Nick didn’t bother putting the rental inside the garage.
He wasn’t staying.
Elle swallowed the pain and turned when he opened the passenger door. He held out a big hand. She didn’t need help. But . . . this might be her only, her last chance to touch him.
She put her hand in his, and in a second, he guided her down to the gravel, dropped her hand, then held it out again, palm up.
She looked at it blankly, then up at him. He wanted to hold her hand?
“Keys,” he said tersely.
Oh.
Numb with cold and pain, she opened her purse and gave him the door keys. She didn’t have to rummage. Her purse held a now-empty wallet, a cellphone with very few minutes left, an old lipstick, and the keys.
In a moment, Nick had the door open and was standing there, waiting for her.
He watched her walk the few short steps to the porch and up to the portico. Lucky thing he wasn’t looking around.
The grounds had always been a showpiece. When Nick disappeared, Rodrigo was still coming twice a week to take care of the extensive gardens. The drive had been flanked by seasonal flowers in large terra-cotta vases. The vases and flowers were long gone. There were no flowers anywhere and the hedges had long since lost their shape.
Elle had received three official notices of “abandonment” in the past six months.
Nick didn’t seem to notice, thank God.
Inside the house, though, it was worse than outside.
The house had always been immaculate. Ever since her mother had died, when she was five, the house had been ruled by a benevolent tyrant, Mrs. Gooding, who kept it polished and fragrant with the help of a maid several times a week.
Mrs. Gooding was long gone, as was the maid.
Elle had done her best, but the house was big and the last months of her father’s life had required round-the-clock care from her. She napped when she could, exhausted, and did the best she could to keep a bare minimum of cleanliness.
Her father had taken ill during the night, and they’d rushed to the hospital. She kept vigil by his side for four days and four nights. Then the funeral.
The house was a mess. A freezing cold mess, because she hadn’t turned the heat on, knowing she’d be away all day.
This time Nick noticed.
He stopped inside the foyer and she stopped with him. His neck bent back as he looked up at the ceiling of the two-story atrium. Once there had been a magnificent Murano chandelier with fifty bulbs that had blazed as brightly as the sun. Now there was simply a low-wattage lightbulb hanging naked from a cord.
The rest of the foyer was naked too. Watercolors, the huge Chinese rug, the console with the ornately carved mirror atop it, the two Viennese Thonet armchairs on either side of the Art Deco desk with the enormous solid silver bowl full of potpourri—gone.
Nick didn’t react in any way. His face was calm and expressionless.
What was he thinking?
Later, after he’d disappeared, one of her high school classmates said that he’d been earning extra money playing poker with lowlifes, and that he always won because he had the best poker face anyone had ever seen.
She was seeing that now. There was no clue to his thoughts.
Perhaps— Perhaps she’d hoped to see some softness or gentleness when he looked at her. But no.
She gestured awkwardly toward the back of the house. “Would you . . . Would you like something to drink?”
He nodded his head briefly without saying anything. She turned and walked into the kitchen, knowing he didn’t need her direction. He knew the way.
His showing up had scrambled her brains, but now she forced herself to think, to reason things out. Where had he come from? Had he traveled a long time? Would he stay the night?
Her heart gave a huge thump in her chest at the thought.
“So”—once in the kitchen Elle turned to face him, plastering a smile on her face, making a real effort not to wring her hands—“what can I offer you?”
Oh God.
Too late she realized that there was very little to offer. If he wanted alcohol, there was none in the house. Her father had had a fine collection of whiskeys, but they had gone years ago and she had never bought another bottle. There was no food, either, she suddenly remembered. Only a last frozen pizza in the freezer.
“Coffee would be fine.” His voice and eyes were so calm. She tried to cling to that, to calm herself down, but it was hard. This was Nick. Nick was here, right now, in her kitchen.
“Coffee. Right.” There was coffee. Enough for one cup at least.
She turned and tried to keep her hands steady as she opened the cupboard to get the coffee. To her horror, except for the glass canister with an inch of grounds, the cupboard was bare.
Exactly like in some horrible fable.
She closed the cupboard, making a louder noise than she wanted, then set about making coffee with trembling hands for Nick.
Nick.
Who was here.
Preparing the coffee, setting out the pretty Limoges cup and saucer, part of a set that she hadn’t sold because there were only four pieces, setting out a silver spoon and the Wedgewood sugar canister calmed her down a little.
He was still standing, and that was another blow to the heart.
This had been his kitchen once too. He had once been completely at home here. She remembered the thousands of evenings Nick had teased her and made her father laugh in here while Mrs. Gooding prepared dinner.
Now he was standing, needing her permission to sit. Tears blurred her eyes but she willed them back. She’d had a lot of experience at that. She could do this.
“Please sit.” She pulled out a chair.
He took off his jacket, hung it on the back of the chair, and sat. Underneath the jacket he had on a heavy flannel shirt.
Oh God. She should do the same, of course. Except she was still cold, and underneath the jacket she had on only a thin sweater. She did still have a few thick sweaters, but her mind had been so befogged by the exhaustion of the last days of her father’s life, and the funeral arrangements, that she’d simply grabbed the first thing that came to hand. As luck would have it, it was a thin cotton sweater.
