Dear Diary (13 page)

Rory squeezed her way past the throng by the door of Harvest Café, a new lunch counter not far from Jacobson & Kern, er, Shard Ltd., and glanced around the room. Michelle was seated at a table in the far corner. Spotting Rory, she waved eagerly.

“I can’t tell you how glad I am to be here!” Michelle declared as Rory scooted her seat into the table. “I got a sitter for the twins and just left. Thank God! I don’t even feel guilty.”

The waiter refilled Michelle’s empty wine glass. To his look of inquiry, Rory shook her head. “I’ve got to be sharp this afternoon.”

“It’s Friday,” Michelle said breezily. “You’ve only got a few hours left.”

“I know, but nevertheless…” She smiled. “Besides, my day has just begun. As soon as I get home I’ve got to try out a new recipe.”

“Try out a new recipe?” Michelle repeated. “You?”

“It’s a long story,” said Rory dryly, then filled Michelle in on her donation for the auction.

Michelle’s blue eyes sparkled with amusement. Shorter than Rory by two inches, Michelle still possessed the soft, unblemished skin and thick auburn hair she’d had as a teenager. There was something feminine and pretty about Michelle that hadn’t hardened with age. Yet her sister had aged in some ways, Rory realized with faint uneasiness. The skin across Michellle’s cheekbones was drawn and there was a telltale redness around her eyes.

“Is something wrong?” Rory asked.

“You mean with me? No. Why?”

“You look kind of tired.”

“Well, yeah,” she said, as if Rory were totally dense. “You don’t know what it’s like chasing after a couple of three-year-olds. Max is an absolute monster. He tortures his sister endlessly. Lisa’s crying all the time.”

“You make motherhood sound so attractive,” remarked Rory dryly. Michelle was fussing with her napkin, and she wondered if her sister were covering up.

“I love them. I wouldn’t have it any other way, it’s just…” Her voice trailed off and her lips tightened. “Sometimes I just feel like a single mom. James isn’t a lot of help with the kids.”

Bingo. James was the problem.

“My psychologist tells me I’m trying to live the ideal life, and it’s killing me. I need to back off a little.”

“Your psychologist?” Rory repeated.

Michelle shrugged, almost sheepishly. “I thought I was falling apart a while back. A friend recommended a psychologist. So I went to her, and things have been better.”

Rory was instantly concerned. “Why didn’t you tell me you were falling apart?”

“Oh, you know,” Michelle laughed, embarrassed. “You’re always so together. You’d never let a man get to you like James was getting to me. I was almost afraid you’d talk me into divorcing him or something.”

“Michelle! I would never do that! For God’s sake, I didn’t want mom and dad to split up even after—” She cut herself off. She’d never discussed with Michelle the day she surprised her father and Eileen and she didn’t feel like bringing it up now. “Have things really gotten that bad between you and James?” she asked instead.

Michelle shook her head and swallowed from her wine glass. “No, no. I’m just feeling low. The last thing I want is a divorce,” she said forcefully. “Let’s talk about something else. How are things going now that Nick is your boss? Is it good, bad, what?”

Rory reluctantly allowed the subject to be changed. “Too early to tell. Nick is moving to Seattle sometime this weekend. He’ll be in the office starting Monday. Then we’ll see.”

“But how do you feel about it?” Michelle pressed. “I mean,
Nick!
Your best friend. It must be weird to have him as a boss.”

“I haven’t really gotten used to the idea yet,” Rory admitted.

Michelle eyed her sister speculatively. “What’s he like these days?”

“Pretty much the same, I guess.” Rory shrugged. She was glad when the waiter came to take their order.

But Michelle was persistent. “I always thought he was so good looking.”

“He is,” Rory granted unwillingly.

“Still the same sexy eyes and smile?”

“Yes.”

Michelle grinned. “I always wondered why the two of you didn’t get together. I mean, Nick was always crazy about you.”

“You are wrong, dear sister.”

“Uh-uh. You were his friend, and he was always hanging around with you when all the rest of his buddies were stupidly panting over the cheerleaders and homecoming princesses.”

“You were a cheerleader and homecoming princess,” Rory pointed out. “And Nick married one of those cheerleaders.”

“Past tense.”

“Yes, but that blows your theory about—”

“Would you stop?” Michelle snapped her cloth napkin at Rory. “He bought that company knowing you were one of the employees. I’m sure he did it on purpose, just so he could be with you again.”

“And next he’s going to buy my apartment complex so that he can move in next door.” Michelle was, and always had been, an incurable romantic.

“Why can’t you see it, Rory?” she demanded. “Why are you the only one who can’t see how he feels about you?”

Rory leaned across the table and said in a firm voice, “You haven’t seen Nick in years. You don’t even know what you’re talking about. Why do you always have to play matchmaker for me? Do I ask for it? Is there something about me that makes you think, ‘Oh, poor Rory. She needs so much help, and I’m just the woman to do it’.”

“Yeah. Maybe,” Michelle challenged. “Face it. You’re not doing such a hot job of finding available men on your own.”

“If I wanted an available man, I’d make more of an effort. Nick and I are friends. That’s all. And that’s all we’ll ever be.”

Michelle took another sip of wine. Rory didn’t trust the sparkle that suddenly entered her eyes.

“Don’t,” Rory groaned. “Seriously, Michelle, if you do or say anything to Nick, I swear I’ll renounce you as my sister.”

“You worry too much,” she said, and turned all her attention on her meal.

