For the rest of the day, it almost seemed as if Amyra was attempting to maintain her best behavior. Although that wouldn’t impress most people, Nicole was satisfied that at least she was trying.
However, by quitting time, Nicole knew she needed to push Amyra a little further. After Bernie went out to the car, Nicole brought up what she knew would be a touchy subject. “I’ve decided that it doesn’t make sense for you to be alone in the gallery on Saturdays,” she said as she got her purse from the cabinet. “So I’ll be coming in to work tomorrow.”
“Why?” Amyra demanded. “I can handle it by myself.”
Nicole was well aware that Amyra wanted Saturdays to herself because the gallery always had more traffic, which meant more sales and more commissions. “It’s not the best way to serve our customers,” she calmly declared. “Besides that, it’s not fair to you. It makes for a very long day. And how do you take your lunch break?”
“If it’s slow, I sometimes just lock up and run out and grab a bite.”
“That’s not good.” Nicole frowned. “The doors should be open all day on Saturdays.”
“Fine. I’ll just bring a lunch and eat it in back. If anyone comes in, I’ll go out to help them. No big deal.”
“Except that I don’t think Vivian would approve.” Nicole pulled her car keys from her purse. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“It’s really not necessary.” Amyra’s voice sounded tight.
“I’ll be in at noon and work until closing.” Nicole smiled stiffly.
Amyra scowled. “I suppose you’re bringing in Bernie too.”
“As a matter of fact, Bernie gets tomorrow off. Her friend Gina is back in town, and they’re spending the day together. Good night.”
Nicole went outside, relieved that Bernie would be doing something besides work at the gallery every day. Having Gina around would take some pressure off Nicole playing the part of Bernie’s best friend. Lately she’d been worried that Bernie was treating their relationship a bit too casually. She could see how this could undermine her parental influence.
Not that she wanted to parent Bernie exactly, but she did want Bernie to respect that when Alex was gone, Nicole was in charge. For the most part, they got along surprisingly well. But occasionally, like late last night when Nicole had asked Bernie to turn her music down, there’d been a little power struggle. No big deal, but not something Nicole particularly enjoyed. Fortunately, Alex would get home tomorrow morning. Then he could parent his daughter.
“I’m starving,” Bernie announced when Nicole got into the car.
“Me too.”
After a short dispute over fast food versus Chinese takeout, Nicole won. “Trust me,” she assured Bernie. “You’ll feel better afterward.” She handed Bernie her phone, telling her what to order, and it wasn’t long before they were sitting out by the pool with a bunch of white cartons piled around them.
“You were right,” Bernie said as she used her chopsticks to get a prawn. “This is way better than fast food.”
Nicole nodded. “And better for us too.”
After they cleaned up the remains of their dinner, Bernie announced she wanted to take a swim, inviting Nicole to join her. Since it was still pretty warm and sultry out, Nicole obliged.
“You’d be a really fun mom,” Bernie told Nicole as they were playing around in the pool.
Nicole thanked her, although she wasn’t positive that was really a compliment. Sometimes she felt that Bernie’s image of an ideal parent was someone who was a pushover. Nicole did not plan to accommodate her like that. “So are you excited about seeing Gina tomorrow?” Of course, this was a given.
“Yeah. We’re going to spend the whole weekend together.”
Nicole thought about that. Would she honestly want to have a couple of giggly girls for an entire weekend? At least she would be at the gallery tomorrow. “You mean here? Or at Gina’s house?”
“We haven’t decided yet.”
“Well, if you guys are here, I’m sure you’ll take responsibility for things. If there’s a mess, you’ll make sure it gets cleaned up, right?” Nicole tried not to imagine what this beautiful house might look like with two teen girls running amok for two days. Of course, that should be Alex’s problem.
“Miss Doreen will be here on Monday,” Bernie reminded her as they got out of the pool.
“I know, but you still need to pick up after yourselves.”
“We will.” Bernie grabbed a towel.
