Her Heart's Promise

by Carolyne Aarsen

“Their lawyers make a lot of noise, but they always back down when we respond.”

  “Have you talked to anyone who works for Skyline now?” he persisted. “To corroborate?”

  “C’mon Clint. The management likes me as much as you do.”

  Her comment puzzled him. “What do you mean by that?”

  Nadine shrugged, not deigning to reply, looking anywhere but at him.

  He got up from his desk, surprised that she should think that of him, and wondering if maybe that wasn’t the key, the true reason she kept herself at such a distance from him. “Why would you think I dislike you?”

  As he came to stand beside her, she stood as well, looking up at him, her dark eyes wide. And in their brown depths he caught a surprising hint of vulnerability. A momentary softening.

  Did he imagine her leaning toward him? A hint of a smile on her lips?

  Something seemed to shift between them and he felt an urge to touch her cheek, to run his fingers through that thick, dark hair...

  “Matthew McKnight is on line two for you, Mr. Fletcher.” Julie’s voice on the intercom pierced the heavy atmosphere. Clint blinked, Nadine took a step back.

  “Well, I’d better get going. You look busy,” she said with a short laugh. She picked up her knapsack, slung it over her shoulder, and left.

  Clint turned back to the phone, frustrated and angry at the intrusion. He punched the button and answered curtly, “Hello Matthew, what’s up?”

  “Not much. The usual lawyerly stuff. Torts, arguing, and writing briefs. Way too many briefs.”

  “Are you calling about getting together sometime?”

  “Actually, no. Dad wanted me to take over your file from John.”

  “Oh.” Matthew’s father owned the firm Matthew worked for. If Clifton McKnight wanted his son on the case it must be serious.

  “Yeah.”

  Though Clint was happy to hear his friend’s voice, the fact that Matthew was calling him at the office during business hours did not bode well. He closed his office door and sat down by his desk, turning to look out the window. “So are you calling to be brought up to speed?”

  “That and to mention that John got another call from Skyline’s lawyers.”

  “Now what?”

  “Nothing really. Just testing the waters. Asking if you got their notice.”

  Clint thought of the letter that Matthew had passed onto him. The letter stating that they were unhappy with his paper’s biased coverage of their company and what was he going to do about it?

  “I did. I’ll talk to Nadine again.”

  “Make sure you do. Those lawyers are sniffing around a lawsuit if she doesn’t back down.”

  Clint rubbed his forehead with his index finger as if drawing out his thoughts. “I think she got the message,” though even as he spoke his words he thought of the piece he had just talked to Nadine about. “It will be fine.”

  “I hope so,” Matthew returned. “I don’t want to have to go up against a company like Skyline. Deep pockets and a huge chip on their shoulder when it comes to your little newspaper.”

  “Thanks for the pep talk,” Clint said.

  “Just keeping it real,” Matthew replied.

  They chatted for a moment then Clint said goodbye. As he ended the call he glanced out the window at the mountains. He’d been glad to come back to Sweet Creek. Glad to move into the home that Dory Strepchuk had sold to him.

  And though he had harbored some faint hope that he could make peace with Nadine, maybe even more than peace, he also knew he wasn’t jeopardizing this opportunity so she could grind some axe she had with them.

  Chapter 3

  “You actually did it?” Elaine stabbed her french fry in the ketchup with a grin. “My pure, unadulterated friend actually fibbed to her grandmother about a boyfriend?”

  Nadine blew her breath out in a sigh and leaned her elbows on the scarred, wooden table of the Riverside Inn, glancing out at the people walking down Main Street. “It was a moment of insanity.”

  “Clearly.”

  Her friend’s sardonic tone made Nadine defensive.

  “I had to,” she said, turning her attention back to her lunch, a salad. “First, it’s Patrick Quinn last night for tea, then Dr. McCormack tonight for supper.”

  “Dr. McCormack?” Elaine grimaced and shook her head. “He’s about fifteen years older than us, and, while I think bald men can be very attractive, on him it’s not.” She leaned forward. “What name did you give this pretend guy?”

