“You didn’t write the message down.”
“Of course not. Why on earth would I? It was St. John.”
Nyssa tuned out everything when she heard the word Solo. Solo St. John. No. Not now, after she’d gotten on with her life, after she’d cataloged and filed him far enough away from her heart never to hurt her again. She felt a strange quiver in the pit of her stomach. Only one person ever made her feel this way.
Solo--the man who had been her best friend for the past ten years.
“Please, Lord, don’t let him call back and don’t let me return his message.”
The strange quiver turned into a long drawn out shudder.
She placed her hand over her stomach as if the solid presence of her fingers would stop the upheaval. Breathe deep and slow, relax. She would marry Robert and they would live in his condo in the hills. She would do her thing and Robert could do his. The game was set up, the rules decided, and at this stage she didn’t want to throw in a wild card.
Solo St. John was a wild card. He was larger than life, a rugged outdoorsman. He was always ready to go off on an adventure at the flip of a coin. That’s what he called his life--an adventure. And oh, how she’d liked the adventures he’d taken her on. Solo, the center of her life and subject of all her romantic fantasies since the first day she saw him, attracted her like no other man could. Except as a study partner and confidant, Solo didn't know she existed.
A small tremor of panic tinged her voice. “Tell me you’re joking. It wasn’t really Solo.”
“I’m joking,” Robert looked at her strangely. “I didn’t say the name Solo,” he told her straight faced. “Solo doesn’t strike me as a name for a mature adult.”
“It’s a nickname,” Nyssa said stiffly. “Steven Oliver Lawrence O’Neil St. John. And some number after that.”
“I’m not impressed. Am I to believe Solo is the grandson of Colonel St. John?” The way Robert said the name made Solo sound like a mass murderer, “And a friend of yours? An old flame?”
She shook her head wildly. “A friend,” she tried not to sound breathless. For understandable, personal reasons she had to get Solo and old flame out of the same sentence before Robert had time to contemplate the implications. “I told you about him. Remember? Once in a great while he calls. And he, umm goes off on another adventure.” He pops up when I’m the most vulnerable and creates chaos in my life.
The last time he caught her on the rebound from a job, he plopped her on a Lear jet and flew her to the Galapagos Islands to take pictures of turtles. He didn’t give her a chance to buy sunscreen before they were baking in the tropical heat of a tiny island, counting baby turtles as they wandered onto the beach. Afterwards, the minute he deposited her in her flat in the city, she made a vow--she would no longer let him sweet-talk her into an adventure of any sort. She promised herself, too, she would never succumb to this preposterous infatuation to Solo St. John, who was too cavalier and too handsome and too...Lord but the list just kept going on. He was just…too...
Nyssa wheeled the bike to the front display window no longer eager to cruise around the block. Her thoughts were absorbed in her past, memories she hoped to long ago vanquish because they hurt too much to remember. More often than not when she slipped over the edge into melancholia the tears would start to fall. Solo St. John did not deserve any more tears and she decided she wouldn’t cry again.
The first time she’d met him, she was sitting in a carousel with her study group when he ran in, late, breathless, and rakishly disheveled. For one fleeting moment her heart stopped. After that she’d done her best to ignore him, but he’d have none of it. He would coax her from the library and have her eating ice cream cones in the student union before she ever had a chance to say no. He knew what pushed her buttons, and he’d have the argument over with before it ever began.
She was afraid of the effect he had on her.
She had goals, ambitions, and the desperate need to prove herself to the world. And so did he. But the differences in how they went about it put them at distinct and separate ends of the spectrum.
He was debonair and suave.
She was cautious and shy.
Life to him was a game to be played at the fullest, nothing left out. He wanted to see and experience the entire world before he was forty and he was half-way there.
She wanted to travel too. But it wasn’t the same.
As the years passed she learned that beneath the first glimpse Solo gave the ordinary person, there was an intense passion for life and a gentleness few people possessed.
The longer she knew Solo, the more she came to respect him and his attitude toward life; the more of an enigma he became. And the deeper she fell.
She was young and innocent. Without realizing the direction her romantic fantasy went, he became the center of her world. Even more confusing, she found herself fascinated by the air of mystery that surrounded him. To an impressionable country girl, Solo St. John seemed like a potent combination of Carey Grant, Spencer Tracy, and James Dean.
One day she’d put the puzzle together.
He played at college yet he had a remarkably easy time with his classes, never once earning lower than a perfect four point. Where she spent hours at study, he simply read the books and listened to the lectures. Although he could afford the finest clothes, he seldom wore anything but blue jeans, a T-shirt, and of course his well-worn sneakers. He hated being singled out, yet by his very nature when he entered a room heads turned.
