Page 41 of Take Me Tender

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 whatever 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 tonight…”

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 tonight, 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—”

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