Finding Nick

by Janis Reams Hudson

  “Tomorrow you wear the school colors?” she asked.

  “For the parade if you want, yeah. But at school it’s Nerd Day.”

  “That’s pocket protectors, right?”

  “We’re growing on you,” he said.

  “How’s that?”

  “You said pocket protectors with a perfectly straight face, as if kids wear them to school every day.”

  “I’m laughing on the inside.” Her lips twitched. “So then, school colors for the parade, and again the next day at school. So why do you have the parade on Thursday? Why not wait until Friday, when everyone will be in the right colors?”

  “We used to, but the football coach said it interfered with his pregame psychology, or something like that. Too much going on, takes the players’ focus off the game. And no, you can’t the team away from the parade because they’re the star attraction.”

  “Hmm. Okay. So what are the school colors? What’s your mascot? No, wait. The Tribute Tigers?”

  She’d surprised him again. “Good guess. How’d you know?”

  “It’s a writer thing. Alliteration. It needed to start with a T, and somehow, the Tribute Turtles just doesn’t cut it.”

  “We could have been the Tribute Tornadoes,” he offered.

  She tilted her head and smiled at him. “You like it here, don’t you.” She was stating, not asking.

  “Define here.”

  “It doesn’t matter. This restaurant, the town, the state. You like all of it.”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “I guess I am. Snobbish of me, I know. I guess I just thought you would be homesick for New York by now. Don’t you miss it?”

  Something inside him broke loose—no, broke free—and allowed him to open up a little to her. “Yes, I like it here, but, yes, I miss New York.”

  “Okay,” she said slowly. “Now you’ve got me curious.”

  Their waiter saved him. “Who ordered the rack?”

  “The what?” Shannon asked.

  “Rack of ribs,” Nick explained. “And they’re mine. The lady ordered the brisket.”

  “Oh,” Shannon said like a woman drooling over her long-lost lover. “This looks and smells…divine.”

  Nick had a sharp urge to have her look at him that way. “Wait till you taste it,” he said, making himself want to look at and smell and taste her, up close and personally. Inch by inch.

  Damn, he needed to get his mind off sex before he did or said something inappropriate. This was just a friendly dinner between two people who barely knew each other.

  Not that such a thing would stop him, if she gave him any encouragement.

  “I assume you’re no stranger to ribs?” he asked.

  She laughed. “What you’re really asking is, do I realize you’re going to eat with your fingers, and clean up with your tongue.”

  Nick choked. “Uh…”

  “Oops.” Her smile turned sheepish, her face red. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

  Nick was damn sorry about that. He cleared his throat. “I’m, uh, going to lick my fingers.”

  She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. “You’re not helping, Carlucci.”

  He stared at her until she opened her eyes and met his gaze.

  Whatever he might have said just then—and he wasn’t sure what words would have come out of his mouth, considering the hot scene playing out in his head—but their waitress returned to refilled their drinks, cutting him off.

  He and Shannon looked at each other and smiled.

  “Saved by the iced tea,” she told him.

  “For now,” he said.

  Her lips quirked. “Promise?”

  Shannon couldn’t remember the last time she had enjoyed herself so much. The place, the service, the food, each of them would have been wonderful on its own, but roll them all together and throw in Nick Carlucci, and nothing, as far as she was concerned, could top it.

  Who knew the man could tease and joke so much? Who knew that he could be so charming or that she could still be charmed?

  Plus, he was more open than she’d thought he would be. That might be because they weren’t talking about anything truly personal. Other than a few sexual innuendos. So far.

  That was about to change.

  She waited until his second order of ribs came out—it was all-you-can-eat rib night at Bigg Bobb’s, and he seemed to be taking full advantage of the offer—then she forked another tender bite of her brisket. “How did you ever find Tribute, Texas, anyway? Do you have family here?”

  He studied her through narrowed eyes, then shook his head. “I told myself that when you started asking real questions, if I answered at all, I would give you a simple yes or no, at best.”

  “Did I ask a real question?”

  “You know you did.”

  “All right. I know I did. What I’m wondering is, how did you know I did? It’s a pretty casual question, did you move here to be near family. Something anyone would ask, if they were curious.”

  “Something your readers will want to know?”

  “For right now,” she told him honestly, “it’s what I want to know. What makes you think it’s for any other purpose?”

  “Your eyes changed.”

  She blinked. “My eyes changed?”

  “Your ears grew, all the better to hear me with.”

  Shannon huffed out a breath. “You’re making fun of me. Never mind. Let’s back up a minute. You said you’d planned to give me a yes or no.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So, why didn’t you?”

  He pulled another rib from the rack on his plate. “Why didn’t I what?”

  “Oh, man, it’s a good thing I like this brisket too much to throw it at you. You’d try the patience of a saint. Why didn’t you give me a yes or no when I asked if you had family here?”

  Nick licked a dab of barbecue sauce off the spot between his thumb and forefinger. Slowly. He watched her while he did it. She watched him do it.

  Satisfied that they were both still churned up, he answered her. “Because it would have been misleading.”

  She swallowed, gratifying him with her need to collect herself before she could speak.

  “Misleading how?”

