She glanced over at Jay. “Would you mind helping her? I want to finish with these cookies.”
He gave her a hard look, but did as asked. She waited only a heartbeat before scurrying out of the kitchen and heading for the nearby stockroom and its convenient back door. If he wasn’t going to leave her alone, then she would leave herself. Her hand was closing around the doorknob when his dry voice found her.
“Bock bock bock bock bock bock.” His poultry impression was atrocious. “I called the chicken thing, and look, cookie, I was right. You’re flying the coop.”
“I’m not afraid of anything!” Too late, she heard her words and all that they gave away. Exasperated, she swung around to face him. “Look. You weren’t supposed to still care about where I am or what I’m doing. Out of sight, out of mind, right, Hef Junior?”
“Right. It wasn’t supposed to be this way for Hef Junior. But for Jay Buchanan, ah, that’s entirely different, cookie.”
“Different how?”
“Different in that though I got exactly what I was looking for—that sexy, breezy, no-sloppy-emotions-necessary female—she turned out not only to be the perfect woman but also the perfect one with whom I want to spend the rest of my life.”
Uh-huh. Yeah. That anxiety whine was back in her ears but she wouldn’t let him know. Instead, she gritted her teeth and made for the doorway. “Let’s go handsome,” she said, pushing past him and heading for the open area of the shop. “You’ve won me over. I’ll go for another romp in your bed, then you can break up with me, and all will be right with your world.”
“Oh, baby, you’re working so hard you’re killing me again.”
She was in the shop when she faced him. While she was vaguely aware the room was filling up with knitters, she didn’t let that stop her. “Working so hard at what?”
“Never opening up to anyone.”
She hated him. She did. Yanking up her skirt so it revealed her to mid-thigh, she put on display her newly scarred knee, her jointed brace, the way her right quadricep had withered from lack of use. “I opened up myself just fine, see? I opened myself up to a fine orthopedic surgeon who opened up my knee and did the best he could with the damage that occurred when I was fifteen and that I’d inflicted on myself since. I opened myself up to Cassandra, to my sister, who took care of me when I freaked before going into surgery and who took care of me afterward—doing everything from getting me to the bathroom to getting me to the physical therapist. So don’t talk to me about not being able to open up, damn you.”
“Oh, God.” His eyes closed, and he rocked back on his heels, as if she’d wounded him. “Cookie, I would have been there for you. I want to take care of you. I want to take care of you always.”
No man had ever been there for her. No man had ever taken care of her. It was dangerous to start believing one could!
The volume of chatter from the knitters in the room could no longer be ignored. She glanced over, and noticed they were all gathered around the table centered between the couches. Cassandra caught her eye. “Little sister, come take a look at this.”
She glanced back at Jay. There was a new expression on his face, something maybe like fear, and it was so surprising that she stepped toward him, concerned. “Jay? Jay, are you okay?”
He smiled a little, but with none of the seduction or charm that she remembered. “That’s it. You’ve just proven to me that I’ve finally grown up and gained some smarts. No matter what, no matter what happens, you’re the best, cookie.”
“Nikki, come here.”
This time she followed Cassandra’s direction. She headed toward the klatch of knitters and they made a place for her so she could see what was on the table. “It’s a page proof,” Jay said, coming up behind her. “For next month’s dead-tree version of NYFM.”
It wasn’t glossy like a magazine page, but the layout and the font were the same as she’d seen in NYFM. The headline read, “In Search of the Perfect Woman.” Her photo ran beneath it, something taken at that restaurant opening because she was wearing Cassandra’s eye-popping dress. Next to her picture was one of Jay. Stamped over his face, the words “TAKEN” in red.
Taken. Taken. In print!
“I was getting desperate to find you, Nikki,” he said, his breath stirring her hair.
Desperate? Jay Buchanan desperate over a woman?
“I was counting on this to flush you out.”
He’d listed a cash reward for tips leading to her…oh, God…leading to her marriage to him.
Taken?
Desperate?
Marriage?
