Nikki stepped back, swallowing her wince at the answering twinge in her knee, and shook her head. “I’m going. I have to get back home.”
“I thought you had a few more days with Jay.”
That wouldn’t be wise. “I’m cutting out a little early.”
“Another job lined up?”
Nikki shook her head. “It turns out I’m not going to be cooking for a living anymore.”
Cassandra stepped into the shop, flipped on the lights, then threw a glance over her shoulder. “That means I’d better try these cookies ASAP if they’re my last chance at Nikki’s cuisine. Come in and have some tea. Except for the food, I won’t bite, so you don’t have to be afraid.”
Old habits answered for her. “I’m not scared.”
Cassandra smiled. “I didn’t think so.”
So that was how Nikki found herself on one of the cushiony couches, her bad leg propped on an ottoman, idly winding a skein of yarn into a ball. Cassandra had shown her how a couple of weeks before.
Nikki dropped it into her lap when the other woman pressed a mug of tea in her hand. She sipped, then resisted the urge to spit the stuff out. “Oh, God. I’m starting to sympathize with Gabe. That stuff is vile.”
With a graceful flutter of her calf-length skirt, Cassandra settled on the couch across from her. “You get used to it.”
“No.” Nikki slid the mug onto a nearby table and pushed it well away. “You get used to taxes. To putting gas in your car. You’re not supposed to have to get used to something you introduce to your taste buds unless it stops raging disease or cellulite from forming on your thighs. I know of some excellent herbal blends, heck, I can even put together one myself that’s got to be a thousand times better than this.”
“Which doesn’t sound like a woman no longer interested in the culinary world.”
“I didn’t say I’m not interested in cooking. I’ve loved my work with food.” She retrieved the yarn ball to resume winding. “The chance to put together different colors and textures and tastes…”
“Well, then why—”
“It doesn’t matter.” Answering the big “why” question meant revealing her weakness—and she wasn’t thinking about her damn knee for the moment. With the yarn still in her hands, she rose from the couch. “Anyway, I have to, um, get on…”
“With Jay’s lunch?”
She didn’t want to think about him either. “No, no. I told you, I’m leaving Malibu. I’m leaving the job with him. I’ve got to go home and get, um, back to my, uh, fish.”
“Fish?” With a wave, Cassandra dismissed that excuse. “That doesn’t sound pressing. Sit back down.”
Nikki stayed where she was, but smiled a little. “You’re bossy. No wonder you’re the oldest.”
“But I’m not.” Her gaze was direct. “I’m in the middle.”
“What?” Stunned, Nikki dropped back to the couch. “There’s…there’s someone else? You didn’t mention that before.”
“You asked me not to tell you any more, remember?” Cassandra picked up a pair of needles and some yarn off the couch beside her and started clicking away. Nikki had no idea what she was making, but it combined the colors of blue, green, and peach.
Nikki frowned when Cassandra didn’t continue. “Well? Tell me now. There’s another one of us?”
Us. Us. She hadn’t been part of an “us” for years. Since her mother died. That thing inside her chest—that broken thing that Jay had smashed somehow with his inventive lovemaking and his oh-so-cavalier “Love me” last night—made itself known, the broken pieces rattling painfully in her chest cavity. She rubbed her breastbone. How could she leave here before knowing it all? “Tell me everything, Cassandra.”
“There’s three of us. Three girls. From what I can gather, our…well, the man who provided the sperm withdrew the rest of his specimens from circulation sometime after your conception. Donors have that option. Maybe he rethought his participation in the program or maybe he married and was starting a family of his own.” She shrugged, her eyes on Nikki. “Who knows?”
All right. Three. Three sisters. For some reason, the notion of donor siblings was getting harder to dismiss. “Why’d you do the research, Cassandra? And why now?”
The other woman’s gaze dropped to her nimble, moving fingers. “Last year, my mother left for a two-year trip backpacking around the world.”
