“Thanks,” he murmured. “I was feeling deprived.”
“But unless I develop amnesia,” she answered breathlessly, “you still finish one behind in the memory department.”
He stared a moment before grinning, his chest shaking with a silent laugh.
“You love confounding people, don’t you?”
“When it seems appropriate.”
The moment was gone and he regretfully headed for the front door, with her accompanying him through the house. Toby yipped and galloped beside them, pawing at Jordan’s jeans in farewell.
“Goodbye, little man,” he said, bending to fondle the beagle’s silky ears.
“Thanks for the help on the garden,” Nicole told him. “Also for the apple tree.”
He caught himself from saying the words that occurred to him—that he hoped to share the apples with her someday. Saying that would have implied they would actually be spending time together in the future. Of course, he didn’t know how many years it took an apple tree to produce fruit, but it wasn’t about a specific number of years. Nicole wasn’t the sort of woman who would accept a limited commitment. She deserved someone who saw forever as the only possibility.
The question remained whether he wanted forever with Nicole. Well, that wasn’t the whole question, because there was no guarantee she wanted anything from him, much less forever.
* * *
BARTON WAITED AT the foot of the stairs leading to the garage apartment. After a few minutes, Chelsea’s door opened. He watched as she locked it and started down. They’d gotten in the habit of taking a walk together every evening.
“Have a good day?” he asked.
“Great. I’m glad I got the job when I did, though. Once Adam is here full-time, I suspect things will be even busier on my end. This way I can get comfortable at the agency first.”
“Will it be possible for one person to keep up once all of the partners are there?”
Chelsea had explained enough of the agency’s future plans for him to be familiar with what was happening.
“We’ll see,” she said with a shrug. “Nicole says I’ll have an assistant if the workload gets too heavy and that they’ll also hire a receptionist, if needed.”
“So they don’t expect you to perform miracles.”
“No. It’s a terrific place to work.”
“How are the nerves going when the pushy folks come around?” Barton asked.
“Better, but I’ll always dislike that part of the job.”
“A few people thrive on confrontation, though I doubt it’s something that most of us enjoy. I’m guessing your sister is a fighter, but I’m not sure you’d want to be like her.”
That made Chelsea smile. “You’re right. Terri is a nice person beneath her aggressive surface, but I’ve often wondered how happy she is. Still, I’d like a little more gumption to keep me from dissolving into melted chocolate when the tough customers come through the door.”
If he’d been a suave Casanova kind of guy, Barton would have followed up on the chocolate remark, maybe asking if he could taste it, or something of the sort. But they’d agreed to take things slowly. Chelsea needed space to continue figuring herself out as an individual. Besides, he would never be suave.
“I think you’ll keep developing your own brand of strength, without needing someone else’s.”
She grinned. “That’s a nice way of putting it. I’ll bet the kids in your class love it when you help them understand that being themselves is best.”
“Hey, you’re not one of my students,” he protested. It was the last way he wanted her to see their relationship.
“If I was, then I would have had, like, the worst crush on you.” She was biting her lip and he wanted to slug the people who had shaken the confidence she should have had in herself.
“Ah, gee,” he said, trying for a boyish tone. “That’s, like, totally nice of you.”
Her face relaxed into a more natural smile. “I was scared to admit it.”
“Because you still want to take things slowly?”
“That, too, but I’ve also worried whether I have lousy judgment about men.”
“Hmm. I’d like to say that you’ve simply had lousy luck until now, but that might sound egotistical of me.”
She slipped her arm through his. “I’m sure I’m right this time. I mean about you being one of the good guys.”
“Thank you, and let me return the compliment, except with the gender altered.”
As she walked closer in a sweetly intimate way, Barton knew how much things had changed in the past few weeks. Chelsea had helped him look at his marriage in a new way, seeing him and Ellyn as just two people whose goals had changed. It had felt quite freeing to let go of the guilt.
He was ready to get married again and was quite certain Chelsea was the right woman. But he was also willing to wait so she could be equally certain of herself and of them as a couple. Patience was something he’d have to work on, but he didn’t doubt they’d end up together.
His foot-in-the-mouth cousin had claimed that Nicole moving next door made Barton the luckiest dog in the world. But Greg didn’t know the best part had nothing to do with supermodels.
* * *
SITTING ON HER reclining deck chair, Nicole wasn’t sure she’d made the right decision to send Jordan away. In fact, she wished she’d chosen something to regret in the morning.
He’d been testing the waters that evening, to see if she would be open to further intimacy. She wouldn’t have needed to encourage him, just respond. Primal forces would have done the rest. They could be in bed right now, enjoying what it meant to be male and female.
By some standards it would have been very romantic—lovers destined to never really be together. In college, taking an English literature course, she had been confounded by the medieval concept of great romance—that such lovers were necessarily ill-fated. Why had medieval writers been so addicted to unhappy endings? Maybe, in a strange way, it had been an attempt at realism. The world back then had been hard and difficult to survive. Unhappy or tragic endings may have been the norm, so they accepted it as a necessary component to romance. Maybe she should have remembered that when resisting Jordan earlier.
