My One and Only (18 page)

Alec was staring at me, his mouth opened slightly, as if I’d just clubbed him with a shovel.
Sorry, mister.
Slowly, he turned to his fiancée. “Do you love me, Lainey?” he asked.

She hesitated, then fixed a smile on her face and took his hand, her acrylic nails gleaming like claws. “Of caws me wuvs oo! Oo’s mah favewit cowboy!”

He bought it. Of course he did. Well, any man who spoke LOL Kitty clearly had no self-respect, and soon, another of my divorce-attorney brethren would have a new client.

“Take a walk,” Nick said in a low voice. “I’ll meet you at the car in twenty minutes.”

I walked. An unfamiliar sensation sloshed in my stomach, and it took me a minute to name it. Shame. I was right, I knew. Everything I said would come true, I’d bet my liver with a side of kidney. Was it wrong to try to save LOL Kitty Man some heartbreak? Granted, maybe the truth shouldn’t have come from a stranger, but at least he heard it. Maybe late at night, he’d have a revelation. Dump her, find some kindhearted woman who really appreciated him and end up happy.

But probably not. Probably, he’d marry that manipulative little money-grubber and live miserably ever after.

The disappointment on Nick’s face…that hurt. Crap.

Being right wasn’t everything.

Coco trotted neatly along, her strong little legs a blur. She stopped to sniff a streetlight, one of four in the downtown area. Townspeople were out and about on their errands, the men clad in jeans and flannel shirts, green John Deere caps or, in the case of a few, cowboy hats. The women were similarly attired, sturdy and capable. In my linen pants and pink silk shirt, silver bracelets and expensive shoes, I definitely stuck out.

I missed Kim, who liked me, and Dennis, who had never once been disappointed in me, or made me feel as if I was wrong, or misguided. I missed Willa, who always loved me, even when I was telling her what not to do. Then again, she saw potential in everyone.

What would it be to think like that? Trusting the universe, believing in the goodness of people the way Willa did, going with the flow…she made it look so easy. Not that it always paid off, of course. And now she was married. Would we stay as close? Since we hadn’t spent our whole lives together, since we’d missed out on those early formative years, maybe our bond wasn’t as strong as blood sisters.

I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and hit her number. Much to my surprise, she answered.

“Hey!” I said. “How are you?”

“Hi, Harper,” she answered. “I’m okay. How are you? Chris said that you and Nick went to South Dakota or something? Flight problems?”

“Yeah. We’re almost there. North Dakota, actually. But don’t worry about that. How are you?
Where
are you?”

“Oh…I’m okay. We’re somewhere in Glacier. Somewhere cold. It’s…fine.”

My ears pricked up. “You sure?”

“Well, yeah. This isn’t quite…you know. It’s a little tough. We’re camping. Actually, we’re just sort of huddling in a tent. Christopher can’t seem to make a fire. Not a warm one, anyway.”

“Well, you’ll be home soon, right? Back in New York?”

She didn’t answer for a minute. “I don’t know. Chris wants to stay.”

Her tone was not promising. “You okay with that?”

“I don’t know. I’m just…adjusting.” She hesitated, then spoke again, her voice decidedly more chipper. “So how’d you end up with Nick?

“I was kind of stuck. Flight problems. I might have had to camp, too.”

“Well, camping sucks, so I’m glad you didn’t have to,” she said, a smile in her voice. “I should go. My battery’s dying.”

“Okay.” I paused. “You have my credit card number, right? If you need anything?”

“Yeah. You’re great. I’ll call you soon, okay?”

Feeling a little melancholy, I went into the small gift shop down the street. “Is it okay if I bring in my dog?” I asked. Coco, sensing she was being judged, wagged her tail and tilted her head adorably, then lifted her front paw.

“Sure thing,” the woman behind the counter said. “Oh, aren’t you a cute puppy!”

I browsed the shop…dream catchers and fossils, Native American souvenirs and silver earrings. Belt buckles that could slice a person in half, they were so big. An array of T-shirts.

“Can I have one of those?” I asked, pointing to a display.

“Sure can,” the clerk answered. I paid, she handed me the bag and off we went, Coco and I, down the street.

Nick was waiting for me, leaning against the car. “I’m sorry I made a scene,” I said, handing him the bag. He took out the gift. It was a T-shirt, emblazoned with the words
Montana. There’s nothing here.

A reluctant smile came to his face. “Thanks,” he said.

“You’re welcome.” I looked at the ground.

