It was the same kind of helplessness I’d felt when I took a semester off school for my mother’s breast cancer diagnosis. But this situation, I could do something about.
I would do something about it.
“In that case, it’s worth hearing him out. See what he has to say.”
“Is that the usual speech you always give faculty members you’re about to pimp out?”
She made a dismayed sound. “Zora!”
“Well, that is what you’re suggesting!” Poor Erin. She probably hadn’t bet on this roller coaster of an interaction either, and God knew I probably seemed bitchy and unreasonable to her. It wasn’t her fault that I was living my own personal hell in a very professional setting.
“I’m just saying,” she insisted, “what would it hurt to have a conversation with him?”
“Erin, that money would not go anywhere worthwhile, like to the med school or the cancer program. You know how this place works. The money would go to buy new uniforms for our piss-poor football team, or to—”
“He wants to know more about your research, what you do. It aligns perfectly with what we’re asking his software and staff clinicians to do for us, and how you’ve trained our docs in the past.”
“Well, I already know about him. And while there was a time when I would’ve wanted to see him again, after this . . . I just don’t know. I’ve been screwed once. I don’t need to be screwed professionally by him, too.”
Erin laughed. “You’re smart as hell, Zora. And you’re not a quitter. He has no idea of the woman you are today. What makes you so certain you won’t come out of this on top?”
Suddenly, I decided I didn’t want to spend any more time with New Nick than I had to. It’d be easier to hide, to carry on with my lukewarm life in peace. But the problem was bigger than me. I had to consider the loss to our research staff when all the grants expired in three months. There was no guarantee I’d be able to scrape together enough other funding to help everyone.
More and more, it looked as if I wouldn’t be able to save everyone myself.
Erin frowned. “I know this isn’t easy. I’ll back you, either way.”
“Thank you.” I rubbed my eyes. “I need to think. If I decide to see him, I’ll let you know.”
We exchanged more words before I could finally usher her out of my office. Closing the door behind her, I slid to the floor and hugged my knees. I thought of the brief, self-satisfied smirk on Nick’s face when Nellie mentioned his involvement with the surgical residents.
This was fishy. What scheme was he planning? What part did he expect me to play? And after all these years?
I hypothesized that they, like I had, would soon learn Nick couldn’t be trusted.
Chapter Three
Nick
“Whatcha thinking, handsome? What’ll you have?”
Startled, I looked up. The waitress frowned, hands on her hips, head tilted when I didn’t immediately respond. “Haven’t had a chance to look at the menu yet. It changed much?”
“Since when?” She took a few steps forward. The amount of space left between us could only be classified as intimate.
The strings of her apron cut into a figure more ample than I remembered. She’d been a landmark in my childhood and teenage life, and as much a part of Daisy’s Nut House as the ancient light fixtures and gently worn booths. A sigh fought its way out of my chest. I shrugged. “You got any recommendations?”
She went still. Her expression approximated the one on Zora’s face earlier that afternoon. “I know you,” she said, her face inching closer to mine. “Just can’t figure out how.”
I gave up and met her gaze straight on. “Yes. We once knew each other very well, Miss Rebecca. You’d sneak me free doughnuts ’cause you said I needed filling out. You were always good to me.”
I was surprised by the sudden hitch in my breathing. What the hell was wrong with me? What was this place doing to me?
See, this here? More evidence of my recent rash of questionable judgment.
What had possessed me to pull the rental car into this place’s parking lot? To actually go inside and fold myself into the now ill-fitting booth?
I wasn’t known for having bad judgment, let alone succumbing to it. Cautious experimentation and careful strategy had served me well since my Green Valley days.
Something like recognition crept across Rebecca’s face in slow degrees. Her lined face broke into a grin as she let out a whoop. She plopped down beside me in the booth and surrounded my upper body with her soft arms.
“Nick Armstrong! Oh, God! I can’t believe this!”
