Dear Diary

by Nancy Bush

  “Total recall,” he argued. She muttered under her breath, and he asked, “What was that?”

  “I was expressing my reaction to your comment in four letter words.”

  “Thought that’s what I heard.” A smile lingered in his voice.

  Hard fingers rested lightly against the small of her back. Rory could feel every single one. She had to escape. “What about you? No repeat trip down the aisle in your future?”

  “Not so far, but there’s always hope.”

  “You would consider marriage again?” She pressed her hand determinedly against his chest, vainly trying to put some space between them.

  To thwart her, Nick grabbed her fingers and wound them around his neck, gazing down sardonically into her flushed face. “Relax. I don’t bite. Well, not usually anyway,” he amended. “There was that time with…”

  “I don’t want to hear about it,” she said.

  “Kidding. You know what that is, right? Kidding?”

  “If memory serves.”

  “You seem to have a rather low opinion of my morals. Why is that?”

  She thought of Jenny’s comment to her that day at the restaurant when Nick was out of earshot. “I don’t know. Maybe because you cheated during your marriage?”

  Nick stopped moving, his hands at her waist suddenly hard and unfriendly. “Where’d you get that idea?”

  “Your wife,” she said.

  “Jenny? Jenny told you that?” He was stunned.

  “Unless you have another one.”

  “My marriage broke up because Jenny wasn’t the woman for me, and I wasn’t the man for her,” he growled. “I don’t know why she’d say that, because I didn’t cheat during our marriage.”

  “I didn’t make it up,” she said. “She told me that at the restaurant that day.”

  “Doesn’t make it true.”

  She sensed how angry he was, but wasn’t sure what to say next.

  Silence followed. They swayed back and forth. She felt his jaw brush her forehead as he glanced down and tried to read her expression. Rory purposely focused her gaze on his broad chest.

  “Maybe she wanted me to think the worst of you,” Rory said into the silence.

  “And you did,” he said, effectively ending that discussion.

  Neither of them spoke a word for the next couple of songs. Rory wished she’d kept her thoughts to herself. Whatever the truth was, Nick’s life was his own. She had no right to criticize him.

  She wished they could just leave. Dancing with Nick‌—‌just being with Nick‌—‌made her uncomfortable. She was overly conscious of his scent and his strength and his disturbing touch, and she couldn’t seem to have an easy conversation with him, either. Every breath she took brought her breasts in hard contact with his chest, and the brush of his thighs against hers caused an awareness in her that she refused to acknowledge.

  She had to get out of there.

  “Ready to go?” he asked.

  She almost sighed in relief. “It’s kind of late,” she agreed.

  “We didn’t talk about Marsden.”

  Rory hadn’t once thought about the Marsden account. I must be losing my mind, she thought. “Maybe we can talk about it on the way home.”

  “God forbid we might actually stay out past eleven,” he muttered, but he led her to the door all the same.

  It turned out Nick had very few rules when it came to John Marsden. “Just keep up with what he’s got for now. His accounts are already being transferred. If John calls you while I’m in San Francisco, do your best. But remember, he likes to play it safe.”

  “So do I,” Rory said as he pulled up to her apartment complex.

  “Oh, yeah,” he answered, and she wondered just what that meant as she let herself inside and was greeted with a meow and a leg rub by Problem.

  DEAR DIARY — NANCY BUSH

  Chapter Six

  Make sure you’ve got something ready for Puget Sound Children’s Hospital. All of Jacobson & Kern’s management team is donating. Don’s putting up his beach house for a weekend, and Sharon’s husband is offering a guided fishing tour up the Cowlitz River. Mr. Shard has pledged $5,000 and John Marsden is matching his pledge. Think about what you want to give. This is a great opportunity for all of us to show Mr. Shard our commitment to Jacobson & Kern.

  Sam

  Rory dropped her forehead into her palm at the message Sam Wright had emailed. What did she have to donate for the auction? Nothing.

  “‘Great opportunity for us to show Mr. Shard our commitment to Jacobson & Kern,’” she muttered aloud. Nick had been gone nearly two weeks. She hadn’t expected to miss him as much as she did, and it irked her.

