by Debra Kayn
"Okay." She bent over and grabbed the handle. "I have it."
Bee lowered her arms and blew out her breath. "You need to be more careful."
"Of the broom?" She looked at the biker, overhearing the confusing conversation. "Okay."
"If you knock a broom over, you get bad luck." Bee leaned against the counter as if all of Jessy's mistakes exhausted her. "Hopefully, you've reversed the luck by picking it up yourself. If someone else would've..." Bee shook her head. "Be more careful, please."
"I-I will." She rubbed the goosebumps off her arms.
All the talk about accidents happening and bad luck coming her way started to freak her out. She turned to the biker, needing to shake off the doom. "Can I help you?"
"Can I get two of the specials? To go?" He studied her.
She looked at the patch on the front of his vest. His name was Baller.
"Sure. It'll take about fifteen minutes," she said.
"Not a problem." He continued to stand by the counter.
She wrote out the order and handed the piece of paper through the open window to the kitchen. Finding Baller watching her, she quickly swept up the spilled salt and put the broom back in the closet. She washed her hands and filled a glass of ice water.
"Here's a drink while you wait. You can sit down at an empty table or at the counter if you want. The wait shouldn't be too long. We just started cooking lunch." She moved over three feet to the cash register as the customers at Table Two appeared ready to leave.
"Is everything okay here?" asked Baller quietly, motioning his chin toward Bee.
She nodded and smiled. "Just a normal day at Bee's Diner."
Moving a step over, she took care of the leaving customers and ran their debit card through the machine. As soon as they left, she walked over to Bee.
"Sorry if I upset you. I'm clumsy today." She lowered her voice. "I'll be more careful."
"I've never seen you so out of sorts." Bee's gaze softened. "You don't need any more bad luck."
Ten minutes later, Baller's lunch was ready. She packaged everything in a brown paper bag and added two small containers of Ranch dip.
She handed over the order. "That'll be Fifteen seventy-five with tax."
"Keep the change." Baller placed a fifty-dollar bill on the counter and walked out.
The tension in her jaw increased. What was with Brikken members throwing money at her?
She'd survived on her own since she was fifteen years old. Her days ahead dealing with the repercussions of Ed's treatment of Nikki scared her but she was damn well going to make sure her daughter was taken care of, and she didn't need any help from the bikers.
Chapter Seven
Jessy and Nikki walked out of the brick building adjacent to the medical center. Thorn ran his hand down his beard in an attempt to look more kind rather than rough and torn apart after coming off a ten-day run. The reports he'd received on Talbot's whereabouts while driving the truck and trailer to California came back positive.
There were no sightings of Ed, and the Brikken members responsible for protecting Jessy and her daughter had claimed everything went smoothly with no problems.
Work continued for Jessy, and since the school year had finished while he was gone, Nikki continued going to the school to attend the Montessori childcare center. On Fridays, they went to a counselor together, and that's why he waited outside.
He dragged his gaze from Jessy down to the child. Nikki looked up at her mom and nodded with a solemn look on her face. Thorn's lungs filled with air. It was the first time he'd seen any silent response from the girl and that acknowledgment to her mother filled him with hope.
Caught up in their private conversation, Jessy never looked around the parking lot to make sure it was safe or spotted him three vacant spots away from her next to an older mini-van. Had she even noticed he'd been gone and other Brikken members had watched over her?
He got off the Harley and approached Jessy as she put Nikki in the booster seat in the back seat. She never even sensed him behind her.
Frustrated that after everything that'd happened with Ed, she refused to be more aware, he placed his hand on her shoulder.
She fastened the seatbelt, turned, and raised her brows. "Hey."
Hey? That's all she had to say? No surprise? No fear?
"You didn't know I was even here," he said on a growl.
"Sure, I did." She closed the rear door and faced him again. "Nikki's appointment was for an hour, and Dr. Logenberg wanted to see her alone, so I sat out in the waiting room." She pointed at the building. "Right next to the window. I watched you arrive and sit outside waiting for us."
