by Shirley Jump
Bobby stared at him, waiting for the answer. Nick knew what the boy was really asking. Would Nick be there—beyond this weekend. This fair. The fireworks tomorrow.
Would he be a real friend? And not just a guy making an empty promise?
Nick’s gut tightened. He wasn’t used to this. People expecting anything of him. Sure, there were expectations at work, but those ended when he walked out the door. In his personal life, he answered to no one, unless he counted Bandit, and all the dog wanted was a can of food every morning, a walk every night and a reliable ball-throwing partner. Not exactly a major commitment.
Except for his whirlwind marriage to Carolyn, he had never really settled down with anything or anyone, and even then, four days wasn’t any kind of commitment. Bobby was looking, Nick knew, for more. Not a lifetime, but more than Nick Gilbert had ever given before. He looked to Carolyn for a good answer, but she had already inserted that distance that she was so good at.
Why had Mary ever put the two of them in charge of children, specifically this one? Neither of them had what it took to connect, not over the long haul. Nick thought he could do this, but...
Damn, it was a lot harder than he’d thought.
“Sure,” he managed finally, because what else could he say? When the boy looked at him like that, with such hope in his eyes, it made Nick want to run for president and change the world. “I’m your buddy, for as long as you want.”
“Come on, Bobby,” Jean said. “Time to go home.” She took him by the hand, seeming to read the tension in the group. “Your mom is waiting and I’m sure she wants to hear all about your day. Plus, it’s bedtime. You’ll see Nick and Carolyn tomorrow for the fireworks.”
Then Jean was gone, with Bobby in tow, leaving Nick and Carolyn alone.
“I should go, too,” Carolyn said. But she didn’t move. Her gaze caught his, and again he wondered if maybe one of the problems between them hadn’t been that he hadn’t read her right, but that he hadn’t tried hard enough to read her.
He’d seen another side of her today, in the way she’d reached out to Bobby, let herself be vulnerable. A side he wanted to explore more. Letting her go now didn’t seem like an option.
Nick turned and took Carolyn’s hand, falling into touching her, relying on her, just as he always had before. His world had been rocked, and he sought the closest mountain he knew. “Stay,” he said. “Please.”
“I—” She cut off the sentence. “Okay. But let’s get out of here. It’s so busy. And noisy.”
Nick nodded. “I know just the place.” Still holding hands, he led her to his SUV, then held the door for her. She brushed by him as she moved to sit in the passenger’s seat, giving him a hint of her perfume. Sweet floral notes, an undertone of jasmine. He leaned forward, unable to stop himself from getting close to her, and pressed his lips to her neck, inhaling the scent and leaving a long, lingering kiss along the delicate skin that curved beneath her blond tresses. Oh, so familiar. So sweet. He was tempted to do more, to let his fingers walk along the same path, to take her in his arms, but he didn’t. Carolyn paused, tense for one second, then she drew in a breath, let it out, along with his name. “Nick, what are you doing to me?”
“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. He stood there, inhaling that perfume, his mind rocketing to the past, wanting to kiss her so damned bad. Then, with a sigh, he let her go and rounded to his side of the car. He got inside, put the Ford in gear. Neither of them said anything as he drove out of the fairgrounds and across Lawford to a small jazz club on the north side of the downtown area. When he stopped the car, Carolyn turned to him and smiled. “You remembered.”
“I did.”
He hadn’t forgotten much at all about Carolyn, as much as he’d tried. He still knew her favorite type of music. Her favorite meal. The scent of her perfume, and most of all, how she would feel in his arms and in his bed.
That, most of all. But even he knew a relationship couldn’t be built on attraction. If it could, they’d still be together. Three years ago, they’d missed laying the foundation, and he wondered if it was possible to find the building blocks they needed this far after they’d undone what little of a relationship they’d had.
He came around the SUV and opened her door, taking her hand as she stepped out of the vehicle and onto the sidewalk. He didn’t need to take her hand—he knew Carolyn was the kind of woman who could take care of herself and didn’t expect him to be a gentleman—but he took her hand because he wanted to touch her, and not let go. Electricity sizzled between them, with a low hum of awareness. Again the desire to kiss her rose in Nick. But he knew if he did that now—
He wouldn’t stop.
They entered the club, a cozy little place decorated in cranberry and gold. A trio comprised of a pianist, saxophonist and singer stood on the stage, singing an old Billie Holiday song. Only a few other people were sitting inside, so Nick and Carolyn had their choice of seating. They opted for a booth tucked in the back, providing privacy, a quiet little nook.
They hadn’t been to this place in more than three years, but he remembered this booth. Remembered sitting across this very table from Carolyn, watching her laugh, sway along with the music. Remembered falling for her.
As if she could read his mind, her gaze broke away from his and she surveyed the room. “It’s not very busy tonight.”
“Probably because of the holiday. Most everyone went out of town.” He studied her, reading the faint shadows beneath her eyes that spoke of exactly what Mary had told him—Carolyn worked far too many hours. She was, as she had been back in college, pouring herself into her career. They were still complete opposites. Nick, the guy who worked just enough to live and have fun, and Carolyn whose whole life was work. “Why are you in town? You could have gone off to some exotic island or a spa for the weekend.”