I cleared my throat, attempting to surface from her cleavage. “Yep, it’s me.”
The hugging continued, her arms tightening even more around my shoulders. “Why didn’t you say anything? You come in here like you’re just anybody and just sit there. What are you doing here?”
She pulled back, holding me at arm’s length. “Does Zora know you’re here?” She whispered it, with a reverence reserved for the quiet intervals in church.
I thought of Zora. Holding on to her desk, legs unsteady, eyes wide and glistening with hurt. “Yeah. I’ve seen her.”
Rebecca tapped her foot on the black-and-white checkered linoleum tiled floor.
I smiled. There was little I could say to satisfy her curiosity. I certainly wasn’t going to admit to all the careful planning it took to engineer my reunion with Zora after all these years.
“I can’t believe you’re really here.”
I pulled out of my thoughts in time to see Rebecca swiping a tear away with a shaking finger.
“God knows I missed you. I prayed for you after you left.”
Left. Well. That was a polite, sterile word for what had actually happened.
“And look at you!” she said, scooting back to accommodate the all-encompassing sweep of her gaze. “I guess you filled out, huh?”
“I guess so,” I said, giving a half-hearted chuckle.
“What did Zora say? When she saw you?” Her voice lowered. “You know, that girl just adored you. Thought you hung the moon and stars. I always figured you two would end up married young, no matter what anyone had to say about it. Couldn’t keep the two of you apart since you were kids. I used to think you could read each other’s thoughts. I wouldn’t be surprised, y’all knew each other so well.”
She wasn’t wrong. The plan had been to get married, to elope right out of high school. Go to the nearby university. Live in married housing. Finish our degrees. My gaze darted to the corner of the restaurant. Our favorite booth.
We’d come here all the time. Zora’s second cousin Daisy owned the place, and we’d often crammed in that same booth with her cousins, Dani, Poe, and Simone. But the best times had been when it was just the two of us. When we were kids, Zora had mischievously kicked my leg under the table. When we were older, she’d run her leg against mine more slowly, her eyes lit with dark, delicious intent. I closed my eyes, thinking back to those halcyon days.
They’d also been difficult times. I’d been more than aware of my mother’s growing problem. Hell, the whole town had an inkling at that point, despite all my efforts to hide it. But I’d had the backing and support of the Leffersbees. And I’d had the love of the most loyal, intelligent, beautiful girl in the world.
And it all changed. Overnight.
Rebecca chewed her lip. “You know what you want, hon?”
I couldn’t quite work up a smile. “The usual?”
She nodded and turned, seeming to understand I needed space. “I think we can handle that.”
“Appreciate it,” I said, noting that the accent I’d worked so hard for so many years to exorcise had reared its head within just a few hours of being home.
I sighed when Rebecca retreated behind the counter, shouting to the unseen person on the other side of the food window.
Zora Leffersbee.
For so many years, I’d wondered about her. Agonized over memories of t
he soft weight of her hand slipping into mine, those dark eyes fixed on mine, those lips turned up with secret knowledge, a knowing that always made me listen to her, yield to her.
That closeness. Being loved by someone who accepted me with the same wholehearted openness as Zora, even after seeing who I really was? Having captured her love made me feel like a king among men. But I’d lost all that. Twelve years ago.
She’d always been beautiful. I’d had a crush on her in early grade school. My mother chuckled when I came home brimming with tales of Zora’s long braids and the colorful, clicking beads punctuating each end. I’d been lured in by Zora’s kind ways. She was curious, upbeat, and mysteriously watchful. I’d spy her sitting quietly during playtime, studying our classmates as if trying to decipher a puzzle. And then she’d see me and smile.
Her smile had been an unspoken invitation into her little bubble.
Admission to her private, quirky world was an honor. It was especially sweet because she was so very careful and discerning about whom she allowed in. Other people thought Zora was shy. They thought she was quiet. She wasn’t.
