French Kiss Part 22

At some level he was even willing to admit it. But not enough to pick up the phone and ask for what he really wanted. Because it wasn't just about s.e.x with Nicky. That was the problem. And no way did he want to think about moving toward the next step. The thought of permanence made his blood run cold.

There was no way Nicky was going to make any calls. Even though she'd already given her vibrator a workout, twice. It was just one of those phone calls you couldn't make.

Not unless she felt like being shot down at two in the morning.

Thirty.

T he next day started out semi-normal .

If you consider two people without sleep capable of functioning in anything resembling a normal fashion.

Nicky was in the office before anyone else. It beat staring at the wall.

Johnny greeted his daughter and Vernie, bleary-eyed and unshaven, nursing an espresso at the breakfast table.

"You must have worked all night," Vernie remarked, giving him the once-over as she sat down opposite him.

"Sort of." No way was he going to tell the truth.

"Can I have pancakes, Maria?" Jordi called out.

"Me, too," Johnny added. He was craving carbs, which he never did. Getting up to run his third espresso, he wondered how he was going to get through the day. All he thought about was f.u.c.king- one particular woman with the sweetest c.u.n.t and the warmest smile and a body that made a man happy to be a man. He was definitely going off the deep end because nothing deterred him from thinking the same thoughts, seeing the same images in his mind, wanting the same thing. It was as though he was tripping.

And he hadn't done that for a decade or more.

Buddy took one look at Nicky when he walked into the office and said, "Tough trip, hey?"

"Not really. I just couldn't sleep last night thinking about work." Lies, lies.

"Go back home and sleep for a while. We don't have to see the Thompsons until eleven. And for that one, you'd better be on your toes. The wife has a f.u.c.king clipboard."

Nicky grimaced. "Rich wives have too much time on their hands."

"Tell me about it. That's all I see. Junior Martha Stewarts, with att.i.tude. But I mean it. You look like h.e.l.l. I'm not leaving until tomorrow. Go home and sleep."

"I would if I could, okay? I t' s not going to happen."

"Get a ma.s.sage at Josie's. You'll look more rested."

"Since when do you care if I looked rested or not?"

"I never had to before."

"You're just going to have to put up with what you see," Nicky muttered, knowing d.a.m.ned well she wouldn't be able to sleep, no matter what.

"Suit yourself. It's your company."

"Thank you," she tardy said.

"Oooo, b.i.t.c.hy." Buddy grinned. "Here's where I could say something chauvinistic, if you know what I mean."

Nicky snorted. "Men have such a simple way of looking at life."

"It might help."

"Could we change the subject? Before I fire you for s.e.xual hara.s.sment."

"Gotcha. Subject closed." Not that Buddy was worried about being fired, but Nicky looked fretful, and he didn't want to make her life any more difficult. They got along. They spoke their minds, but they both knew when to pull back. And this was one of those times. "So what's first on the agenda?"

"The Thompsons and whatever else you have scheduled. And we should check out Jordi Patrick's, too." Not that she wanted to, but she couldn't be a wuss.

"We're stalled there right now. The lumber we need for the decks is on back order. So that one can wait."

There was a G.o.d! She could feel her entire body relax. "Okay, then," she said, brightly. "That one's on hold for the time being."

Pancakes didn't help, a fourth cup of espresso didn't help, even being left alone after Vernie and Jordi went shopping only made him more restless. Christ, he felt like he'd taken a dose of Spanish fly. His mind was relentlessly one-track, focused on a single thought. He was going crazy.

He even thought of calling some of the women he knew and inviting them over to be his s.e.x surrogates for the woman he really wanted. But he couldn't even bring himself to call. He didn't want some other woman. He wanted her.

He was screwed.

But there was no way he was going to enter into a relationship.

No way, no how.

Especially after knowing Nicky for less time than it takes a banana to ripen.

Christ, this craving was lunatic.

Get a grip.

Part of the reason he'd attained his success was due to his practical, hardworking, no illusions att.i.tude. Those traits sustained him now in his hour of need, and forcing himself back into the studio, he sat down and got to work.

Funny how in the best of all possible worlds, work is both a pa.s.sion and an avocation. With the sun shining into his studio, reminding him of new beginnings and better times, before long, he was lost in the music he loved.