“They’re fine,” he said, reading my mind. “I told them you’d just gotten out of a relationship and were a bitter, jealous hag, and I was taking you to an ashram in North Dakota.”

“Does North Dakota have ashrams?” I asked.

“You’re welcome,” he said pointedly.

“Thanks. I guess they can implode on their own.”

“That’s my girl.”

Strange, that those words made me feel as good as they did.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

N
ICK CONTINUED TO LET
me drive, mercifully, and the fields flew past. The sky turned gun-metal gray, and the temperature seemed to be dropping. Gusts of wind occasionally walloped the car, but the classic Mustang hummed along with a satisfying growl. Sweet, in Nick’s words. Wasted on one who rode the subways and hadn’t learned to drive until college, but sweet nonetheless.

We passed into North Dakota, which didn’t look too different from Montana. It was flatter, maybe. Distant clumps of trees shivered in the wind like a mirage under the gray sky. Once in a while, I’d catch a glimpse of an antelope or deer, but otherwise, we seemed to be alone out here.

Two more hours till Bismarck, according to the map. Almost there. Almost safe.

A few miles in the distance, some impressively black clouds seemed to be gathering on top of each other. “Nick, maybe we should stop somewhere. The weather looks pretty bad.”

He was engrossed in the map. “Don’t get your panties in a twist,” he said after a mere glance at the gathering clouds. “Women.”

“Yes, Nick, I am a woman, and no, Nick, my panties are not twisted,” I said calmly. “It’s just that we’re driving right into a storm and I really would like to avoid it, as I’m quite eager to get to Massachusetts in one piece.”

“Don’t worry. That storm is miles off. Just some gray skies.”

The skies were not gray. They were black, the clouds swelling. Lightning flashed inside them and thunder grumbled menacingly in the distance. “Are you just contradicting me for fun, Nick, or do you have a factual basis for your opinions? Which would be a first in our relationship, of course.”

“Calm down, Harper. It’s maybe a little rain.”

“Or a tornado. Have you ever heard of one of those?”

A flock of blackbirds—dozens…no, hundreds of them—suddenly wheeled out in front of us. Fleeing the storm.

“Let the record reflect the Biblical signs of doom,” I said.

“Relax. Coco’s not nervous, is she?” I glanced at my dog. She sat on Nick’s lap, bunny in her mouth, staring at Nick, trying to hypnotize him into worshipping her for the rest of his life. Bad enough that my father, BeverLee and Willa all adored Nick. Now my dog had fallen, too. Suppressing a sigh, I looked ahead at the endless, straight road. It was now three o’clock. Had Nick broken the little-old-lady speed barrier and/or taken the interstate, I’d be on an airplane right now.

This was not good. Being around Nick…it was like taking a lovely stroll in the forest, sun shining all around, birds serenading, flowers perfuming the air, and then a rabid wolverine leaps out of nowhere and rips open your jugular.

“You ever regret divorcing me?” he asked, looking up abruptly.

See, Your Honor? I rest my case.
“Nick, let’s not do this, okay? We divorced each other many years ago. In two more hours, maybe less, we’ll be in Bismarck. Two hours till we part ways. Can’t we all just get along?” I glanced over at him. The wind ruffled his hair—we still had the top down, as Nick was living the dream and all that—but his eyes were steady. “Do you?”

“I regret that we got married so young, Nick. We were naive, if not breathtakingly stupid.”

“That’s not how I remember it.”

“How lucky for you.”

“Remember our honeymoon?”

Crotch! “No. The electric shock therapy has done its job. Please, Nick. Let’s not talk about it.”

“Scared?”

“No! I’m just sensible. There’s no point in doing this. We’re different people now. Why pick scabs, huh? Huh, Nick? We’ve moved on.”

“Right. You’re with Dennis now.”

I didn’t correct him. He shifted in his seat, facing forward once again. Mercifully, his cell phone chimed, and I forced myself to unclench my fists from around the wheel. Nick glanced at the screen and his smile flashed like the lightning up ahead. “Hi, honey,” he said. Honey?
Honey?
Who was honey?

“I’m fine. What’s new with you? Oh, yeah? That’s great.” I glanced over at him, but he was smiling, petting Coco’s head as she now slept on his lap. “Oh, I’m fine. I’m in…let’s see…North Dakota. It’s flat. Open. A little spooky, maybe.” He laughed. “Okay. Love you, too. Bye.”

So. He had a honey. And he
loved
his honey. Why hadn’t he said anything? I was finding it a little hard to take a normal breath.
Calm down, Harper,
I told myself. Nick had a girlfriend. To be expected, after all. Just…surprising. We’d been together for the past four days, and he hadn’t said a word.

