Page 43 of Take Me Tender

“You recognized me,” Nikki remembered. “Without even knowing my name.”

“Because of what I know about our father.”

“Not that. Not father.” She’d had a father. Maybe he hadn’t been a particularly warm or happy or honest one, but she couldn’t erase him from her life like that. He’d taught her important lessons—like standing on her own two feet because she couldn’t count on others to stick around and prop her up. “Sperm donor.”

Cassandra acknowledged the point with a nod. “Right. Well, he was a medical student when he donated. In the early days of artificial insemination and sperm banks, it was a common practice for the men in medical school to make extra money that way.”

“Doctor, huh? Maybe that explains why I don’t mind deboning chickens.”

Cassandra gave a little laugh. “Maybe you’re right. He’s a surgeon now. And he has eyes like yours. It was in the records. One blue and one green. When I saw you, that’s how I knew.”

“Okay. Well, mystery solved. And thanks for the basket.”

Cassandra didn’t pick up on her dismissal. “When I actually met you that day, I had second thoughts about making contact. I realized it might be selfish of me and that you could be perfectly happy not knowing the truth about our biological relationship. So I kept quiet and continued my inner debate.” She continued standing where she was, looking miserable.

That wasn’t Nikki’s problem. She turned back to the countertop where she’d been threading vegetables onto skewers.

Cassandra cleared her throat. “But now that you do know, are there any questions—”

“No.” Then Nikki took a breath and turned around again. “Okay. Yes. Is there any medical history I should be aware of? My mom died of cancer, so I already have a concern on that score.”

“No. At least nothing he reported as a young man. He doesn’t live far from here and from what I’ve learned about him now—”

Nikki signaled “stop” with her hand. “I don’t want to hear more.”

“Okay. Okay. I respect that.” She swallowed hard, then brought her hand to her lips as if to hold something back.

Oh, God. Tears. Nikki bit down on the inside of her mouth. She so wanted Cassandra out of her kitchen. She’d never asked for this…this entanglement, and she wasn’t going to get drawn into its web.

She was better on her own. “Listen, you’ll have to excuse me now. I’m helping Jay throw a big party for his family tomorrow and I have a lot to do before then.”

Behind that unmoving hand, Cassandra’s head nodded.

Nikki’s stomach clenched. “Maybe this is all a mistake, have you thought of that?” she asked, desperate to cut off the emotion welling in the other woman’s expressive eyes. “We’re nothing alike. Not really. You knit. I cook. Your…your hair is longer. You talk. You cry.”

There were definite tears spilling over Cassandra’s bottom lashes. Nikki crossed to the tissue box on the counter, yanked a few out, then pressed them into the other woman’s free hand. “Here,” she said, her throat tightening in annoyance. “I’m sorry, but I’m really beginning to doubt your whole story.”

Cassandra laughed behind the tissues. “I can understand why. At this moment, I wouldn’t want to be my sister either.”

Her sister.

Nikki hadn’t really considered that very much. During the brief moments she’d allowed herself to think over the situation the past couple of days, she’d used the time to review her childhood. While her father probably had not been an affectionate man by nature, that she was the product of artificial insemination using another man’s sperm likely explained his very palpable detachment—she wasn’t even his child! It also meant she hadn’t genetically inherited her keep-your-distance DNA from him as she’d always assumed. But that only proved when it came to temperament that nurture had its sway over nature.

So…sister?

Well, Nikki didn’t need one.

She steeled her spine and looked Cassandra straight in her now-dry eyes. “Look, you seem very nice, and it’s…it’s nothing personal, but I don’t need anyone—a donor sibling, a sister, whatever you want to call yourself—in my life.”

“There’s something more—”

“But I don’t want to hear anything more. I’m sorry. I just don’t. I’m not one of those people who gets close to others. Do you understand?”

“I can understand if you don’t like me.”

“No!” Nikki’s chest tightened on that aching thing that was thudding inside of it. This is what she didn’t want. The ache, the hurting. She didn’t want to experience the pain when bonds were broken. And they always, ultimately, did break. “It’s not you, it’s me.”

