Nickels (4 page)

“Hey, Nik,” Doug said tossing his stuff in the cube next to
hers.  “How was your date?”

“Stop calling me that.”  She stood to see over the cube
wall.  “How was
your
date?”

Doug’s lips spread from ear to ear.  He sat down and
unpacked his laptop.  “Fantastic.  We went out on Saturday night, too.  And I’m
seeing her again on Wednesday.”

“Slow down there, ace,” Niki said in her best cowboy movie
voice.  “You don’t want to scare her off.”

“Naw, it’s not like that.  She’s great.  And I think she
likes me.”

“I’d say so, especially if you’re meeting her again
mid-week.”

Doug keyed in his password and waited for his laptop to
connect.  With a few impatient clicks of his mouse, he blurted out, “The
wireless here sucks.”

Brian’s voice filtered down from his office.  “I heard
that.”

“Did you have to pick a cube so close to you-know-who?” Doug
whispered to her.

“Sure.  It makes him feel good when he can keep an eye on
us.”

Doug rolled his eyes.

“Besides, I’m still mad at you for Friday.”  Niki forced her
lower lip forward in a pout as she crossed her arms.

 “Come on.  Be fair.  You can’t keep calling your friends to
bail you out of every date your roommate sends you on.  Either you tell her to
stop, or you try making it through a date on your own.”

Niki was disappointed with Doug’s response.  Mostly she just
meant to tease him.  Instead, she got another lecture leaning towards the its-time-you-grow-up-and-settle-down
vein.  Annoyed, she dropped to her chair away from his view.

An hour later, her head bobbed, jerking her attention back
to her screen.  Studying for certification tests, one of the typical duties on
the bench, was as exciting as watching mold grow.  She despised it.  She
checked the clock on her computer.  It read 9:30.  She had only been here for
two and a half hours!  This was going to be a long week.

Standing, she walked down the hall to the water fountain
just to get up and move around.  Taking a big swig, she nearly choked as Jake
flew into the office, knocking the door back against the wall.

“Afternoon,” Brian called from his office.  “Glad to see you
could join us, Jake.”

Jake glared, drawing a chuckle from Brian.

Niki held her tongue.  She worked with Jake long enough to
know that he did his best work later in the day.  Much later.  She typically
did not speak to him until sometime after eleven, still an hour and a half away. 
But, it was Brian’s office and his rules.

By noon, she was ready to poke her own eye out slowly with
whatever blunt instrument she could find.  Desperately needing a break, she
cajoled Doug and Jake into grabbing some lunch.  They chatted about the work
they did at Hamilton and dreamed of what company they might be assigned to next.

She knew what she wanted her next client to be. 
Helitronics.  Okay, it was a stupid name.  But, they were only the largest DoD
contractor for helicopter aviation electronics.  Out of all of Elite’s clients,
they were the most coveted.  And she wanted it.  She paid her dues for the last
four years.  She wowed her other DoD clients—all with Helitronics in mind.

Last week, she heard through the office rumor mill—instant
messaging—that they contacted Brian about a new six month gig requiring a team
of four or five engineers in addition to the four already onsite.  Ever since
that juicy little tidbit, Niki waited for the right time to bring it up to her
boss.

For two hours after lunch, she tried to pay attention to the
certification exam questions but they were so boring.  She stood and
stretched,  got another cup of coffee, and a high octane energy drink.  Nothing
worked.  She was ready to fall asleep from boredom.

Enough!  She was done with sitting there.  She was going to
go talk to Brian about Helitronics.

She knocked softly on Brian’s open office door.  He looked
up and motioned her in while he finished with his phone call.

“Niki, good.  I was just going to see you,” Brian started. 
“First, great job at Hamilton.  They had high praise for your work.  You did
good for your first project as technical lead.  Quite impressive with only four
year’s experience.”

She nodded as she took the seat across from him, smiling as
if she did not mind him ambushing her planned conversation.

“Do you think you can handle a bigger project?”

“Of course.  What did you have in mind?”

“It’s one of DoD’s.  Pretty important project.  It means you
are theirs for the next six months if you want it.”

Niki’s heart raced.  He couldn’t be considering her as
technical lead for Helitronics.  Could he?

“You would be the technical lead, but Russell would also be
involved.  It would be a great chance for you to learn from the master.”

Russell was at Helitronics.  That had to be where Brian was
sending her.  Her palms grew sweaty.  She widened her eyes and hoped she could
keep her jaw from dropping as she waited for him to confirm her expectation.

“It’s Helitronics.”

She grinned—a big, huge, silly, eager grin.  “Do you think
I’m ready for it?”

“I know so.  Your work on Hamilton proved my gut instinct is
right.  You’re a natural, Niki.  You handled our most demanding client with
grace.  You can definitely handle Helitronics.”

She was stunned.  This was even better than she had been
hoping for.  Brian was giving her a chance.

If she messed it up…

Her smile faded.

“Ah, reality check,” Brian said, correctly interpreting her
mood change.  “If you’re thinking this is going to be tough, it will be.  If
you’re thinking the end product, if delivered poorly could result in someone
losing their life, you’re right.  This is a high stakes project—not one I would
offer unless I was confident you could pull it off.”

She swallowed.  It would be a huge challenge.  Her gut told
her to go for it, but a little voice of reason told her to take a day and think
on it.  “Can I let you know tomorrow?”