  Nadine closed her eyes, digging into her memory. She had to write his name somewhere, or she would blow it completely. “Trace Bennet.”

  Elaine pulled her mouth down. “Sounds like a country and western singer. What does he look like?”

  “Goodness, Elaine. He’s fake; I don’t know.”

  “Knowing your grandma, she’ll phone to ask about all the gory details. We need a biography on this guy.” Elaine laughed. “We need hair color, eye color, backstory...” She pursed her lips, thinking. “Job, place of employment.”

  “Don’t bother.” Nadine waved a dismissive hand over the table. “I just blurted it out this morning because I was angry and wanted to keep her off my back. There’s no getting around it. I need to toughen up and flat-out tell her, ‘Grandma, go back home.’”

  “Why don’t you let her stay and you move out?”

  “Because I’ll lose my damage deposit, and she has a perfectly good house in Fort Henday.” Nadine pursed her lips as she looked out of the inn’s window, at the street she knew so well. Each brick building held some memory for her: The hardware store she and Sheryl used to visit to pick paint chips for their future houses; the library, down a side street, where she spent countless hours.

  Some days it seemed as if her life stretched ahead like a prairie road. Predictable and the same—not that she needed high adventure. She was content here in Sweet Creek. She enjoyed her work and her life; she just wished she had someone to share it with.

  She recalled her morning meeting with Clint and thought of the way he’d looked at her just before the phone call. For a moment, it seemed as if something was building between them. Nadine shook her head, dismissing the notion. Just wishful thinking. She wasn’t his type.

  She glanced up at the clock. “I should go. I promised Fletcher I’d get pictures of the rodeo.”

  “You going to be there all night?”

  “Not much else going on.”

  “And tomorrow?”

  This engendered another sigh. “I got tapped to do the review of the movie in Eastbar.”

  “Perfect,” Elaine said with a wry grin. “You can tell your grandmother you’re going with the handsome and very eligible Trace Bennet.”

  Nadine considered this a moment. “I could tell her that I’m going with ‘someone,’ and she would fill in the blanks.”

  “Look at you, learning to lie as you go.”

  “Learning self-preservation as I go,” Nadine groaned. She finished her salad and pulled some bills out of her wallet. “This should cover lunch.”

  “If you want to call that lunch,” Elaine groused.

  “I can call it whatever I want,” Nadine returned. She slung her knapsack over her shoulder and almost ran into their boss.

  While trying to avoid him, she lost her balance and fell against the table beside her. To her dismay, Clint caught her by the shoulders, his grip solid.

  Her heart jumped.

  “You okay?” he asked, his dark eyes holding hers.

  She swallowed and nodded, jerking back, frustrated again with her reaction to him.

  “Yeah. I’m fine.”

  Before she could catch Elaine’s eye, she hurried off. Headed to the rodeo—alone.

  The movie was a dud.

  Bad enough that Nadine had spent the entire Saturday avoiding Grandma, now she had to end it watching this horrible waste of time? Nadine struggled to the bitter end, scribbled a few comments, and fled the theatre as soon as the cr
edits rolled. Outside, the streetlights had just come on, competing with the setting sun. The evening still held vestiges of the day’s warmth trapped by the mountains, but the changing colors of the trees were a reminder that winter would come whistling through the pass in a matter of weeks.

  She should go home and work on stories for the next issue, but she had told Grandma she would be out tonight, and coming right back from a movie would be a dead giveaway.

  And if Grandma found out she’d gone alone to the film, she would start matchmaking all over again. It was frustrating, not to mention humiliating. She had never been the flirtatious type, leaving that for her sisters.

  Until Clint Fletcher came to Sweet Creek and she wished she could talk as effortlessly to him as her sisters managed to.

  It had been hard to see how Leslie made him laugh, how comfortable she was flirting with him, when all Nadine could contribute was an opinion on the most ponderous issues of the day, or tell him how she and her father dovetailed the joints on the drawers of the new coffee table.