The blood drained from her face, then filled back up, leaving her flushed and hot. Nikki’s heart felt weightless as she slowly, slowly turned to confront Jay. This man had been desperate to find her the last four weeks and now she could see each lonely hour on his face. Jay Buchanan, this beautiful, golden, worried-looking man wanted her. Wanted her. Her heart bobbed around in her chest as disbelief gave way to effervescent delight.
Taken.
Marriage.
…And a reward?
She had bills piling up, despite her emergency surgery fund, and Oomfaa, who’d tipped Jay off to her whereabouts, got paid exorbitant sums per movie.
Nikki licked her lips. “What would it take for me to get that reward?”
The look of apprehension on his face fled. Suddenly, smug replaced the tired lines. She should hate it—no, she shouldn’t. Because smug and arrogant and confident were as much Jay Buchanan as everything he knew about her. It would be a challenge to keep him on his toes, but really, who else had what it required to do it? From the beginning, it had been her noble—no, holy—purpose.
“You know what it will take, baby. Accept me. Accept and believe and trust that I love you. That I will for the rest of our lives.”
Oh. Yeah. He did know her.
She looked at the knitters surrounding her, noticing how closely they stood to each other, at how closely they stood to her in her time of need. New friends. Cassandra, her eyes tearing up, rubbed Nikki’s shoulder in that maternal way she had, and to Nikki, it was the touch of her own mother, of all mothers.
And so it wasn’t just the love she saw on Jay’s face, but the strength she gained from her teary-eyed sister, as well as the others who stood around her, that provided her with the ultimate courage. She remembered thinking about telling Fern that some women gave too much of themselves to be with a man. And then there was her, who always gave too little in order to protect herself. With the feminine support she felt from this small crowd, maybe she could give everything, and trust her heart, like her body had always trusted Jay.
“I want to take care of you, Nikki,” he said, his voice gentle. “I love you.”
Heartbreaking. Heart-mending. He’d done the first and was accomplishing the second. He’d healed so much of her.
“I—” she started. But love was the expected word, and in her case, not really the most important one. She’d share it with him later, privately, when there was nothing between them but skin. Now she counted on him to know her well enough—and, oh, he did—to realize how momentous her next words really were. She held out her hand to him, because being the one to reach out at this moment seemed important, too. “I need you, Jay.”
Tears stung her eyes. When his fingers closed over hers, so strong, so male, so understanding, Nikki cried.
Epilogue
The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, PLAYWRIGHT AND POET
Three weeks later…
Nikki sat shoulder-to-shoulder with Cassandra at Malibu & Ewe, in expectation of another blowout crowd. After the public resolution of her romance with Jay during Knitters’ Night, Tuesday evenings in the shop were more popular than ever. It didn’t seem possible that they’d find a way to top that spectacle, though.
She frowned down at the yarn and needles in her lap. “Are you sure about this? Do you really think I’m ready?�
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Cassandra nudged her good knee with her own. “More important, do you think you’re ready?”
“Well, it’s not a boyfriend sweater. And for a fiancé, everyone says the curse doesn’t apply.”
“You should probably take off your ring anyway, in case it gets caught in the yarn. I’ll sacrifice and wear the big rock for you tonight.”
“Um, no.” Nikki laughed and looked down at her left finger. It was kind of a big rock, but Jay had picked it because he said he wanted to weigh her down in case she tried running from him again.
That so wasn’t going to happen.
She’d started a new trend and given him an engagement ring, too. No sense in putting off reinforcing that “taken” status, was there? Without hesitation, he’d agreed that what was good for the goose was good for the gander.
God, she loved the man.
“You’re going all teary again,” Cassandra warned. “Do I have to break out the Kleenex box?”
“No—”
But she was already pressing something into her hand. It was white and soft, and threaded with a thin, pink satin ribbon. “A garter!” Nikki said, recognizing the lacy band. “You knit a garter.”
“It’s never too early to start on the traditions.”
