Chapter 24
twenty-four
Nev
"I'm making pancakes." Kinsley leans her face into the room and then steps inside.
"How are you feeling?" She runs to the bed, hops on and, once again, hugs me tightly.
She spent the entire evening crying about how she might have lost me and then she'd be an orphan all over again.
It was sweet and heartfelt, but this morning the hug goes on too long.
"Kiki, I'm not going to disappear if you let go of me. I promise."
She sighs. "All right. I'm being the pesky little sister. I'm sorry."
"No, you're not pesky, and I'm sorry for giving you such a scare." I lift my nose. "Is something burning?"
"The pancakes!" Kinsley flies off the bed and runs to the kitchen.
My cheek is sore now that the numbing agent has worn off.
I'm going to have a small scar for sure, but it could have been much worse.
My shoulders are sore from trying to get my hands free, and my wrists are bandaged to cover the loss of skin, but otherwise, it feels like everything is where it should be.
When I set my feet on the floor, the rocking of the ocean has finally left, and my equilibrium is back on solid ground.
I jolted myself awake several times dreaming that I was falling.
All in all, it was a crappy night of sleep, but that had less to do with the pain in my shoulders and mental rocking of the boat than the last words I spoke to Zander.
Once we got home from the hospital, I sat in a hot bath for thirty minutes, and I replayed the whole unfortunate adventure in my head many times. All of it was shocking and hard to believe, but the only part that really stood out were my last moments with Zander in the hospital room.
I pull on jeans and my coziest sweater. The house is warm, but even after the hot bath, there's still a chill in my bones from being in the water.
In fact, the whole damn thing has left a chill in my bones.
What an idiot I am when it comes to men, all men.
Dane seemed like a decent, successful guy.
He had some qualities that were less than stellar, but I never pictured him as the sketchy arms dealer type.
I completely misjudged him and I plan never to make a mistake like that again.
I'm married to my business, and it's going to stay that way.
My sandwich shop never disappoints me or lectures me or makes me feel guilty for doing the right thing.
Kinsley has the table set with our favorite fall placemats.
Some of Nana's yellow roses are sitting in a vase in the middle of the table.
The blooms are almost all gone from her rose bushes.
Soon it will be time to prune them. There's a short stack of semi-burned pancakes on a plate next to a cup of coffee.
I go straight for the coffee and take a bracing sip.
"They say chocolate is the food of the gods, but honestly, I think it's coffee. "
"Then it would be the drink of the gods," Kinsley reminds me.
"So chocolate can retain its throne." She sits down at her own plate of slightly overcooked pancakes and stares down at them with a scowl.
"How the hell did Nana get every single pancake so perfectly golden?
Mine are either white and doughy or charred and bitter. "
"I think your pancakes are perfect, Kiki. Thank you for making breakfast."
"What a day … and night, eh? Leave it to my very down-to-earth, sensible sister to get herself kidnapped by pirates."
I laugh and almost spit out my next sip of coffee.
"Pirates gives the impression that some swashbuckling, handsome, bad boy types kidnapped me, but they were far from swashbuckling or handsome.
Just a crew of misfits who were looking to make a quick buck from the man who I once considered my boyfriend.
Chalk up another tally mark in my list of terrible dating choices. "
Kinsley shrinks her face up. "Really thought Dane was a good catch. That turned out to be disastrously untrue. What a fucking loser."
"Yep, I think he's my learning moment. I'm not going to find the one, and I'm all right with that."
"Bullshit." Kinsley drowns her stack with syrup. "You're not going to find 'the one' because he's been in your life this whole time." She says it casually as if it's a well-known fact. Considering I know exactly who she's talking about maybe it's exactly that—a well-known fact.
"Zander and I are friends," I say. "And I can't believe I actually have to say that to you."
"Right. Friends who give off so much sexual tension when they're standing in the same room that those of us around you have to go home and take cold showers afterward."
"You're so full of shit. There's no tension."
"Right. Oh, by the way, speaking of tension boy, he texted while you were sleeping. You left your phone on the coffee table, so I saw the text. But I didn't open it," she adds quickly in her defense.
I hop up and walk to the phone. Kinsley is giggling behind me. "There's no tension," she says in an impressive imitation of yours truly.
I pick up the phone and open the text.
I was being an asshole but then what else is new. How are you feeling?
I'm good and it's alright. It was kind of a big afternoon. How are you feeling?
It takes a minute for him to write back, and I think, for a moment, that he's not going to respond.
I've felt better. Nev, I need to see you.
I stare at the text. It's only a digital script on a phone, but I can feel the emotion behind it. Zander doesn't show his feelings easily, but I knew there was more to last night than him being embarrassed or mad that I carried him out of the water.
Kinsley is already up and cleaning the kitchen. She has a friend coming over to watch movies. I write back.
I'll come to your place. An hour?
That works.
It's the end of our texting session, simple and to the point, but my intuition and the way my heart is racing tells me there is nothing simple about it.
I tell Kinsley I'm going to the shop to finish up some paperwork. She insists I should stay home and rest and recover from the shock, but I feel perfectly fine. I'm home and safe, and there's no need to dwell on what might have been. That's something Nana always taught me.