  But, he wounded her sister’s heart when he broke up with her and left on a tour of Europe. Nadine realized if Leslie couldn’t hold him, she couldn’t expect to.

  Deep in thought, Nadine squinted at the darkening sky, past the streetlights of Eastbar. The crescent moon hung in the sky above her. A few of the brighter stars showed themselves in the blue-black sky. Beyond those lay more stars, more constellations, and other galaxies. She stared, aware of what a small part of creation she really was—a speck in the whole cosmos that God had created. She kept herself busy in the community and was involved in church. She enjoyed her work and liked being independent; but lately, when she came home, something was missing. Once in a while, a deep yearning for a companion waiting at home overrode her desire to be alone.

  Her parents had it, thought Nadine, while giving an empty can a tinny kick. She remembered her big, burly father and his warm hugs. When his work required it, he would stay away for a week. This was in the days when hand harvesting was more common—before machines took a week to chomp through what would have been a full winter’s work. Nadine remembered how he used to grab her mother around her waist and swing her off the floor, singing loudly. Her mother would laugh, wrap her arms around his neck, and sing along. The waiting was over; the man of the house had returned. All was well.

  Now, instead of life amidst her parents and sisters, all Nadine had at home was her dear, meddling grandmother.

  Nadine thought of her conversation with Elaine and wondered if she could really put Grandma off the scent with her fake boyfriend. She knew beyond a doubt that she didn’t have the resources to maintain the fib. This “date” would have to be a onetime thing, she mused, while pulling out the keys to her car. She was surprised she’d gotten this far.

  Nadine glanced at her watch—too early to go home. It would have to be coffee at the Riverside Inn.

  “I’ll just have a coffee, Cory.” Nadine smiled up at the waitress, who nodded and poured her a cup. “How is the catering business going?” Nadine asked her. Though Cory had been working at the Inn for the past half year, Nadine had heard that she and her mother had recently started up a catering service on the side.

  “It’s slow, but coming along. I’ve got a few events coming up. Thankfully Kelsey and her parents have been supportive. They let me use the kitchen at the Inn for larger events.”

  “They’re good people. I also like what Kelsey’s done now that she’s taken over the day-to-day running of the Inn.” The Inn was quiet and Nadine was willing to chat with Cory. She needed to kill some time. Her ‘date’ needed to drag on at least an hour longer. Hopefully Grandma would be in bed when she came home.

  “She’s created a great ambience,” Cory agreed.

  The entire interior was painted a soft yellow, and the windows were framed with rough pieces of wood that matched the heavy wooden tables. Vintage pictures of coal miners and logging crews covered the walls, along with early pictures of the town, with its classic brick buildings and metal lampposts.

  “I like how she’s collected stuff from people in the town and hung it on the wall,” Cory added, smiling as she looked at the old menus, vintage keys, a couple of framed doilies, and other bric-a-brac that added to the homey decor.

  “See those spurs there?” Nadine said, pointing out a rusted pair of tree climbing spurs hanging on the wall by her ‘usual’ spot. “My father gave those to her. They were used by my grandfather in the days when log fallers climbed up the trees to limb and top them before felling them.”

  “You’ve got history here,” Cory said.

  The melancholy in her voice caught Nadine’s attention.

  “I do. Been here for a few generations.”

  “That’s a blessing.” Cory gave her a smile then shrugged. “I should get going.”

  When she left, Nadine looked up at the spurs again, thinking of her father and the stories he would tell her of how agile and limber Grandpa Laidlaw was, scurrying up the trees like a monkey. When Nadine was very young, she had always imagined Grandpa Laidlaw as a chimp with a hard hat. She smiled at the memory.

  “Share the joke?” The deep voice beside her broke her reverie. She jumped, her hand hitting the coffee cup and spilling half the contents.

  She grabbed a handful of napkins and, while still mopping up, faced Clint Fletcher. “You scared me out of my wits,” she accused him, her heart pounding.

  “Now, that conjures up an interesting image. Nadine without her wits,” he said, still towering over her, with one hand in his pants pocket, the other resting on the table.