Rory sighed. There was no hope for her. Michelle was bound to do something totally awful and embarrassing in the name of keeping her sister from becoming an old maid.

Rory frantically stir-fried the Chinese vegetables in her new wok. Gray smoke swirled upward, stinging her nose. The grease was burning. The temperature was too high.

“I am never going to get this right!” she shouted in frustration, yanking the wok from the burner. Grease popped and splattered, burning Rory’s arm in half a dozen small spots. Furious, she ran to the sink, pouring cold water over her forearm. So much for learning the art of Chinese cooking in seven days or less. She was going to have to settle for an old standby.

Problem yowled to be let out, and paced anxiously on his delicate brown toes like a drunken tightrope walker, hoping Rory would come to his rescue.

“In a minute,” Rory muttered through her teeth.

The doorbell rang at the same moment she turned off the tap. Examining the bright red spots on her arm, she walked to the front door, throwing it wide open. Trying to streak between her ankles, Problem pulled up short at the sight of a pair of khaki-clad masculine legs blocking his way. Almost in midstride, the cat wheeled around and shot for the outside stairs.

“Nick,” Rory cried, half exasperated.

“Busy?” he asked, his nose wrinkling at the scent of burned oil and vegetables.

“I’m cooking.”

“Cooking what? Barbecue?”

“Chinese food,” she said evenly. “What are you doing here?” She stepped back, allowing him inside. “I thought you’d be at your new condo, waiting for the moving van.”

“I’m already finished. Got everything settled last night by ten o’clock.”

“Wow. So, you’re here in Seattle for good?”

“Didn’t we already have this conversation?”

“It just seems kind of strange,” she said, feeling slightly dazed.

“If you don’t stop looking so shell-shocked you’re going to give me a complex. You’re supposed to be thrilled that your old buddy’s come home.”

“I am. Thrilled,” Rory said, her voice not quite measuring up to her words. She
was
happy that Nick was back, but at the same time it made things more complicated. In some ways it was too bad Nick was her boss. She would have loved to just gripe to him about things, one good friend to another. “Maybe having you around will make Don behave. Since the change of ownerships, working with him hasn’t exactly been my idea of a fun time.”

“What is your idea of a fun time?” Nick asked, moving into the kitchen. He surveyed the burned mass of vegetables.

“Dinner out?”

Nick shot her a look. “What is this?” he asked, glancing at her ruined meal.

“I’ll tell you on the way.”

The line at the theater snaked around the building and spilled into the parking lot. It took twenty minutes to find a parking place and when they did, Nick stepped outside the car and examined the crowd unenthusiastically.

“Maybe we should have gone to the Movie Haus,” he remarked.

“I heard there’s a remake of
The Undead Beast
in the works,” Rory said, coming around to his side of the car.

“Now that, is a lie,” he said, the corners of his eyes crinkling at the memory. There was a flash of something in that look that made Rory’s breath catch, but a second later it was gone. “Do we have room for ice cream?” he asked, indicating the restaurant next door to the theater. White tables with red umbrellas were clustered in an outdoor patio area.

Rory shook her head. “I’m stuffed.” They’d just gulped down huge hamburgers at a local burger joint. “But I could use some iced-tea.”

“After you.”

The place was packed on a Friday night, but Nick and Rory were in no hurry and an outside table was finally cleared and ready for them. They both ordered iced-tea. Dusk was slowly settling, shading Rory’s face. Nick lounged across from her, his feet propped on another chair. He was twirling the striped red and white straw in his glass between two fingers.

It was the first peaceful moment Rory had spent with him. Ever since he’d blown into her life again, she’d been faced with one crisis after another. Her work load had changed. The pace had picked up. He’d given her the Marsden account, for God’s sake. Instead of the calm sameness of her everyday existence, there was now a new element of risk and adventure.

“So tell me how it’s been with Don,” he said, stretching lazily in his chair.

Rory wrinkled her nose. There were some things a woman understood that a man never could. Like when a guy was putting you down even while he was complimenting you. Try to explain that and you’d be accused of being paranoid, or egotistical, or just plain female. “It’s more his manner than anything he’s done. I don’t think he likes working with women in general, and now me in particular. It’s nothing new, just maybe a little more noticeable since you gave me the Marsden account.”

“Think I should fire him?”

“
What?
No. This conversation is not taking place. Whatever happens with Don, don’t make it on my account.”

“I’ll just have a talk with him.”

“Keep my name out of it.”

“I can be discreet.”

“Hmm.” She tried not to sound skeptical. “I hope so. I want to believe you’re a good a boss you are.”

“I’m the best,” he said, grinning.

Though he was teasing, Rory wondered if that might not be true. No one could argue with Nick’s success. And she knew from experience that he was fair and conscientious and possessed remarkable savvy about human nature. As long as his love affairs stayed out of the office she was certain they would get along fine.

“I’ve been thinking about Jenny,” she said, surprised that she was actually going to say what was on her mind.

“What about her?”

“Ever since I told you what she said, I’ve been kind of… I don’t know… wondering, I guess.”

“She lied to you,” he reminded her.

She nodded, more to appease him than anything else. “I was just remembering how much you wanted to marry her, and it fell apart pretty fast. In a couple of years. What happened?”

“It wasn’t because I was unfaithful,” he said again.

“Okay.”

He shook his head, and for a moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer her. Then he said, “We were probably just too young. She wanted to get married. I was twenty-two, finishing college. She was there, and…” He shook his head, frowned down at his empty glass and swirled the melting ice cubes with suppressed emotion. “Does it ever make any sense when it’s over?”