Delighted with the pretty thing, Nikki impulsively leaned over and kissed the other woman’s cheek. The tears were in Cassandra’s eyes now.
The bells on the door rang out. They both quickly looked over, maybe equally eager to keep these new emotions in check. The long-legged stranger walking into the shop provided quite the distraction.
She wore expensive clothes. Nikki didn’t recognize designers, but she did recognize wealth, and this woman was dressed like authentic big bucks. Her pants outfit wasn’t the usual eclectic, casual Malibu chic, but something more classic. The woman herself was a classic. It was hard to determine her age, not with her caramel-colored hair sleekly pulled back at her nape to reveal a pair of diamond earrings that were tasteful but glittered as expensively as the rest of her.
She hesitated a few feet into the shop, then came a bit closer to Nikki and Cassandra. Close enough to reveal the color of her eyes. Blue and green.
Beside her, Cassandra stiffened. Then she popped from the couch cushions like a jack-in-the-box. “Hello, hello,” she said. “Welcome. I’m Cassandra Riley, the owner of Malibu & Ewe.”
“Hello.” The blue and green–eyed woman gave a small smile and then her gaze shifted past Cassandra to Nikki.
Cassandra noticed the direction of her gaze. She half-turned. “And this is Nikki, Nikki Carmichael, my—” Her voice broke, and her face flushed.
“Her sister,” Nikki finished for Cassandra. She smiled for both the women, but her gaze was fixed on the blue and green eyes that she usually only saw in her own mirror. “We’re sisters.”
The End
Dear Reader:
Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed the first book in the Billionaire’s Beach trilogy and continue on to discover more enhanced content. It was fun to put together some extras to enrich your experience. If your device does not support audio, you can find the mp3 file in which I talk about the story on my website at www.christieridgway.com.
Nikki and Jay’s romance was a pleasure to write and I was inspired by my own stay at a house on that particular stretch of sand (it became the model for Jay’s place!). You can see glimpses of Nikki and Jay in the other sexy and emotional books in the series, Take Me Forever and Take Me Home.
Interested in sharing your thoughts with other readers? I hope you leave a review for the book.
What about that woman who walked into Cassandra’s shop at the end of this book? Find out all about her and what her future holds in Take Me Forever.
To not miss out on new releases and to get other information about upcoming books, sign up for my newsletter. You can also follow me on Facebook, Twitter, or visit my website.
Below, find an excerpt to the first in my Rock Royalty series and links to buy other Ridgway romances you may have missed.
Enjoy!
Christie Ridgway
Buy Take Me Forever (Billionaire’s Beach Book 2)
Buy Take Me Home (Billionaire’s Beach Book 3)
Excerpt – LIGHT MY FIRE
Rock Royalty Book 1
© Copyright 2014 Christie Ridgway
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Chapter One
The children of America's premier rock band learned early to sleep through anything. Late night jam sessions, liquor (and worse) -fueled arguments, raucous parties raging from dark to dawn that were peppered with wild laughter, breaking glass, and the squishy thud of fists against skin. At twenty-four, Cilla Maddox had not lost that skill, though she'd recently come to view it as something less than a gift.
Still, she didn't stir from her curled position on the edge of the king-sized bed when a tall, broad figure entered the room in the middle of the night. No streetlights disturbed the darkness this deep in Laurel Canyon and the newcomer found the bed only by deduction. When, at his sixth cautious step, his shin met an immoveable object, he dropped the motorcycle boots and duffel bag he carried to the plush carpet and took a leap of faith by tipping his long body forward. Finding firm mattress and feathery pillow, he instantly fell into sleep.
Hours later, Cilla came awake to the sound of birds tweeting and chirping their odes to another Southern California morning as they flitted through the shrubbery and tall eucalyptus trees that grew inside and outside the canyon compound where she'd grown up. Eyes closed, she breathed in the country-scented air, such a surprise when the famous Hollywood Boulevard and its twin in notoriety, the Sunset Strip, were less than a mile away. Flopping to her back, she stretched to her full five-feet, five inches. Then she pushed her arms overhead and swept them back down until her fingertips met—
Something solid. Warm. Alive.
