Chapter 2
The first big difference between Gansett in the summer and Gansett in the winter was the ferry ride.
Holy crap, Nikki thought as the ferry crested one enormous wave after another.
She’d never been seasick in her life, but this trip was testing that record, especially with people discreetly throwing up all around her.
Air—she needed fresh air, and she needed it right now.
She zipped up the heavy coat she had bought for the trip and pulled on a hat and gloves before stepping into the frigid air.
The sky was gray and stormy, the seas churned, and the island was shrouded in thick haze as the ferry rose and fell with the tumultuous ocean.
This is what adventure feels like, Nikki thought, almost gleeful after declaring her independence from the sister who’d begun to suck the life out of her with the never-ending drama she thrived on.
Standing at the rail, Nikki held on tight to remain standing.
Despite their physical similarities—even their own mother mixed them up on occasion—Nikki and Jordan had always been polar opposites.
While Nikki was usually content to stay home with a good book, Jordan wanted to be out and about, to see and be seen.
When Nikki wanted to go for a hike, Jordan wanted to go shopping.
Nikki would eat anything, while Jordan was a vegetarian, a part-time vegan and on every fad diet that came along.
Being Jordan’s assistant had exhausted Nikki.
Being her sister had become almost as grueling a job.
The time apart would do them both good. They were long overdue to start carving out identities separate from each other.
Even after Jordan married Zane, she still spent more time with her sister than with her husband.
Perhaps that was part of the reason their marriage was so toxic.
If they were going to make it work, they needed her out of the way—and there was nothing she wanted more than to be far, far away from the Zane and Jordan freak show.
Why was she even thinking about her sister when she’d traveled three thousand miles to escape her and the madness that came with her?
Although, thinking about Jordan first was ingrained in her after being her assistant for the last three years.
In that time, Jordan went from a contestant on a dating show to a major reality TV star to the wife of one of music’s biggest stars to sex-tape queen.
Nikki’s job had been to see to the myriad details that came with being Jordan.
Nikki would need an exorcism to reboot her thoughts and turn the focus away from her sister so she could figure out her own life, such as it was. She hadn’t had much of a life of her own since she’d started working for Jordan. When was the last time she’d done anything that was just for her?
Yesterday, she thought, recalling how she’d stepped onto an airplane for a trip that had nothing to do with her sister.
Prior to that, Nikki honestly couldn’t recall the last time she had done anything that didn’t in some way involve Jordan.
Last fall when she’d made this trip, it had been with and for Jordan after Zane released the tape that had immediately gone viral.
Jordan had wanted to be somewhere no one could find her.
Nikki had immediately thought of their grandmother’s home on Gansett, where they’d spent summers with their mother and grandmother while growing up.
Those had been some of the best times of their lives, and Jordan had quickly agreed to Nikki’s plan to hide out on Gansett where no one would think to look for her.
Being there had been so restorative, at least it had been for Nikki, but Jordan had gotten restless after two weeks and had wanted to go home.
Nikki had suspected that her sister had been talking to her husband, and thus the hasty departure.
It hadn’t taken much effort to discover that Zane was the reason they’d left Gansett right when things were getting interesting.
If you could call a new roof interesting.
The man installing the roof had been extremely interesting.
And kind. And handsome. And incredibly sexy.
She’d liked talking to him, and she’d appreciated how quickly he’d fixed the leak that had damaged the ceiling in her bedroom.
He was a take-charge kind of guy who got things done.
As a take-charge person herself, Nikki respected that quality in others.
She’d thought of him often during the months since she’d left the island.
Because Jordan had been in such a rush to leave, Nikki hadn’t gotten the chance to say goodbye to Riley.
That was probably why she’d thought of him so often.
She’d felt bad about disappearing on him when he was putting a new roof on the house.
It wasn’t like he needed her there to get the job done, but she hadn’t felt right about leaving without a proper goodbye.
Hopefully, she’d run into him on the island while she was there.
If he was even still there. For all she knew, he could’ve been wrapping up a summer job and had gone back to his regular life, wherever that was.
