How to Knit a Wild Bikini (19 page)

Behind the locked
back door, Nikki sank into a chair at the kitchen table and watched Fern do the same. Adrenaline still flooded her bloodstream, and she felt good, hella-good as a matter of fact, that she’d stood up to that bully. As she’d told Jay, she could handle what ever came up. All by herself.

But there was still more to be confronted. She sucked in a breath and kept her voice calm. “Fern, did Jenner hurt you?”

The girl’s head shot up, then she pulled her sleeve off her shoulder and inspected the faint red marks on her upper arm. “No,” she said, covering herself back up. “I just bruise easily.”

“I mean other times.” Nikki forced herself onward. She could do this. She’d faced Jenner, right? And she would do what ever else she must. “Other times did he make you do things you…you didn’t want to do?”

The girl’s face flushed and she trained her gaze on the tabletop in front of her. “Other times he did things that made me want him. But he’s mad because I broke up with him instead of—” Her hand lifted. “You know.”

Nikki silently released the breath she’d been holding. “Instead of having sex.”

“Yeah.” Fern’s mouth barely moved.

“Well, he won’t be bothering you anymore.” She’d make sure of it.

A smile flickered over the teenager’s face and she glanced up again. “Buffalo balls in béarnaise sauce?”

“A guy who treats a girl like that deserves nothing less.”

Fern went silent again, and her fingers reached for the zipper pull of her hoodie. She toyed with it, running it up and down in short, nervous bursts.

Nikki started to push herself to a stand, thinking to make tea or hot chocolate. Thinking she’d weathered the event and done more than okay. That hella-good feeling resurged.

“My best friend, Emily, was raped last May.”

Sinking back to her seat, hella-good transforming into horror, Nikki stared at Fern. “Oh.” Oh, God.

“She was visiting her brother at college and he took her to a party at one of the frats. They went different ways and she…well…”

“Oh, Fern.” The last of Nikki’s adrenaline leached away in a whoosh.

More words tumbled out of the girl’s mouth. “I didn’t want what happened to make me afraid like she is now. I wanted to prove I could take the most dangerous boy I know and handle him. That way…that way I could prove to myself I wasn’t vulnerable like Em.”

Nikki slumped against the back of her chair. What should she say? She was out of her element all over again. Her mother hadn’t lived long enough to set an example for this kind of discussion. Nikki didn’t have girlfriends either, who might have provided practical experience she could draw upon. Should she tell Fern that all women were vulnerable?

Should she say some women—Shanna came to mind—gave too much of themselves in order to have a man? Should she say that it was better—safer—to give little to them and expect nothing in return? Is that what she was doing with Jay?

She hoped that’s what she was doing with Jay.

Before she could formulate an answer, Fern was talking again. “I don’t want to give up on males altogether, though.”

Two weeks ago, giving up on males altogether pretty much summed up Nikki’s own strategy.

“So I guess I’ll just keep my eyes open,” Fern continued. “
Be
open, but wait for one I can trust with…with me. What do you think?” Her gaze met Nikki’s.

She didn’t know how to respond to Fern’s question or even the ones in her own mind. But she’d promised Jay she could handle anything that came up. Her fingers itched to call him, but wasn’t she in de pen dent? Capable all on her own? And anyway, she doubted he’d be any better at honest romantic advice than she.

“I think…I think…” Cassandra. Her image leaped into Nikki’s mind. It was Tuesday, wasn’t it? Knitters’ Night—make a connection, make a friend! For the first time in her memory, being surrounded by other women sounded comforting, not uncomfortable. Much better than being alone.

She stood up, putting all her weight on her good leg. “I think we should go to Malibu & Ewe.”

At her first step, her right leg buckled. Nikki grabbed the table, pain slicing through her knee as if the ligament was being severed all over again. Oh, God, oh, God. Oh,
no
.

“Nikki?”

The concern in Fern’s voice helped her push back against the pain. She breathed slowly, then took another experimental step, limping to make it easy on her now-throbbing knee. Her purse and an elastic bandage were only a few feet away.

“We’ll take your car, okay?” she told the girl.

She couldn’t drive. She could only hope she was correct, that there’d be comfort available at Cassandra’s shop. Because right now being by herself wouldn’t cut it. It would only make her panic more about the extent of the new damage to her already injured knee.

