An Elm Creek Quilts Sampler (113 page)

For weeks, Adam had been following the grim story of Lindsor’s department store in the newspaper, wondering what its gloomy prospects meant for Natalie. He knew she would be feeling threatened, angry, and frustrated—so he was not surprised when she called him a few days after Christmas and asked if he were free New Year’s Eve, and if he wanted to get together.

He wasn’t free; as much as he sympathized with her plight, he didn’t intend to cancel his plans with Megan to spend the evening consoling Natalie. She persisted, and since he did care about her and wanted to reassure her that whatever happened at Lindsor’s she would find a way to land on her feet, he agreed to meet her for dinner the first Friday evening after New Year’s Day.

She picked their favorite French restaurant downtown, which pained him, as he had asked her to marry him there and hadn’t returned since she broke off their engagement. He was waiting at their table when she arrived twenty minutes late, apologizing for a crisis at work that had delayed her. He rose to pull back her chair and breathed in her perfume as she seated herself. The fragrance, exotic and yet so subtle that he had almost forgotten it, flooded him with memories, none of them particularly pleasant. As he returned to his own seat, wishing he had never come, he reminded himself that he was the one who had suggested they remain friends and that right then Natalie needed a friend.

“You would not believe what a fiery pit of hell work has become,” she said, shaking her head in disgust and opening the menu. Her eyes snapped with anger, which somehow enhanced her beauty. He suddenly realized she was wearing her red silk dress. It had always been one of his favorites, off the shoulder and clinging to her curves in a way that was undeniably alluring. It wasn’t the sort of dress she wore to work, so she must have changed before meeting him.

“I’ve read about the takeover,” he said, refusing to second-guess Natalie’s intentions. She enjoyed the challenge of charming people; naturally she would choose a dress she knew he liked. “Do you think it’s a possibility?”

“It’s not only a possibility, it’s happening.” She paused as the waiter arrived to take their order, then added, “Whatever you see in the news is at least a week out of date. Lindsor’s has already accepted their offer.”

“I’m sorry,” Adam said, with genuine regret. “How will this affect you?”

She shook her head and took a drink of wine. “I don’t know. It’s too soon to say.” Suddenly she looked tearful. “They’re going to close stores and cut jobs, and not just on the lower end. They’re consolidating upper management, but they haven’t told us yet who goes and who stays. The office has been a nightmare—everyone scrambling to prove how essential they are to the corporation and accusing everyone else of being dead weight. People I trusted, people I thought were my friends—they’re just like everyone else, backstabbing and conniving.”

Adam thought Natalie more than capable of holding her own in such a situation and told her so, but she shook her head. “It’s different there now. I can’t make alliances and can’t make compromises, not when everyone knows the person you help today could be the one who has your job tomorrow.”

“You’ll be fine,” Adam assured her. “Think of all you’ve accomplished there. They can’t afford to lose you.”

“That’s what I keep telling myself, but in the meantime, I’ve been working on my résumé.” She smiled and reached across the table for his hand. “All that socializing you always made fun of might finally pay off. The CEO and CFO like me, and that might just give me an edge.”

“It couldn’t hurt.” Out of habit, he ran his thumb over her knuckles as he held her hand.

“I could have used your help New Year’s Eve,” she scolded him gently. “I attended a function and ran into the presidents of two other chains. It would have been wonderful if you had been there to charm their wives in case I’ll be asking them for a job in a few weeks.”

“I had other plans,” Adam said, and didn’t elaborate. Megan had invited him to her house, where they and Robby had some kind of delicious beef wrapped in a pastry crust for supper. Afterward they watched videos, and when Robby fell asleep on the floor in his sleeping bag, Megan snuggled up beside Adam on the sofa and they held each other. At midnight, they kissed, and it was the most gentle, warm, and loving kiss he could remember ever receiving. Then they woke Robby to wish him a happy new year, and Megan put him to bed. Adam hoped she would ask him to stay the night, but he didn’t expect it, not so soon and not with her son in the house. She didn’t, but she did kiss him in a way that made him hope that the night they could stay together wouldn’t be too far off.

Suddenly Adam realized Natalie’s hand was still in his, and abruptly, he released it. The waiter arrived then with their entrees, and as they began eating, Natalie asked him how school was going. He reminded her he was still on break and told her how the semester had gone, keeping it brief, because he knew lengthy narratives about his students bored her. To his surprise, she listened as if she were interested, and even prompted him for more details about a student she remembered from the previous year.

“You seem to be doing well,” she said when he had finished, and gave him a wan smile. “I think you’re doing better than I am.”

“Our careers are too different to compare—”

“I wasn’t talking about work. I was talking, you know, just in general.”

Adam wasn’t sure what she meant, but something in her expression made him uncomfortable. “You’re going to be fine.”

“I hope you’re right.” She drained the last of her wine and set down the glass, her slender fingers grasping the stem, her gaze lowered. “Adam, I’ve been thinking. I’ve had a lot of time to think about my future, and about us, and about how it ended.”

In a flash of insight, he realized where she was going, and he urgently wanted her to say no more. “Natalie—”

“No, please, let me finish. I’ve been thinking that I made the biggest mistake of my life in letting you go. I had a good thing, and I threw it away.” She hesitated. “You don’t have to answer now, but please think about it. I know I hurt you, but I also know you’re the kind of man who forgives. I was wondering if you thought you could ever forgive me, and if maybe we could try again.”

Adam couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Once he would have rejoiced to hear Natalie speak those words, but that was months ago. “Of course I forgive you,” he said. “And I hope you forgive me. But you were right to break it off. It wouldn’t have worked. You were just the first of us to realize it.”

“But I think I was wrong.” She smiled at him. Her eyes were warm with encouragement and wistful hope. “What do you say? Shall we start over?”