Solo was always starting out on some new adventure that inevitably would lead him into some harrowing situation. How he escaped them with the seat of his pants still intact was a puzzle. Often times though, he didn’t, and at those times he would call from some exotic local--begging--coaxing her to bail him out.
Well, not this time. That was all in the past; she had her future to look forward to now. As of yesterday she had a fiancé to think about. The very definition of fiancé forbade her any contact with Solo St. John.
She bypassed the front display and wheeled the bicycle onto the street, ready to ignore the phone call and the request that she call back.
But the cell phone hooked to her belt began ringing.
As she stopped mid-stride in the middle of the sidewalk, her breath caught in her throat. “I will not answer that.”
People began to stare and the phone inside the shop rang. She should have left when she had the chance.
Robert stood next to her. The phone from inside the shop clanged madly, her own cell still ringing. “Perhaps you should speak to the man.”
“No!” It sounded too frantic, a little too shrill, and neither of them knew if Solo was on the other end. Faced with two phones blaring obnoxiously at her, her knees went weak and she had to grip the handle bars of the bike to keep from keeling over.
This was precisely what she wanted to escape.
“Tell him I’m out for a ride, a long ride. Tell him I’ve gone to Timbuktu or somewhere. Tell him I won’t be back again all night. Tell him anything he’ll believe,” she said in a rush.
As she stepped into her toe-clips then pushed off, she heard Robert say, “Miss Harrington has gone on an extended ride, one she won’t be finished with until the late evening hours.”
Nyssa pedaled harder, scooting into the bike lane near the curb. She knew she’d never be able to explain her strange behavior to Robert, and for the moment she didn’t care. She’d do whatever was necessary to stay far away from Solo St. John.
***
“Damn.” Nyssa always returned his calls, and she knew he couldn’t survive without her. He had to know what she thought about the women and the ad.
She was the most dependable person he knew. At least she was until she quit her job in New York and gave up a way of life she’d wanted since the first day he met her. He’d never been able to figure out that move, although he agreed with it completely. Nyssa needed fun in her life. But now, today, when he couldn’t live without her, she turned
unreliable on him.
Meanwhile, Thelma had cleared the room of the willing, eager, able females. At last count there were only two left. He didn’t know how she got them out of his office, but nothing short of murder would have bothered him. As long as he didn’t have to encounter another crazy woman tonight he’d be satisfied.
All that was left now was a long drive home to top off a long day where he’d accomplished nothing. And Nyssa must not have received his messages because she hadn’t returned his calls and the man in the shop had told him she was on a long bike ride. If he didn’t know better, he’d start to think she didn’t want to talk to him.
Thelma buzzed with the thankful news that the last of the women had given up and left.
“You’re sure they’re not hiding somewhere ready to attack?”
“Positive. I spoke to the lady at the main office in the lobby and they’re all accounted for. The last one roared out of the parking lot five minutes ago. If you leave now, you’re safe. You don’t plan on coming in tomorrow do you? Perhaps you could do your business from your cabin--via telephone or the internet. They are modern wonders, you know.”
“You’ve made your point. I’ll stay out of the way tomorrow and as long I have to. If Nyssa calls, tell her I’ll be home in about an hour.”
He didn’t think he’d hear from her but he could hope. Relieved the women were gone, and without pondering his good fortune any further, he sprinted to his car, ready to make it home and up the trail to his cabin before dark. He patted his back pocket where the key to his house was and smiled, glad he’d remembered to lock up before he left for town.
His day must have improved because he’d no sooner turned onto the main street out of town when he caught sight of Nyssa. Stepping on the throttle and swerving to avoid the rush hour traffic, he had enough time to hit the next stop light and watch her neon pink and black jersey turn the corner toward the park.
Thoroughly caught up in the pursuit, he shouted, "What the hell!" when a chubby little index finger, connected, he knew, to one willing, eager, able woman. The woman began to trace his neckline around the collar of his T-shirt.
Hazarding a quick glance behind, he was greeted with pearly white teeth ready to attack his neck. A horn blared at him and he swerved barely missing an oncoming car. He’d run a red light.
When her finger moved to his earlobe, he gritted back the explicative that threatened to explode. All thoughts of finding Nyssa vanished with the urgent need to rid himself of the female in his car.
There was no place to park, no place to stop where he could insist she get out. He didn’t know this one either. At least he couldn’t remember ever meeting her before.