“So what’s her name?” I asked.

“Isabel.”

Isabel. Not a name one could mock, like Farrah or Bitsy. Nope. A real name.

“What does she do for a living?”

“She’s a student,” he answered.

Well! A little
young,
wouldn’t we say? A student. Really. What a cliché.
Successful older man who drives red convertible Mustang also dates younger woman to demonstrate continued virility.
Or maybe she wasn’t that much younger. Maybe she was getting her degree part-time. “Where does she go to school?”

“NYU,” he answered. “She’s a freshman.”

“Nick!” I sputtered. “A freshman? That’s just…gross. I’m sorry. You’re dating an 18-year-old? She’s half your age!”

“I’m aware of that, Harper,” he said. “But I’m not dating her. She’s my stepdaughter.”

My mouth fell open, my head whipped around to look at him. “You’re
married?
” I screeched.

“Watch it, Harper!” Nick said, and there was a thudding sound, and we bounced up and down. Coco yelped in surprise, and then there was a hiss, some steam, and the engine just died, and we coasted to a very anticlimactic stop.

Then the heavens opened, and hail rained down upon us like God’s wrath.

“Shit!” Nick yelled. “Harper, you ran over an antelope!”

“What? Oh, no!” I grabbed Coco to shield her little frame from the hailstones, wincing as they pinged off my head.

Nick turned around and grabbed the Mustang’s top, hauling it into place, clamping it to the top of the windshield. The noise of the hail was deafening. Coco barked.

I glanced at Nick. “An antelope?” I had to raise my voice to be heard.

“Roadkill,” he said, sweeping hailstones onto the floor.

“It was already dead? You sure?”

“I’m guessing it wasn’t just napping there, Harper.”

“In the road?”

“No, in the clouds! Yes, in the road! You ran over it! Don’t you remember?”

“Okay! I’m sorry! You shocked me, that’s all.” I paused. “So why did the car stop?”

“How should I know? I barely know how to drive.”

“At least you admit it.”

He gave me a dark look, and then I was laughing, so hard I was just squeaking, tears spurting out of my eyes, and Nick shook his head and started laughing, too. For a long time, there was just that—the rough drumming of the hail on the car, thunder rolling across the endless sky, my occasional squeak and Nick’s lovely, lovely laugh.

When a clap of thunder broke right over our heads, I shrieked a little and Coco reverted from fearless Jack Russell to vulnerable Chihuahua. Faithless mutt that she was, she chose Nick as her shelter, burrowing against his ribs, almost trying to hide behind him.

“Don’t worry, pooch,” he said, adjusting her a little.

“Give her the bunny,” I said, and Nick did, tucking Coco’s stuffed animal against his ribs. My dog nestled under Nick’s arm and sighed. For a second, I felt a little flash of jealousy. Toward my dog. Yes, I was jealous of Coco, nestled against Nick, his clever, beautiful hand stroking her from head to tail, head to tail.
Okay. That’s enough, Harper. Snap out of it. He has a stepdaughter. Which means he also has a wife.

Scanning the horizon for a twister, I saw none, but my visibility was impaired as the hail ended abruptly and the rain began. It fell in sheets, streaming over the windshield. I cleared my throat. “So. Think we should try to find a ditch or something?”

Nick opened the door for a second, looked out, then closed it again. “I think we should stay put. Tornado Alley’s farther south, right? If we get out, we’ll just get soaked. And I don’t see any ditches or bridges, even if we did need one.”

“Okay. Call for help, then?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

I flipped open my phone. “No signal.”

He checked his phone, as well. “Me, neither. On to plan B, then. Sit here and wait for the Children of the Corn.”

This brought on another round of giggles. “I think it would actually be the Children of the Sugar Beets,” I said, peering out the rain-streaked window.

“Doesn’t have the same ring to it,” he said, flashing a smile. His eyes crinkled, gorgeous crow’s feet framing those lovely dark pools. (Crikey, listen to me, but there it was, his eternal effect on me.) And Nick was still looking at me, still smiling, and damn. My face felt a little warm. And my face wasn’t alone. Girl parts tightened, legs weakened. I sat up a little straighter and ran my hands along the leather-coated steering wheel. The rain was gentler now, which was reassuring.

“So. You have a stepdaughter, Nick. Does that mean you also have a wife?”

He didn’t answer for a minute, just turned his attention to Coco, who appeared to be sleeping. Another roll of thunder barreled across the sky, and rain streaked the windshield.