On a gasp, her eyes flew open and her head whipped right. She yanked her hand from a man's heavy shoulder to press it against her thrashing heart.
As it continued to beat wildly against her ribs, she stared at her bedmate. Though his body was plastered to the mattress belly-down, his face was turned toward hers and it only took another instant to realize he was no stranger. But recognition didn't calm the overactive organ in her chest that continued sending blood sprinting through her body.
She blinked, just to make sure her eyes weren't deceiving her. They apparently had told the truth, she decided. After years of adolescent fantasies, she was actually sharing a bed with him. With Renford Colson.
No mistake, it was her teenage fantasy man. His glossy black hair that tangled nearly to his shoulders. His days'-old stubble of beard that made his mouth look softer, fuller, more kissable if that was even possible. Those were his spiky lashes resting against his sharp-angled face.
Yet...was he really here? To make herself believe it, she mouthed his name. Ren.
As if he heard the silent syllable, his eyes flipped open.
She started, their distinctive color—a silvered green, just like eucalyptus leaves—jolting her to the marrow.
Dark brows met over his straight nose and she watched the drowsiness seep from him as his gaze sharpened. "Priss?"
She frowned. He was the only one to call her that nickname and it had annoyed her since she was old enough to understand it telegraphed something about the way he viewed her. "Excessively proper," she remembered reading in the dictionary. "Prim."
"Cilla." Her voice sounded morning-husky as she made the correction.
One corner of his mouth kicked up. "Priscilla."
Ugh. That was worse. To her mind, Priscilla was the name of some old-fashioned china doll that was deemed too nice to play with and so grew dusty on a high, forgotten closet shelf. As the youngest "princess" of rock royalty (an article in Rolling Stone had described the nine collective children of the Velvet Lemons in just such terms), she'd often been overlooked. Likely Ren hadn't given her a single thought in the n
ine years since she'd last seen him.
"Why are you here?" she asked, sitting up.
His gaze dropped from her face to the size XL T-shirt she wore, an authentic Byrds concert souvenir, one of the several such clothing items she'd collected (read: purloined from her careless father) during her lifetime. "Priss," Ren remarked with a note of mild surprise, "you've grown up."
Grown-ups didn't react to the red flush they could feel crawling over their skin. Grown-ups didn't check out their chest to determine if it was a modest B-cup that led him to such a conclusion. So ignoring both compulsions, she repeated her question. "Why are you here?"
"Couple reasons." Ren flipped over then jackknifed on the mattress to face her. Both palms rubbed over his eyes and down his cheeks, his beard making a scratchy sound. He'd fallen asleep in his worn jeans and wrinkled dress shirt. On the floor near him were a pair of battered boots and a leather bag, both as black as his hair. His hands went to the buttons marching down his chest.
She swallowed. "What are you doing?"
"I've been wearing this damn thing for—Christ, who knows?—it's got to be a couple of days. However long it took me to get here from Russia with a fucking long layover in Paris."
Her gaze didn't leave his nimble fingers as they continued unbuttoning to reveal a stark white undershirt beneath. "You didn't stop off in London?" That was where he was based. Ren had started as a roadie for the band, then moved into concert tour planning and security. When he'd left the employ of the Velvet Lemons, he'd set up shop across the pond and continued doing the same thing—just not for their fathers' band.
Cilla couldn't blame him for that. The three Lemons might as well have been named the Odd Ducks. They'd achieved superstardom in the 1970s and when they were nearing forty, somehow decided they wanted more than sex, riches, and scandalous reputations. Each had produced three kids before declaring their paternal urges satisfied. No mothers came attached to the children they'd fathered. They'd been bought off or wandered off and as long as Cilla could remember the nine rock progeny had spent their childhoods in the expansive Laurel Canyon compound that consisted of three separate houses and then this smaller cottage where she and Ren had chosen to sleep.
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