“If you want an interview,” he yanked her hands from around his neck. “This isn’t the way to get one.”
By now she’d managed to flop over the seat, and she purred suggestively, her hands resting on an embarrassing spot on his upper thighs.
“What a shy devil. I don’t need an interview. Your grandfather said if I showed up, you’d welcome me with open arms. And here I am.”
He remembered that a few hours ago he’d intended to call his grandfather and find out what nonsense had inspired this. But when he saw the want ad the Colonel placed in the Observer, he turned livid. He knew he couldn’t talk to the Colonel in that frame of mind.
A parking spot turned up. He pulled to a screeching halt as Nyssa flew past the car, a whir of pink and black. How did she get behind him? It wasn’t enough she wouldn’t call him, but now she tormented him by being so close and yet so far away. Meanwhile, his passenger tried to get very close and personal.
“Get your hands off me!” he demanded thoroughly exasperated and at the end of his usually inexhaustible patience. "Get out!"
But she responded by sidling closer, her tongue now stabbing inside his ear. Trying to avoid a nasty scene, Solo was prepared to leave the car if he couldn’t get her out in the next few seconds. The thought struck him that she’d probably follow him and the scene wouldn’t be confined to his car. No, they’d be out in the open with all of Bend watching. While politeness was inbred, he was tempted to throw in the teachings of a lifetime and tell this lady what he thought of her.
He turned to her. “Look, I’m not on the market for a wife or a photographer either.” She started to speak but he cast a sharp glare her way. “I won’t take anyone like you into the Alaskan wilderness. You’d be swallowed whole by the first grizzly bear that ventured close, and I’d have a guilty conscience to tend with.”
“Swallowed?”
He felt a quick tremor of guilt but then convinced himself the small fib was necessary. “Either that or you’d fall through a frozen-over lake and drown.”
Her eyes widened and the bloodless face that stared back at him convinced him he’d said enough. After a few seconds to allow his words to sink in, he reached over her and opened the car door.
She looked numb but the color was coming back to her cheeks so he reassured himself she’d be fine. Another needy fool would come along in a few days and she could sink her fangs into him.
After a lengthy silence, she looked at him before climbing from his car. “I hope you find someone.”
His heart lurched. Kindness was something he always fell for, and he almost--almost called her back to apologize and tell her he lied through his teeth. But he didn’t.
Solo St. John leaned back and closed his eyes. The sound of the door shutting calmed him. He stayed that way, eyes closed, hands on the steering wheel for a few minutes. He tried to breathe deeply but for a while all that came out were raspy thready sounds. Finally, he began to feel normal.
What now? Deciding Nyssa was long gone, he turned his car into the traffic, going over every word he wanted to say to his grandfather. But that was futile. His grandfather was out of town, would be out of town for the next week. “The cagey old coot.” The Colonel knew what would happen so he vacated the town. Two nights ago, over dinner, Solo remembered telling Colonel St. John about his plans.
There’d be no confrontation, at least not for awhile. Solo eased out into the traffic, his mind working on overload. On a conscious level he wasn’t aware of his direction, but it didn’t surprise him when he pulled up in front of Nyssa’s bike shop.
***
Nyssa was bent over a bike, putting several adjustments to the brake mechanism. After the last adjustment, she straightened, satisfied the brakes worked properly. She smiled at the beautiful sunset outside, a picture she’d never been able to appreciate when she lived in New York. There was never any time to stop and enjoy a sunset or smell the perfume of autumn leaves because she worked from sun up to sun down. If she wasn’t with a client, she was studying the market. The tension had been unbearable, and her unhappiness convinced her that her emotional temperament was not cut out for Wall Street.
The little bell over the front door of the shop alerted her to a customer. “Solo.” Her voice squeaked. She stepped back so quickly the bike toppled over and sent items that had been stacked beside it careening to the floor.
Couldn’t he take a hint? Didn’t he understand she hadn't returned his phone calls on purpose? He looked dangerous almost as if Thor had come down from the heavens for her own personal inspection.
She gulped air, hoping each time what she inhaled would have oxygen in it. She felt a little woozy yet very glad to see him, an emotion she didn’t want to analyze or push to the back of her mind. Once he stood in front of her, she could no more send him away than she could stop her heart from beating.
But the stubborn determination to see her life go down a well-ordered, normal path swept through her. Solo St. John. You’ve got a lot of nerve. Don’t you know what you do to me? Of course you don’t. He was a ridiculous infatuation and had no place in the scope of her life. Even if Solo felt something beside the need for a buddy, they were too different.
Safari Moon Page 3