As frightening as the last twenty-four hours were, I wasn't nearly as nervous as I am now as I pull up to the ranch. My fingers tremble as I replay the text "Nev, I need to see you" in my head. I park and walk toward the barn area. The horses are snuffling around in piles of hay in their turnouts.
I walk across to the old cabin, Zander's home since high school. He and Jameson grew up in the cabin while Finn built the main house. I always thought the older cabin was more charming and inviting than Finn's big, sprawling ranch house.
The door opens, and Zander walks out onto the front porch. He's wearing a black sweater, faded jeans and his feet are bare. As always, he's breathtaking. He's truly the one person who can knock me off balance just by standing there.
We don't say anything to each other as I climb the front steps. I reach him and still no words, just that stupefied, magnetic gaze-locking trick we're so darn good at.
"Are you going to invite me in?" I ask to break the tension. Damn, my little sister is always right. It's tension. There's no other way to describe it. It's not a stupefied gaze at all. It's two people looking right into each other's minds, bodies and souls.
Zander holds open the door and nods for me to go in.
He still hasn't said a word. I walk inside.
It's been a while since I've been inside his man's world, and usually, when I'm inside, there's a whole party of people there too.
His furniture, overstuffed leather couches and chairs, look even shabbier than the last time.
It's obvious he's tidied up. It even looks as if he's swept the pine plank floor.
I stop halfway through the room and turn around. "I think—" He starts at the same time with the words "we need" and both phrases get sort of lost and tangled in each other so we laugh.
"Nevvie," he says in that way that always makes my knees weak.
"Like I said in my text—I'm sorry I was an asshole yesterday.
I was so fucking scared when I realized you were out on that boat.
" He rakes his fingers through his long hair as he glances around the room before turning back to me.
"I was ready to tear them to fucking shreds, and when I saw your face—fuck, I shouldn't have left them standing, any of them. "
"You did pretty damn well considering you were outnumbered. If that beast Gargon hadn't come down the steps—"
"Shit, is his name really Gargon? Actually, yeah, that fits. That guy wasn't born. He was hatched in some radioactive facility for giant creatures, and man, he really took me out. One minute I was looking at you, thinking I was going to be carrying you off into the sunset and the next, I was out."
"He got you good." I moved closer. "How would you have carried me?
I'm trying to get an image. Would I wrap my arms around your neck?
" I circled my arms in the air to give a visual.
"And then your arm would sweep under my legs, and I would dangle and kick my feet giddily?
Or would you have dropped me over your shoulder?
Also, kind of fun in a much less dramatic way but also not an entirely unsexy way. "
Zander gazes at me, a crooked hint of a smile on his face.
"Well, considering that my right arm was hanging off the end of my body, swinging back and forth uselessly like a donkey's tail, I'd probably have gone with the shoulder drop.
" I squeal as he lunges for me. He lifts me and drops me over his left shoulder.
My head is hanging down and getting a very nice, unobstructed view of his ass as he carries me down the hallway.
"You know, this isn't as sexy as I pictured.
The blood is rushing to my head, and doesn't a donkey's tail have a purpose, like flicking off flies?
" I squeal again as he tugs me down from his shoulder.
Our bodies slide past each other as he controls my descent to the floor.
The comical moment is over, and a serious hush falls over us. "We've both been idiots," I say. "All these years, I stood by and watched you with other girls, and I told myself Zander Wilde would never fall in love with a dweeb like me. I was too quiet, too boring, too serious."
"And bookish. Don't forget the whole nerdy bookworm thing," he adds.
"Butthead."
"That I am. And I'm an idiot because any time I was with you, no matter who else was with us or in the room, I only ever had eyes for you. You were always way too good for me, Nevvie. You still are."
"I don't know. I think my Miss Polly Perfect reputation has been shattered by the fact that I was hanging with gun runners."
Zander shakes his head. "When I get my hands on that fucking Hoffman …"
"You'll let the police handle him. It's over. He was a big mistake, and I don't want to be reminded of it, so never bring him up again."
He gazes down at me with a look that doesn't hold much promise for my request.
"Let's put away these silly mythical people we've come up with for each other and just be Zander and Nevvie, two people who have pretty much been through everything together.
I can predict when something is going to make you laugh or make you sad or angry.
I know you, Zander, and I've never found anything that I considered not good enough.
I've been in love with you since I knew what love was.
In fact, I can still remember that day. You came to middle school in a thin T-shirt in the middle of winter.
There was frost on the school windows, and your lips were lightly blue.
I asked you if you wanted me to go to the lost and found and find you a coat or sweatshirt.
You wouldn't look at me. You were too proud.
You shook your head and said 'I'm fine, Nevvie.
' That was it. My heart just curled up into a tiny, whimpering ball, and it told me, I'm not going to unfurl until you admit you love Zander Wilde. "
Zander circles his arms around me and pulls me against his rock-hard body. "Is it unfurling right now?"
"Yep. That's what's happening, Mr. Wilde. Don't you dare disappoint me."
He lowers his mouth to mine. His warm breath caresses my bottom lip. "I have no intention of ever disappointing you, Nevvie, cuz I've been waiting for you forever." His mouth comes down over mine.