now, she would have been proud. And if his mother could have pictured this kind of a future for her son, she might have thought twice about abandoning him when he was twelve.
With a wry smile, he lifted his beer and toasted his