“We’re divorced,” he said.

Divorced. Twice—once from me, once from Wife #2. Knowing Nick, that must’ve hurt. A lot. “I take it she’s older if she has a kid in college?” Why, that didn’t matter.

“Right. She’s…let’s see. Forty-three? Yeah.”

“How long were you married?”

“Three years. We’ve been apart for almost four now.” He glanced at me, smile now gone. “Her name is Jane, she’s very nice. Works in finance. Amicable split.” He paused. “Still friends.”

I sat, listening to the rain drumming on the roof of the car, and swallowed carefully. First, I was jealous of my dog. Now I was jealous of his second ex-wife.

For a brief second, I tried to imagine having Nick as my friend over these past twelve years. It wouldn’t have worked, but still. The image of being able to think of him without a razor slash to the heart…that would’ve been nice, to have heard his laugh, to have been able to talk to him, meet him for coffee. I pictured the two of us walking down the street, arm in arm, old friends, a warm and easy affection between us. Yeah, right.

But it surprised me, how much that image squeezed my heart.

“So why’d you break up, since she’s so nice?” I asked, and my voice was a little tight.

He didn’t answer for a few seconds. “We grew apart,” he said finally.

Ah. How many times over the years had a client said that to me? It was code for infidelity, and knowing Nick, I’d bet anything he wasn’t the one who strayed. “But you’re still friends?”

“Yes. Isabel didn’t deserve another disappearing father figure. Jane works on Wall Street, not far from me, so we wanted to be civilized.”

How mature. Childish resentment blossomed like a fungus. Probably they all had dinner together and went to the Metropolitan and Yankees games and all that. “And what’s Isabel like?” I asked.

Nick smiled, and my stupid jealousy flared again. “She’s great. Smart, outgoing, cute as a bug’s ear. She’s got a beautiful voice. Her group sang at Carnegie last fall. Here.” Like any good father, he pulled out his wallet and flipped it open. “That’s high school graduation.” She was
very
pretty…china-blue eyes, straight blond hair, sweet, genuine smile. “Beautiful,” I said truthfully. I petted Coco for reassurance, but she didn’t take her face out of the crook of Nick’s arm. Traitor.

“Thanks. Not that I had anything to do with it.” He put his wallet away.

My heart felt a bit…sore. Not, I told myself, because Nick had married someone else (though you’d think he could’ve mentioned it
one time
, right?). But because somewhere out there was a child (albeit a nearly grown child) who loved him, not to mention her mother, whom Nick once loved and maybe still did but certainly didn’t hate.

But I wouldn’t say anything. No. I’d just bite my tongue on this one. “So you and your ex-wife…Jane, you said?” Ah, my iron resolve. Nick nodded, and there was a little smile around his mouth, which I felt like a poison dart to the throat. “You and Jane get together, go to Izzy’s concerts, have Sunday brunch, stuff like that?”

“Yep,” he answered.

There was nothing but the sound of rain. The windows had fogged up, isolating us from the outside world. I traced the path of a melted hailstone on the dashboard with one finger. “So Nick,” I said eventually.

“Yes, Harper?” He must’ve sensed something in my tone, because he shifted to look at me more closely.

I put my hands on the wheel, ten and two, and looked straight ahead. “I guess I’m wondering about something.”

“And what is that?”

“Your father was a rotten parent, but you take care of him, keep him near you, visit him even though he never gave you the time of day.” I glanced over at him. His earlier smile was gone. “Your idiot stepbrother did everything in his power to make your life miserable, but you shook his hand and treated him nicely at the wedding.”

Another glance revealed that he was frowning now.

“You and Jane grew apart,” I continued softly, “by which I’m guessing she fell for someone else and quite possibly had an affair.” I paused, returning my gaze to the middle distance. The silence from Nick confirmed my suspicion. “But you’re still friends, still see her, still love her daughter.”

“What’s your point, Harper?” he asked tightly.

I swallowed. When I spoke, my voice was very, very quiet. “I guess I’m wondering why you can forgive everyone except me.”

The rain gentled, the pitch of it softening to a whisper. I looked at Nick. His eyes were lowered to Coco, his hand still on her back. The current that thrummed between us intensified and seemed to wrap itself around my heart and pull.
Please, Nick,
I thought.
Tell me.

He didn’t look up. “I don’t know, Harper,” he said in a low voice, and I knew he was lying. My throat tightened abruptly.

Sometimes the past was too far distant to revisit. And some things were better left untouched. I knew that. I did.