“That is exactly why I’m offering you this opportunity—good
judgment.  I’ll tell you what, why don’t you head home early today.  Give me a
call tomorrow with your answer.”

Niki nodded and started to rise.

“And take the rest of the week off and do something fun. 
The next few months are gonna be long.”

She smiled as she walked back to her desk.  She hadn’t even
said yes and Brian was already making plans.

Niki thought the challenge of finding something fun to do
for four days was harder than if she already started on the Helitronics
project.  The first day off she called Brian as promised, with an affirmative
answer.  Then she floated in the pool for hours.  Growing bored, she stalked
around the house considering her options.  She finally decided she would
repaint her room—the master suite—to something other than the awful lilac her
mother had chosen when they first moved into the house twelve years ago.

Once home from the hardware store with several gallons of
tan paint, she shoved all of her furniture to the center of the room.  As she
started taping the edges of the wall above the baseboards, she couldn’t get her
brain to shut off.

Marcy, in her quest to find Niki a man, had some good
points.  Most people her age were starting to think seriously about settling
down.  She had to admit, the idea held a great deal of appeal for her—if it
wasn’t coupled with the potential for enormous pain.  If she let herself love
someone or if she got too close to someone, what would she do when they were
taken away?

For her, it wasn’t a question of if.  It was a question of
when—when she would lose someone.  Life taught her the hard way that there were
no ifs when it came to pain and death.

She brought her arm up to wipe away the tear running down
her check.  After she finished taping the edges, she set down a drop cloth and
began painting.

This morning, Marcy reminded her that if she found the right
man, the risk of pain might be worth it.  She didn’t want to get into an argument
before Marcy left for the day, so she kept her mouth shut.  She wholeheartedly
disagreed.

Yet, she did hope that her life could one day be different. 
That she wouldn’t feel so alone all the time.  That she might be able to share
it with someone.

She sighed.  What would Jack tell her?

Slowly a memory came forward of a time where they had talked
about the subject of marriage.

“I don’t think I’ll ever marry,” Niki had said to her
brother as she rinsed off their dinner dishes in the cramped sink of the kitchen
in their base housing.

“Why do you say that?  You’re pretty enough.  I’m sure some
guy will want to marry you some day.”

“Would you want to marry?”  She shot back.  “Especially
after watching Mom and Dad?”

Jack snorted.  “What they had was not marriage.  It was
co-habitation.”

She stepped back from loading the last dish in the
dishwasher.  “What do you mean?”

“Think about it.  You remember all the times they argued. 
Every time dad came home from a trip, mom went through his things, looking for
evidence of his mistresses.  She usually wasn’t disappointed.  Then her way of
getting back at him was sleeping around when he was gone.  He even went to get
a paternity test just to make sure you were his.  That’s not marriage to me.”

“What is?”

Jack flopped down on the couch.  He leaned forward propping
his elbows on his legs.  “I won’t marry a woman unless I think she wants to
commit the rest of her life to
me
.  No sleeping around.  No threats.  No
hidden agendas.  Guess I’m thinking of something like what Lieutenant Colonel
Jacobs and his wife have.”

“Marcy’s parents?”

“Yeah.  You can just see it when you look at them.  They
have something special.  There’s nothing that would come between them.  At
least I don’t think it would—not for very long.”

The coolness of wet paint dripping on her foot reminded her
of her present task.  She grabbed a paper towel and wiped the tan drops from
the top of her foot.

Jack’s idea of marriage sounded pretty good.  Love. 
Commitment.  Security.

It was just the pain part that she wanted to avoid—for as
long as possible.

Chapter 4

Kyle Jacobs hopped in his shiny new Ford F-150 King Ranch. 
It’s roomy inside fit his long legs perfectly.  Not to mention he loved the
roar of the engine.

As he pulled out of the parking lot of his townhome, he
wondered again if he made the right decision to move to Arizona.  So much
happened in the last year and a half—not much of it good.  Was it strange to
want to be closer to his sister and his parents even though he was
twenty-eight?

Mom told him it wasn’t.  At least half a dozen times in the
last week she remarked how thrilled she was that he was at least in the same
metro area as them.  Dad mentioned it, too—only not quite as much.

Maybe the accident hadn’t been all bad.  His relationship
with his family improved since then.  His dad talked to him differently.  Some
of the sternness faded.

The first time he saw his dad after the accident, his dad
held on tight for a long hug.  When he pulled away, he noticed the tears in
Colonel Rick Jacobs’s eyes.  Guess everyone had a new appreciation for the
second chance Kyle received.

He cleared his throat trying to dislodge the emotion that
threatened to choke him.  Maybe he wasn’t ready to rejoin the ranks of the
gainfully employed yet. Too late.  He started his new job last week.  After the
favor his dad called in to get him the job, he wasn’t about to cast it aside so
easily.

There was a time when he would have resented his dad’s
help.  Growing up as the son of Rick Jacobs had not been easy.  Dad was a pilot
in the Air Force.  That meant the family followed him wherever he ended up. 
Sometimes they stayed at a base for several years.  Thinking back on it, Kyle
couldn’t believe he attended all four years of high school on the same base. 
They even stayed until Marcy graduated two years later.  To date, Ramstein Air
Force base in Germany was the longest he lived in the same place.