Point of Attraction (12 page)

It was a few minutes before the down
pour ebbed.

“Do you have to tell Cassie
about this?,” Georgie asked, staring out at the
“
dark and rainy night,
” almost laughing at the cliché, but didn’t. But she did let
it lift her spirits.
“
You know how she gets.”

“Oh, no. No, no, no.” He shook his
head, with a choking laugh as he turned the key and the motor
hummed. “I like living.” The old Nick was returning, assuring her
they were both calming down. “If she finds out and I didn’t tell
her, I’ll be toast.”

She wanted to join him, laugh the whole
thing off, but the truth of his statement kept any mirth to a tight
strained smile. To not tell Cassie would be both their
end.

~~0~~

For a second, Georgie thought Cassie
was going to reach across the restaurant table for Nick before
they’d even finished their recount of the night’s
incident.

“Did you at least get a license
number?” Cassie began her interrogation. “What make of car? SUV
tells me nothing. Men are supposed to notice little things like
that, especially you, Mr. Know-it-all.”

“I was too busy pulling this one out of
the way,” Nick said, pointing his thumb at Georgie, following with
a shoulder nudge, then motioned Cassie to settle down. “All I saw
was the back end of it. But I’m doing a search up here.” He tapped
a finger to his head. “I’ll put it together.”

“Yeah, well your hard drive needs
updating.”

“My hard drive is just fine, thank you
very much,” Nick threw back. “I’ve heard no complaints.”

“You are so vile.”

Georgie and April just sat back, looked
across the table at each other, and let the scene go on with a long
practiced acceptance. April, like Georgie, learned quite some time
ago... when Nick and Cassie entered into their war of words it was
best to just let them get it all out. While arguing, they heard no
one but each other.

“They’ll wear themselves out soon,”
Georgie said.

April nodded, but said nothing. April
was taller than Cassie, slender, wore no make-up, and a very laid
back person. She was also one of the best architects to be had who
could do the work on her own from the base of the building to its
roof... if need be. But then, Cassie would only choose the cream of
the crop, and April was that. Georgie sighed. Seventeen years ago,
she and Sam attended Cassie and April’s union. Nick manage to fly
in for the ceremony, then just as quickly had to leave, but only a
sister came from April’s side. The rest of her family refused to
acknowledge the event and commitment.

As though their thoughts had met
somewhere in the ambiance of the moment, April looked up, and met
Georgie’s gaze. With a half smile and a hint of a roll of her brown
eyes, April weaved her fingers through her short warm brown hair
that Georgie kept highlighted with a soft blond, said “I need a
hair cut.”

“Sure,” Georgie said. “Just give me a
call. Let me know when. Looks like you’re also ready for another
highlight.”

“April, your hair is short enough,”
Cassie said. “How much shorter do you want it?”

If nothing else, the war of
words had come to a stop. April merely offered Cassie a side
glance. “Have I ever told
you
how to wear your hair?”

“I think we better order,” Georgie
said, eyeing Nick, who, in turn, overtly rolled his
eyes.

“And you people wonder why I don’t
marry,” Nick said, signaling the waitress.

“I think you should tell M&M,”
Cassie suggested, ignoring Nick’s remark, and Georgie glared back
at her to stop before she got started. “Georgie...” It was almost a
whine. “I think he should know.”

Gratefully, the waitress came, bringing
the conversation to a stop. They each gave her their order, but
there was no mistaking who held the young waitress’s attention.
Nick.

“Anything from the bar while you’re
waiting?” the waitress asked, but her attention never left
Nick.

“Coffee for me,” he said.

“Nope. I’m driving,” April
said.

“Nothing for me,” Cassie said, then
thought a moment and added, “Actually, I’d like some orange
juice.”

“Me too,” Georgie ended it, and hoped
against hope the matter of calling Mason would be
dropped.

“So, who’s M&M?” Nick asked once
the waitress left.

So much for that hope, Georgie sighed,
and sipped on her glass of water and waited. No one said anything
and Nick looked to her for an explanation. Georgie shook her head
with a quick hand wave of dismissal, and let her sight wander. This
was always the way it was. Cassie flung doors open, but it was
Georgie who was expected to walk through them.

“She’s referring to Officer
Montgomery,” Georgie finally told Nick. “She calls him
M&M.”

“M&M is Officer Montgomery?” April
asked, her voice lifting in surprise, then shook her head in
hopeless resignation. “God, Cassie, will you never get tired of
meddling?”

“This isn’t meddling,” Cassie defended,
patting and squeezing April’s hand before Georgie found herself,
once more, the center of her dear friend’s match making attention.
“I think he’d want to know. Nick, you know it was a hit and run.
Wouldn’t you report it? Come on. Back me up here.”

“It was a careless speeder in a parking
lot,” Georgie argued. “He didn’t hit me.”

“Just because he missed you,” Nick
said, “doesn’t make it less a hit and run. He must have heard that
purse of yours when he hit it. If he is all that innocent, then why
didn’t he stop? I have to agree with Cassie on this. I know I’d
want to be told, and as interested as I think Dudley Do-Right is in
you...” He let the words fade away, his eyes set on his finger
toying with the napkin in his well practiced overdone
innocence.

“See?” Cassie said,
appearing very pleased she was not alone, then pointed at Nick.
“
Dudley Do-Right
.
I like that. Very clever, Nicky.”

Georgie chose not to comment on Nick’s
quick thumbs-up and grin. Instead, she looked to April for her
quiet logic. Someone had to see her side of this. It was totally
ridiculous for Mason to be brought into this. The man had a job to
do. He didn’t need this. But April met Georgie’s hopeful glance
with an up-lift of eyebrows, then seemed to find her fork a more
important focal point. Georgie’s hopes died. She was alone. April
was siding with Cassie and Nick.