He looked away from the feelings of pleasure she evoked in him and peered through the window at Nikki, who stared at him.
"Is she doing okay?" he asked.
Jessy beamed a smile bigger than anything he'd ever seen. It lit up his day and washed away the exhaustion beating down on him from the ride.
"She's curious about you." Jessy leaned against the car. "Because she doesn't talk, she observes so much more than the normal five-year-old. That's what all the doctors have told me. Even her teacher has backed up that diagnosis."
The few conversations he'd had with Jessy, she hadn't handed him any kind of prognosis about Nikki's condition before. What little he'd found out, it felt more like dragging the most basic level of information from her.
Diagnosis. That meant something was wrong with the kid.
He placed his hand on the window, sprawling his fingers and watched Nikki. Her gaze went from his hand to his face. He tilted his head. Maybe she liked the silence, and the doctors wanted to chalk that off as abnormal.
He wasn't much for useless talking himself. His nieces and nephews never knew when to shut it down. Being quiet wasn't a bad thing unless she really wanted to talk. So far, he hadn't seen any interest from her to speak to anyone. She was content to listen to her mom.
"Did you need to speak with me?" asked Jessy.
He let his hand slide down the window until his arm was at his side. "I've been gone."
"I noticed," she said.
He looked at her, wondering what else she noticed about him. Gazing back at Nikki, he said, "Do you think we can talk...after she goes to bed?"
"It's private?"
"Nah." He inhaled deeply. "Little ears and all that. I don't want to upset her."
The corner of her mouth lifted in amusement. His exhale came out harshly. He was surrounded by kids all the damn time. His brothers and sister in laws always said 'little ears' when they didn't want the kids overhearing.
"So?" he snapped. "Can we talk?"
She nodded. "I put her to bed at seven o'clock. She'll be asleep at seven thirty."
"Okay." He stepped away.
"Thorn?" she called.
He stopped. Her frown had returned.
"Would you like to have dinner with us?" She bit her lip and then said, " It's nothing big. I'm putting nuggets and fries in the oven for Nikki, and I have a salad we can split. That's if you're not busy." She pulled her phone out of her back pocket. "It's a little after five o'clock."
He had no idea what the time meant or if she was afraid of being alone with him and rather have her daughter's presence there.
Dipping his chin, he stepped backward. "I'll follow you."
JESSY LOOKED IN HER rearview mirror and pulled to a stop along the curb in front of the apartment complex. Thorn, true to his word, followed her through Tacoma and parked behind her.
"I’m sure he's a nice man," she muttered.
Looking over her shoulder at her daughter, she second-guessed her rash decision to invite Thorn to eat dinner with them. It was Friday night. To celebrate the weekend, she always made what Nikki wanted for dinner—because she wanted something fast and easy.
"Okay, Nikki. We have company coming for dinner. His name is Thorn, but you've already met him." She swallowed hard, knowing that the therapist wanted her to acknowledge the trauma Nikki went through. It would h
elp her realize that she wasn't alone and being left for hours in a car by herself would never happen again. "He's the one who found you in your daddy's car and told me it wasn't the first time you were made to stay there. Thorn and I are going to make sure that never happens again, okay?"
Nikki strained against the seatbelt, trying to look out the window. Jessy breathed out in relief. No hysterics or crying.
"Hang on, I'll unbuckle you." She got out of the car and hurried to open the back door.
She never wanted Nikki to doubt her promises. A few seconds of fear could set Nikki back, and after talking to the therapist after today's appointment, she would do anything under the sun to give her daughter everything she deserved in life.
"All righty." She stepped back, and Nikki climbed out of the car.
Holding her daughter's hand while she grabbed her purse off the floor of the vehicle, she said. "Let's go visit with Thorn and eat."
She turned to find him right behind her. His age always reminded her that he probably had his own life, maybe even a family. Or, maybe it was more his size. He was big, sturdy, strong. Though both qualities couldn't be ignored.