  Her intercom beeped and Rory hit the button to answer, “Sam wants everyone to meet in his office in fifteen minutes to discuss the fundraiser,” Pamela’s voice announced.

  “What if I have other things to take care of first?” Rory asked rhetorically.

  “You could always take it up with our new boss,” she said suggestively.

  “He’s not here, and we’re not that close of friends.”

  “Oh, I forgot to tell you. Your sister called while you were out. She said she was going to be in Seattle tomorrow and wants to take you to lunch.”

  “Good.” Rory’s mood improved.

  “She said be ready at noon.”

  “Okay, thanks, Pamela.”

  “Anytime.”

  Rory plucked her cell phone from her purse and realized Michelle had left her a couple of texts that she hadn’t picked up with the same information; she knew Rory, unlike most everyone else, wasn’t the swiftest at checking with her phone.

  She hadn’t seen her sister for several weeks. Every time she called Michelle these days, her sister was involved in one family crisis or another. Last week alone Lisa had fallen out of the top bunk and had been rushed to the hospital‌—‌it was later learned that her twin, Max, had pushed her‌—‌and the day after that, the car had broken down and stranded Michelle and the kids on the freeway for three hours. A week later Rory had called and gotten James, Michelle’s husband, and learned Michelle was in the tub and it was her first free moment of the day. Rory could tell James wasn’t about to disturb her with Rory’s phone call.

  So it was great that now she and Michelle could actually finally get together.

  Grabbing a pad and pencil, Rory headed toward Sam’s office. She intended to jot down everything the other employees were donating to give herself ideas. She was going to have to think of something for this fundraiser and fast.

  Sam was seated behind his desk, looking exceptionally proud to have been put in this position. Nick, you’d better get here fast, Rory thought wryly. Or else Sam’s head won’t be able to fit inside this room.

  “Is everyone here?” Sam asked, looking around. They all nodded. “Then let’s get right down to business. I hope everyone plans to donate something for the auction. It doesn’t have to be much. It’s more a gesture of teamwork and good faith.”

  “I don’t have a beach house or a husband who fishes. If anybody has any bright ideas for me, I’m willing to listen,” Rory spoke up.

  “I can think of a thing or two,” Don said smoothly.

  Rory glared at him. “Could you be more specific?” she challenged.

  “Now, now,” Sam inserted benevolently. “I’m sure there must be something you can give, Rory.” He nodded toward the newest member of the staff. “Tim, there, has got season tickets to the Mariners. Four seats. He’s putting two different nights on the block.”

  “I’m sorry, Sam. I let my season tickets go this year,” Rory said. “And they were right behind the dugout, too.”

  Sam narrowed his eyes at her, uncertain whether she was putting him on or not.

  Sharon was pouring herself a cup of coffee from the silver thermos on Sam’s credenza. “Why don’t you offer to cook a gourmet meal for two? Say, in the bidder’s own home? That’s what I was going to do before Eric bailed me out
with his fishing trip.”

  Rory made a strangled sound. “Me? Cook? I am the bane of the discriminating palate. Lean Cuisine is about as culinary as I get.”

  “So? It can be funny. No one cares.”

  “I would,” Sam said with a snort of disapproval. “This is a serious fundraiser. It’s not a joke.”

  Don smoothed the crease in his slacks. “You’d better believe I wouldn’t bid on Rory’s cooking.” He gave a mock shudder. “I want to live to see thirty-five.”

  “If this is reverse psychology, Don, it’s working,” Rory said. “I might just do it.”

  His eyes widened in horror and he clutched his throat. The room broke into laughter and Rory smiled and managed to keep from kicking Don in his shins. She wasn’t exactly a horrible cook, but her menus were far from gourmet. Pastas and salads were the mainstay of her single life dinner menu.

  “Okay, put me down for dinner for two, cooked to perfection, in the bidder’s own home,” she said with a sudden decision.

  Sam uncapped his black pen. “With a starting price of… ?”

  “How about fifty dollars?”

  Don choked on a laugh. “Nobody’ll pay that!”