“Wow. Adventurous.”
Cassandra flicked her a glance, smiled. “She had me during the time when a woman deciding to raise a baby by herself wasn’t a common thing to do. And then to intentionally conceive it that way too—well, that tells you exactly how adventurous my mother is.”
Nikki frowned. “I didn’t think how uncommon it would have been in those days.”
“My childhood had its interesting moments, that’s for sure, though Mom did her best. When she left last year…well, the hole I’d felt all my life widened.” Cassandra’s cheeks flushed pink. “I was more lonely than ever.”
Nikki protested. “But you have so many friends! And it’s clear you make them easily.” She was the one who kept her distance from people.
“Still…” Cassandra shrugged, her knitting fingers stilled. “I was always hungry for something else. For those biological connections.”
Hungry. The word struck an uncomfortable chord. Last night, when her heart had leaked so many long-dammed feelings, she’d acknowledged for the first time a painful sense of aloneness. But hunger…was that why she cooked? Was she always trying to concoct something that would fill the emptiness that she’d lived with for so long?
Squirming at the idea, she stared down at her hands, noticing how securely they’d wrapped that single ball of yarn. It was like she was, turned in on itself, tightly wrapped, and so different than what Cassandra did with the same material. There on the other couch, she was creating, connecting, knitting together disparate colors and textures to make something beautiful and functional.
Like a family.
The thought slid into Nikki’s mind with the ease of an omelet exiting a well-greased pan. She swallowed, looking away.
The problem was, a family could be there one day and gone the next. Like her mother. Like her father, who had never really been there for her at all. It was dangerous to attach with anyone in such a close way. She’d learned that. She knew that.
Wanting more had only hurt. She’d learned that at fifteen.
And since then, wanting more was what always made her afraid.
The ring of a phone startled them both. Cassandra rose from the couch to pick up the phone near the cash register.
“Hello? Oh. Jay.”
Jay.
At his name, a dozen fractured images of him shuffled through Nikki’s mind. His ocean-wet chest. His lean hand reaching for the coffee mug. The amused glint in his eyes. That charming, laughing smile on his face…
She’d miss those.
She’d miss him.
His teasing, his laughter, his touch. Oh, God, his touch.
Him. All of him.
For the rest of her life, she’d remember Jay as the man who had returned her sexuality. For the rest of her life, she’d remember him as—
She’d remember him for the rest of her life.
“You’re looking for Nikki?” Cassandra’s voice broke through her thoughts.
Nikki’s gaze jumped to the other woman’s, her eyes widening. What? Shaking her head and waving her hand, she tried signaling that Cassandra shouldn’t give her whereabouts away.
What was he up to? Nikki had been so sure he’d be glad she’d left without an awkward good-bye, let alone an embarrassing scene. But now he wanted to find her?
“She’s not at home? You checked, you say, and she’s not there?”
Oh, my God! He’d gone to her place? Nikki stood, wondering if she should flee the yarn shop, too.
What was wrong with the man? He was a Weasel Number Two, endlessly horny, easily distracted, and never persistent with on
e particular mate. Scientific studies proved he shouldn’t be chasing after her!
“Does he think I have something of his?” she whispered, just loud enough for Cassandra to hear.
“Does she, uh, have something of yours?” Cassandra repeated. She listened, then nodded. “Okay, sure, I understand that’s between the two of you.”
There was no two of them! Nikki would have stamped her foot for emphasis, if it wouldn’t possibly have hurt her knee and if Jay might not have suspected something if a weird thump sounded through the phone.
But that was the whole reason why she’d left while he was sleeping. She wanted to get away clean and quick, before all his sweetly erotic knots and sweetly tempting words—take me, have me, love me—actually emotionally tied her to him and made her believe in something as impossible as the “two of them.”
She hadn’t wanted to fall in love with the man, because she didn’t fall in love, of course. And because it would be stupid because he would never love her back, and because, oh, God, and because she’d already done it, she realized. She’d already gone ahead and fallen in love and it was such, such, such a damn disaster.