Nicole wasn’t so sure. Hopefully Alex would be on top of it.
“Want to watch a movie?” Bernie asked. “And make popcorn?”
“Sure,” Nicole agreed. “That sounds good.”
For the rest of the evening, they hung out like a couple of friends, and Nicole decided not to worry about how it would go with Bernie and Gina this weekend. Let Alex sort it out.
When the movie was done, Nicole encouraged Bernie to help her clean up their mess, hoping she was setting a good example. “Have fun with Gina tomorrow,” she said.
“Have fun with Amyra tomorrow,” Bernie teased.
“Thanks a lot.” Nicole patted her cheek. “I’ll miss your smiling face.”
To her surprise, Bernie hugged her. “You’re the best, Nicole.”
Touched, Nicole told her good night—and didn’t even remind her to keep her music down low.
Although it was obvious that Amyra was not pleased to see Nicole at the gallery the next day, Nicole knew she’d made the right choice to come in. The gallery was the busiest she’d ever seen it, and there was no way Amyra could give adequate customer care to everyone. By the end of the day, they had both made several decent sales. And unless Nicole was imagining it, Amyra seemed almost appreciative.
“What are you going to do tomorrow?” Amyra asked as they were locking up.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not scheduled to work, and you said Bernie isn’t coming. What if it’s this busy again? How will you manage on your own?”
Nicole frowned. “Well, that’s why I want to hire someone else. I really shouldn’t be here on my own either, but it’s your day off—”
“I can come in,” Amyra offered.
“But don’t you want your day off? What about going to see your mom?”
“I have Monday and Tuesday off.”
“That’s true.” Nicole nodded. “Sure, why don’t you come in tomorrow? If you don’t mind.”
Amyra agreed to come in at noon and work until closing. As Nicole got into her car, she heard her phone buzz with a text message. It was from Bernie, telling Nicole not to get food or eat on her way home. Even though she was hungry, Nicole texted back “Okay” and drove straight home.
After she parked the SUV by the garage, noticing with relief that Alex’s car was there, she went through the backyard toward the house. She was only halfway there when she noticed about a dozen floating candles flickering in the pool. Very pretty. As she came around the corner to the patio, she saw that a table was nicely set with more candles and a bouquet of flowers that had probably been picked from Vivian’s cutting garden.
“You’re here!” Bernie said. “Go and change into comfortable clothes if you want. Dinner’s almost ready.”
“Did you do this?” Nicole waved toward the candles.
“Yeah. Gina and me.” She grabbed Nicole by the hand, pulling her toward the house.
“It looks really pretty.”
“I know.” Bernie tugged her inside, quickly introducing her to a tall, lanky girl with curly brown hair. “This is Gina.”
“Nice to meet—”
“Come on,” Bernie urged, pushing her toward the stairs. “Everything’s ready. You need to go change.”
Nicole laughed. “Okay, okay. I just want to get out of these shoes.”
“Hurry,” Bernie called out as Nicole went up the stairs.
Nicole wasn’t sure what the hurry was, although it probably was a little late for dinner. It was nice they had wai
ted for her, and it was sweet the way the girls had decorated everything. She wondered why she’d even been worried about them making messes.
In her room, she saw that someone had laid out clothes on her bed. Her coral sundress had been pulled out along with some sandals, and next to them a sign said, “Wear this.”
Feeling like she was playing some funny game, she changed into the dress, ran her fingers through her hair, and put on fresh lip gloss. As she went downstairs, she wondered why Bernie and Gina had still been wearing shorts. Weren’t they going to get dressed up too?
“Hello,” Alex said as she came down the stairs.
“Hi.” She glanced around the room, which was dimmed with a few more candles lit. “Who turned out the lights?”
“The girls.” He gave a sheepish smile. “This is all their doing.”
“I kind of figured that out.”
He reached for her hand in an overly familiar way. “You look very pretty.”
Nicole was speechless as she allowed him to lead her to the patio, where even more candles were flickering. “Where are the girls?”
