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“Nikki—”
“Hear me out. I’m just asking that if you’re not interested in forging anything with us, if your curiosity is satisfied tonight and from now on you’ll only want to exchange the occasional Christmas card, that you’ll let our sister down easy.”
“Nikki—”
“Just be gentle, okay?” The blue and green eyes so like Juliet’s own held her gaze. “Be gentle with her heart. Like I said, it’s soft and it’s bigger than that ocean out there and she cares too much, too fast.”
Juliet stared at the younger woman, her own heart feeling too big for her chest. If nothing else had swayed her to get to know these two, then that impassioned little speech would have done the trick. This is what sisters could give to each other, Juliet thought. Loyalty. Understanding. Caring.
She wanted that, she decided. She wanted that bond with them.
Nikki spoke once again, her voice hoarse. “Please.” It was easy to see she wasn’t used to asking anyone for anything. “Please be careful with Cassandra.”
Smiling a little, Juliet tilted her head. “And not with you?”
The youngest sister waved the concern away with a swipe of her hand. “I can take care of myself.”
“Now where have I heard that before, cookie?” Jay was suddenly behind his fiancée, and his fingers sifted through the wavy tangle of her sun-streaked brown hair.
At his touch, Nikki looked up with a glowing smile that caused Juliet’s chest to ache. Maybe it did something to Jay’s, too, because he bent down to press an affectionate, but prolonged kiss on the mouth of the woman he was engaged to marry.
Juliet didn’t look away. It was so tender—and so telling. Another rustle of movement caused her gaze to shift. Noah filled the doorway and maybe the kiss affected him, too, because he was staring at Juliet’s lips. They tingled and her skin flushed, as she remembered their embrace the day before. Noah’s heat. The bite of his fingers and the thrust of his tongue.
Jay’s mouth had lifted from Nikki’s now, but he was murmuring something to her. Oh, yes, Juliet thought. How tender and how telling.
And the bittersweet truth that it told was this: As much as a relationship with her sisters might come to mean to her, she knew now it wouldn’t fill every empty space. It couldn’t meet every need in her life.
Noah decided the evening was a success. Juliet’s vegetarian lasagna had been enjoyed by all—even Gabe, who was a strictly red meat man, appeared to like it—and after serving dessert, it was evident as they sat around the dining room table that Juliet was more relaxed and happy than he’d maybe ever seen her.
That should have made him happy, too, right? The fact was, he’d been glad for this further opportunity to study Juliet’s sisters—a claim that he really couldn’t harbor a doubt about any longer—and now he knew he liked Cassandra and Nikki. They were smart and pretty and the men they’d brought with them tonight were the kind he didn’t mind having beers with.
He particularly liked the engaged one, Jay.
Regarding Gabe—well, the jury was still out there, to be honest. Not that he triggered Noah’s streetwise sixth sense, but he couldn’t forget how Gabe had held Juliet’s hand a beat too long upon meeting her.
“So damn attractive,” he’d told her. Well, damn him. He shot the guy a dark look as Gabe leaned over to murmur something for Juliet’s ears only.
The intimacy of their positions led Noah’s mind straight back to the kiss he’d shared with her in her kitchen. The truth is, Noah, what I felt when I kissed you was horny. She’d said that. Elegant Juliet Weston had said “horny” with a little laugh in her voice that he suspected was her small payback for the audacity he’d shown by turning her friendly hug into a fiery interlude.
But now he wondered… Was she really horny? And would Gabe try to take advantage of that?
But Noah was distracted from the sour thought as someone else asked him a question and the conversation moved to old surf movies and the part Malibu had played in their making. From there conversation turned to books. After that, Noah helped Juliet clear the dessert plates then serve more coffee. His tension eased away as she sent him a private smile in thanks and resettled in the seat beside his.
With a clack, Jay Buchanan placed his coffee cup on its saucer, and then caught everyone’s attention by clearing his throat. “Juliet, there’s another book I’d like to discuss,” he said. “Your late husband’s autobiography.”
Her eyes widened and Noah’s tension returned. Oh, hell. Not once had the general come up in conversation and he’d thought that omission had been good for Juliet, too. She needed to be more than a widow. He wanted her to think of herself as more than a widow.
