The game continued another twenty minutes before a team was declared the winner.
In the melee that followed, Rick spoke to Nicole, who looked at Jordan and bobbed her head. She handed the umpire’s gear to Rick before taking Toby’s leash and walking in Jordan’s direction. Her progress was slow because the kids kept stopping her to talk. They also had to pat Toby, who was licking hands and wagging his tail so hard his entire butt swayed.
“Good evening,” Nicole finally greeted him.
“I was here for a run,” Jordan said, bending and patting the beagle who remained eager for attention.
“That’s what I figured from your running clothes.”
“Uh, yeah. Was this your plan for the evening?”
“Not really. I had a teleconference with my partners. After that I expected to spend the evening with a book, but took Toby for a walk first. We ran into this crowd while we were out. I’m flexible.”
She certainly was. His body grew taut as he recalled the positions she’d gotten into while she’d called the game. He wished that was the only thing that made her attractive. But there was that look on her face of total involvement. And for the kids at the game, it must have been her kindness and enthusiasm that had won them over. As a kid, he would have loved her for all those reasons and more, and the thought made him distinctly uncomfortable.
“That guy with the military haircut says you do a good job of umpiring,” Jordan said.
“How nice. Rick is a Little League coach, so he should know.”
“I was impressed, too. Not that my opinion counts.”
“Modesty doesn’t suit you.”
He grinned. “That’s because I forgot to get my invisible modesty suit from the dry cleaners, but it’s on my to-do list.”
Her lips twitched. “Yes, it’s hard to get around to all the necessary chores of living.” She stirred. “I’ll leave you now and go home to scramble something for dinner.”
“How about taking pity on a hungry man? I’ll order takeout and we can eat together on your deck.”
It was a stupid thing to suggest, and the last thing he ought to do.
* * *
NICOLE DREW A deep breath. Jordan was gazing at her with an inscrutable expression, but she didn’t think it was entirely lacking in sexual energy. Or maybe that was simply what she felt deep in her abdomen.
“If you’re hungry for company,” she said, “it would be better to go to a restaurant. You know, neutral territory.”
A rueful nod. “It would be even wiser for us each to go home and check out our respective refrigerators.”
“Probably.”
They were headed toward the parking lot when Nicole noticed Toby was lagging on his leash. It had been a long, exciting evening with the walk and the game and all the kids paying attention to him. She bent and gathered him into her arms. He sighed and settled his head on her shoulder.
“Are you going to carry him home?” Jordan asked.
“It’s only half a mile. In some ways he’s still a puppy and this was fun but tiring for him.”
“I’ll give you a ride.”
“That’s okay.”
“It’s only a few blocks out of my way. He may not be huge, but he’ll get heavier the farther you go.”
“Well, all right. Thanks.”
He politely opened the passenger door of his silver sports car and supported her elbow as she lowered herself into it with Toby in her arms. With the prospect of something new happening, the beagle lifted his head and started sniffing. She patted him and fastened the seat belt.
It didn’t take long to reach her house. While she was releasing the belt and reaching around Toby’s wriggling movements to find the latch, Jordan went around and opened the door. The gesture was old-fashioned, but nice.
Toby jumped to the ground and trotted to the front door as she got out.
“Uh, thanks,” she told Jordan.
Stepping away, he nodded formally. “Good night.”
Walking swiftly toward the porch where Toby was waiting, Nicole unlocked the door and glanced back to see Jordan in his car, still looking in her direction, so she gave him a casual wave and slipped inside.
After taking care of the alarm, she fed Toby and drank a glass of milk before going upstairs, too tired to get anything else for dinner. Umpiring the impromptu baseball game had been fun but dusty, so she took a long shower before sinking onto her bed.
If she’d taken Jordan up on his suggestion to eat takeout, there was a chance they would have ended up between the sheets together. Of course, she’d never gone in for casual sex, so perhaps she would have resisted. And he might have remembered that sleeping with the subject of his interviews would seriously compromise his pretense of objectivity...except he already knew he wasn’t objective, so he might have decided to hang the consequences.
The other side of it was the rumor mill. She was no longer as much in the public eye, but if it got out, some people might assume she was using sex to get the kind of article she wanted from Jordan.
Toby had jumped up next to Nicole on the bed and his chin was contentedly planted on her ankle. Everything about him suggested he’d achieved nirvana that evening. How lovely to have the ability to simply exist in the moment, with no yesterdays or tomorrows to think about.
“Hey, little guy,” she murmured, but he was fast asleep. While she’d heard people debate whether letting your dog sleep with you was a good idea, she didn’t mind. And it wasn’t as if she expected to have someone in her life who’d complain about it, not anytime soon, at any rate.
An image of Jordan floated through her mind and she ground her teeth. For a woman whose face and body had been used in marketing for sex appeal, she actually understood very little about the opposite sex. What had Rita Hayworth said...men went to sleep with Gilda, her most famous film role, and were disappointed when they woke up with her? Nicole had heard that line in the movie Notting Hill. It had struck an instant chord with her and she’d quickly added that film to her secret collection of romantic movies.