“They went to Gina’s to spend the night.”
“But what about dinner? I thought they were joining us.”
“They already ate.” He pulled out a chair for her, waiting as she sat down.
“But what is—”
“They did this for you.” He rolled a small cart with some serving dishes on it closer to the table, then sat across from her. “Well, for us.” He handed her a salad plate and set a basket of rolls on the table.
“Why?” Nicole glanced around, feeling uncomfortable as she realized that the girls had gone out of their way to create a romantic atmosphere.
Alex chuckled as he unfolded his napkin. “I think Bernie was hopeful that you and I would have a . . . well, an enjoyable dinner together.”
She watched as Alex removed a steaming platter from the cart.
“Did the girls cook this?” She stared at what appeared to be some kind of seafood pasta.
“No, they ordered out and I was sent to pick it up.” He held the platter, waiting for her to serve herself. “But they set it all up like this.”
“Clever girls.”
“Oh, you have no idea.” He laughed.
“What do you mean?” She felt her cheeks warming, knowing exactly what he meant.
“Bernie is playing matchmaker with us,” he said.
Nicole nodded. “Yes, I sort of suspected that.”
“Let’s just relax and play along.” He dished out his own pasta. “No pressure.”
She let out a relieved sigh. “Okay. No pressure.”
“At least the food looks good.”
She nodded. “It really does.”
Soon they were both eating and relaxing, and despite her misgivings about the motives for this unexpected dinner, Nicole was enjoying herself.
“Hello?”
Nicole looked over her shoulder to see Ryan coming through the backyard. As he got closer, she could see the puzzled expression in his eyes.
“Sorry, guys.” He stopped abruptly. “Looks like I’m interrupting.”
“No, it’s okay,” Nicole said quickly. “We’re just having—”
“My apologies.” Ryan held up his hands, backing up as if he’d just walked in on something very awkward. And maybe he had. “I was just, uh, going to check on—well, never mind. I’ll do it in the morning. My apologies, guys.” He turned and practically ran in the other direction.
Alex laughed as if this was a great joke.
“What’s so funny?” Nicole asked, irritated.
“My little brother,” he said. “Don’t you think he was amusing?”
Nicole had no response to that. She knew Ryan had gotten the wrong idea about them but didn’t know how to fix that. Did it even matter?
“You don’t feel bad about that, do you?” Alex asked with arched brows.
“I, uh, I don’t know,” she confessed. “I mean, we could’ve invited Ryan to join us or something.”
He frowned as if this was a silly idea. “I don’t see why. Besides, I noticed Ry’s pickup at the Shermans’ place when I went to get our dinner. I think he and Cassidy were doing something over there. He probably just popped in here to . . .” His mouth twisted to one side. “Well, I don’t really know why. He might’ve just come over here to make us feel uncomfortable.” He looked dismayed. “Seems like that worked too. Now you’re not even enjoying your dinner.”
“Sorry.” Feeling as if she was to blame for spoiling the evening, she picked up her fork. “It’s really delicious too.” She forked a shrimp. “It’s just that Ryan sort of caught me off guard.”
“Yeah, he’s kind of good at that.” Alex started talking about Ryan and Cassidy and how long they’d been together and how it had probably been hard on Ryan.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s probably Cassidy’s fault. She keeps putting him off.”
“Putting him off?”
“Yeah. Think about it. First she needed to finish med school. Then she had to get her residency. Poor Ryan just gets strung along year after year. He doesn’t know if he’s coming or going.”
“Oh.” She wanted to say that Ryan had never seemed particularly confused to her. In fact, she felt he was fairly confident in what he was doing and where he was headed. Perhaps even more so than his older brother. After all, who was getting divorced, who didn’t have a place to live, and who needed to work on his parenting skills? Of course, she didn’t want to say those things, so to change the subject, she told him how Amyra had shown some improvements and why she was giving her a second chance.