And once I’d met the hurricane that was her twin sister, I’d understood Zora better.
God, I miss her.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. Distractedly, I pulled it out, glimpsing the caller ID, and sighed. “Yeah?” I hoped my curt tone would put him off.
“What the fuck, Nick?”
Hearing the frustration straining Eddie’s typical California cool made me sit up. “What?”
“Man, where are you? Still in Green Acres?”
I needed this right now like I needed a stab wound. “Valley. Green Valley. Yeah. What do you want?”
His sigh hissed through the phone’s speaker. “So. It’s true what I’m hearing, then.”
“How would I know what you’re hearing?”
“Your secretary just told me that you’re out of the office indefinitely. Helping to oversee that new app, of all things.”
“Not indefinitely. A few weeks.” I attempted to stretch my legs out as far as the cramped booth would allow. They didn’t go far.
“Why do you need a few weeks?”
An image of Zora as I’d seen her this afternoon, flashed in my mind’s eye. I hadn’t expected to find her office door open. I’d just wanted a peek. Spotting that familiar crown of wild curls had broken something loose inside me. I hadn’t been able to breathe.
Then she’d turned.
She wasn’t a girl anymore. She was a woman. Dear God, was she ever.
From the moment I’d met her, she’d bemoaned the fact that she didn’t share her twin’s ultra-slimness. I’d decked a kid in seventh grade for trying to cop a feel of her chest, but the incident ushered in an era of Zora in oversized T-shirts, sweatshirts, and pullovers. No matter what I’d said, she’d remained convinced she was an overdeveloped freak.
This afternoon, I’d almost swallowed my tongue when she rose from behind her desk. Same big doe eyes, flawless brown skin, and a head full of thick curls I’d loved to pull on. The T-shirt and stretchy pants couldn’t hide the soft fullness of her stupendous, ripe curves.
The years had fallen away in a moment and I was, once again, that lovesick teenager.
Fuck.
“Uh, hello? Nick? You still there?”
I shifted in the booth, clearing my throat before responding. “The client requested that we provide our staff clinicians with their training. We’re making plans now to accommodate that request.” Things were going even better than I’d planned. It’d been incredibly simple to build the software platform once my contacts’ ears had gotten wind of what TSU—specifically Zora’s department—needed. Most importantly, it was just what I’d been waiting for: the perfect opportunity that would land me on Zora’s doorstep. Or office, in this case.
“Sure. Fine. But why do you have to be there?” Eddie’s impatient tone cracked through the line.
Meticulous planning had brought me back to the woman I’d once loved more than anything. I’d followed all the moves of Zora’s schooling and career, even after she’d mailed me back my ring, waiting for the perfect moment to engineer a chance meeting. Finally, I’d found an avenue for our professional lives to intersect, under the guise of perfecting an app for her employer.
Hardly a day ever passed when I didn’t think of her and wonder, Why had she returned my ring with that cryptic note? How had she known where to find me? Had her parents ever told her why I left? And if she’d known where I was all that time, why didn’t she ever write me? Call? Reach out?
Did she even care? Had she ever?
“Not everything has an answer, baby.” That’s what my mama had often said, looking skyward in amused exasperation when I demanded answers to the unknowable. All these years later, I still needed answers to explain the Zora-shaped hole that had eaten at my gut for years. I just needed to fucking know, once and for all. I needed to face Zora and the promises never kept by either of us.
I also needed to tell her the truth, my truth.
But Eddie didn’t need to know any of this. “It’s essential that I stay. I’m not planning on micromanaging our very capable team. But the client would be grateful if I helped manage the training and rollout process.” I spoke the truth, just not all of it.
I hadn’t quite planned for my first meeting with Zora to happen so soon. I’d spent weeks ensuring we would meet, but unfortunately hadn’t given much consideration to what I’d say to Zora when I saw her. In the end, it’d been ridiculously easy. All it took was the slightest prompting on my part for that Nellie woman to bring up Dr. Zora Leffersbee. Dr. Gould had already realized Zora and her research were essential to training clinicians to use the app, and they suggested we swing by for a brief meet and greet. Suddenly, I had my opportunity sooner than I’d expected.