Nicole yawned. The evening had been fun until she’d seen Jordan. While walking past the baseball field she’d stopped and said hi to some of the kids and the next thing she knew she was umpiring a game. It had been wholesome and genuine, uncomplicated and...she yawned again.
Sleep was a good idea. Hopefully, her dreams would be of baseball, ice cream cones, puppies and pizza. Not Jordan, she told herself. Definitely not Jordan.
Chapter Thirteen
NICOLE WOKE IN the early morning, unable to remember what she’d dreamed, or if she had dreamed at all.
For the moment she was relatively current on her paperwork, so she sat on her deck, enjoying a cup of tea and reading a book, before heading to the office.
Once there, she arranged several go-sees and bookings and reviewed the folder of pictures collected at the career fair. The girls had been eager and hopeful; it really was the worst part of her job to tell dreamers that she couldn’t be the one to help them. Yet it would be cruel to take someone on as a client, making them believe they could succeed, when she didn’t think it was going to happen. Not that she ever told them the last part. She wasn’t going to be the one to kill a dream, and there was always the chance she was wrong. More than one star had succeeded where the experts had said it wasn’t possible.
Jordan arrived shortly before she planned to leave and check on modeling jobs in progress.
“Really?” he asked. “Do you get time for anything else?”
“I’m probably doing more of them than most agents because I’m new,” she explained. “I was hoping you’d get here before I left to see if you would like to tag along. Today I’m mostly doing spot checks.”
“That sounds interesting.”
Nicole smothered a smile since he obviously found the entire process a bore. But
maybe he was also getting the picture that modeling wasn’t a cakewalk. Of course, some people saw only what they wanted.
At the reception area, she handed a stack of folders to Chelsea to record the bookings, then headed to her car, wondering if Jordan would want to take his vehicle. Instead he settled without protest into her passenger seat. She’d planned the visits carefully by location to minimize driving time. It went smoothly, with Jordan observing, taking notes and occasionally speaking with the models.
The last stop was at a carpet store where the model—dressed in a Cleopatra-type costume—was being unrolled over and over from a length of carpet for a local television ad. The director looked as if he planned to keep doing it the rest of the day.
“How about lunch?” Jordan asked as the young woman’s hair and makeup were refreshed.
“Oh, sure. Let’s just pick up a sandwich or something.”
“Fine with me.”
She wasn’t as oblivious to him as she was trying to appear. While sitting and making notes, Jordan in the seat next to her, she’d tried not to take in his clean male scent, or notice the dark waves of his hair and remember how it had felt under her fingers.
Had that been in a dream? She was pretty sure she hadn’t actually touched his hair since they were teens.
* * *
JORDAN WAS GLAD Nicole had finished her last site check. It was clear she was intentionally showing him the less-than-glamorous side of the business. Wearing coats on hot sets, trying to look presentable and sexy while running on a treadmill...getting rolled out of a carpet over and over again. None of those were jobs he’d relish.
He didn’t blame Nicole. He’d taken the assignment with a number of biases, and he had been unable to conceal them from her. So she’d flung the truth in his face. Modeling could be difficult—why had he assumed anything different?
And in Nicole he was observing an intelligent, deliberate woman at work. That was another blow to his underlying assumption that she’d probably skated by on her looks. What had it been like to spend years being told to smile for the camera as if her beauty was the only thing she had to offer?
He tried to imagine how it would feel if people constantly praised his height or his hair, his eyes, or something else over which he felt little sense of achievement, and never mentioned his actual accomplishments or abilities. True, a model had to know how to enhance his or her appearance, keep in shape and follow instructions. And unless they left everything to their agent, they had to have business sense and be savvy about the public. They also had to know how to protect themselves against anyone who might be less than scrupulous. It must be hard to have those abilities and so many others ignored.
Or was he getting taken in again?
Abruptly Jordan recalled what Nicole had claimed the night before—that he believed in nothing and no one. That he only wanted an illusion. It had almost seemed as if she felt sorry for him. No need, he was fine. The assurance had a hollow sound, but he was used to that since he regarded himself with the same skepticism as he viewed everything else.
He looked at his watch. It was after one.
“Do you have time to talk?” he asked. “Or would you rather wait for another day?”
“Now is fine, or rather when we get back to the office.”
“It’s a nice afternoon, and I’d hate spending it indoors. I have a boat moored at a dock that isn’t too far away. How about sitting on the deck and enjoying the lake and sunshine while we talk? We’re actually closer to my boat than your office. We could even take her for a sail afterward, or do you have plans for tonight?”
“No, nothing. But maybe we shouldn’t...” Her voice trailed off as she looked toward Lake Washington. “Okay. People keep telling me this is an unusual spring for the Northwest and to enjoy the warm weather while it lasts.”
“The weather is changeable up here,” Jordan acknowledged. “One year we had a string of hot days in May, then it turned cold and didn’t get above fifty degrees until late June.”