With a silent moan, she collapsed back to the couch. She’d wanted to escape before she had to acknowledge it to herself, but there was no escaping the fact now that when he’d broken that shell around her heart, somehow he’d ended up finding his way inside it, too.
Cassandra ended the call. Then she looked over at Nikki, her expression concerned. “I hope I handled that the way you wanted me to.”
“Yeah.” She placed her hand over her eyes, then rubbed it down her face and looked at Cassandra. “I’ve never had anyone cover for me like that before. Thanks.”
Cassandra’s smile flickered. “It’s what friends do for each other. And sisters.”
Oh, God. There was that, too. She was not only disastrously in love, without a job, and being stalked at her own home by the man she most wanted—and most wanted to avoid—but there was this whole sibling thing now, too.
How could her life be such a mess? And how was she to clean it up when she could barely walk to the bathroom and back by herself?
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she whispered, not meaning to speak the words aloud.
But Cassandra heard them, and hurried to the couch beside her. She took Nikki’s hands and held them with both sets of her own talented fingers that knew how to make something out of nearly nothing. “I’m here for you. Just say what you need.”
Nikki shook her head.
Cassandra squeezed her fingers. “We liked each other from the beginning. Admit that. And I’m your sister.”
Her connection. Her family. Her sister.
“Tell me what you need,” Cassandra insisted.
Between Nikki and other people was a chasm that had been dug twelve years before—maybe even longer ago than that. How could she breach it? How could she trust making a connection across it that could be so swiftly severed—leaving her more alone than ever? The idea terrified her.
“Little sister,” Cassandra whispered. “What is it I can do for you?”
Nikki looked up. Blinked. For the first time, she saw the other woman’s resemblance to herself. It was in the shape of her eyes and in the shape of her mouth, especially when she said those two words. Little sister.
The decision wasn’t conscious. It came straight out of her vulnerable, newly broken heart. “Cassandra, I need help.”
Twenty-two
Life itself is the proper binge.
—JULIA CHILD, CHEF
The bells attached to the door of Malibu & Ewe rang out a warning. A warning Nikki didn’t bother heeding as she stayed at her place in the tiny kitchen, laying out her home-baked cookies on a platter. Someone had likely arrived early for Knitters’ Night to ensure their place on one of the couches. It was the end of September, and Cassandra said this time of year put panic in the hearts of those with holiday projects.
The place was certain to be crowded with crafters anxious about completing their kids’ Christmas stockings or their glittery shawls for New Year’s Eve.
Heavy footsteps trod across the floorboards. Nikki’s fingers paused. Gabe, she decided.
“Hey,” she called out. “Cassandra dropped me off and then went on to the store for more coffee. So you’re free to enjoy one of my caramel brownies without any of her cracks about your failing health or your poor eating habits.”
The footsteps found their way to the open kitchen door. She glanced up, a smile—
Dying, right there on her face. Just like she was doing inside, her stomach shrinking to the size of a kidney bean. Because it wasn’t Gabe’s heavy footsteps she’d heard, but Jay’s. Jay Buchanan, close enough to touch.
“Cookie.” His grim gaze took her in. “You’re looking well.”
Her hair was too long, lighter, too. She touched it self-consciously and then shoved her hands in the pockets of her long skirt. With all the time she’d been spending in the sun at Cassandra’s house, she knew she was tanner than she’d been before. And thinner, but that was because—
“Aren’t you going to say I’m looking well, too?”
She cleared her throat. “You look like, um…”
“Crap,” he finished for her. “Don’t bother starting a new trend by trying to spare my feelings, Nikki. I do have mirrors.”
He appeared leaner, too, she had to admit. His hair was scruffier, there was a couple of days’ worth of golden stubble on his chin, and the shadows under his eyes said he’d been staying awake nights—writing or…?
