How to Knit a Wild Bikini (24 page)

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 ten years before TV’s Murphy Brown decided to raise her baby by herself and caused a popular culture uproar. So, yeah, to not only raise a child alone at that time but 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 per sis tent with one 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.”

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 to night, 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 what ever 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?”

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 more money per movie than Cameron Diaz.

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.

He brought her flush against him and whispered in her ear. “Dry your eyes, cookie. No sense getting blotchy when I’ve got Madonna booked for the wedding.”

And Nikki laughed while the tears flowed.