  “You asked do I have family here, and the answer to that is yes. But considering the question right before that, about how I found Tribute, I had to assume you wanted to know if I came here because I had family here. The answer to that would be no.”

  “Okay, you’re going to torment me with semantics. Fine.”

  “You’re a writer. You play with words all the time.”

  “I try to use the ones that say what I mean. And you’re right. I was ambiguous. I’ll start over. Why did you move to Tribute?”

  Nick hesitated and thought before he spoke. She wasn’t technically interviewing him, not taking notes or using a recorder, but he couldn’t kid himself. There was no such thing as “off the record” for a reporter. Anything and everything he told her about himself and his life would become fodder for her book. As long as he said only what he wouldn’t mind other people reading about, he’d be fine. He could handle her questions.

  “When my aunt’s husband died, she wanted to come back to the place she had lived when they were first married, and she wasn’t ready to live alone.”

  “So you came with her?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And took a job at the school.”

  “That’s right.”

  She cocked her head and studied him again as if trying to make up her mind whether or not to believe him. “Does your aunt still live here? Wait.” Her eyes widened and she smiled. “She’s the reason you wouldn’t have dinner with me last night. You had dinner with her.”

  Was he that easy to read? Nick jammed a forkful of potato salad into his mouth and wished she would do the same.

  “That’s right,” he finally said after swallowing his food.

  “I’m so glad you d
ecided to give me more than a simple yes or no,” Shannon told him. There was sarcasm in her voice. He wasn’t sure why until she added, “That’s right is so much more communicative. You want to be careful not to talk my ear off with it, though.”

  “You’re funny,” he told her. “I like that about you.”

  She smiled at him. “You do? Well, I like that about you. That you like me. What do you know? We like each other.”

  Nick might have been out of the game for a while—okay, for years—but there was nothing wrong with his radar. She had just tossed him an opening. He wasn’t about to let it pass.

  “I know a way,” he said, watching her carefully, “that we could get to like each other a whole lot better.” End of salvo. The ball was in her court now.

  Return serve. “You’re sure we’d both like it, and like each other even better?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said with feeling. “A whole lot better.”

  She thought about it a moment, then sat back in her chair to let the waitress clear away her plate. Then there were drinks to refill. Then there was dessert to order. Napkins to fiddle with. Water to sip.

  Just when he was doubting she would ever respond, she finally looked him in the eye. “What do you have in mind?”

  Nick chuckled and gave her an exaggerated leer. “Well, since you asked…”

  She rolled her eyes and groaned. “Don’t be such a guy.”

  “But I am a guy,” he protested.

  “What I mean—”

  “Do you have any idea how much it turns me on when you act all prissy like that?”

  “Prissy?” Her voice dropped to a low growl. “You think I’m prissy?”

  He couldn’t have kept the grin off his face if he’d tried. “I said you acted prissy, which you do on occasion. But your eyes say it’s a lie. What I mean,” he mimicked. “That was good.”

  Nick had never met a woman he wanted more than he wanted Shannon just then. Somewhere, sometime, he must have done something right, to have her pop into his life. “I got lucky,” he muttered.

  “Excuse me?” Shannon said, her brow arching.

  The waitress stopped with her bottomless pitcher of iced tea and refilled their glasses. “Did I hear that right?” she asked with a wink in his direction. “You getting lucky tonight, sugar?”

  Nick slid down in his chair and covered his face with one hand. If he’d kept his mouth shut…he had to quit talking to himself.

  “So he says,” Shannon told her.

  “That’s not what I—” he began.

  “Think he’ll get what he wants?” the waitress asked with the biggest smirk Nick had ever seen, from what he could see between his fingers that still covered his face. At least he didn’t think he knew the woman.

  “I don’t know,” Shannon said as if in deep consideration. “At the very least, I’m going to make him wait for it. Maybe beg.”

  “Atta girl.”

  “Why, thank you,” Shannon told her.

  Nick still covered his face, waiting for the waitress to leave.

  “She’s gone. You can come out now.”

  Nick lowered his hand and smirked. “Are we having fun?”

  She snickered. “I am.”

  He looked at her, her sweet mouth, her deep blue eyes, her light brown hair. Every feature was, to him, perfect. Had he noticed before that a row of freckles dotted her nose and cheeks?

  “Nick? Is something wrong?”

  “Wrong? No,” he told her. “Right now everything is just right.”

  A slight shiver moved over her.

  Nick smiled.

  They headed back to town in silence, nothing but the sound of tires humming sixty miles an hour down the blacktop. Every few minutes, there was lightning, followed a few seconds later by a boom of thunder. A storm was moving in.

  Shannon’s mind and pulse raced nearly as fast as the tires. She felt as if she were standing on the edge of a cliff. It wasn’t the storm that had her on that edge—it was anticipation. Behind her, figuratively speaking, lay sameness and familiarity. Safety. Before her, the unknown. And Nick. And maybe, just maybe, excitement like she’d never known.

  Each time the lightning flashed, it illuminated the interior of the car with an oddly harsh light, throwing Nick’s face in sharp relief, his eyes in deep shadow, the hollows of his cheeks, black slashes. For just a second, in that light, he looked like every fantasy she’d ever had.