Though tired, she returned Toby’s anxious display of affection. Already he seemed able to tune in to her emotions. As she patted him and rubbed his ears, she remembered her resolution that friendship was more satisfying than love. That was the reality in a world where guys said they loved her but only wanted the glitz and glamor of a supermodel. Their devotion had rapidly diminished, either under the scrutiny of cameras and reporters, or when her hair was tangled or her nose was red from having a cold...something that had particularly bothered her erstwhile fiancé.
Yet in reviewing the past, she knew she hadn’t truly loved Paulo. It was fortunate, considering everything, but she wasn’t going to be so lucky this time. She’d fallen for a man who wanted to stay single and carefree, both to achieve his ambitions and to safeguard against descending into the kind of hell he knew marriage could be. She could only blame herself for being the fool who’d fallen in love with him.
It was barely dark when she crawled into bed and lay cuddling with Toby.
“Thanks for being here, pal,” she murmured into his ear. “You may not be the male I’d like to have with me at the moment, but I appreciate your faithfulness.”
Toby gently licked her hand before falling asleep.
In the morning Nicole dressed and headed for the office early, with a determination to embrace the real world.
There was only one more appointment scheduled with Jordan, on Thursday morning. They were going to visit a set where a television ad was being filmed. Ordinarily she wouldn’t have gone since it was with seasoned clients and a film crew with whom she was familiar. However, Jordan thought it would provide good
photos for the PostModern articles. He claimed it would be more interesting to readers if they could identify a Seattle landmark, so she’d agreed to be at the site where the Space Needle could be caught in the background.
“Hi,” she said, coming through the door.
“Good morning.” Chelsea’s voice was bright and relaxed.
“You seem to be in a good mood.”
The new office manager’s smile was shy, but it made her face glow.
“I am. Things are going really great.”
“Terrific.”
“And you?”
“Just fine.” It was a lie, but she couldn’t tell Jordan’s sister the truth.
* * *
ON THURSDAY NICOLE felt like a model again as Jordan took picture after picture. There was little else for her to do, though the models and photographers seemed pleased to have her there.
“Enough?” she finally asked.
“Sure, but how about going up in the Space Needle?”
“Any particular reason?”
“More pictures. And besides, have you ever gone up? It’s quite a view.”
“No,” she had to admit.
“Isn’t it time you do? Come on, it won’t take all day.”
Her objection was less about seeing the sights and more about ending the session with him. There would possibly be a few follow-up visits or phone calls, but she longed to have space for her aching heart to heal, at least on the surface.
The plaza was busy, but when she headed toward a ticket booth, Jordan said he already had them.
“On the off chance you could go, I reserved a launch time, as they call it,” he said. “To save time.”
Before long they were viewing the Seattle area from the heights. Jordan snapped pictures as she concentrated on the beautiful vistas, trying to figure out where the agency and her house were located.
“Nicole, there’s something—”
“He called you Nicole? I wondered... Nicole George,” a voice interrupted. “That’s who you are, right?”
There was an excited murmuring and a number of people converged around them. Nicole signed several autographs and three people wanted to take selfies with her. Jordan had immediately stepped back and was snapping more pictures. While tourists continued talking, she was aware that he was getting photo releases from the first group who had approached them.
“Thanks for the interest, folks,” she finally said, edging away. “I hope you’re enjoying yourselves.”
Soon they were descending in the elevator.
Jordan said nothing as they walked back to where the car was parked.
“That’s the first time we’ve been in such a public setting,” he commented once they were on the road. “Does the excitement and selfie thing happen often?”
“All it takes is one person who recognizes me and then others get interested in someone they think might be a celebrity. But even when I was modeling full-time, it wasn’t as if everyone knew who I was. It was more common when I was at a photo shoot. The activity alerted passersby that something might be going on.”
“And I was taking lots of pictures up there.”
“I suppose.”
It was before the start of rush hour traffic, so they arrived back at the agency in good time.
“How about dinner this evening?” Jordan asked. “There’s something I want to discuss.”
“Sorry, on Thursday I always have a video conference with my colleagues.” She would rather have met with him and gotten it done, but it wasn’t easy rearranging the schedules of four people located in different corners of the world.
“How about Saturday night?”
She wondered what he was doing on Friday and felt an unreasonable stab of jealousy that it might be a date. Brother, had she lost her mind.
“That would be fine.”
“Let’s have dinner on the boat with a sail afterward. Would chicken piccata and pasta primavera suit you?”
She wanted to scream “No!” but nodded agreement. “Sure.”
“Then I’ll pick you up at four on Saturday afternoon. With any luck this great weather will hold out another few days.”
