“Jennifer, you climb up first,” he said, helping her up the steps. “Nicki’s riding in front with me.”
“I am?” Nicki asked, clearly surprised.
“Of course. When have you ever flown with me and not been my copilot?”
“Never. But I thought—”
“Wrong,” Bryan said. “God forbid something should happen to me, but if it did, you’d know what to do with the plane. Jennifer’s only been up once.”
“Besides, I’m happier back here, Nicki,” Jennifer said, just as she’d have done to make one of her customers or employees more comfortable. “All those dials make me a little dizzy.”
“They’re nothing once you get used to them.” Nicki smiled, climbed into her seat and put on her headset.
Bryan glanced at Jennifer in the back, his eyes thanking her even as they glowed with a more heated emotion. Jennifer smiled and stuck out her tongue at him.
The scenery below them was beautiful as they reached cruising altitude, but Jennifer found her eyes straying to the pilot more often than not. She was in love with him. She guessed she’d known it deep inside for a while now. She’d finally admitted it to herself when she’d picked up some birth control the day before. The last time she’d made love, it hadn’t been love at all, and it hadn’t been because she wanted to. And the consequences had been devastating. This time she was prepared all the way around.
He said something into his headset, apparently to Nicki because she grinned over at him and said something back. She really was a pretty child. And a nice one, too.
So far being with Nicki wasn’t as bad as she’d thought it was going to be. The pain was still there, the regrets, but they’d always been there, even if she’d tried not to acknowledge them. Being with Nicki just made them impossible to ignore.
But somehow, being around Nicki also made the pain a little sweeter, almost consoling. On and off over the past twelve years, she’d found herself wondering how her daughter would feel about something, what kind of things she’d be into at the different stages in her life. And watching Nicki, Jennifer finally had answers for some of those questions. At the very least, she had some ground upon which to base those answers.
She still didn’t feel any more certain about developing a relationship with Nicki, about her own ability to be the type of person a child would be comfortable with, but she was determined to give it her best shot. She wanted this thing to work.
Bryan had a limousine waiting for them at the airport in the Keys, and he’d arranged for a technician to service his plane, too.
“Jeez, Uncle Bryan, I can’t believe it!” Nicki teased as they followed their driver to the car. “You’re actually going to let someone else touch your plane. Grandma would’ve been shocked!”
Bryan grabbed Nicki in a neck hold, rubbing his knuckles against the top of her head. “Don’t bug me, sprite. I’m on vacation.”
“I’m sorry already,” Nicki said.
Jennifer could barely understand her through her giggles. The sound was so infectious she joined in.
She opted to wait with Nicki by the luggage while Bryan checked them into the hotel. And as she stood there, she imagined how the three of them must look to the people around them, like a normal family vacationing in the Florida sun. She hadn’t seen herself in a picture like that before, and though it felt odd, it also felt good. Very good.
Maybe someday…
“Did you want to…” She turned to Nicki, only to find that the girl wasn’t beside her anymore. She’d been there a couple of seconds ago.
Panicked, Jennifer flew around, scanning the massive hotel lobby. Her stomach settled back where it belonged when she saw Nicki, only a few feet away, gazing into the window of the gift shop. Jennifer looked beyond the girl to the blue plaid two-piece swimsuit hanging there. The top wasn’t so much a bra as a crop top. It would look good on Nicki’s burgeoning young figure. Nicki turned, and with one last glance over her shoulder, walked back to join Jennifer.
Bryan reached her at the same time.
“You can check in with Dennis as soon as we get to the room if you want to,” he told her.
Jennifer hadn’t given Teal Automotive a thought all morning. “Don’t bug me, Chambers. I’m on vacation,” she said, grinning at Nicki. “Besides, it’s Sunday. Dennis doesn’t work on Sundays.”
“Only the chairman of the board does that, huh?” he asked. Jennifer stuck her tongue out at him for the second time that morning.
