“Ron, we’re through and we’ve been through since the day of the accident. Long before that, if I’m going to be honest. I should have broken things off months ago. So stop calling. Stop sending things that I’m going to send back or dump in the garbage can. I never want to see you or hear your voice again. Is that clear?”
“How can you treat someone who loves you this way?”
“You don’t love me. You love yourself and how you can try to change me into something you want.”
He clicked off after a brief silence. Chelsea sighed.
Ron wasn’t even her first lousy relationship that had held the same creepy dynamics. She’d heard that men like that could zero in on the kind of woman they could control. It was a sobering thought to wonder if she was putting out the wrong kind of signal and attracting the wrong sort of man.
Well, she didn’t have any intention of being a doormat for the rest of her life. Or even for another day.
“You look determined,” Barton said, bringing her attention back to the present. “Did you convince him to leave you alone?”
No doubt he’d picked up on the clues and had guessed what was happening.
“I hope so,” she said.
Before meeting Barton, she hadn’t even realized a man could be so decent.
“Did you want to talk?” he offered, but not in a pushy way.
“That’s all right. We’re having too much fun to drag Ron into it,” she answered lightly. How could she tell Barton about the garbage in her past? Maybe if he was truly just a friend, she’d be more open. But she was drawn to Barton in ways that went well beyond friendship.
Still, while he was extraordinarily nice and attractive, that didn’t mean they were leaping into a relationship. If they ever moved in that direction, she’d have to tell him more...if she felt he’d understand, which he probably would. Barton was a good person and actually discussed things with her, rather than trying to tell her what to think.
* * *
BARTON WISHED HE knew the right words. He hadn’t figured on falling in love until he was good and ready, nor was he certain he’d fallen for Chelsea. But he cared about her, even if only as a neighbor and a friend.
“I know it’s probably easier to let down your hair, as my sister says, with another woman,” he finally ventured, “but I should tell you, in the interest of full disclosure, that I couldn’t keep from overhearing part of your conversation.”
Her pretty face scrunched up and then relaxed. “Sorry, that sort of garbage doesn’t belong on a hike in the mountains.”
“It’s as good a place as any.”
She was chewing the side of her lip, something he had begun recognizing as one of the signs she was feeling uncertain.
“The thing is... I kind of let my old boyfriend push me around a lot,” Chelsea admitted.
Barton frowned. “You mean he hit you?”
“Not that,” she said quickly. “He just had a way of making me feel as if everything was wrong and that it was my fault, so I’d try and try to do things to make him happier, but it was never enough.”
“So he’s trying to use guilt to get you back.”
“Yes. When I was with him, it often seemed as if I wasn’t quite sure where the ground was, if that makes any sense.”
“Like nothing was firm and there was nothing you could count on?”
“Yeah.”
“He probably wanted you to have to hang on to him to keep from falling. What a jerk.”
She smiled in what seemed to be a determined way. “Look, I don’t want to think about Ron any more. I’d rather look at trees and squirrels and mountains. Do you ever see bears or mountain lions around here?”
“Uh, that isn’t likely,” he reassured her.
Her nose wrinkled. “That’s too bad. I’d be a little nervous since they’re wild animals, but from what I’ve read, they aren’t too dangerous unless they feel threatened or you get between a mama and her babies or their prey.”
“That’s the general wisdom,” Barton agreed.
The shift to a casual subject was disappointing, and he reminded himself that he was supposed to be taking things slow.
Chapter Sixteen
“I’LL MISS YOU,” Rachel said as Nicole drove her to the airport Saturday evening. It had been good having her in Seattle, but Rachel was due in Rome on Monday.
Nicole nodded. “Me, too. It’ll be great once you’re all in Seattle. Then we can expand even more rapidly.”
“I’m impressed by the difference having a decent office manager makes. It was the right decision to give her a pay raise, retroactive to the day she started.” Chelsea’s salary was one of the things they’d discussed on a call with Logan and Adam the night before.
“And since you’ve been here,” Nicole told her, “I’ve had time to show Chelsea more of what we need done, though she’s picked up a lot on her own.”
They hugged goodbye at the passenger unloading zone and Nicole drove back to her house.
The week had gone smoothly.
She hadn’t seen Jordan since the night they’d eaten dinner together on her deck. He had emailed saying that since the articles weren’t due for a while, he thought a break would help them catch up on their mutual responsibilities. She’d replied that it was a good idea.
Nicole just wished she could have focused better during Rachel’s visit...particularly on sorting out her thoughts about Jordan. The time had given her distance and a small measure of perspective but no great wisdom. Too often she’d found herself daydreaming about the hours on his boat, watching as he handled the sails, his muscles flexing beneath tanned skin. He’d been relaxed that day, the calm on his face making her think of how he must have looked on the beach in Fiji.
But it would be a mistake to think Jordan was just a relaxed sailor. He seemed to care intensely about a great many things. He also worked hard on his columns and from what he’d said, usually had them written weeks in advance. So she didn’t know what he’d been catching up on.