“You know me. I don’t do that. If I had my choice, I’d be in the office, working.”
“You’re still like that, Carolyn?” He’d hoped for more. He’d hoped she would have changed. That maybe he’d have had some influence on her.
“You say it like you’re disappointed.”
“I thought maybe...”
“Thought what? That I would get a life? Move on? Find someone else?”
The image of her with another man caused a surge of jealousy to wash over him. “No.”
“You know why my job is important to me. Why I work so hard.”
Because of what had happened to her father. Because she didn’t want to let another murderer walk the streets. So she put in every hour she could to ensure no crime was left unprosecuted, no piece of evidence missed. “Your father wouldn’t want you to spend your whole life behind a desk, either, Carolyn.”
She turned away and he knew he had hit a nerve.
“So, what can I get you folks?”
The waitress’s friendly voice interrupted them. She stood at the side of the table, a dozen gold bracelets jangling on her skinny wrist as she poised her hand over the order pad.
“Cosmo, with a lime twist.”
“Dewar’s on the rocks,” Nick said. “And thank you, Regina,” he added, reading her name tag. “It must not be a very busy night tonight for you.”
She shrugged. “I kind of like it this way once in a while. Lets me rest up for those crazy Friday nights when it seems I run off twenty pounds between here and the bar.”
Nick laughed. “We’ll do our best to keep your bar running to a minimum so you get a chance to put your feet up.”
The other woman grinned. “Thanks. I think you’ll be my favorite customer all week.” She gave Nick a friendly tap with the order pad, then headed off to the bar.
Carolyn’s gaze swiveled back to Nick’s. “How do you do it?”
“How do I do what?”
“Make friends with everyone. The
kids. The waitress. Jean. And I’m this major social misfit.”
“You’re not a social misfit.”
“Nick, those kids barely said three words to me at the picnic. I only got Bobby to talk to me when I was winning him a prize. You were the one all the children wanted to hang around with. You’re their buddy. I’m just the fifth wheel that they put up with because they had to.”
“Aw, Carolyn, you’re not that bad.”
She arched a brow.
“Well...” He hesitated. “You might want to try not using multisyllabic words like reconvene and celebration.” He shrugged. “Just loosen up a little.”
Carolyn groaned and dropped her head into her hands. “I was totally awful, wasn’t I?”
“Not totally...” Nick paused. “Okay, yeah.”
“It’s just so hard for me.”
In college, Nick had seen Carolyn—the stuffy Bostonian—and seen a woman he thought just needed to relax. Learn to be spontaneous. But now as he looked into her eyes and saw the glimmer of tears, the strain of how hard she had tried today written in her tensed muscles, her worried features, he realized her struggle to connect with people didn’t stem from which side of the country she’d been raised on, but from all the facets of her background brought together.
“Aw, Carolyn, don’t let it bother you so much. You’re doing fine.”
She arched a brow of disbelief.
“Was it always this hard for you?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Carolyn toyed with her napkin. “It was so hard to fit in, being the only kid in my class who was an orphan, and the only one whose parent’s murder had been all over the news. Then, on top of that...”
“You lived with an aunt who made antisocial into an art form.”
“I survived.”
Nick reached across the table and peeled her fingers away from her napkin, taking her hands again in his, wishing he could make everything easier for her. Wishing she would let him be Sir Galahad and knowing that was exactly the opposite of what Carolyn Duff wanted. “I know you did, Carolyn. I know. But it was still hard.”
She had survived—and thrived. Built strength on top of her scars.
“It’s just...I forget how to be a kid, if I ever really knew. I’m so uncomfortable around them.”
“They don’t bite, you know.” He pretended to think about that for a second. “Most of them, anyway.”
Carolyn laughed. “What’s the secret?”
Just the reward he’d been looking for—Carolyn’s smile. “It’s easy. Just think of the most immature thing you can. And then say it or do it. Works for me.”
Another smile crossed her face, blasting Nick with a beam of sunshine. Damn, when she smiled, he had a hard time remembering his own name.
“Nick, you lived like that. I never did. I had to grow up too fast. And you...”
“I had the apple pie childhood.”
But how had all that apple pie benefited him? He’d had it easy, really, and in turn become the easy, fun-loving guy. The one who hadn’t really realized how much he wanted something more—
Until he’d had it for a second, then lost it.
Was there a chance of getting it back? Or should he simply learn his lesson once and for all, and accept what was and wasn’t in the cards?
“Me, I lived with Aunt Greta,” Carolyn went on, “who made Mommie Dearest look warm and fuzzy.”
The waitress came back with their drinks and dropped them off, sending a smile Nick’s way. “Here you go. I made sure the bartender gave you a little extra.”
“Thank you.”
“Oh, it serves me, too,” she replied. “Saves me a trip back.”