Nicki laughed. Bryan grinned at his niece and then looked back at Jennifer. “You can catch flies that way, you know.”
Jennifer closed her mouth.
Bryan gave the bellboy their room number, arranging to have their luggage brought up, and then led them to the elevator.
“Who’s ready to hit the beach?” he asked as they rode up to their suite.
“I could stand a few hours of that,” Jennifer said. She couldn’t believe how good it sounded to do something so lazy.
Nicki seemed to be way too interested in the advertisement for the hotel dining room that hung on the elevator wall.
“How about you, Nick? You ready to take on the waves?”
Nicki shrugged.
“What’s the matter? You were always the one begging to get down to the water,” Bryan said, frowning.
“I know.” Nicki ran her fingers over the buttons on the control panel.
“You wanted to come to the beach, Nick. What’d you think we’d do once we got here?”
“I don’t know.”
Bryan looked at Jennifer, obviously perplexed. Jennifer started to panic. If he didn’t know how to handle the situation, what were they going to do? She certainly had no idea what had changed Nicki’s mood so suddenly, and no suggestion for how to make things better.
The elevator stopped and the doors opened on their floor. Jennifer followed Bryan and his niece to the door of their suite, feeling horribly awkward and out of place. She wasn’t good with children at the best of times, but dealing with them when there was a problem was simply beyond her.
Still, she had no desire to leave. Nicki was not a surly child. Something was bothering her. Jennifer wished she had a clue as-to what it might be. She wished she didn’t feel so damned inadequate.
The suite was spacious and open, with a living area large enough to house a family of six comfortably. It even had a kitchenette, complete with a two-burner stove and half-size refrigerator.
Nicki opened the refrigerator. “It’s empty,” she said, sounding disappointed as she shut it again and then peered into the cupboard.
“We can make a grocery run if you like, and make you the official cook,” Bryan offered, grinning at her.
Nicki looked like an angel as she grinned back at him. “Don’t bug me, Uncle Bryan. I’m on vacation,” she said.
Jennifer started to relax again.
Her room, complete with its own bathroom, was too big for one person, but luxuriously appointed, and as soon as the bellboy delivered their luggage, Jennifer took a couple of minutes to hang her clothes and set out her toiletries.
It was as she put her swimsuit out on the bed that it hit her. Nicki had been looking at that suit in the shop window downstairs. She’d even glanced back at it as she’d walked away. And it had been Bryan’s question about going down to the beach that had brought about the sudden mood change. And just that morning at breakfast, Nicki had told her about Bryan wanting her to dress like a little girl. Though the suit she’d been looking at in the lobby had been appropriate for a girl Nicki’s age, it would definitely not make her look like a little girl. But Jennifer would bet a month’s profits that whatever Nicki had brought with her would.
Jennifer remembered herself at that age. She remembered how painfully shy she’d been about the changes taking place in her body, how self-conscious she’d felt about her looks, how desperately eager she’d been for any word of praise. And how hard it had been when none had been forthcoming.
Coll
ecting her wallet, she went back to the living room. Bryan was there, opening curtains to the ocean view.
“I’m going to run downstairs for a second,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
She hurried out the door before he could ask her where she was going. She had a hunch she could solve Nicki’s problem, and she didn’t want him stopping her.
The blue plaid suit was still in the window, and the clerk directed Jennifer to a whole rack of identical ones in various sizes. She had to guess at Nicki’s size, but with her description and the clerk’s help, she was pretty sure she found a suit that would fit. She handed over her credit card and didn’t even bother to look at the slip as she signed it. She didn’t care how much the suit cost. She could afford it. And even if she hadn’t had more money than she knew what to do with, she’d have bought it, anyway. It was that important.
Barely ten minutes after she’d left, she was back in the living room of the suite, bag in hand and nervous as a wet hen. What if she was way off the mark? What made her think she knew what Nicki needed?
“Did you find what you went after?” Bryan asked, coming in from his bedroom.
“Yes. Where’s Nicki?”