Naturally, this seemed to aggravate him. “Don’t fall for it, Nicole. Seriously, you need to cut Vampira loose. Trust me, she’s nothing but trouble. You’ll see that if you let her stay.”
“Well, until I hire someone else, which I plan to do next week, I need her.” She explained her concern about Bernie working too much. “She should just be a kid and enjoy her vacation. Especially now that Gina’s back.” She waved her hand over the festive table. “I still can’t believe the girls went to so much trouble to do this. So sweet.”
Alex’s expression grew serious as he gazed into her eyes. “Bernie had her reasons, Nicole.”
“Oh?”
“It’s because she really loves you.”
Nicole wondered where this was headed. “Well, I love her too. She’s a sweetheart.”
He nodded, still looking into her eyes with an intensity that made her uneasy. “But you probably don’t realize that Bernie is wishing for something. She wishes you could become her mother.”
Nicole’s throat tightened. “She has a mother.”
He scowled. “Not much of one.”
“Even so.” She set down her fork, her appetite gone.
“Can you blame her?”
“Blame who?”
“Bernie. Can you blame her for wishing for something better? Something normal?”
Nicole took a deep breath. “No, I can’t blame her. And I’m happy to be her friend and to help keep tabs on her while you’re working out of town. But you’re her dad, Alex. And Lori is her mom. It’s up to you guys to give Bernie something better. Something normal, whatever that is.” She laid her napkin beside her plate, slowly standing. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m really, really tired. It’s been a long day, and I have to work tomorrow.”
“But Nicole, you didn’t even finish your—”
“I’m sorry. I’m not hungry anymore.” She backed away from him, feeling like it was hard to breathe . . . like she was in over her head . . . like she needed to get away. “Good night.”
Nicole hurried into the house and ran up the stairs. She wasn’t even sure why she felt so upset. It seemed unfair for Alex to put so much on her. As if she was supposed to be personally responsible for Bernie’s future happiness. It had been sweet of Bernie and Gina to plan such a lovely dinner, but the motives were wrong. All w
rong.
As Nicole tugged off her festive sundress, she felt a little guilty for not appreciating their efforts more—and for having ruined what might’ve been a pleasant evening. But mostly she felt guilty about her possessive feelings toward Ryan. She didn’t like hearing Alex talk about Ryan and Cassidy. She didn’t want the two of them to be involved. She wanted Ryan to be involved with her!
23
For the next couple of days, Nicole’s plan was to lay low on the home front. She would use her downtime to paint. She’d already started working on a couple of pieces that were inspired by some of the photos she’d taken in Savannah, but so far she hadn’t had time to really press in like she wanted to. Plus painting would provide a good excuse to remain in her room. Or, if the house wasn’t too noisy and busy with Bernie and Gina, who seemed to be taking up residency, Nicole might try using the sunroom.
Because Alex had no business trips scheduled in the upcoming week, Nicole felt she would be released from her role of keeping tabs on Bernie. When she came home from work on Monday, noticing that the house looked much more lived-in than usual, she decided to turn a blind eye to it. Wasn’t it Alex’s problem?
But when she went to the kitchen to fix herself some dinner, it was impossible to ignore the empty soda cans and dirty dishes all over the countertops. Despite an obsessive compulsion to clean the place up, she knew that would simply be a form of enabling. Not wanting to contribute to the mess, she decided to take a stroll. Perhaps she could walk off her frustrations, and if she went far enough, she could just grab a bite to eat in town.
The historical neighborhood was always beautiful, but at this time of the day, when the sky grew dusky with shades of purple and orange and rose, it seemed that the colors of the lush Southern landscape grew richer and more vivid. This light and color phenomenon, combined with the glowing golden light coming from the windows of the Victorian homes, felt truly magical. Wishing there was a way to capture this on a canvas, Nicole regretted not bringing her phone to take some photos. She reminded herself of something she liked to tell her students. Sometimes it was better to take photos with one’s mind . . . to let the image soak in and simply savor the moment.
Under a Summer Sky--A Savannah Romance Page 19