Nick chuckled as the waitress headed away. Since no one else had entered the club, she slipped into a booth with another waitress and the two of them started chatting.
He returned his attention to Carolyn. “You can connect with these kids if you want to, Carolyn. All it takes is opening up. You did that before.”
“That whole opening up thing is easier said than done.” She shrugged. “Look at you. You have an instant friend in the waitress, for Pete’s sake.”
“You have friends. Mary, for instance.”
“I do, but it’s harder for me. I just don’t do this as easily as you do.”
“Because....?”
“Because I missed something in Friendship class.” Carolyn smiled, then took a sip of her drink and shook her head. “I don’t think I did the homework.”
“You made friends with me.”
“You were different.”
“How? What made me different?” Maybe, if he could reassemble the pieces of their relationship, see where it fell apart, he could insert the missing parts. Make it work again. With time, could they be together again?
Would it be better the second time around?
Looking at her now, feeling like he could drown in those emerald-green eyes, he wanted it to be better. Wanted it to work. Wanted to prove to her that he had changed, become a different man than the one she remembered from college. Wanted to take her in his arms and promise her—whatever it took, whatever she wanted.
“You made it so easy, Nick. Just like you do with everyone.”
If he was so good at making people like him, why couldn’t he have made her fall in love? He realized now, with the passing of time, that they’d rushed into marriage, some kind of heady without-thinking decision that hadn’t been based on love at all, just a powerful cocktail of infatuation and lust.
If he’d given their relationship more depth...
Where would they be now?
He shook his head. “It wasn’t me. It was you.”
“Me?” She toyed with the rim of the martini glass. “Your memory is a little faulty.”
“I’m serious, Carolyn. There was something about you. Something that made it so easy for me to be myself. But I don’t think I ever really opened up, not like I should have.”
“Nick, you’re one of the most open people I know.”
He picked up the scotch, knocked a little back. “I’m not. Not really. Not with most people. I talk, yes. I joke. But...I don’t really talk. I haven’t buckled down and gotten serious about anything besides my career, and even that hasn’t been as satisfying as I expected it to be. I never even got that serious about us.”
“No, you didn’t.” Crimson rose in her cheeks and she dipped her gaze to study her drink.
Guilt sat heavy on his chest. “I’m sorry, Carolyn.”
“It’s okay, Nick. It’s in the past.”
“Yeah. Where it should stay, right?” His breath held while he waited for her answer, even as he knew he shouldn’t. Getting involved with Carolyn again would probably be a mistake. Had he changed all that much? Really?
No.
Could he honestly give her now what he hadn’t been able to give her then?
No.
Then why wrap himself in the same mistakes...knowing they’d have the same outcome? Because he’d gotten distracted by the feel of her in his arms, the scent of her perfume, the very nearness of her.
“Why did you really do it, Carolyn?”
There was no need to explain what he was asking, because they both knew the real question. The massive elephant nobody had wanted to discuss, but had been sitting on the table between them all this time. They’d talked around it for days, but neither had wanted to poke at the beehive that had been their divorce.
Well, Nick was tired of letting it lie dormant. He wanted to rile up the hive. See what happened. Because, despite everything, despite knowing he was better off without her, he still wanted Carolyn—and if there was any chance that she still wanted him, too, he was willing to put up with feeling that sting again to see where it might lead.
�
��You know why. Because Ronald Jakes got out of jail again. Those idiots on the parole board thought he was rehabilitated. That a few years in jail without any trouble meant he was safe to let loose on the public. But he wasn’t,” Carolyn said, studying the drink again, as if it were a crystal ball to the past. “I couldn’t stay with you and pretend to be happy while he was out there, going after someone else.”
The band segued into a popular Frank Sinatra compilation. Their waitress got up to refill another table’s drinks, then sat back down. But at the booth where Nick and Carolyn sat, the tension tightened.
“But once he was caught again, back in jail for good, Carolyn, why didn’t you come back? Why couldn’t we have tried again?”
That was the question she had never answered. She had used the parole and reoffending of Ronald Jakes, her father’s murderer, as an excuse to let their marriage slip away, and never fought to reclaim it. The weeks had passed, turned into months, then years, and Nick kept thinking that one of these days Carolyn would turn around, rethink her decision. He’d given her time, space, all the things he thought she needed, and then realized he’d given her so much time and space—
She wasn’t coming back.
“Why didn’t you come after me, Nick?” She met his gaze with her own. Clear, direct and honest. “You don’t have to answer me, because we both know why. We rushed into a marriage, but neither of us were ready for what being married entailed. Buying a house, having kids. Look at us.” She gestured between them. “We can barely handle taking a kid to a fair for an afternoon. Never mind a lifetime of that. You’re not so bad at it, but if anything, these last couple of days have shown me how un-apple pie I am.”
“The way you grew up doesn’t have to dictate how you live the rest of your life.”
“Don’t be giving out advice when you’re not following it yourself.”
He sat back in his seat. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“You’re still acting the way you did back in college. You’re not growing up. You’re not settling down. It’s all a game.” She let out a gust. “I was part of the game.”