“Still in her room, I guess.” Bryan walked over and knocked on his niece’s door. “You okay in there, Nick?”
The girl’s “yeah” came muffled through the door.
Aware of Bryan’s curious scrutiny, Jennifer walked over to Nicki’s closed door. “Are you decent, Nicki? Can I come in for a minute?” The bag was slipping from her sweaty fingers and she rolled it up further, tightening her grip.
Nicki opened her door, standing to one side. “Sure,” she said. She was still wearing the shorts and T-shirt she’d worn on the plane. She shut the door behind Jennifer.
“I brought you something,” Jennifer said, handing Nicki the bag before she chickened out.
Nicki grinned. “Me? What is it?” she asked, looking inside the bag.
“Oh, Ms…I mean, Jennifer,” Nicki said, looking from the bag to Jennifer and back again. “How’d you know? Oh, thank you!” She threw her arms around Jennifer in a hug. Jennifer felt like a starving woman brought to a feast.
Nicki finally pulled back. “I can’t believe you got the one I wanted the most,” she said, pulling the suit out of the bag.
“Why don’t you go try it on?” Jennifer suggested, smiling at Nicki’s eagerness.
Nicki looked up, her eyes alarmed. “Do you think Uncle Bryan will like it?” she whispered, as if only now realizing that her uncle was just in the next room.
“I’m sure he will,” Jennifer said, crossing her fingers behind her back. She had about two minutes to convince Bryan Chambers that he had to like Nicki’s new swimsuit. She figured that was about how long it was going to take Nicki to get into it.
He was standing just outside Nicki’s bedroom door waiting for her. “You heard?” Jennifer asked.
He nodded, seeming not the least bit repentant for his eavesdropping. “How did you know?” he asked softly.
Jennifer and Bryan moved farther away from Nicki’s door and into the middle of the living room. “I saw her staring at it downstairs. But I wouldn’t have figured it out if she hadn’t said something to me at breakfast this morning.”
Bryan followed her over to the window, his hands in the pockets of his shorts. “What was that?”
Jennifer glanced up at him, this man whose biggest strength was his love for the child in his care. “She says you want her to keep looking like a little girl even though her body’s starting to grow up. She thinks it makes her ugly.”
Bryan frowned, looking toward Nicki’s door. “She said that?”
“Maybe not in those exact words, but I knew how she felt. My mom was still buying me undershirts when I was fifteen.”
“So that’s why she didn’t want to go down to the water.”
Jennifer nodded. “I think so. Please tell her you like it, Bryan, even if you don’t. Your opinion means so much to her right now.”
Bryan ran his fingers through Jennifer’s hair, then cupped her face with his palms. “I think I could get used to having you around, Jennifer Teal,” he said, and dipped his head to kiss her.
Jennifer gave herself up to the heady feeling his kisses always brought her, welcoming the thrust of his tongue against hers, wishing he could hold her like that forever.
She pulled away from him at the sound of Nicki’s door opening.
“Do you like it?” The girl walked out into the living room, her arms crossed over her chest, her eyes darting everywhere but at her uncle. Her gaze finally landed on Jennifer’s smiling face.
“You’re going to be the death of me in that thing, you know,” Bryan said. Nicki’s gaze flew to him, her eyes anxious until she saw the grin on his face.
“I can keep it?” she asked him, dropping her arms.
“You can keep it.”
Nicki ran to him, throwing her arms around him with the exuberance of a normal twelve-year-old. “I love you, Uncle Bryan.”
“And I love you, sprite.”
Jennifer swallowed a lump in her throat as she stood apart from them, knowing that the moment they shared was one forged through years of getting through the good and the bad together, as a family. A family she wanted to be a part of more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life.