Perhaps he had remembered she’d been going into the office early to keep up with her work at the agency and had backed off to help out. On the other hand, maybe he just needed distance from her in order to come up with more questions and ways to be annoying.
Of course, he might be looking for a new challenge, either personal or professional. He was hardly the type to be content with sitting on his laurels. Success had come to him early and he wouldn’t want to write an opinion column for the rest of his life without ever trying something new. While he hadn’t wanted to write the PostModern articles, now he was fully engaged and he wasn’t a man to do anything halfway. Considering the night they’d spent together, she could vouch for his determination. He was a generous lover and had made certain they were both thoroughly satisfied.
Nicole breathed carefully. Sex with Jordan wasn’t something she should think about. It would be easier if it had just been about physical pleasure, but more was involved. She didn’t discount the power of biology—there were few things more explosive—yet she was convinced it wasn’t sex, or the lack of it, that left a person aching the most. Instead, it was the near misses on genuine love that haunted someone’s soul.
The problem with love was the lack of power. You couldn’t make someone love you, and you couldn’t make yourself stop loving someone who didn’t return your feelings. The result was heartache and endless regrets.
“Shut up,” she ordered her brain.
She shouldn’t be losing sleep over an impossible situation; after all, she was at the beginning of the adventure that she and her friends had been planning for over two years. They were building something solid, something which would allow them to take on new challenges.
When she got home, Nicole went inside to try a new recipe. But she only ate a small amount and stuck the leftovers in the refrigerator. Her appetite had also
suffered during the past week.
The phone rang shortly before nine and the caller ID showed it was Jordan.
“Good evening,” he said. “What are your plans for tomorrow afternoon?”
She drew a deep breath. “I have stuff to do in the yard that I’ve been putting off.”
“No yard service?”
“I want to take care of this section of the garden myself.”
“Mind if I come over and lend a hand? We could talk while working.”
“More interview questions, I suppose.”
“Right. If tomorrow isn’t good, I’m happy to wait.”
His voice was casually friendly, with no hint of anything except professional courtesy.
“Tomorrow afternoon is fine,” Nicole answered, resigned. After all, she couldn’t refuse to finish the interviews; she was a business professional, not a histrionic teenager. She’d just have to suck it up and do her job.
* * *
JORDAN DISCONNECTED, PLEASED that Nicole had agreed. He’d never done yard work. When he’d been a kid, his mother had insisted upon having a yard service, and he’d lived in apartments or condos once he was on his own. But how complicated could it be? Moreover, gardening seemed to fit what he’d learned about Nicole. She wanted to grow flowers, not have it done for her. She also wanted to earn a living and help people succeed along the way. Meeting a challenge was part of it, along with being able to do something that used her abilities, not just her appearance.
Resignation went through him. He had definitely surrendered his suspicions about Nicole’s motives.
What had Nicole said...that she had an obligation to share her good fortune? At the time he’d filed it in his mental skepticism drawer. Not that he objected to the idea, but when other people had said something similar, he’d figured there was a better than even chance they were just putting on an act. Perhaps some of them were just pretending to be altruistic; perhaps others felt the same way about his character. Skepticism could give birth to skepticism.
It was a sobering thought.
He received a fair amount of mail about his column, and a percentage of the letters were from annoyed readers asking what gave him the right to comment on other people’s choices. He’d dismissed them, knowing if he started second-guessing his work he would crash and burn as an op-ed writer. Besides, he figured his job was to both entertain people and make them think.
Yet the authors of those angry letters didn’t see it that way. They called him a judgmental jackass, often using much stronger language. Now Jordan wondered if he’d bought too far into the concept that being controversial increased readership. It did, of course. If he said something outrageous about marriage or politics, body image, or even about a movie, it got attention. After all, however outraged some of those people might be, they were still reading his column.
But if he wanted people to think, maybe he shouldn’t make them so angry that they barricaded themselves inside their ideological positions without questioning why they held those beliefs in the first place.
It was something to consider.
* * *
ON TUESDAY EVENING Barton knocked on Chelsea’s door and gripped the package he held harder than necessary. The delivery person had asked him to sign for the parcel and Barton had instantly begun steaming about the implications. It was from Ron Swanson, postmarked after Chelsea had ordered the guy to leave her alone.
The door opened and he saw Chelsea still in her work clothes. “Hi, Barton.”
“I signed for this and told the delivery guy I’d bring it over,” he explained.
“Oh.” She looked at the return address and frowned. “My neighbor down south thought Ron was wonderful. Turns out she gave him all my contact info.”
“Give me the creep’s phone number and I’ll call him.” The words came out more forcefully than they should have. Chelsea bit her lip and Barton kicked himself. “I shouldn’t have said that,” he added quickly. “I just hate that he’s still bothering you.”
“Ron is my problem. I need to be the one who deals with him.”
“There’s nothing wrong with someone helping out.”
