by Ann Whitaker
“Come.” She led me into the dining room and pointed to a chair. “Sit.”
I followed, and I sat. I’d trained her well.
She took a chair across from me, tucked her feet under her, and leaned forward. “Getting hurt isn’t something that happens only to women.”
I lowered my head.
Carmen tapped her fingernails on the table. “Can’t you see how Nick acts around you? He’s different. He brightens up when you walk into the room. Even Berto has noticed. Didn’t you wonder why Nick showed up at the Cotton Patch and the Prime Rib?”
I looked up. “I wasn’t sure. The first time could have been coincidence. The second time…” I was too embarrassed to tell her all the crazy thoughts that had run through my mind about drugs, illegal goings-on, keeping an eye on me to make sure I wasn’t acting as a snitch. “So how did he know I was at the Prime Rib?”
She shrugged but smiled knowingly.
“You?”
“Sometimes little Cupid, he needs help. Playing hard-to-get can attract a man, but he needs some encouragement.”
“But I wasn’t playing. I’d declared myself a born-again virgin and was keeping myself pure for my future husband.” No need to tell her how my resolve had crumbled that night with Nick in Abilene.
Carmen laughed. “If Nick isn’t husband material, then no man is. Unlike some of the women he’s gone out with, you’re not after his money. He also admires you for working and the fact you’re trying to help dogs.”
“He told you that?”
“We talk.”
Wait a minute. Women after Nick’s money? “What money?”
Carmen sipped her coffee. “Nick’s adoptive parents lost all their money on gambling and bad investments. Nick didn’t even get to go to college. But he worked odd jobs while he got his pilot’s license and eventually bought his own business—all legal. He owns several air charter companies.”
“You mean he doesn’t work for you?”
Carmen laughed. “Not hardly. He’d be insulted if we offered to pay. He flies for us because we’re friends, and he loves to fly. Those trips to Mexico you thought were about drugs…Nick builds houses there. At his own expense. This past month, he’s been building a clinic for people who can’t afford medical care.”
“A clinic?”
Carmen smiled, her face animated. “Shortly before he found out he was adopted, his birth mother died because she and Nick’s real father were too poor to see a doctor. He’s always regretted not knowing her. So, helping people like them became a cause for him. He does a lot of the physical work himself. Says he likes to feel he’s created something. He’s too modest to talk about it. Men like Nick are rare. I was really hoping you two would…well, that’s water under the dam.”
I didn’t correct her word choice this time. All I could think about was how I’d really screwed the pooch. Who could blame Nick if he never wanted to see me again? Somehow, I’d have to redeem myself on the trip back to Abilene.
I said my goodbyes to Carmen and trudged back to my apartment to gather my things. An hour later, bag on one side, Philip’s crate on the other, I waited in the circular driveway. But when Carmen’s Lexus wheeled up, Nick wasn’t driving. Ramón was. Nick must have gone to the airport early to get the plane ready.
Ramón loaded my suitcase into the trunk and placed Philip’s crate in the backseat. I sank into the leather seat, rehearsing what I would say to Nick.
We pulled up beside the hangar, and Ramón helped me with my bag. The Seneca V was out, but instead of Nick, a gray-haired man old enough to be my grandfather stood beside it. “Morning.” He extended his hand. “George.”
I automatically took his hand but couldn’t speak. Where was Nick?
George’s handshake had the propulsion of a pump jack. “So we’re headed to Abilene. You live there or just visiting?”
“Live there,” I choked out.
George was a talker, so he didn’t notice my silence. “You’re probably thinking I’m too old to be flying. No need to worry. Just got my annual flight physical, and the doc says my ticker is good for another two thousand hours.”
He laughed, and I managed a weak smile. A month ago, I would have been thinking “heart attack waiting to happen” and wondering if I could land the plane myself in that event, but the way I was feeling now, I wasn’t sure I cared.
I looked over at Ramón. “What happened to Nick?” My voice rasped as I fought to hold back my tears.