Jay drove too fast along PCH. He told himself it was because he’d found the house empty and he was worried about Fern. The call he’d managed to make to her before the lousy Malibu cell reception broke up should have been reassuring. She and Nikki were fine. Together.

At Malibu & Ewe.

Cassandra had made him promise not to tell Nikki about their sibling status, and he’d taken the easy route, as ever, and agreed. It was simpler for the yarn shop owner to find her own way through that thorny patch. He had no idea how Nikki would react and he had enough trouble dealing with her himself.

Dealing with how he felt about her.

Which was another reason he was in a hurry to get to the yarn store. A couple of drinks, a rare steak, and a bull session with one of his oldest friends, now headquartered in NYC, had gone a long way to putting this…thing with Nikki in perspective.

Love. Shit. What the hell did he know about that? The fact was, her long legs turned him on, her
bruja
eyes bewitched him, her hot, melting center was just the perfect, snug little pocket he’d called it. Combined together with the absolute glee he felt at her surprised reaction each time she achieved another big O—well, those were the ingredients of a recipe for powerful lust.

Nothing more.

When he saw her to night, he’d have his perspective in place and be able to view her as the summer fling she was—as clean and sweet as vanilla and mango, as spicy and satisfying as her jalapeño-laced homemade guacamole.

But a summer fling all the same.

The parking lot shared by the café and Malibu & Ewe was more than half-full, even though Gabe’s place closed at eight. That meant a roomful of knitting women, but he didn’t let the prospect hitch his stride. The sooner he saw Nikki, the sooner he’d have his world ordered the old, comfortable way. In the number-one position, a solo Jay, free of cumbersome emotions that threatened his happy male autonomy.

He rolled his shoulders and twisted his neck, palming his jaw to give the adjustment an extra oomph. Screwing his head on straight would come just that easily, he promised himself. One look at Nikki and he’d realize he was back to the good ol’ days of sex sans emotion.

A figure flitted through the door ahead of him, and he recognized the thin figure of Oomfaa. At first she’d objected to the nickname, but in the way of small towns everywhere, there’d been no escaping it.

New York could have Uma. Malibu had their Oomfaa.

He was on her heels as the door swung shut behind her. He caught it in his hand so it didn’t make a sound as he entered the shop. None of the women looked up from their projects.

It was larger than the groups he’d seen gathered there other times. Women filled the couches, a couple of ottomans, as well as a dozen folding chairs that Cassandra had produced from somewhere. He didn’t see Nikki right away, but Fern was at the back of the shop, her fingers running over the colored yarns in the built-in bins.

He smelled coffee and something else that had him thinking Nikki had brought a loaf of her lemon almond bread along for the ride. He sucked in a lungful of the delicious, nutty scent and God, didn’t that just explain away the last of the ridiculous “in love” business. He had a jones for her food, and added to everything else, it had made him jump to the entirely wrong conclusion.

Oomfaa was standing outside the knitting circle, her canvas bag full of knitting gewgaws held against her chest and a funny little smile on her face. The others kept chatting around her, oblivious to the actress and what ever piece of news she was eager to impart.

Yeah, he could tell she was raring to spill some juicy tidbit, that was for sure. She was an actress, not a card player, and no one would be asking her to a celebrity poker table anytime soon.

Finally, she gave a little flounce. Jay hid his smile, because Oomfaa wasn’t often overlooked and she didn’t handle it well.

“Everyone!” she called over the sound of needles and chitchat.

Everyone’s noise took a moment to peter out. When it finally did, a woman shifted and he caught a glimpse of Nikki’s earth-and-sunlight hair from her place on a low cushion. The rest of her was hidden by the arm of a sofa and one of the chairs.

Jay stayed where he was by the door. Not that he was worried about seeing her, because, of course, he now had his reaction already sorted out. But he was loathe to break into the all-female ritual when for the first time it seemed as if Nikki was content to be in the middle of it.

Oomfaa continued with her stand, too, waiting for the dramatic moment when all eyes were on her. Show-off. But that was as much a part of her as gossip was part of small-town Malibu.

“I just heard the news!” Oomfaa finally declared.

Jay smiled again. Yeah, he was right on the money.