The bean that was her stomach hardened as she thought of Jay laughing down at some other woman lying in his bed at that sunny house. But he wasn’t laughing now.
“I would have cleaned up a little for you,” he said. “But when my spy network passed on that you’d been spotted here, I couldn’t take the chance that you’d go chicken on me and fly the coop again.”
“I’m no chicken,” she said, frowning at him. But flying the coop sounded pretty fine right now. She had taken a chance coming to the yarn shop tonight, even though she’d never imagined Jay caring where she was anymore—whether it was Malibu or Manhattan or any point in between. Their fling had been over a month ago. Still, seeing him again made her poor heart feel freshly wounded. “And I didn’t realize you had any spies.”
“Give me a break, cookie. You’re aware how people around here love to talk. And I think it’s interesting that you tried so hard to make sure no one spilled where you’ve been hiding the last four weeks.”
Cassandra had known, of course, and consequently Gabe. And though she’d never really expected Jay to be concerned about her whereabouts for any longer than it took an ego prick to heal, she’d sworn them both to secrecy. “So who told you I was at Malibu & Ewe?”
“Oomfaa saw Cassandra drop you off.” He took a step closer.
Instinct shuffled her back. Her knee gave a tiny twinge at the movement, but she ignored the sensation and forced herself to freeze. Never let them think you’re weak.
Even Jay.
Especially Jay.
“We have some unfinished business, cookie.”
“Our business was finished a month ago. Sorry I left a couple of days early. I returned that part of my paycheck. I’m sure I prorated it accurately.”
“I’m not talking kitchen business.”
She swallowed. “Well, you can’t mean bedroom business,” she said, trying to sound as tough babe as she could. “Or if you do, it’s only because I broke it off before you did.”
“I wasn’t ready for it to end,” he ground out.
So it was that. She’d bumped up against his ego and he wanted her to pay for the little scratch. Okay. She’d let him let her have it and then he’d go back to his swinging lifestyle and she’d go back to finding a way to live without the professional bachelor she’d fallen so hard for.
He returned to the doorway and leaned a shoulder against the jamb. All he needed to do
was take off his shirt and it would be like a dozen times in his kitchen—God, she’d missed his company—the way he’d stay near as she made coffee or chopped vegetables for a salad. He’d filled so easily those empty spaces and too-long silences in her life.
“We didn’t get to talk like I wanted to,” Jay said.
Fine. Apparently he had a practiced buh-bye speech that put a period on all his affairs. She gestured with a hand and steeled her spine for the belated rejection. “Go ahead, say whatever you need to.”
“I want to know how you got so strong.”
Cold washed over her, followed by a scalding burn. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“We both know what happened when you were fifteen, Nikki. You used to flinch away from my touch, but you held your feet to the floor more times than you didn’t. That couldn’t have been easy.”
There was a whine of anxiety in her ears. She didn’t talk about this with people. And she’d expected a standard breakup speech, not a breaking-into-her-head discussion. “I didn’t want to be a victim forever,” she heard herself say. “I figured out why I’d gone looking for what I did when I was fifteen. I’m sorry for that little girl. But I grew up since then. That’s not me anymore.”
“Some parts of her still have to be you.”
“No,” she said. “I used to have trouble with sex, I’ll admit that. But you know that’s not true anymore.”
“It’s not just the sex, Nikki. It’s the way you won’t allow your emotions out either.”
Her hands made fists in her pockets. Why did he make that sound like a failing?
“Isn’t that what every man wants?” she demanded. “A female in his bed who makes things simple and undemanding? One who takes the relationship just as casually as he does? That’s the whole premise of your latest series in NYFM, if I recall correctly. ‘In Search of the Perfect Woman’—one who looks at the opposite sex just like a man.”
“Funny you should mention that…”
The bells on the front door rang out again, and then Cassandra’s voice sounded. “Hey, Nikki, do you think you could give me a hand for a minute?”
Take Me Tender Page 26