He parked at the dock, and as they were climbing aboard The Spirit, Nicole appeared surprised. “I thought it would be smaller.”
“Originally I got her for ocean sailing, and even lived aboard for a few months. When I have time, I still take her out through the various canals and locks to face the waves.”
Nicole settled into one of the low-slung deck chairs with her usual grace. Perhaps he was being fanciful, but it seemed as if she couldn’t get into an awkward position.
“Excuse me?” she said.
“Uh, what?”
“You said something about awkward positions.”
“It’s nothing,” he answered, amazed that he’d spoken the words aloud. Talking to himself wasn’t unusual, but he generally didn’t do it in anyone else’s company.
“Okay.”
The breeze off the lake cooled the air and he wondered why he hadn’t thought of coming here the last few nights. He might have gotten a decent night’s rest.
Now that they were settled, he felt disinclined to leap into official interview mode. Yet that was the reason for spending time with Nicole in the first place.
“You’re obviously educating me on the challenges of modeling,” he said. “What if I hadn’t shown up to see Cleopatra being rolled out of her carpet over and over again?”
Nicole shrugged. “There are ample opportunities to demonstrate how demanding the job can be.”
“And demeaning?” he found himself asking.
“Sometimes. Of course, models who feel the work is beneath them usually don’t last since they can be hard to work with.”
“So in modeling it’s important to work and play well with others.”
She grinned. “Sure, the same as everywhere. Lessons learned in kindergarten. A lot of the things they taught apply throughout our lives.”
“Be a team player. Clean up after yourself. Say please and thank you.”
“No name-calling,” she added. “Hold someone’s hand when you cross the street. Don’t take things that don’t belong to you. Share and play fair. Strange how some people forget those lessons.”
“Yeah.” He yawned.
“You don’t look seriously engaged with this interview,” Nicole said with a smile.
“Suggesting the boat probably wasn’t the best idea. All I can think of is taking The Spirit out for a sail.”
Her nose wrinkled. “That sounds wonderful, but I’m not dressed for it. Especially in my heels.” She lifted one of her legs, displaying a pair of stylish pumps.
Jordan leaned forward. “If you’re serious, Terri keeps fresh clothing on the boat. She hates my condo and doesn’t like hotels, so she usually stays here. I’m sure her stash includes casual outfits and boat shoes. If the shoes don’t fit, you could go barefoot.”
“Won’t she mind if I borrow something? We just repeated the lesson about not taking things that don’t belong to you.”
“It isn’t one of her hang-ups.”
Nicole got up from the deck chair. “In that case, I’m ready to play hooky for a while. Just not for too long, I don’t want to be late getting home to Toby. He has the dog door so he can go outside, but I think he gets lonely.”
“Gotcha. Check in the cabin. I’m sure you can find something more comfortable.”
Jordan was pleased. Sailing might help them loosen up so he could get the kind of interview he needed. Of course, as he watched Nicole carefully descend the steps into the cabin, he also wondered if it was smart on other levels, but he was tired of second-guessing everything. In fact, he was tired of trying to be smart and careful in the first place.
* * *
NICOLE ADMIRED THE well-designed cabin, which had a cooking and eating area, along with a sleeping compartment and a full lavatory. It wouldn’t be a bad place to spend a few nights, though she wouldn’t be comfortable staying
there alone. Terri was clearly bolder than she was on several levels.
After a short hunt, she located some women’s clothing. If they’d belonged to a girlfriend of Jordan’s, she wouldn’t have touched them, but she didn’t mind wearing his sister’s clothes. A pair shorts and a T-shirt didn’t take long to don, along with a pair of boat shoes. They were a little large, but not too bad.
The Spirit was already moving out of its mooring as Nicole made her way to the deck. Not being an experienced sailor, she sat and watched as Jordan managed the boat; it was obviously a task he loved. His face grew relaxed and he looked happy as they sailed away from the shore.
They talked little as the boat skimmed across the water, and it was a surprisingly easy silence. Nicole reminded herself not to make too much of it. This was an unusual situation, as if they’d agreed to take a break from reality. Desire still simmered beneath the surface, but it was possible to pretend it wasn’t there...which probably wasn’t realistic. Wisdom suggested this time with Jordan was a bad idea, but wisdom hadn’t gazed at the lake recently and wished she could go sailing.
“Have you ever steered a sailboat?” Jordan asked after a while.
“Not with a tiller.”
He grinned. “Come on, give it a shot.”
Nicole jumped up from her seat. “I’m game.”
Taking the tiller in her hands, she felt the energy of the wind and the water. Jordan placed his hand over hers and it seemed as if they swayed together with the boat as she experimented with how their movements changed their direction. It was almost like dancing.
“I can’t believe how much better this is,” she finally said. “A wheel is easier but not as...connected, if you get what I mean.”
“I know what you’re talking about. With a tiller, you can feel the movement of the rudder in the water. I’d never have a sailboat without one, even if it does take more space.”
Moonlight Over Seattle Page 19