Leading the way to the apartment, she tried to stay relaxed for Nikki's sake. In Thorn's company, she constantly waited for him to judge her. She'd made a huge mistake letting Ed take Nikki.
She should've known better.
Unlocking the door, she stepped inside and let go of Nikki's hand. "Why don't you go find some toys to play with, and I'll get your dinner going."
Nikki hurried into her room. She motioned Thorn toward the couch behind her. "Feel free to make yourself comfortable. I'll go pop everything in the oven. Once the oven heats, it'll only be twenty-five minutes, and then we can eat."
Without waiting to see if he took a seat or not, she washed her hands at the sink and turned the oven on the right temperature. She wanted time to talk with Thorn because she needed to set things back on fair ground with him.
Turning around, she found Thorn sitting at the end of the couch. She stubbed the toe of her sneaker on the carpet and righted herself. He sat on her bed.
She sidestepped to the only chair in her apartment at the same time Nikki came into the living room carrying two Barbie dolls and sat on the floor beside her. Raising her gaze, she caught Thorn tilting his head and studying her daughter.
"Do you have kids," she blurted.
"No." He lazily looked at her. "Four nephews, two nieces, and two sisters that are only twenty and fifteen years old."
She stared at him through that bit of information. The logistics of him having sisters that young threw her into a tailspin trying to figure out how old he was in comparison.
"I'm forty-eight." The corners of his eyes crinkled. "My father had children with a girl—a woman that was raised as my sister. He's still with her."
She sank back in the chair absorbing the information about his relatives. The oven buzzer snapped her out of making sense of his family tree. She stepped away and put the nuggets and fries into cook, setting the timer.
More curious than she wanted to be, she returned to her daughter's side and said, "I don't mean to pry." She looked at him. "But, how does that work?"
"It's family." He glanced down at Nikki before looking at her again. "Do you have anyone?"
She reached down and caressed Nikki's soft, baby-fine blonde hair. "We have Bee and Charlie, they own the diner I work at. Over the last five years, they've become our make-shift family. I don't know where I'd be without them."
"That's good," he said quietly. "Real good."
"Yeah," she said equally quiet.
Both their attention went to Nikki who played on the floor with her dolls. Her daughter stayed oblivious to the adults in the room, and Jessy's whole body flushed. Nikki's ease around Thorn mystified her.
He wasn't a man who smiled, joked, or baby-talked to her. Looking at him, he came across as strict and authoritative. She studied him as he sat and watched a little girl play with her Barbies.
Those eyes, though.
Deep, dark, and emotional. A shudder shook her chest. Could her daughter have the maturity to see true intentions in someone's face when at twenty-one years old, she failed to see into Ed's true intentions?
That wasn't possible, was it?
Thorn's head shifted and his eyes connected with hers. She sucked in her breath. The pupils of his eyes dilated, narrowed, and warmed. Her lower stomach fluttered. Unable to look away, she jumped from her seat when the timer rang, needing an excuse to break the tension between them.
In her flustered state, she grabbed the oven tray without using the towel. She muffled her cry of pain and rushed to the faucet, putting her fingers under the stream of cold water. Her heart raced from the spike of adrenaline.
A large hand clamped down on her wrist. "Let me see."
There was no question whether she'd allow him to touch her. He turned her and inspected her fingers while she stared at his face. It was the closest she'd been to him.
His long, full beard tickled the inside of her elbow. The soft caress had her leaning toward him. It'd been a long time since someone of the opposite sex had touched her.
"I don't think it'll blister." He continued holding her wrist.
"I'm sure..." She cleared the roughness from her voice. "It'll be fine. It was a dumb thing to do. That's probably why I wait tables at the diner and don't work in the kitchen."
A slim arm wrapped around her thigh. She looked down into Nikki's worried eyes.
"It's okay, baby. I touched the hot cookie sheet in the oven." She moved her arm, and Thorn let her go. "See? I'll be okay."