“Traitor,” Georgie murmured.

“I have to consider
my
happy home,” April
shrugged, while rolling the fork between her fingers.

“We have no make on the car, no license
number,” Georgie continued her reasoning, then turned to Nick.
“What exactly are we going to report? Dark SUV, one broken purse
strap.”

“I told you,” he said, voice low as he
leaned into her. “I’m working on it.”

“The person is probably as mortified as
I was scared,” Georgie told them, then motioned that the waitress
was coming with their coffee, orange juice and the
appetizers.

Though they ate their food
in mild conversation, it was only because Nick was deep into
himself the entire meal. Now and then he would give the proper
response, but Georgie knew he was somewhere in his mind working on
his
puzzle
. He
was truly a human computer. It might take him a while, but whatever
information he was seeking, Georgie knew he would eventually find
it. She had long ago lost count of how many times he climbed the
tree branch from his window and followed the limbs between houses
to come pound on her window just to tell her the answer to a
question she’d completely forgotten was asked. He’d grin, point to
his head then at her. “Told you,” he’d say, and leave.

“Call M&M,” Cassie said again, as
they left the restaurant, and pulled her coat closer to ward off
the cold breeze.

“I’ll think about it,” Georgie
relented, and shivered as she brought up the knitted scarf snuggly
under her chin.

April gave her a hug and whispered
loudly enough to be heard, “Do us all a favor and at least call
this M&M. Cassie will make our lives miserable until you
do.”

“Oh, will you stop?” Cassie said to
April.

Georgie smiled, but gave April a
satirical guise. “They call that controlling.”

“You have no idea,” April said, in her
quiet manner while she searched her pant pockets and came up with
her BMW keys jingling.

“Okay, that’s it. Time to go.” Cassie
hugged Georgie then Nick, and walked off. “Do it,” she said,
turning to point at Nick. “You make sure she does.” When Nick
didn’t answer, she stopped and waited. “Nick?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I heard you,
already. God, what a nag you’ve become. Take her away,
April.”

“You got it,” April said, and took
Cassie by the arm to urge her away. “Come on.”

~~0~~

“Where did you park your motorcycle?”
Georgie asked, steering her Subaru into the Western Shopping Center
entrance nearest her shop.

“Behind Dare To Care.”

“What? Why in back?”

“Because you don’t leave something like
that baby alone on a rainy night. It’s chained to the light post
behind your trash dumpster, and out of sight, sort of.”

Georgie parked so her
headlights offered all the light Nick would need. She had to admit,
whatever cloth he placed over
baby
made the motorcycle blend into the darkness. It
was a darkness she often complained about to Center Management. It
was an area not safe for female workers, or males, for that matter.
It was too lonely and should have twice the amount of lighting.
Instant Reply Security was not instant enough, and she would let
neither Brandy nor Emmee park their cars back here.

When Nick didn’t get out, she looked
over at him.

“Turn off your headlights a minute,” he
said.

The dark night enveloped them as did
his silence. She could see him squinting; his sight set on
something beyond the windshield. He’s still searching, she thought,
but said nothing. It would be like touching the wrong key on your
computer while it was doing a file search.

After a while her eyes adjusted to what
light the few Center lamps offered. It took a minute before he
pointed across the dim parking area, his attention and sight still
fixed where he indicated.

“Who parks over there?” he asked. “Two
spaces over from the opening in the wall there.”

Georgie looked, she too squinting as
though it would help. “I’m not sure...”

“Think. Dark, SUV. Two
spaces.”

Georgie looked back at him. “I don’t
normally come here at night... Wait. A Durango, maybe?”

This time he turned slightly, his eyes
meeting hers. His face was a mask of sharp sculptured lines in the
low light. “It was a Durango that almost hit you.”

“What?”

“I’m telling you. It was a Durango. Who
drives that car?”

“It doesn’t mean it
was
that
car,”
she said, a dread turning over in her stomach. “I mean...
Nick...”

“It’s gone. It was there when I
arrived. Trust me on that. Now it’s gone.”

“Well, Jeffrey probably went home...”
She bit her lip, but it was too late. The words were out and there
was no taking them back.

Nick now had that bone in
his mouth and she knew he would not let it go. He turned all the
way to face her squarely, but she was certain he was not
seeing
her. It was as
though he was studying a jigsaw puzzle that wouldn’t come into
focus for him.

“Jeffrey.” His voice was flat, hard.
“Little mild mannered Jeffrey from the shop?”

She couldn’t lie to him. He would see
right through it. “I’m almost positive he normally parks his car
there. He does drive a forest green Durango. But...”

“Where does he live?”

“I don’t know.” When his eyes
sharpened, she added, “I honestly don’t know. I’ve never been to
his house. You don’t really think it was him. I mean... come
on.”

His whole body relaxed, but Georgie
felt it was a role he was playing, trying to keep it all cool. “It
wouldn’t hurt to take a look at his car. Clear him first, and move
on. You know.”

“Okay. I’m not stupid. Out with it.”
She pointed at him and made exaggerated circles with her finger. “I
can see those little wheels turning in your pointed little head. I
can’t see Jeffrey being that careless in a parking lot filled with
people. I...”

She stopped and thought back to that
moment. There was the rev of the engine and the high beams came on,
blinding her, but the gunning engine didn’t back off. If anything,
it roared even more as the car came at her.

“Oh, my God. You really believe it was
intentional?” she asked, and shivered in the warm car.

Nick’s nod was a mere wisp of a
shadow.