“Mr. Nick, he fly other plane out late last night. Say he going back to Mexico.”
“Did he leave a number?”
Ramón shook his head. “He say not want to be bothered.”
So that’s why Nick hadn’t come back to his apartment. He must have left town shortly after I left the party. I’d put up emotional barriers, so he’d put physical distance between us. How could I blame him after the way I’d acted? Now I’d lost him forever.
Back in Abilene, I tried to lose myself in the details of catching up on my life. First, I called my mother and sister to let them know I was back, leaving messages when neither of them picked up, relieved I didn’t have to talk with anyone. Then I unpacked, started a load of clothes, and checked my computer, but when it began to download hundreds of junk e-mails, forwarded jokes, pictures, and video clips from the past month, I simply lost interest. My old life seemed irrelevant now.
I wandered through the house, looking at the art work and furnishings as if I’d never seen them before. Usually I felt a sense of comfort when surrounded by my own belongings, but not today. I was going to sell much of it anyway for the new adoption center. No great loss. After his initial excitement at being home, Philip didn’t let me out of his sight, as if he sensed I needed him.
Walking out onto the deck, I thought about the night Nick and I stood there. It seemed months ago, instead of weeks.
Though the sprinkler system had supplied water for the lawn in my absence, dry patches where the spray hadn’t reached irritated me, and the trees looked sparse by Waco standards. Even the sight of my fish pond didn’t buoy my spirits.
Maybe if I slept. I walked back inside, Philip still at my heels, and looked down at him. “Nap?” By now he was using his leg as if he’d never been hurt. He bounded up the stairs and jumped onto the bed. When I lay down, he snuggled against me, and I hugged his warm little body, burying my face in his cottony fur. I covered us with a blanket, and when I awoke it was dark.
I let Philip out, forced down some canned chicken soup, and crawled back into bed. Tomorrow I’d return to work where I’d be too busy to think about Nick. I hoped.
I kept my new cell phone in bed with me. Turned on. Nick had the number. But it didn’t ring.
****
Though it didn’t rank up there with building clinics in Mexico, I threw myself into my volunteer work with Lookin’ for Love. While I was gone, an anonymous donor had made a generous contribution, so now we didn’t need my trust fund. As for my biological clock running out of juice, I was too numb to care.
Marlon called several times, but in fairness to him, I told him there was someone else.
Keep busy. Stay so busy you don’t have time to think about Nick. I did just that for the next several weeks, and while I didn’t forget him, the pain subsided to a dull ache.
Almost three months passed.
Late one Friday after work, as I parked my car in the garage and killed the engine, I heard my kitchen phone ringing. I raced inside. When I saw the name “Esposito, Alberto” on my caller ID, my hands began to tremble. Could it be Nick? Calling from the big house?
But it wasn’t Nick. It was Carmen. I tried not to let the disappointment show in my voice. She sounded strained, her breathing labored. “Julie, I need your help!”
“What? Are you okay?” My heart raced. Had Butch come back? Last I heard he was safely locked away.
Carmen sounded close to tears. “It’s Blanco and Noche. I don’t know how this could have happened!”
“No, no, no. Not like that. They’ve gone poodle.”
Oh no. Another of Carmen’s malapropisms. “What do you mean, gone poodle? Are they lost? Have they run away?”
“No, I mean they’ve gone poodle! Like those mail people who go crazy.”
“That’s postal.”
“I know that, but I’m saying they’ve gone poodle!” Carmen was yelling so loud I had to hold the phone away from my ear. “Blanco and Noche have forgotten everything we taught them. They’ve…what’s the word…reverb…revert…? They’ve gone back to their old ways—jumping on the furniture, refusing to obey. I really need you here. Please.”
Relieved no one had been maimed or killed, I let out the breath I’d been holding. “How did this happen? Once dogs are trained, they seldom forget what they’ve been taught so quickly, unless you start reinforcing their bad behavior.”
“Just say you’ll come. I can have a plane waiting for you first thing in the morning. It’s Saturday. You’re off, aren’t you?”