But she could pretend with the best of them. She hung her own jacket over the chair and sat down across from him.
They looked at each other mutely.
The coffee machine percolated. Elle sprang up and poured him a cup.
Nick hesitated. “What about you? Still don’t like coffee? You always liked tea. Can I make you some?”
“No!” Elle cleared her throat. “No, thanks.” She’d kill for a cup of tea, but it was in the cupboard above the stove and that was bare too. Two bare cupboards—it was too much for Nick to see.
Nick blew on the cup and sipped. As always, the delicate china looked out of place in his large hand, but she knew from experience that it was safe. His hands were huge, had always been huge, but he was far from clumsy.
They sat in silence until he finished half the cup, then looked up at her. “How long had he been ill?”
Elle didn’t sigh, but she wanted to. “Several years. But his doctor thinks, with hindsight, that the illness started five years ago, only he managed to hide it.”
Something—some faint expression crossed his face.
Oh God. He’d left them five years ago. It sounded like she was accusing him of precipitating her father’s decline.
“Must have been hard. For you.”
Elle simply dipped her head. Yes, hard. Very hard.
“So—what will you do now? Go back to college?”
“I wasn’t enrolled in college.”
That surprised him. It took a lot to surprise Nick, but she’d done it. “What do you mean you’re not in college? You were a straight-A student, always had been. Or have you already finished college?”
She had to smile at that. She’d had anything but straight As while she struggled to deal with her father’
s eccentricities. It would be another year before she understood he was ill. She’d missed almost every other day her sophomore year.
“No . . . I, ah—it’s complicated.”
Nick was frowning. Okay. That was easier to deal with than that look of pity he’d had.
“Well, now there’s nothing holding you back, is there?”
Well, if you didn’t count no money and medical debts, and put like that . . .” No, there isn’t.”
The answer seemed to relax him. He looked around again, then back at her, his dark gaze penetrating.
“You’re too thin. And too pale. You need to eat more and get outside more.”
That hurt. Nick had been in her heart always, since he had first come into their lives. She’d only been seven, but she loved him the moment she laid eyes on him. She’d been a girl then, but she was a woman now—and everything womanly in her was concentrated on him, his handsome face, those broad shoulders, the outsized hands.
Every female cell in her body was quivering. And he spoke to her like an elderly aunt would.
Eat more, get out more. Don’t be so pasty-faced and thin.
Yeah.
Next thing, he’d be telling her to bundle up warmly.
“And Christ—what’s the matter with you, going out in this weather dressed like that?”
There you go.
How she’d dreamed of this moment! For years. And now here he was, sitting across from her, so close she could touch him if she simply reached out—and they were talking about her wardrobe.
“Don’t,” she said softly. “I had to get dressed in a hurry. But I don’t want to talk about this. I want to hear how you’ve been doing. Where you’ve been.”
And why you disappeared without a word.
But she couldn’t say that. He was here. Right now she wanted to fill the empty years with images. She could only do that if she could imagine where he’d been, what he’d been doing.
Once upon a time, he’d told her everything.
Nick settled more deeply in the chair, frowning. “I can’t really talk about that.”
“Because you’re in the military?”
He straightened, shocked. “How did you know that? Who told you?”
Nick sounded actually angry. It had slipped out of her mouth without her thinking about it, which went to show how tired she was. She never let slip things she shouldn’t know, but did. She’d learned that the hard way.
She’d seen him. In her dreams. Not normal dreams—that floating phantasmagoria of disconnected images most people had during the night. She had those, too, like everyone else. But she also had Dreams. She went places in these Dreams, and it was like being there. Frighteningly, exactly like being there.
She’d visited Nick, without a clue as to where he was, but so real she felt she could touch him. He was exercising with a hundred other men, doing jumping jacks and climbing ropes and crawling under barbed wire. Shooting. Shooting a lot. Jumping out of planes.
And with women. That had been the worst of all. She’d watched, helplessly, as he made love to a series of women, rarely the same one two nights in a row. Elle would be looking down from the ceiling, watching the muscles of his broad back stretch and flex, his buttocks tightening and releasing as he moved in and out of the woman. Usually, he held himself above the woman du nuit on stiff arms, touching her only with his sex.
Those nights, as she watched from the ceiling, she would wake up with tears on her face.
A part of her thought she was crazy. And another part of her thought she could somehow travel outside her body.
Whichever it was—and maybe it was both—she’d said the wrong thing to Nick.
He reached across to clamp his big hand over her wrist.
“Did someone tell you something?” he demanded. “Someone spying on me?”
His grip was tight. Not painful, but definitely unbreakable. Nick had always been strong, even as a boy. Now he was a powerfully built man.
Slowly, unsure if her touch would be welcome, Elle laid her hand over his.