“I just heard,” the actress continued, “that Cassandra had a visit from her sister!”

Oh, shit. His smile died.

From the center of the circle, Cassandra rose, her face pale. “No. Oomfaa…” Her head swung in Nikki’s direction, then quickly jerked away. “Oomfaa…”

But Oomfaa was as lousy at picking up on nonverbal cues as she would be at reading the flop. “Cassandra, when were you going to tell us?” she demanded. “I had to hear it from your accountant, who heard it from, well, I don’t know who he heard it from, but the news is traveling around town. We should be celebrating the fact that you found your chef. Your donor sibling. The one whose mother used the same sperm donor as yours did. The one you sent that Malibu & Ewe invitation to. Nanette? Nicolette? What’s her name again?”

Another figure rose.

“Nikki,” Cassandra whispered, turning her way.

Oomfaa’s face brightened. “That’s it. Your donor sibling’s name is Nikki!”

Cassandra’s donor sibling had found her feet if not her voice. Nikki was on the move now, weaving her way free of the knitting circle. Jay immediately noticed that she was limping heavily. His gut clenched, biting hard on the sudden concern that filled his belly. As she came closer, he saw her face, her eyes wide with confusion and surprise and…fear?

He found himself striding toward her. Her sandals stuttered to a stop as he stepped into her path. “Jay,” she said, blinking a couple of times. “Jay.” Her hand lifted. Fell.

She moved forward again, but one of her legs seemed to buckle beneath her. At her gasp, he caught her in his arms. Her vanilla scent invaded his head, but its sweetness couldn’t counteract the empathetic pangs that had invaded his body.

“Jay, let me go,” she said, her voice urgent. “I need to get out of here.”

“Sure, cookie,” he answered, even as his arms tightened on her. Her body was trembling and it seemed to shake his bones, too.

Christ, he hurt. He hurt because she did.

Oh, God.

Her confusion was his confusion. Her distress, his. Her pain, his.

So much for his return to all-male autonomy. A rare rib-eye, a baked potato, and a couple of beers couldn’t transform the truth, he realized.

This was his love in his arms and he couldn’t rationalize that away any longer.

He helped her toward the door, sending a glance back at Fern. She nodded, mouthed “Marie” and shooed him off with a sweep of her hands.

“Jay, let go of me.” Nikki tried pulling free of him.

He wrapped her more tightly against his body as he helped her out the door. “Let me take care of you, baby. Let me take care of you.”

Nikki wasn’t going
to get rid of him, Jay promised himself, no matter how many times she reiterated, “I can take care of myself,” as he drove her home to her apartment in Santa Monica.

“You can’t put pressure on the accelerator to drive yourself,” he said, trying to sound sensible and not stubborn as he followed her directions through the quiet streets. “Now, if you’d just agreed to stay at my place to night…”

She mumbled something.

He looked over. “What’s that?”

“Pain meds. Anti-inflammatories. I have my prescriptions at home.”

He was glad to hear that, but once she’d had five minutes alone in her bedroom, he started worrying again. “Do you need my help?” he called through the closed door.

“I can take my own clothes on and off, Jay.”

He swallowed his retort that it was more fun when he did it for her. Now wasn’t the moment for that kind of talk, and then all thoughts of getting her horizontal for sexual purposes flew from his mind when she hobbled out of her room. She had a skinny-strapped tank top above, but below she wore a pair of ratty sweatpants that gave evidence that her knee problems were ongoing—the right leg was cut off at thigh level. Jay saw that her knee was swollen to wince proportions.

“Ah, cookie,” he said, grimacing. “What can I do to help?”

“Nothing.”

He shoved his hands through his hair. “Nikki—”

“Okay, okay. The bag of peas in the freezer and a bottle of water.” He trailed her to a reclining chair where she settled in and propped up her leg. “Help yourself to anything you want in the kitchen,” she added.

On the way there, he took a look around her apartment. There wasn’t much to see. Though the fridge and freezer were well-stocked—no surprise—the rest of her place looked as if she’d used the same decorator responsible for some dreary chain of temporary executive suites.