“No, I work half a day, but…”
“Please say you’ll come. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t really need help.”
I’d never been able to resist a plea for help, especially when it came to dogs. “Let me call Dr. Arthur. But I’ll have to bring Philip. My sister’s out of town, and I don’t want to leave him in a kennel.”
Carmen didn’t hesitate. “Of course.”
As soon as I hung up, I began having second thoughts. Memories of Nick flooded my mind, and the dull ache once more became a stabbing pain.
At ten the next morning, I pulled into the parking lot at Abilene Regional and unloaded my small suitcase and Philip’s crate. As I neared the hangar, I looked around for the old guy who’d flown me home.
Then I saw him. Nick. My heart thumped like a tennis shoe in a clothes dryer. “You,” was all I could muster.
His eyes looked cool and detached. “Hello, Julie.”
We boarded the plane in silence. Even the takeoff didn’t faze me.
He noticed. “I see you’ve gotten over your fear of flying in small planes.”
When he glanced in my direction, I remembered that first flight when he eyed me with appreciation. Today, I couldn’t read his thoughts. My chest tightened; my thoughts raced. Somehow, I managed to nod.
“Is Carmen okay?” I asked, my voice cracking. I faked a cough. “Sorry. Allergies,” I lied. “She sounded frantic on the phone.”
Nick’s face remained impassive, unreadable. “Yeah, I know. She called me last night saying the dogs had gone wild and she needed you there right away.”
I wiped my damp palms on the legs of my jeans. “It was nice of you to come.”
Nick stared ahead, saying nothing until the silence became uncomfortable. I chewed on a fingernail already bitten to the quick. I stretched my back. “I guess no one else was available,” I finally said.
He didn’t look at me. “That’s what Carmen told me.”
So he’d come only because he was their friend and they needed him. Though the space between us was less than six inches, it felt like miles. I took a deep breath to keep my voice from quavering. “So what have you been doing the last few months? Carmen told me about your work in Mexico. I’m impressed.”
“Thanks. I do it for the people, not the accolades.”
“I understand.”
“Same reason you love your work. Not so much a job as a calling. In fact, you were the inspiration for my current project.”
Surprised, I turned to look at him, taking in the strong line of his jaw, the dark hair that seemed to ask me to reach over and run my hands through it, the lips I wanted to kiss. “Me?”
“Yep, you. Julie Shields. I also decided it was time to get over my fear of dogs for good. Even went to one of those therapy classes. You know, like the ones for people afraid of flying.”
My name emanating from his lips made my blood sizzle like fajitas on a hot grill, whetting my appetite to a peak. I closed my eyes and imagined him saying it again and again.
When I opened my eyes, he was staring at me. “Are you listening?”
“Yes, every word. Go ahead.”
“I was talking about my new project. An animal clinic. In Cognito, Mexico. We’ve almost finished the construction.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Cross my heart.” He glanced at me and smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Julie, we’re alike in more ways than you realize. You aren’t afraid of hard work—even if it means getting dirty—you like helping others, and you can be a big pain in the butt.”
I grinned slightly, then swallowed hard, swallowing my pride at the same time. “I need to explain something.”
“What’s to explain?”
“The reason I acted…like I did.”
“You made that clear. I was just slow to believe it.”
“No, you don’t understand. What I felt for you…that was special, but I was afraid. Gun-shy. The men I’ve been attracted to in the past…well, let’s just say I tried to fix them when they weren’t fixable. So I thought if I found someone I wasn’t attracted to…” I couldn’t bring myself to say Butch’s name or Joe’s or Marlon’s. “I was afraid of my feelings for you, so I pushed you away. And I let my imagination run away with me. Babe, the drugs…”
“Drugs?”
Oops. Guess Carmen hadn’t told him that part. “I thought you were transporting drugs from Mexico to sell in the U.S.”
He winced. “You’re serious?”
“Afraid so.”
He surprised me by chuckling softly, causing my heart to pump faster. “You watch way too many movies.”