“No one told me, Nick,” she said gently. It wasn’t the first time she had to answer how she knew something she shouldn’t. And it wouldn’t be the last. When he lived with them, Nick had never known. Her father hadn’t known. She hadn’t known. “You have the bearing of a soldier, and your hair is cut military-short. There is a pale patch on your jacket. Where there would have been an insignia. You look like you’re doing well, but you’re not in a suit. You’ve got combat boots on. They’re sold in stores, too, but taking all these things together—” She shrugged.
Nick relaxed, smiled. Oh, how she’d missed that smile! It had taken him almost two years to smile when he first came to live with them. She’d been only a child, but she understood instinctively that he’d come from pain and cruelty and she’d made it her personal challenge to make him smile.
Once he started, he smiled often. He was breathtaking when he smiled.
Like now.
He shook his head. “I forgot how smart you are. How perceptive. So you put all that together and came up with military, hm?”
It hurt that he forgot anything about her. She hadn’t forgotten anything about him.
“Yes, but I wouldn’t want to guess which branch of the service and how far you’ve climbed.” She tilted her head, studying him. “So . . . was I right?”
“Bingo.”
Elle relaxed. She’d reasoned her way out of the trap. “Which branch are you in?”
A cloud moved across his face, but he answered calmly enough. “Army.”
A word flashed across her mind. She didn’t even know she’d had it in her head, but the information she gleaned in her Dreams had its own agenda. The word came out of her mouth before she could censor it. “Rangers?”
Nick straightened, frowning. “Now, how the hell would you know that?” His look was keen, penetrating, impersonal.
There was no sense now that she had a special place in his heart. None. Ever since Nick had arrived in their lives, she knew he had a soft spot for her. That she could take risks with him. Like a puppy that could pull a wolf’s tail with impunity.
Not now. She had no feeling at all that she was allowed liberties with Nick. His frown was deep and serious, and a little scary.
She swallowed, and started on the lies. She’d never had to lie to him before. “Sorry. That was stupid of me. I have no idea what’s going on with you. There was a movie on TV the other night and the main protagonist was an Army Ranger. That’s what they called him, in fact. Ranger. That’s all. I don’t even really understand what it means.”
Even if she hadn’t Dreamed that he was a Ranger, she’d have wagered money that if there was a special place in the army, Nick would have achieved it.
He relaxed slightly. “A movie hero? That’s not me.”
Oh, but it was. Nick was much more handsome than most of the actors she saw on TV. Most actors had a softness about them that was reflected in their faces. They might spend eight hours a day at the gym, but their faces were puppyish.
Not Nick. Nick had known real tragedy. Wherever he’d spent the first eleven years of his life before he came to them—and he never spoke a word about it—they had been hard, tough years. He’d had the bearing of a man even when young. As a teenager, he’d been wise and tough beyond his years. The other kids in high school either worshipped him or steered clear of him. No one ever tried to bully him. They wouldn’t dare.
There was no actor on earth who could look as tough as Nick at twenty-three.
He’d had a rough life, which had made him hard. The military had taken him and made him harder.
He frowned at her. “How come no one was at the graveside? The judge was well known and respected. I’d have thought there would be thousands of people.”
Elle didn’t want to talk about that, about the past. She wanted to talk about the here and now. But he wanted to know, and she was hardwired to give Nick what he wanted.
?
??There were people at the funeral. Some. Not many. They couldn’t stay for the interment.” She swallowed. “Daddy . . . was sick for a long time.”
Nick narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, you said that. So?”
“He also hasn’t been a judge for a long time. I think . . . I think people sort of forgot about him.”
Nick was really frowning now and Elle understood completely. When he’d left— Wait, use the right term. When Nick abandoned them, her father, Judge Oren Thomason, had been one of the most important men in the county. Nick had felt her father’s natural authority firsthand. When she and her father had found him behind the house, in their backyard, starving and with a broken wrist, the judge had taken care of everything. Within a month, Nick had become his ward and was regularly enrolled in school.
Nick had often said his real life began the day the judge found him. He seemed to forget that Elle had been there too. A tiny girl, only seven, but it seemed her real life began that day too.
Nick had lived under the judge’s protective aura. So Elle could understand that he found it hard to understand his last years.
“Daddy . . . declined. Mentally. He was forcibly removed from the bench via an injunction.” She swallowed. Her father had been beyond understanding exactly what had happened, but he had understood very well that something important had been taken away from him. He’d been agitated for an entire year.
“Alzheimer’s?” Nick asked.
She hung her head.
“Tough,” he said.
You have no idea. She lifted her head, nodded.
They sat in silence, looking at each other. Finally, he gave a sigh and shifted in his chair. Elle panicked.
He was leaving already! He’d just arrived, and she hadn’t seen him in five years. She was still gulping up details about him every time she dared to look at him. The hard cut of his jaw, the two wiry white hairs mixed in the thick black hair of his temples. His hands, bigger than she remembered. Clean but callused, with a strip of thick yellow callus on the edges. Judo calluses, or some kind of martial art. She’d read about that.
The shoulders that stretched beyond the shirt seams.
Nick was unshaven, his stubble thicker than she remembered. He was now one of those men who should shave twice a day.