Nicky also found herself thoroughly occupied that day- overseeing the thousand and one details integral to an architectural firm with eight projects under construction. She and Buddy surveyed two partially finished tree houses before meeting the Thompsons at eleven.

The interview didn't start out well, when Mrs. Thompson said, "I don't usually like to work with women, but you come highly recommended. I prefer working with men. They're more detail-oriented, and I'm a detail person."

Detail this. Nicky felt like saying, "I don't usually work with jerks." But she held her tongue and managed to say instead, "Why don't we see how things go? You don't have to make up your mind today."

Luckily, Buddy was smooth as silk during the interview, because short of sleep and already on the defensive, Nicky found it difficult not to snap off the officious Mrs. Thompson's head on about ten occasions. The lady with the clipboard felt that she knew more about designing tree houses than Nicky, and she didn't mind saying so.

"You were good, boss," Buddy said afterward in the car. "I could see the steam coming out of your ears, but you didn't blow up."

"Nerves of steel and the obvious fact that Mr. Thompson is going to be the one maki ng th e decisions. If we had to deal exclusively with his wife, I would have turned down the job."

"That's just because you're on edge this morning. You never turn down a job."

Buddy was right. She'd been too poor too recently to even think about turning away work. "I'd better go home early and take a nap," she said.

"Good idea."

Now what would really be a good idea was if she could go and take a nap with the very talented-in-the-sack Johnny Patrick. Since that wasn't going to happen, she'd have to settle for a pint of Ben and Jerry's and one of the chocolate bars she'd brought back from France.

A completely inadequate compromise.

Really, not even a compromise.

Just a totally inadequate act of sublimation.

And as if she wasn't agitated enough, she'd no more than walked into her house than the phone rang.

s.h.i.t, it was her sister.

After not returning her countless calls, Nicky had no choice but to pick up or take the chance of having the local cops show up at her door. Her mom had done that once when she hadn't been able to get hold of her for five days. Her family had figured she'd been lying in a pool of her own blood after being murdered by some crazed killer.

The simple fact was that there was no crime in Black Duck, unless egging cars on Halloween counted. So her mom, particularly, viewed any large city as highly dangerous and rife with crime, no matter how many times Nicky had explained to her how her tree-lined neighborhood was safe as can be.

But apparentl y, she didn't sound upbeat enough when she answered the phone, because she'd no more than said, "h.e.l.lo," and her sister immediately asked, "What's wrong? We've been worried about you. Are you okay?"

Her sister's voice had taken on a anxious note at the end, and for the briefest of moments Nicky debated telling her the truth: that her life was in no way okay. That she was down in the dumps because she might be in love with a guy who didn't even know what the word meant. And even worse, if someone explained what it meant to him, he'd f.u.c.king die laughing. "I'm just tired," she said instead, lying through her teeth-not about being tired. About why she was tired.

"Just because you're tired doesn't explain why you haven't answered your phone for days," her sister, Belle, noted, with the cunning of a detective. " I'l l have you know Mom almost called out the gendarmes."

How about that for Freudian, when she'd actually been in gendarme country for the past few days, Nicky nervously observed. Was it a sign that she should tell at least part of the truth? Was G.o.d trying to tell her something? "Actually, I've been out of the country for a couple days," she offered, figuring she couldn't afford to anger any G.o.ds with the shaky state of her nerves. She didn't need any more bad karma. Particularly from her family.

"Where in the world were you?" A wholly breathless query, each word punctuated with alarm.

"It was strictly business," Nicky said, lying like a rug. "I'm building a tree house for a family and they wanted me to see some stuff over in France."

"Who's building tree houses in France for G.o.d's sake?"

Okay, she should have thought that one through better. Belle knew as well as she did that her architectural speciality was extremely rare. "It wasn't precisely a tree house, just a site and stuff that they wanted to show me."

"Where was that?"

Oh, G.o.d, she was just digging herself a deeper hole. "Out in the country west of Paris. No place you'd know. How are Mom and Dad? How're the baby and Ed?"

"They're fine. Everyone's fine. So you're not going to tell me, your only sister, what you did?" Belle challenged. "I know when you're bulls.h.i.tting. Spit it out. Where in h.e.l.l were you?"

"I don't have to tell you." Nicky grumbled, resorting to a defense more appropriate to a six-year-old. So she was tired, her brain wasn't clicking on all ten cylinders.