Perhaps Jordan thought they could be friends...friends with possible benefits; if so, she’d have to disabuse him of the idea. It might work for some people, but she wasn’t built that way.
* * *
JORDAN FOLLOWED NICOLE into Moonlight Ventures so he could say hello to his sister.
He waited while Chelsea finished a phone call.
In the short time since she’d come to Seattle, she had grown so much. The move had been good for her and he had Nicole to thank for a lot of that.
Suggesting dinner on the boat had been a spur-of-the-moment idea. It would be a private place to consider how to...uh...make a garden grow. The image made him smile since it held an unusual note of whimsy—nobody had ever called him a whimsical guy. Pragmatic, sardonic and hardheaded were the usual adjectives applied to him.
That night he lay awake until the sun began rising. He finally dropped off and woke after nine. The rest of the day and part of the night, he worked on the pieces for PostModern, emailing his first draft on Saturday morning. An hour later, Syd called.
“I knew you could do it,” she said sounding smug. “This shows the complexity of modern life when things aren’t always clear-cut.”
He’d been frank about aspects of his history with Nicole and the challenge of being objective with his sister working for Moonlight Ventures. He hadn’t mentioned spending a night with Nicole, and had only alluded to the tension between their families, leaving everyone’s privacy intact. At the beginning he’d also planned to interview her partners, but had decided that since Nicole was largely running Moonlight Ventures by herself at the moment, the focus should stay on her.
“Syd, this is just a first draft,” he cautioned. “There might be other developments.”
“It hardly looks like a draft to me, but I know what a perfectionist you are. Anyhow, congratulations. I’m looking forward to seeing more than your short, snappy columns in the future.”
“I’ve got a few ideas,” he admitted.
“Good. Gotta go.” Syd ended the call and he tossed the phone onto his couch.
Jordan glanced around his minimalist condo with dissatisfaction. He’d bought it six years ago and if he’d ever felt cramped, he’d just jetted off to another part of the world. When asked, he always said he was living the dream life.
Now the thought of making a garden thrive with Nicole seemed far more attractive.
He wasn’t good husband material, something Nicole clearly knew. She’d even made a few ironic references to it.
But surely the kind of spouse he’d make was a choice. He didn’t have to repeat his parents’ history. They’d been weak and had taken their problems out on each other. In high school he’d done the same thing in a way, making Nicole a target of his frustrations, but since then he’d tried to be a better man.
And Nicole wasn’t weak, either. She’d taken responsibility for her life; she didn’t whine about it or hold grudges. Instead, she had a generous, loving spirit. It awed him that she had let go of the negative parts of the past so effectively.
Restless, he decided to call his sister and ask if she’d like to have lunch with him.
“Hello?” she said, her voice sounding unusually high.
“Hey, sis, how about having lunch together?”
“I have already made plans. Barton and I are going on a hike.”
“That’s new, you going hiking.”
“Isn’t it great? I want to try camping, too, and sleeping under the stars and all sorts of things.”
“You sound as if you’ve got a lot of adrenaline going.”
“I just told Ron that if he didn’t leave me alone I’d get a r
estraining order and make sure his boss heard about it. You’ve never heard a guy backpedal so fast. I think he may have been losing interest anyhow, but I was tired of it and decided this might work.”
“It sounds as if you handled him efficiently.”
Jordan felt like scum. Chelsea hadn’t even told him that Ron was still bothering her.
“I guess so,” she agreed. “Oooh, that’s Barton at the door. Gotta run.” Now she sounded happy and excited.
“Have a good hike.”
“We will. Bye.”
Jordan stared at the phone in bemusement. How had so many things changed in the past few weeks? Maybe it was just a season for change. If so, he was ready for it.
He glanced at the clock. It was ten, still six hours before he was supposed to arrive at Nicole’s house. That felt like a lifetime...to find out if he had a real life ahead of him.
* * *
CHELSEA’S HEART WAS light as she opened the door for Barton, so light that she gave in to impulse and threw her arms around him.
“Whoa,” he gasped.
She laughed.
“Not that I object,” he added with a grin. “Is there a particular reason for so much exuberance?”
“I think I gave the final push to Ron today. If I’d thought of it earlier, you and I wouldn’t have had that argument.”
“But since that got us really talking, maybe it turned out better this way.”
“Possibly.” She snuggled against him. “I like the way this feels.”
“Me, too.”
His lips came closer. Barton’s kisses were sweet and Chelsea felt a wild flutter inside. His hands were pretty good, too, as he explored her body. It felt wholesome and sexy and completely exciting.
After a few minutes, he drew back and his blue eyes shone warmly into hers. “In the interests of pacing ourselves, I’m going to suggest we get going on that hike.”
“That’s a good idea,” she agreed. “But someday soon...?”
“That works just fine for me.”
She sighed happily as she grabbed the new hiking pack she’d purchased that week. The direction she and Barton were headed was pretty terrific.
Moonlight Over Seattle Page 25
