“What did he want?” Sam Giles said, as Elaine turned around.
“Who?” she asked, watching as he approached the balcony from the sitting room.
“The reporter,” he said, standing next to the chair she was in.
“I didn’t tell him anything. Don’t worry.”
Nodding, he slipped both hands into the pockets of his jeans. He looked out over the pasture with a sigh. “I’ll have to catch Integrity before he starts munching on some bushes and things he’s not supposed to.” Shaking his head, he knew exactly where to lay the blame. “Dumb ass reporters.”
Elaine observed him carefully, from his soiled blue jeans, tall, western-style boots and well-worn chaps, to his windblown hair and flaming red neck. “What?” he said.
“Oh, nothing. It’s just hard to imagine things getting back to normal, that’s all.”
“Things have never been normal here, at least not in the past fourteen years.”
“You’ve been here so long, you’ve probably seen it all.”
“Probably,” he agreed. “Still, I’ve learned to keep out of the world these folks have allowed themselves to live in. It’s safer that way.” Looking toward the driveway, he noticed the cars parked under the carport. “I see Nicolette’s Porche is here.”
Elaine looked over as well. “She left earlier, but it looks like she’s come back.”
As Elaine finished speaking, Nicolette stepped out onto the veranda below them. After stretching, she put her hands on her hips. Her eyes scanned what little she could see of the newsmen lingering by the gate. A yellow pencil was sticking out of the hair above her right ear, and a pair of bifocals were tucked away in the breast pocket of the brown suit she was wearing.
As she turned away from the balustrade, she paused when she saw Sam and Elaine on the balcony above her. Particularly interested in Sam, she studied him for a long time before nodding and then raising her hand to him. He did the same. Afterward, she folded her arms and went back inside.
“You must know Nicolette pretty well,” Elaine said. “She’s been with the company for, what, ten years?”
“Ten years,” he said, nodding. “Yeah, I guess you could say I know her about as well as anybody.” Turning to leave, he stopped and said, “Just so you know, you’d better stay away from the reporters from now on. If Lois sees you talking to one, she might get the wrong idea and fire you for your trouble.”
“But I haven’t told them anything.”
“It doesn’t matter, Elaine. If you want to keep your job, stay as far away from those sons of bitches as you can. Lois might take your talking to them the wrong way. Her constitution isn’t strong enough to stomach scandal.”
“Do you have any other advice for me? I’ll take all I can get.”
He smiled. “Not today. I think I’ve said too much already. See you later.”
“Later, Sam.”
As he walked over to the glass doors to go back inside the house, Nicolette was waiting for him on the other side. Stopping still when he first saw her, he then stepped inside the sitting room and closed the door behind him. They walked off together with Nicolette doing most of the talking. She certainly had a lot to say. Elaine remembered the last time Nicolette was in a talkative mood. Carl was trying to stick her with extra duties, and she asked him out of it as only she could.