“Natalie, are you sure …” He chose his words carefully. “Are you sure you’d be saying this if not for the troubles at work?”

She sat back in her chair, stung. “How could you say such a thing?” Her eyes were bright with tears.

He felt horrible. “I’m sorry. It’s just that you’re upset and anxious—and maybe that’s why you think we ought to try again. In hindsight, especially compared to how awful things are at Lindsor’s these days, maybe our relationship seems better than it really was.”

“I know how good it was,” she said stubbornly. “I know you loved me once, and I think you still do. Why can’t we try again? Is it because you think I’ll break up with you? I promise you, I swear to you I won’t.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not? There isn’t someone else, is there?” She stared at him in disbelief. “Oh, my God. There is, isn’t there?”

He took a deep breath. “Yes, I’m seeing someone.”

“Oh my God.” Natalie raised her wineglass to her lips, forgetting it was empty. “Is she the one who answered the phone at your house?”

“What?”

“Who is she?”

“You’ve never met.”

“Is it serious?”

He hated hurting her, but he had to be honest. “I think it might be.”

Natalie was incredulous, close to tears. “Do you love her?”

He had not yet asked himself that question, but now, confronted with it, he found he knew the answer. “Yes, I think I do.”

“I can’t believe this.” A tear slipped down her cheek, and angrily, she whisked it away with a fingertip, careful not to smudge her mascara. “Well, you must not have loved me very much if you could fall for someone else so soon.”

Her words stung. “That was an ugly thing to say. You know I loved you.”

“Apparently not as much as I thought,” she said with a brittle laugh. “Is she prettier than me? Wait, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.”

“Natalie—”

“Just tell me one thing, though, would you? How long have you two been seeing each other? Were you seeing her while we were still engaged? Did it start before or after we broke up?”

“After.” Adam fought to keep his irritation under control. As difficult as Natalie had been sometimes, he never would have considered betraying her. “Months after.”

“Then you couldn’t have been with her for very long, a few months at most. What’s that compared to the years we’ve shared?”

“This isn’t something we can negotiate.” Adam kept his voice low in an attempt to prevent hers from rising even higher.

Her tears were falling freely now, and she made no attempt to conceal them. “You love her,” she said. “Tell me something else. Why her? Why her, and not me?”

“Let’s not do this, please.”

“No, really, I want to know.” She folded her hands on the table and regarded him with cool, businesslike interest, but her tears betrayed her. “Maybe this will help me in the future.”

Adam didn’t see how, but he was willing to do anything to help her stop crying. “She’s a good person. I think you’d like her—”

“Oh,
please.
Give me some specifics.”

“What do you want me to say? She’s smart, she’s kind, she’s a wonderful mother—”

“So that’s what this is all about. It’s always kids with you, isn’t it?” Suddenly she softened. “Look, I’m willing to consider it, okay? Maybe having kids wouldn’t be so bad. I might be willing to compromise on that.”

“You shouldn’t compromise on having kids,” Adam said, incredulous. “I never wanted you to have them for me. If you don’t want them for yourself, you shouldn’t have them.” Suddenly he felt exhausted, drained by her anger and the effort it took to try to avoid hurting her when hurt was inevitable. “I don’t know what else to tell you. I’m sorry. I hate hurting you, but I can’t try again, knowing how it will turn out.”

“You don’t know how it will turn out.”

“I do know.”

“You can’t. I’m different now. Things won’t end the same.”

But Adam was different, too, and he realized then that Natalie would never see that. “I’m sorry,” he said, at a loss, knowing nothing he said would comfort her or convince her he was right.

Natalie took a deep breath, and then another, staring at the table. “All right.” Her voice was hollow. “I can accept this. You’re punishing me. I suppose I deserve that, after breaking off the engagement.”

“That’s not it.” Frustration gave his voice an edge. “I care about you, I really do, but it just won’t work.”

“Because of her.”

“Not only because of her.”

Natalie sniffed scornfully, then fell silent, one graceful hand toying listlessly with her wineglass.

“I’m sorry,” Adam said again, helpless.

“You can stop saying that.” She took another deep breath, and then, much calmer, she met his gaze and said, “Can we at least still be friends, or will that upset your girlfriend?”

“Of course we can be friends,” he said, ignoring the snide emphasis she had given the last word, unwilling to start a new argument. “I hope we’ll always be friends.”

She nodded and looked away. “Well.” She gathered her purse and coat and cleared her throat. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll be going. I’m not very hungry, and I have a lot of work to do this weekend.”

Adam rose with her, but she hurried away from the table before he could say good-bye.

He sank heavily into his chair, wondering if he could have possibly made a worse mess of things. He pictured Natalie’s tears and silently berated himself for causing them.

Disgusted with himself, he signaled the waiter for the check, eager to be away from there.

Ten

TO: Donna Jorgenson

FROM:[email protected]

DATE: 11:34 AM 1÷4

SUBJECT:Re:Happy New Year!

I haven’t been avoiding your questions! Yes, I did have a date for NewYear’s Eve, and yes, you guessed right, but I wish you would stop callinghim the Apple Pie Guy.

TO: Grace Daniels

FROM: Donna Jorgenson

DATE: 4 Jan 12:35 PM CDT

SUBJECT:We were right…

It’s true, Megan and Adam are dating!

TO: Donna Jorgenson

FROM: Grace Daniels

DATE: 1:26 PM PT 4 Jan

SUBJECT: Re:We were right …

I can see Vinnie celebrating already. She’s going to finish her ChallengeQuilt block first. I wonder if I’ll ever be allowed to start mine.

TO: Donna Jorgenson

FROM:[email protected]

DATE: 4:57 PM 1÷4