  Did he really want her, or had she misread him?

  No, he’d wanted her. She’d been sure of that a few minutes ago, so there was no reason to doubt him now. He still wanted her if the rigid set to his jaw and his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel were any indications.

  “You’re awfully quiet.” She spoke softly, but her voice sounded loud in the car.

  “So are you,” he said.

  “I loved Bigg Bobb’s,” she said, watching him from the corner of her eye. “But I’m going to need a shower to get rid of all the barbecue sauce.”

  His mouth curved. “A shower, huh? If I ask if you need any help with that, will you slap my face?”

  “Boy, give the man a little barbecue and he gets all risqué on me.”

  “Hey, you started it,” he said, protesting.

  “Are you complaining?”

  “Are you kidding?” he asked incredulously. “No, ma’am. I’m thanking my lucky stars.”

  Shannon laughed. “That might be the sweetest thing anybody’s ever said to me. Except, I don’t see any stars.”

  Another dance of lightning lit the night.

  “Maybe I have lucky lightning,” he said with a smile. “But if it’s sweet you want—” He slowed for the speed zone just this side of town. “I can do sweet.”

  “Really?” The thunder from the last lighting finally rumbled. The storm was still several miles away. “Give me a sample of sweet.”

  “Sugar,” he said in a dark, silky voice.

  He wasn’t even looking at her. With nothing but his voice, he was melting her bones. If she didn’t get him up to her room—

  “Maple syrup.”

  Shannon blinked. “Huh?”

  “Honey. You wanted sweet, I’m giving you sweet. Chocolate cake. Chocolate milk.”

  Do I feel like an idiot, or what? He was teasing her. And she’d fallen for it, big time. Shannon laughed until tears formed. Laughed at herself, and at him. “Oh, heavens, and I thought you were the quiet, sullen type.”

  “I’ve been known to be quite sullen,” Nick responded, tongue in cheek. “But you just bring out the best in me.” And that, he thought, was the startling truth. He felt different around her. He hesitated even to think it, but what he felt was…better. Not just felt better, but felt like a better person. More alive.

  No, alive wasn’t it. Vital, that was it. He felt more vital. As if he mattered. He felt more his old self around her. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but he wasn’t ready to see an end to it yet.

  He flipped on the blinker and turned into the parking lot of the Tribute Inn. Another flash of lightning crossed the sky, then another and another in quick succession.

  The original Tribute Inn, Nick had been told, had been carried off by a tornado about ten years ago and, along with several other nearby buildings, dumped in about a zillion pieces all across the county. All the buildings had been rebuilt from the ground up. The motel was a simple structure, two stories, built in an L. All rooms faced the parking lot. The office took up the downstairs outside corner farthest from the street.

  “Where do you want me to park?” he asked her.

  “My room’s in the middle corner back there, upstairs. There’s a staircase there.” She pointed to the middle of the building.

  He frowned. “One staircase?” The fireman in him didn’t like the looks of that.

  “There’s another at the other end, but it’s farther to my room from there.”

  Ah. Okay. The only thing that would make it better, in his view, was if each room had a back do
or. That, of course, was too much to ask.

  The parking lot was about half-full, but there was an empty space just down from her staircase. He pulled in, shut off the lights and engine, then sat back.

  The sudden quiet was startling.

  What now? she thought frantically. All night it seemed as if she had forever to make a decision about getting involved with Nick, but she had just run out of time. With her heart thumping in her throat, she wondered what she was supposed to do. All she really knew was that she did not want to spend this night as she normally did—alone. She was so very tired of alone. Funny how she hadn’t realized that until just then, sitting in a rented car with a man who made her pulse race. She barely knew him, but that didn’t seem to matter.

  Good grief, she was twenty-nine years old. Surely she should be able to invite a man to her room without falling apart.

  In the movies “Come up for a drink” always worked, but she didn’t have anything to drink but tap water.

  “Are you ready to go up?” he asked.

  At the sound of his voice, she jerked as if shot. “Up?”

  “To your room. Or maybe you’d rather sit here for a while? But a storm’s coming. You probably don’t want to get trapped in your car and have to wait it out.”

  The storm, she thought. She couldn’t possibly send him to walk home and perhaps get caught out in the rain. She had to invite him up, didn’t she? Of course she did.

  The decision made, she felt much steadier. As long as she didn’t think too much about what was likely to happen while they waited out the storm.

  “Would you like to come up for a while?” she asked him.

  He studied her so long that her nerves stretched tighter. She was about to give up hope that he would answer, when finally he said, “Yes. I’d like that very much.’

  The deep softness sent a shiver down her spine.

  He got out and came around the car to open her door. He extended his hand to help her out and when she took it that sharp quiver of sensation hit them both. But this time, instead of letting go and jumping away from each other, they held on, their eyes locked.

  After a long moment, he tugged gently, and she stepped out. They climbed the stairs side by side and, for the first time, she saw him truly favor his leg. Stairs were definitely hard on him. She wanted to ask if he was all right, but held her tongue. He wouldn’t appreciate the concern, she knew.