Nikki stayed at her side. She stretched, reaching for the towel she'd meant to use, and Thorn picked it up and removed the food from the oven.
"Thank you." She looked down at Nikki. "Can you get the T.V. trays and set one up for Thorn, too?"
She removed three plates from the cabinet and the salad she'd made that morning from the fridge. Dishing up the plates, she stopped when Thorn put his hand between her and the far-left plate.
"None for me," he said.
"You don't like lettuce?" She put some on her plate.
He chuckled, and the sound took her by surprise at how much she liked when he laughed.
"I like nuggets and fries better." He picked up his plate and took Nikki's smaller meal. "This will do."
"What about ketchup?" She stood by the counter at a loss of what to do since he decided to help her with dinner.
"Rather have mustard but if you don't have—"
"I do." She opened a drawer and grabbed a handful of packets. "We switched from packets to squeeze bottles at the diner, so I have at least a years' supply of mustard and ketchup."
Why was she explaining herself? He probably thought she was too poor to buy condiments, considering she was serving nuggets and fries for dinner.
She carried her plate and a handful of packets to the couch and stopped. Thorn had sat down behind the T.V. tray that Nikki had set up. Her daughter sat in her normal spot in the middle of the couch where Nikki always shared her meal with her.
Not wanting to alert her daughter to how odd it was that Nikki sat beside a man she'd only seen a few times in passing and had never spent any time with beyond the night Thorn found her, she placed the mustard packets on Thorn's tray and went and sat in the chair.
What started off as awkward fell into a comfortable companionship. She kept an eye on Nikki, making sure she finished at least two of her nuggets between the yawns of her day catching up with her.
Jessy barely tasted the iceberg lettuce with cucumbers and cheese because Thorn's eating was a phenomenon of huge proportions. He inhaled the nuggets. Popping one after another in his mouth, barely taking time to dip the corner in the pile of mustard on his plate. When he'd finished the chicken, he moved on to the fries, dragging what looked like a handful through the condiment and putting it in his mouth.
Fascinated how he could eat without getting food or
staining his beard and mustache yellow, she still had half her salad left when Thorn held his empty plate toward Nikki and pointed to the remaining mustard dotting the side and then at her daughter's chicken nuggets.
Opening her mouth to tell him there was more in the kitchen, she stopped herself from speaking when Nikki tentatively dipped her nugget and looked at the mustard. Jessy's shoulders rounded. It was important that Nikki eat and keep on the weight. Any veer from the normal routine usually stopped her daughter from progressing at trying new foods.
Nikki stuck out her tongue and brought the nugget toward her mouth. Thorn grunted, stopping her. He opened his mouth and waited until Nikki opened hers. Jessy's eyes burned, wanting to step between them and stop Thorn from changing the way Nikki ate dinner. But, Nikki put the nugget in her mouth and chewed, almost losing part of the meat as she struggled to keep the whole thing contained.
Nikki would choke. Jessy moved her T.V. tray out of the way, and Thorn lifted his hand, stopping her from going to her daughter while he kept his gaze on Nikki.
"Keep chewing." He never moved from his spot on the couch but gave his full attention to Jessy's daughter. "Good stuff, princess."
Her daughter was eating. Big mouthfuls of chicken nugget full of fat. Every single bite of food off her plate.
She wanted to rush across the small room and fill another plate to see if Thorn could get Nikki to eat more but knew that any more in her small tummy would make her throw up. Elated at the progress after a positive therapy lesson, she carried her bowl and the dishes in front of Thorn and Nikki into the kitchen and set them in the sink.
Her hands shook. She wanted to jump up and down and dance around the room in celebration of such a huge step.
Never had Nikki ever acted like she enjoyed eating. Meals always left Nikki picking at her food and pushing it away until she allowed her daughter to get up from the couch and go to her dolls.
Leaving the dishes for later, she put the T.V. trays away and washed Nikki's hands and face, telling her daughter she could play until it was bedtime. Her daughter returned to her spot on the floor to play with her Barbies.