Her lips trembled then firmed. “No, Barton. This is something I have to handle. It isn’t your problem.”
“Except that you’re my neighbor and my friend. Surely it’s okay for me to lend a hand.”
“No.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“Because it isn’t the first time I’ve screwed up this way,” Chelsea hissed, “and I have to find a way to finish it, for my own self-respect.”
Barton stirred restlessly. To him it was natural to want to protect someone he cared about, so when she’d refused his help, it had felt as if she was rejecting him. Obviously it had nothing to do with that.
“Can we talk about it?” he asked finally.
Shrugging tiredly, she stood aside to let him into the apartment. When she sank onto the couch, he wanted to sit and hold her close. Instead he chose a nearby chair. She clearly wasn’t thrilled to discuss the matter, and he felt a moment’s uncertainty whether he should be pushing. Still, they had to talk if they were ever to get anywhere.
With the thought, a wry recognition went through Barton. Once again he was considering the possibilities of a relationship.
“I’d like to understand,” he said.
Chelsea drew a deep breath and let it out again. “I told you my childhood was rotten before my folks got divorced. What I didn’t say was that they abused each other. They argued constantly and sometimes their fights got violent. As if that wasn’t enough, they both cheated constantly and it seemed as if they couldn’t wait to boast about it during their battles.”
Nausea twisted Barton’s stomach.
“That must have been rough on you,” he said, trying not to sound as appalled as he felt.
“It might have been better if I’d been more like Terri and Jordan. They got angry and defiant. Instead I was scared all the time. And it seems as if I attract guys who continue to make me feel that way.”
Barton shook his head. “The wrong guys look for someone too sweet and kind to see what creeps they are. Don’t blame yourself for their inadequacies.”
A smile flashed like sunshine on her face. Then she sobered again. “But do you understand? I mean, that I really need to stand up for myself?”
He did understand and respected the effort she was making to reclaim authority over her life. “Yes, but it won’t be easy for me,” he admitted. “My instincts are to help and protect the people I care about.”
She blinked. “I... I care about you, too, but that doesn’t change what I need to do for myself.”
Barton took her hand. “I don’t know where we’re headed,” he said in a low voice. He could feel her trembling.
“Do you want to head somewhere?”
“I think it would be nice, though I haven’t been sure either one of us are ready.”
“It hasn’t been that long since I broke up with Ron, so it seems too soon. Only the thing is, I... I really like you.” Her chin firmed. “But that doesn’t change anything about me needing to be able to stand on my own two feet.” She frowned. “And no matter where we end up, shouldn’t there be a balance between caring and independence?”
Balance.
Not going overboard.
Keeping a perspective.
Great qualities if someone could manage them.
“I wonder if balance is something we may have to help each other with, or at least you might need to nudge me,” Barton admitted. “It could even rouse a few arguments. But that’s okay, isn’t it?” he rushed to ask when he saw alarm in her eyes. “I know disagreements must seem totally negative to you, but I don’t want us to be afraid to say what we think. Isn’t it more about how two people disagree?”
Chelsea’s face turne
d thoughtful. “That’s a good point. It isn’t realistic to think people will agree about everything. I’ve been telling myself not to be a doormat, but I wouldn’t want anyone else to be one, either.”
“Right.”
Her smile blossomed again. “You know, I’ve got the ingredients in the fridge to make spaghetti. Shall I cook dinner?”
“Let’s make it together,” he suggested.
“That sounds great.”
* * *
JORDAN DROVE TO Nicole’s house on Thursday afternoon. It would be the first time they’d seen each other since he’d gone over to help with her yard the previous weekend.
Not the best memory.
Upon his arrival he’d discovered she wasn’t plucking a few errant weeds from her flowerbeds or planting flowers—she was prepping soil for a vegetable garden on the back end of her double lot. She’d even shown him a hand-drawn map of where she was going to plant more fruit trees—her favorite varieties of apple, plum, apricot and cherry.
So he’d blown it yet again by retreating to his old prejudices about the things that tied someone down. A landscaped yard that could be maintained by a gardening service was one thing, but a giant vegetable patch needing personal attention was an entirely different prospect.
Since then he’d been thinking over what Nicole had said about being able to pick your own cherry tomatoes for a salad or gather fresh basil for a batch of pesto. She’d even pointed out that gardening was similar to writing—you started with a seed of an idea and encouraged it to grow.
Yet ultimately, the real problem was the way she scared the hell out of him.
On one side of the equation, Jordan had everything he’d ever wanted. Nicole was on the other side...a side that was starting to make his single, carefree life look empty. But she’d clearly stated that she didn’t expect to get married, and even if she did, why would she consider him? Jordan had spent so many years shunning commitment that he’d never wondered whether he would, in fact, be a desirable husband.
Too restless to do anything else, he’d finally gone to Moonlight Ventures to apologize, only to learn she wasn’t there. Apparently Adam Wilding had flown in unexpectedly and encouraged Nicole to take the day for herself.
Moonlight Over Seattle Page 23