"Then I'll tell Mom you won't tell me where you went, because it was too dangerous and you were almost kidnapped and-"

"I don't have to tell you anything, and you know it," Nicky doggedly muttered, figuring she'd stick with her stone-wall approach. "Mom's not going to do anything now that I'm back home anyway."

"Then how about you tell me because you sound really, really sad," her sister coaxed, the sympathy in her tone genuine. "I won't tell anyone, Nick. You know I won't. And if you want," she added, sweetening the pot, "I'll give you the gossip on Jenny Grogin. That will cheer you up for sure."

"Tell me about that first." The sisters knew each other's soft spots; they were extremely close, even though they didn't see as much of each other as they once had.

"Well, for starters," Belle declared, "she's mixed up with some married judge, if you can believe it. And believe it. It's true-Eva heard about it from a reliable source."

"No s.h.i.t. Miss Goody Two-Shoes who does everything by the book is doing it with a married judge?"

"It gets better. The judge's wife is out for blood, and all the guy's money, too. So Jenny's straight-to-the-top career path, that's been planned and executed down to every last detail, could take a detour or at least be stalled for a while. Although, this is Washington, D.C., we're talking about, where scandal and corruption are routine, so who knows? But I thought you'd like to know Miss Goody Two-Shoes might have stepped into some s.h.i.t."

Nicky laughed. "You were right. That's d.a.m.ned interesting news. Keep me posted on the gory details."

"Don't worry. Eva Monteil has her ear to the ground, and you know she can practically see through buildings, too. So if Jenny tells her mother anything more-however edited it might be-Eva will know about it."

"And in turn, the world."

"You got that right. Now spill your guts, sis, and I'll tell you not to worry, and you can quit being sad."

She and Belle had always offered each other that blanket a.s.surance of perpetual happiness that solved nothing, but nevertheless made them feel better. "It's not a problem precisely," Nicky began. "I know better than to ask for the moon or expect Cinderella endings to relationships, but I'm sorta b.u.mmed out 'cause I'm missing someone. That's all."

"Anyone I know?"

"You might know of him. If you read the tabloids."

"You're kidding! You know some celebrity?"

Nicky went on to explain how she'd been asked to design a tree house for Jordi Patrick and all the events that had unfolded in the last few days. "So even though I know better than to expect anything but a fond farewell from someone like Johnny Patrick," she finished, "it still leaves me- unhappy -I guess would be the right word."

"You sound unhappy all right," Belle agreed. "And the guy's f.u.c.king unbelievably gorgeous, of course. Who wouldn't fall for him. Christ, he was the s.e.xiest Man Alive for a thousand obvious reasons! It's not as though you can just ignore a man like that."

"Are you being helpful? I don't think so."

"Sorry. But, wow, you've got to admit, he's a major player. Not that it matters when your heart is broken, I know. But consider, sis, how many women even have the chance to live the kind of life you lived the last few days. That's something to remember. And you know what they say about time healing everything. You know that's true. Look how you had to talk to that therapist after Theo left. And now you don't even think about him. You haven't even mentioned his name in I don't know how long. In a few months, the name Johnny Patrick won't mean a thing to you, either."

Nicky sighed. "You're making sense. Thanks. I knew as much, but it helps when someone else points out the obvious." And while she was talking to Belle, she almost believed that everything would work out just fine. She almost thought she might be able to get over Johnny in a few days or at the most-a few weeks.

But the moment she hung up the phone, she burst into tears. f.u.c.king tears! She couldn't believe it. She hadn't even cried when Theo left, except when she'd found out he'd cleared out her checking account.

Jeez, if she was crying about this, she had to face facts. There wasn't any simple solution to her wretchedness and her even more serious state of s.e.xual deprivation.

It was definitely time for a punt play.

Walking into her kitchen, she selected one of the larger chocolate bars she'd brought back from Nice, moved to the freezer, took out a pint of Ben and Jerry's, found a spoon, and retired to her bedroom with her temporary solace.

Stripping off her work clothes, she put on comfort clothes- her Simpsons T-shirt she'd had since college and a pair of shorts from probably high school. Piling up the pillows on her bed, she arranged the chocolate bar and ice cream within easy reach, picked up her TV remote, and prepared to escape from her world of suffering and woe.