Cassandra laughed again, though it lacked humor just like the first time. “Have you been reading articles in Jay’s magazine?”

“I’m serious.” And the mention of NYFM gave her a way to explain it. “There are two kinds of weasels, you see. Those that socialize naturally and find it easy to make attachments with others. That’s you. Then there’s another variety, a variety like me, that do better on their own, independent of close relationships. I’m Weasel Number Two.”

Cassandra just looked at her. “You’re going to make me cry again, little sister, comparing your pretty self to a rodent.”

Not just sister. Little sister.

All at once, Nikki’s chest constricted tighter, shutting air from her lungs. Her face felt hot and both her knees seemed ready to give out on her. She looked away, blinking rapidly, wondering whether she could make it to the phone and dial 911. For some reason, she was without air.

As black dots did somersaults at the edge of her vision, Jay was suddenly by her side. He pulled a stool toward her and lifted her onto the seat. He said something to Cassandra about Nikki’s knee injury, and the other woman finally, finally left her kitchen, Jay at her heels.

Nikki was finally, finally alone again.

But still scared as hell, especially when Jay returned to her and she allowed herself to be held against his chest. Leaning on him, she found her first free breath.

Jay prowled the anniversary party, nodding greetings, smiling social smiles, and accepting the compliments that came his way. Yes, his parents and aunt and uncle had been surprised. It was a beautiful day. A wonderful event.

None of which made him happy. His month with Nikki was coming to an end and worry gnawed at the edges of his inner peace—worry that she was going to disappear from his life without warning. It didn’t help matters that he’d wanted just that, many too many times, when it came to other women he’d invited into his bed.

What goes around, comes around.

Karma’s a bitch.

Those two little nuggets kept echoing in his head, and he couldn’t figure out a way to silence his mental voice. So he settled for sticking close to Nikki, as if that would ensure she wanted to be close to him.

In the kitchen, he found her directing the servers they’d hired for the day, and he waited nearby while she finished her instructions. Another disquieting note: She was dressed in her chef armor again.

He suspected those checked pants and that starchy jacket were her attempt at neutralizing her appeal to him. But the joke was on her this time, because the genderless outfit only fixated his attention on that ultra-feminine sweet spot at the back of her neck bared by her braids. The skin there was fine-grained and pale, as sexy to him as the sleek texture of her inner thigh or that delicate flesh on the inside edge of her hip bones.

“Come out of the kitchen and enjoy the party,” he coaxed, as the servers left the kitchen with trays filled with skewers of vegetables and fruit. “Mingle.”

The roll of her eyes was in her voice. “As soon as forty-plus people eat, drink, and be merry.”

“Nikki—”

Two cool hands suddenly covered his eyes. “Guess who?” a woman asked in sultry tones.

He swallowed his inward groan. The voice wasn’t immediately familiar, but he recognized the roundness of female breasts against his back. The fingers clung to his as he peeled them off, but he shook them loose and turned to face the woman, hoping Nikki was too busy to notice.

Because it was one of those cover models she so often used to poke fun at him. “Stephanie,” he said. “You’re here.”

Duh. But “glad you could make it” or “I’m so happy to see you” might have sent the wrong message to the braided chef behind him.

Stephanie Nichols, dressed in a short, clingy dress the color of orange sherbet, didn’t seem to notice his lack of a warm welcome. “I wouldn’t miss your parents’ party.” One step of her stiletto sandals and she was pressing a friendly kiss to his mouth.

Almost before it was over, he was turning in the direction of the death rays he felt sure were being aimed at the back of his neck. And there she was, the ray-beamer, not two feet away. “Nikki,” he said, holding out his hand to her. “Come meet an old friend.”

Instead of touching flesh to flesh, she slapped a napkin onto his palm. “Lipstick, handsome,” she whispered sotto voce, tapping her own mouth. “Don’t want the ladies around here to get the idea you’re taken.”

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