  Rory narrowed her eyes at him and said, “Make it a hundred, because I’m worth it.”

  “A hundred it is,” Sam agreed. “I’m sure Mr. Shard will be pleased by our team spirit. Now, is there anyone else who needs help coming up with a donation?”

  Rory squeezed her way past the throng by the door of Harvest Café, a new lunch counter not far from Jacobson & Kern, er, Shard Ltd., and glanced around the room. Michelle was seated at a table in the far corner. Spotting Rory, she waved eagerly.

  “I can’t tell you how glad I am to be here!” Michelle declared as Rory scooted her seat into the table. “I got a sitter for the twins and just left. Thank God! I don’t even feel guilty.”

  The waiter refilled Michelle’s empty wine glass. To his look of inquiry, Rory shook her head. “I’ve got to be sharp this afternoon.”

  “It’s Friday,” Michelle said breezily. “You’ve only got a few hours left.”

  “I know, but nevertheless…” She smiled. “Besides, my day has just begun. As soon as I get home I’ve got to try out a new recipe.”

  “Try out a new recipe?” Michelle repeated. “You?”

  “It’s a long story,” said Rory dryly, then filled Michelle in on her donation for the auction.

  Michelle’s blue eyes sparkled with amusement. Shorter than Rory by two inches, Michelle still possessed the soft, unblemished skin and thick auburn hair she’d had as a teenager. There was something feminine and pretty about Michelle that hadn’t hardened with age. Yet her sister had aged in some ways, Rory realized with faint uneasiness. The skin across Michellle’s cheekbones was drawn and there was a telltale redness around her eyes.

  “Is something wrong?” Rory asked.

  “You mean with me? No. Why?”

  “You look kind of tired.”

  “Well, yeah,” she said, as if Rory were totally dense. “You don’t know what it’s like chasing after a couple of three-year-olds. Max is an absolute monster. He tortures his sister endlessly. Lisa’s crying all the time.”

  “You make motherhood sound so attractive,” remarked Rory dryly. Michelle was fussing with her napkin, and she wondered if her sister were covering up.

  “I love them. I wouldn’t have it any other way, it’s just…” Her voice trailed off and her lips tightened. “Sometimes I just feel like a single mom. James isn’t a lot of help with the kids.”

  Bingo. James was the problem.

  “My psychologist tells me I’m trying to live the ideal life, and it’s killing me. I need to back off a little.”

  “Your psychologist?” Rory repeated.

  Michelle shrugged, almost sheepishly. “I thought I was falling apart a while back. A friend recommended a psychologist. So I went to her, and things have been better.”

  Rory was instantly concerned. “Why didn’t you tell me you were falling apart?”

  “Oh, you know,” Michelle laughed, embarrassed. “You’re always so together. You’d never let a man get to you like James was getting to me. I was almost afraid you’d talk me into divorcing him or something.”

  “Michelle! I would never do that! For God’s sake, I didn’t want mom and dad to split up even after—” She cut herself off. She’d never discussed with Michelle the day she surprised her father and Eileen and she didn’t feel like bringing it up now. “Have things really gotten that bad between you and James?” she asked instead.

  Michelle shook her head and swallowed from her wine glass. “No, no. I’m just feeling low. The last thing I want is a divorce,” she said forcefully. “Let’s talk about something else. How are things going now that Nick is your boss? Is it good, bad, what?”

  Rory reluctantly allowed the subject to be changed. “Too early to tell. Nick is moving to Seattle sometime this weekend. He’ll be in the office starting Monday. Then we’ll see.”

  “But how do you feel about it?” Michelle pressed. “I mean, Nick! Your best friend. It must be weird to have him as a boss.”

  “I haven’t really gotten used to the idea yet,” Rory admitted.

  Michelle eyed her sister speculatively. “What’s he like these days?”

  “Pretty much the same, I guess.” Rory shrugged. She was glad when the waiter came to take their order.

  But Michelle was persistent. “I always thought he was so good looking.”

  “He is,” Rory granted unwillingly.

  “Still the same sexy eyes and smile?”