“So I’ve been told. But think about it. The bags you hid in your closet.”
“You mean the spices and the peppers? I didn’t hide them.”
“You locked the door.”
“I was keeping Noche, remember. I didn’t want him getting into them and getting sick. As smart as he was, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d learned how to open a door. Just one press of the handle…I do watch TV.”
He smiled the Nick-smile I remembered.
My cheeks began to burn, partly with embarrassment, partly from the excitement of being so close to Nick again. Close enough to reach over and touch. I put my hands between my legs and squeezed.
Nick didn’t seem to notice. “When I got in that night, it was too late to take the bags to Carmen and Rosa. I wanted to surprise them.”
“Carmen told me.” I reached back and rubbed my stiff neck. I might as well get it all out. “About Babe. When you said you loved her, I automatically thought…Carmen also explained that.”
He glanced in my direction, and for a moment our eyes locked. “You accused me several times of not leveling with you, Julie, but you lied to me more than once. Did that ever cross your mind?”
“You’re right. You weren’t the problem. It was me. I have trust issues.”
“But I never gave you reason to doubt me.”
“Well, you did. Sort of. You wouldn’t tell me about Babe and Butch. And the business in New Orleans was weird. Okay, so I built a lot of it up in my mind. I know it’s too late, but I’m sorry. I’m really, really, really sorry.”
It took a supreme effort, but I managed to hold back the tears. One thing I did know about men—they hate to see a woman cry.
“Apology accepted. I’m sorry, too, Julie. Seems we had a failure to communicate. But we can’t go back now. Let’s see what we can do for Carmen.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Nick’s hand accidentally grazed my back as he loaded Philip’s crate into Berto’s BMW, reminding me of the day we met, when he’d leaned over and pointed out Casa del Lago at the top of the hill. At the time, I’d felt as if I were melting, and a similar sensation swept over me now, but it was tinged with regret. I tried to block out thoughts of what might have been, the us that might have been.
In no time,
we were headed up the winding drive to Casa del Lago, just as we had that afternoon months ago. Carmen waited in the circular drive, wringing her hands. A solemn-faced Berto stood behind her. Whatever Noche and Blanco had done had to be serious.
“Bring Philip with you, and leave the car here,” Carmen said. “Someone can park it later. Come inside, quickly.”
Nick and I trailed into the foyer behind her and Berto. I stole a glance at Nick. He caught my eye and shrugged.
Carmen wasted no time on greetings. She pointed to the floor. “Set Philip’s crate here by the sofa. Rosa will bring him some fresh water. He’ll be safer here for now.”
Safer? What chaos awaited us? The living area looked much the same as before. No signs of destruction I could discern.
Carmen pointed to the staircase. “They’re upstairs in the bedroom. I had to fasten them in…for control.”
Nick and I exchanged a worried look. At the door to their bedroom, Carmen held up her hand in the stay command I’d taught her. The corners of my mouth started to turn up, but Carmen’s troubled eyes wiped any suggestion of a smile off my face.
She slowly turned the doorknob. “Quiet. So you don’t stir them up.”
Did she think they’d attack us? She let herself in, then left the door ajar just enough for the rest of us to squeeze through—first Berto, then me and Nick. We crept in like visitors at a funeral home viewing.
Carmen whispered. “I’ve been playing ‘Taco Bell’s Canon’ to calm them down.”
Nick leaned close, his breath warm on my ear. “Pachelbel’s Canon.”
I half expected Noche and Blanco to pounce on us like hellhounds, but the room was eerily quiet except for a whimper emanating from the far side of the bed. “One of them sounds hurt. Have they been fighting?”
Carmen gave me a threatening look. “Shhh. You’ll upset them.”
The drapes were drawn, and the large room was dark except for a tiny lamp on a corner table. No bounding dogs, no barking. Had Carmen lost her mind and taken Berto with her?
“Quiet,” Carmen whispered again. “They’re in the corner.”
Nick and I tiptoed behind her, while Berto brought up the rear.