I took it.
And then I crashed and burned.
“You think you need to be there? That’s all well and good, but I need you in New York. We’ve got a board meeting coming up—a shareholders’ meeting next week. I need you here, you silver-tongued bastard.”
“I’ll fly back for those,” I answered easily. “I’ve got one of the planes in Knoxville. I can get back whenever you need.”
“But then you’re going back there. For what could be a month?”
“Yeah.”
“But Eddie was like a dog with a bone. Since when is this app a priority? It wasn’t even on our radar, it’s not even what we do. You hear about TSU’s proposal request for new software development and suddenly we’re experts in telemedicine? None of this makes sense to me. You’re already stretching yourself thin.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. When I’d first met Edward Holt as a freshman at the University of Michigan, he’d embodied all the stereotypes I’d initially had of folks from the West Coast. Having never left Green Valley before, relying only on television and the scornful commentary heard from others, I’d already had a certain stereotype in mind when I finally sat down to a conversation with long-haired, laid-back Eddie. He’d sported a ball cap emblazoned with the Puerto Rican flag and wore a psychedelic, homemade tie-dyed shirt with “Make Peace, Not War” and “Find Yourself in Stillness” written on either side in a childish hand. The computer engineering freshman mixer promised awkward conversation.
But when he mentioned how his mother read auras for a living, I’d felt an unexpected stirring of identification. Here might be someone who understood.
“That can’t pay much,” I’d said, by then long accustomed to a painful preoccupation with maintaining household expenses.
He’d blinked, resurfacing from his pot-induced haze. “Of course not,” he’d responded, his tone implying an unspoken “dummy.” “I manage her portfolio.”
That was the beginning of a friendship, a partnership, a brotherhood that endured early failures and all the pitfalls of burgeoning success. Eddie was still the same guy. Slow to anger, patient, direct. While growing success had produced
a growing sense of anxiety in me, Eddie had only grown more still and stalwart in the face of exploding growth and risky gambles.
“Nick. We didn’t put much effort into making this app, and we’re practically giving it away—”
“All true. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be just as invested with the implementation and client satisfaction as we are with our existing accounts.”
There was no way I could tell him what had really brought me here. I’d done my best not to speak of this town up until now. Not to look back. And I for damn sure didn’t plan to disclose my plan to Eddie. Let him think it was solely about the business.
“At some point, it’s just money,” Eddie said, stating a position I’d heard from him many times before. It annoyed me every time. If money didn’t matter, why the fuck were we in business?
“I’d love to hear you share that philosophy with our shareholders. Oh, that’s right.” I gave a teasing chuckle. “That’s why the PR firm banned you from all public speaking.”
He let out a short laugh. “Listen to me. This little project is not worth having you live out in the sticks indefinitely. Even if we were looking at a decent ROI from this, it’s not like we don’t already have enough money. How many houses and cars do you need to buy?”
“There’s no such as thing as too much money.”
He’ll probably need to meditate for hours after this conversation.
“Nick, listen to me.” Eddie’s tone gentled. “I don’t know what it’ll take for you to finally realize it’s okay. We’re not struggling to get this thing off the ground anymore or dancing for investments. The wolf isn’t at your door anymore, man. Hell, the wolf could never get past all your gated security, even if he could figure out which house you’re in for the moment. Let go of the past.”
Not for the first time, I reflected that only those who’d never had the opportunity to gain a healthy fear of the proverbial wolf made those kinds of statements. I doubted I’d ever get Eddie to understand how a lifetime of only just escaping that wolf, of always hearing its menacing growl in the background of every pleading phone call to the landlord or utility company, had fundamentally shaped me.
Been There Done That Page 3