  “Yes.”

  Michelle grinned. “I always wondered why the two of you didn’t get together. I mean, Nick was always crazy about you.”

  “You are wrong, dear sister.”

  “Uh-uh. You were his friend, and he was always hanging around with you when all the rest of his buddies were stupidly panting over the cheerleaders and homecoming princesses.”

  “You were a cheerleader and homecoming princess,” Rory pointed out. “And Nick married one of those cheerleaders.”

  “Past tense.”

  “Yes, but that blows your theory about—”

  “Would you stop?” Michelle snapped her cloth napkin at Rory. “He bought that company knowing you were one of the employees. I’m sure he did it on purpose, just so he could be with you again.”

  “And next he’s going to buy my apartment complex so that he can move in next door.” Michelle was, and always had been, an incurable romantic.

  “Why can’t you see it, Rory?” she demanded. “Why are you the only one who can’t see how he feels about you?”

  Rory leaned across the table and said in a firm voice, “You haven’t seen Nick in years. You don’t even know what you’re talking about. Why do you always have to play matchmaker for me? Do I ask for it? Is there something about me that makes you think, ‘Oh, poor Rory. She needs so much help, and I’m just the woman to do it’.”

  “Yeah. Maybe,” Michelle challenged. “Face it. You’re not doing such a hot job of finding available men on your own.”

  “If I wanted an available man, I’d make more of an effort. Nick and I are friends. That’s all. And that’s all we’ll ever be.”

  Michelle took another sip of wine. Rory didn’t trust the sparkle that suddenly entered her eyes.

  “Don’t,” Rory groaned. “Seriously, Michelle, if you do or say anything to Nick, I swear I’ll renounce you as my sister.”

  “You worry too much,” she said, and turned all her attention on her meal.

  Rory sighed. There was no hope for her. Michelle was bound to do something totally awful and embarrassing in the name of keeping her sister from becoming an old maid.

  Rory frantically stir-fried the Chinese vegetables in her new wok. Gray smoke swirled upward, stinging her nose. The grease was burning. The temperature was too high.

  “I am never going to get this right!” she shouted in frustra
tion, yanking the wok from the burner. Grease popped and splattered, burning Rory’s arm in half a dozen small spots. Furious, she ran to the sink, pouring cold water over her forearm. So much for learning the art of Chinese cooking in seven days or less. She was going to have to settle for an old standby.

  Problem yowled to be let out, and paced anxiously on his delicate brown toes like a drunken tightrope walker, hoping Rory would come to his rescue.

  “In a minute,” Rory muttered through her teeth.

  The doorbell rang at the same moment she turned off the tap. Examining the bright red spots on her arm, she walked to the front door, throwing it wide open. Trying to streak between her ankles, Problem pulled up short at the sight of a pair of khaki-clad masculine legs blocking his way. Almost in midstride, the cat wheeled around and shot for the outside stairs.

  “Nick,” Rory cried, half exasperated.

  “Busy?” he asked, his nose wrinkling at the scent of burned oil and vegetables.

  “I’m cooking.”

  “Cooking what? Barbecue?”

  “Chinese food,” she said evenly. “What are you doing here?” She stepped back, allowing him inside. “I thought you’d be at your new condo, waiting for the moving van.”

  “I’m already finished. Got everything settled last night by ten o’clock.”

  “Wow. So, you’re here in Seattle for good?”

  “Didn’t we already have this conversation?”

  “It just seems kind of strange,” she said, feeling slightly dazed.

  “If you don’t stop looking so shell-shocked you’re going to give me a complex. You’re supposed to be thrilled that your old buddy’s come home.”

  “I am. Thrilled,” Rory said, her voice not quite measuring up to her words. She was happy that Nick was back, but at the same time it made things more complicated. In some ways it was too bad Nick was her boss. She would have loved to just gripe to him about things, one good friend to another. “Maybe having you around will make Don behave. Since the change of ownerships, working with him hasn’t exactly been my idea of a fun time.”

  “What is your idea of a fun time?” Nick asked, moving into the kitchen. He surveyed the burned mass of vegetables.