Perhaps the thought telegraphed to her as he settled the frozen vegetables on her puffy knee, because when he dropped onto the narrow, thin-cushioned couch nearby, she glanced over. “I know it doesn’t look like much.” She shook out some pills into her palm. “I bought most of the stuff at a sale of secondhand hotel furniture.”

“Ah.” That explained its bland lines and boring colors. It didn’t clarify why she’d chosen them as her own surroundings. The only Nikki thing about the place was the lingering notes of her personal scent. “But I thought you’d at least cover the bare walls with your collection of Melissa Etheridge posters.”

“You haven’t seen my bedroom.” She swallowed down the pills with several sips of the water from the bottle he’d set on the small table at her side. Now he noticed the fishbowl at her elbow.

The sight of it felt like a fist to his chest. “You really do have a plastic fish.” Anonymous furniture, empty walls, a fake pet. Nothing that attached her to her environment, let alone to anything living and breathing.

“What? Yeah.” She set down her water and let her head rest against the back of the chair. Her wince as she adjusted her right leg stole his breath.

Shit, it had to hurt.

“How’d you do that?” he asked. “How’d you injure it again?”

Nikki’s spine jerked straight and she almost knocked over her water bottle as she jackknifed in her seat. “Oh, my God. Fern. We left Fern alone. How could I have forgotten?”

Alarm chilled his blood. “Forgotten what?”

Five minutes and a phone call later, he’d calmed them both. That scrawny little excuse of a male adolescent was going to be sorry he was born, but that was another night’s agenda. For now, Fern was safe at her friend Marie’s and Jay believed her promise to stay put.

Nikki slumped back in her chair and her eyelids drooped. The meds were doing their thing, he suspected, glad she was getting some relief. When she was sleepy enough—soon, he suspected—he planned to tuck her into bed.

And make a place for himself right beside her for as long as she’d let him stay.

“No, Jay,” she said. “I’ll be fine by myself.”

“Christ,” he complained. “Stop reading my mind.”

“I’m reading the way you just kicked off your shoes and then made yourself more comfortable on my couch cushions.” Her eyes blazed open, the blue and the green unbalancing him again.

But he was growing accustomed to it, and they were so beautiful that he was beginning to think he’d willingly teeter for the rest of his life.

“I don’t need a keeper,” she said.

“For to night, how about a friend?”

She stilled, then glanced away. A long moment passed. “Do you think it’s true?”

He figured he knew what she was talking about. “I don’t know, cookie. We can call Cassandra. I’ll bet she’d even come over—”

“
No
.” It was in her voice now, that fear he’d seen on her face at Malibu & Ewe.

He didn’t understand it, but he didn’t press. “All right.”

“I think it’s true.” Her gaze flicked toward him, flicked away. “The other morning at your house, she came over and told me all about being conceived through artificial insemination. I didn’t think much about it at the time, because Cassandra is one of those friendly, girly types who talks about everything—I think I know her SAT scores and the name of her first boyfriend—but she also mentioned donor siblings and how the Internet could make it fairly easy to locate them.”

“Would your parents have kept from you that kind of information?”

Instead of answering, she dipped inside the fishbowl and scooped out her pet. A few cranks on the winder and she let it free again, her gaze focused on its manic plastic fins. “I can see them not saying anything,” Nikki finally answered. “My mom once mentioned fertility issues, I think, but she wouldn’t have wanted me to feel anything other than ‘normal,’ so might have kept quiet. My father…maybe my mother would have made Dad promise not to tell before she died? Or was he embarrassed by the situation that he was himself infertile? I don’t know. That I wasn’t his biological child could explain why he was so…so cold.”

She looked over at Jay, her pretty face blank. “I don’t remember a time that he touched me, you know. Not even at my mother’s funeral.”

Oh, hell. His hand crept up to his chest. How did people navigate this damn love thing? Her bad knee made his throb. The dents in her heart made his own ache like the devil.

He shoved up from the couch and reached her in two strides. It only took a moment to lift her up and then into his lap as he took her place in the chair. His hands were careful as they replaced the fallen bag of peas and then they were gentle as they cradled her to him.

He buried his nose in her hair and inhaled her scent as her head lay heavy on his shoulder. Their breathing synchronized and it was the oddest damn thing, but he felt his heart growing bigger, expanding like the volume during the chorus of some cheesy hair band’s rock ballad.