She wished she’d thought to ask him if he lived on the island year-round or only during the season.
She wished she’d thought to ask him a lot of things.
Like whether he had a girlfriend.
Nikki laughed into the brisk breeze. A sweet, nice guy who looked like he did probably had all the girlfriends. If she allowed herself to believe he was probably a player, she could feel better about missing the chance to get to know him better.
The ferry crested a huge wave, teetered at the top and then plunged into the trough with a stomach-dropping slide. Nikki’s tenuous grip on the rail was all that kept her from falling.
A shout from her left had her looking up at a handsome, rugged-looking man rushing toward her. He wore a knit hat and a coat with the word CREW under the logo for the Gansett Island Ferry Company.
“You need to be inside, ma’am,” he shouted over the wind. “It’s not safe out here.”
She noted a lovely Irish lilt to his voice. “People are getting sick in there. I’m better off out here.”
“Not if you go overboard,” he said. “I’m afraid I have to insist.” He gestured toward the door, and Nikki stepped into the pervasive stench of vomit.
The man followed her in.
“See what I’m saying? I’ll get sick in here. I won’t out there.”
“Come with me.” He led her to a stairway that took them to the bridge, where the door was propped open to allow in fresh air. “Have a seat.” He gestured to a seat next to the man who stood at the helm.
“It’s pretty ugly out here, Seamus,” the captain said. “I think we need to call it a day after this run.”
“Aye, you read my mind. I’ll call it in.
” He used his cell phone to place a call.
“This is Seamus. We’re suspending service for the rest of the day.
” He listened for a minute. “Tell them we’re sorry.
They’ll have to come back tomorrow. It’s too rough for the fuel trucks anyway.
” After listening some more, he said, “We’ll let them know in the morning.
Talk to you then.” He ended the call and glanced at her. “You feeling okay?”
“Yes,” Nikki said. “Thank you.”
“Are you that… that girl on TV?” the other man asked. “Jordan Stokes?”
“No, I’m her twin sister.”
“She’s hot.”
Nikki was never quite sure how to respond to comments like that about her identical twin. Jordan was hot, but Nikki wasn’t, apparently. Of course, Nikki had never starred in her own sex tape, so there was that. “If you say so,” she said to the grinning ferryboat captain.
“Ah, yeah, and that tape… Whoa.”
“Shut yer trap and drive the boat.” Seamus scowled at the younger man before returning his attention to Nikki. “Sorry about that, love. Some people talk before they think.”
“Apologies,” the younger guy said.
“It’s okay,” Nikki said, relieved to see the breakwater at South Harbor coming into view.
All her life, the pile of rocks that made up the entrance to the harbor had represented home to her.
Even though they’d come only for the summers, Nikki had never felt more at home anywhere than she did at her grandmother’s house on Gansett Island.
They’d had a nomadic upbringing thanks to the custody battle that had resulted in the girls spending the school year with their father and holidays and summers with their mother, whose mental health and addiction challenges had made for a chaotic childhood for her daughters.
Nikki had had enough chaos growing up to last her a lifetime.
She found it interesting that while she ran from the drama that had defined their upbringing, Jordan seemed to embrace it.
The peaceful vibe of the island was just what Nikki needed to regroup and figure out her next move.
It worried her that Jordan seemed to be following in their mother’s troubled footsteps.
As much as Nikki worried about her sister, however, she couldn’t live her life for her or keep her from making destructive decisions.
She would focus exclusively on herself and her own life for the next little while.
Jordan had been extremely generous in the years that Nikki had worked for her, and she had enough money to live comfortably for quite some time, which was a relief.
Her grandmother had told her to make herself at home at the house for as long as she wanted to be there.
She would hit the grocery store to stock up on what she needed and then hibernate for the next few weeks with her e-reader.
Downtime was what she needed after the last few months of high drama.
The younger captain left the bridge to use the aft controls to expertly turn the huge ferry and back it into port. Nikki never ceased to be fascinated by how easy they made that look.
She extended her hand to Seamus. “Thank you so much for letting me sit up here.”