THEY SPENT almost every hour at the beach that day and the two succeeding ones, taking turns playing in the waves and lying on towels on the sand. Bryan spent a lot of time with Nicki in the water, swimming out to the buoys with her, dunking her in the waves, until Nicki enlisted Jennifer’s help and the two of them together did their best to force Bryan’s head underwater a time or two. They were successful, sort of. Not wanting to fail Nicki and seeing failure as imminent, Jennifer finally resorted to dirty pool and grabbed Bryan intimately under the water. He was so shocked he stopped struggling long enough for Nicki to finally succeed in dunking him. Jennifer was well out of reach by the time he resurfaced.
But her body sang with anticipation when his gaze met hers across the water promising retribution. Later.
They went sailing the second afternoon and had dinner at a different restaurant in the hotel every night. Each evening they went back out to the beach after dinner to listen to the band the hotel had hired to play there. They stayed outside until Nicki was ready to turn in, and Bryan was encouraged when he noticed that each night she stayed up a little bit later.
And each night, after his niece went to bed, Bryan played with fire. He pulled Jennifer down to the couch with him, holding her in his arms, touching the body that all day, in the sleek, black one-piece suit, had driven him crazy. And when he’d nearly driven himself crazy with desire, he’d lose himself in her kisses.
All in all, Bryan figured their time at the beach was about as perfect as a vacation could be, with the exception of the constant misery his body was suffering. Holding and kissing Jennifer was not enough. He needed to make love to her. And he couldn’t. Not until he told her the truth about her and Nicki.
And he couldn’t do that until they were back home, where they wouldn’t be forced to stay together if her reaction to his duplicity was as bad as he feared it might be. Where she’d be free to take some time away to assimilate the facts, adjust to them. He just hoped to God that when she calmed down, when she listened rationally to his explanations, she’d have a big enough heart to understand.
He was no longer worried about how Nicki would fare. Jennifer obviously adored her.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
NICKI WAS INVITED to play volleyball during their last day at the beach, and Bryan was so delighted to see her having a good time with kids her own age that he let her stay out a bit longer than he should have. By dinnertime it appeared she’d had too much sun, and she was complaining of an upset stomach.
Jennifer helped by rubbing aloe cream on Nicki’s burned skin and convincing the girl to eat most of a bowl of chicken soup. Nicki finally fell asleep ar
ound six-thirty, and knowing that sleep was the best thing for her, Jennifer and Bryan closed her door and left her alone.
Bryan called room service, ordering a bottle of wine to accompany their filets and baked potatoes. He had the waiter set the whole thing up out on their balcony, which faced the beach. He didn’t want to take a chance on waking Nicki.
The hotel was having a bonfire on the beach that night, and Jennifer’s face glowed from the muted light of the flames as she sat across from him at the small wrought-iron table. She was wearing a white halter dress that looked incredible against her newly acquired tan. Bryan could barely keep his eyes off her.
They ate and talked about Nicki, about places they’d traveled, about the tornado that had taken Bryan’s family and the car accident that had taken Jennifer’s. They even talked about some of the people they could see below them on the beach, deciding that one couple were newlyweds and another on their second honeymoon. Bryan, trying to get a rise out of Jennifer, suggested that the second couple was really a married man on an illicit tryst with his secretary, but Jennifer point-blank refused to have any part of his potentially unhappy scenario.
And before he knew it, the food was all gone, and there wasn’t a drop of wine left in the bottle. But he wasn’t ready for the evening to end.
“I think I saw a bottle of wine in the minibar. Would you like another glass?” he asked Jennifer.
Her slow sensual smile just about brought him to his knees. “I’ve probably had enough already, but yes, one more glass sounds good. It’s so lovely out here. I’m not ready to go in yet.”
Bryan opened the bottle and filled their glasses. “I just looked in on Nicki, and she’s still sound asleep.”
“I know. I looked, too, when I went in before.”
Bryan wasn’t sure just when their conversation filtered away, or why he was torturing himself by touching her soft silky hand where it lay on the table, but there was no mistaking the invitation in her eyes. Or the way his body was responding to it.
“I think I’ve had more wine than was wise,” he said, his gaze locked on hers in the darkness.
The Birth Mother Page 17