  Clint hesitated a moment, then pulled out a chair. “Mind if I join you?”

  She tried not to let his height intimidate her, tried not to notice how broad his shoulders looked in a suit coat. But mostly, tried to ignore the increase in her heartbeat at the sight of him.

  She shrugged in answer. He could take that how he liked, but deep down, she faintly hoped he would stay, and then berated herself for feeling attracted to him after all these years.

  “What story are you covering that keeps you out so late?” he asked as he sat down.

  She fiddled with her cup. “I caught the movie in Eastbar, which was dreadful, and thought I’d kill time before I go home.”

  “I take it the review won’t be favorable.” Clint folded his hands on the table and leaned forward.

  “Not likely.” Nadine sat back against her chair. “I’ll probably have Evan Grimshaw, the owner, accusing me of trying to put him out of business again.”

  “Who did you go to the movie with?” asked Clint, as he smoothed his tie.

  “No one you’d know,” she replied, realizing she needed to maintain some semblance of this fake date.

  Clint nodded, and for a moment, Nadine was tempted to drop Trace Bennet’s name. But, Clint with his quick, incisive questions would catch her in a lie.

  “I’m guessing it wasn’t your grandmother?” he asked with a careful smile.

  “Oh my goodness, no. Grandma thinks movies and television are a waste of the good time God gives us.”

  “Does your grandmother still live with you?” he asked. “I know she moved in when your mother got ill.”

  Nadine traced her finger through the circles of moisture the mug had left on the table. “Technically, not,” she replied with a sigh. “She’s a dear old lady who thinks I need to be taken care of, but it’s time for her to move back home. She gave me some reprieve when she stayed with Sabrina after she had her baby, but she came back. She thinks I need her…help.”

  And now she was talking too much. Clint could still make her nervous that way.

  A moment of silence hung between them.

  Clint cleared his throat. “How are your sisters?” he asked.

  Nadine caught the tone in his voice and, looking up at him, caught a melancholy expression on his face. Did he miss Leslie? Regret breaking up with her? “Sabrina just had her first baby. Leslie is married and expecting
as well and is quitting her job before the baby is born.” As she talked, she held his gaze, as if challenging him—letting him know that in spite of his breakup with her, Leslie was doing just fine, thank you very much.

  “Leslie always was a homebody. Just like you.” Clint smiled at Nadine, his expression softening, and she wondered if he was thinking of Leslie. And why wouldn’t he?

  Just as suddenly, the moment was gone. He stood and straightened the cuffs of his shirt and once again became her boss. “Well, I’d better be off. I have a busy day tomorrow.”

  “Court docket.” Nadine grinned at him. “A bit of a comedown for our esteemed G.M. to cover for Wally.”

  He paused, and for a heartbeat, looked as if he would say something else. “I don’t mind. I like to keep involved in the day-to-day stuff too. Reminds me of why I became a reporter.”

  The small insight into his life surprised her.

  “Do you miss working at a big paper? Living in the city?”

  He tapped his fingers on the table for a moment, and his features softened. “Not really. I miss some of the drama, but I’ve had enough of that in my life.”

  Nadine wondered if he referred to his parents. She knew only what she’d heard from Leslie—that his parents fought a lot, and that, even though they had a lot of money, Clint wasn’t happy with them. But she sensed Clint didn’t want to extend the conversation so she simply gave him a polite smile in response to his comment.

  “Have a good evening,” she said.

  He nodded, then, with a lift of a shoulder, he turned and left.

  Nadine looked down at her half-full coffee cup. Suddenly she felt alone. A lonely alone, she thought as she dropped money on the table for Cory and grimaced at her watch.

  Hopefully, Grandma would be in bed so she wouldn’t have to make up any more evasive answers about her “date.”

  She stepped out of the inn, into the chill of the fall evening. Down the street, she heard a vehicle start, and then, it slowed as it drove by her.

  Clint was looking at her out the window of his SUV, and for a split second, she felt it again, the curious lift of her heart he could always give her.