I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and hit her number. Much to my surprise, she answered.
“Hey!” I said. “How are you?”
“Hi, Harper,” she answered. “I’m okay. How are you? Chris said that you and Nick went to South Dakota or something? Flight problems?”
“Yeah. We’re almost there. North Dakota, actually. But don’t worry about that. How are you? Where are you?”
“Oh…I’m okay. We’re somewhere in Glacier. Somewhere cold. It’s…fine.”
My ears pricked up. “You sure?”
“Well, yeah. This isn’t quite…you know. It’s a little tough. We’re camping. Actually, we’re just sort of huddling in a tent. Christopher can’t seem to make a fire. Not a warm one, anyway.”
“Well, you’ll be home soon, right? Back in New York?”
She didn’t answer for a minute. “I don’t know. Chris wants to stay.”
Her tone was not promising. “You okay with that?”
“I don’t know. I’m just…adjusting.” She hesitated, then spoke again, her voice decidedly more chipper. “So how’d you end up with Nick?
“I was kind of stuck. Flight problems. I might have had to camp, too.”
“Well, camping sucks, so I’m glad you didn’t have to,” she said, a smile in her voice. “I should go. My battery’s dying.”
“Okay.” I paused. “You have my credit card number, right? If you need anything?”
“Yeah. You’re great. I’ll call you soon, okay?”
Feeling a little melancholy, I went into the small gift shop down the street. “Is it okay if I bring in my dog?” I asked. Coco, sensing she was being judged, wagged her tail and tilted her head adorably, then lifted her front paw.
“Sure thing,” the woman behind the counter said. “Oh, aren’t you a cute puppy!”
I browsed the shop…dream catchers and fossils, Native American souvenirs and silver earrings. Belt buckles that could slice a person in half, they were so big. An array of T-shirts.
“Can I have one of those?” I asked, pointing to a display.
“Sure can,” the clerk answered. I paid, she handed me the bag and off we went, Coco and I, down the street.
Nick was waiting for me, leaning against the car. “I’m sorry I made a scene,” I said, handing him the bag. He took out the gift. It was a T-shirt, emblazoned with the words Montana. There’s nothing here.
A reluctant smile came to his face. “Thanks,” he said.
“You’re welcome.” I looked at the ground.
“They’re fine,” he said, reading my mind. “I told them you’d just gotten out of a relationship and were a bitter, jealous hag, and I was taking you to an ashram in North Dakota.”
“Does North Dakota have ashrams?” I asked.
“You’re welcome,” he said pointedly.
“Thanks. I guess they can implode on their own.”
“That’s my girl.”
Strange, that those words made me feel as good as they did.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
NICK CONTINUED TO LET me drive, mercifully, and the fields flew past. The sky turned gun-metal gray, and the temperature seemed to be dropping. Gusts of wind occasionally walloped the car, but the classic Mustang hummed along with a satisfying growl. Sweet, in Nick’s words. Wasted on one who rode the subways and hadn’t learned to drive until college, but sweet nonetheless.
We passed into North Dakota, which didn’t look too different from Montana. It was flatter, maybe. Distant clumps of trees shivered in the wind like a mirage under the gray sky. Once in a while, I’d catch a glimpse of an antelope or deer, but otherwise, we seemed to be alone out here.
Two more hours till Bismarck, according to the map. Almost there. Almost safe.
A few miles in the distance, some impressively black clouds seemed to be gathering on top of each other. “Nick, maybe we should stop somewhere. The weather looks pretty bad.”
He was engrossed in the map. “Don’t get your panties in a twist,” he said after a mere glance at the gathering clouds. “Women.”
“Yes, Nick, I am a woman, and no, Nick, my panties are not twisted,” I said calmly. “It’s just that we’re driving right into a storm and I really would like to avoid it, as I’m quite eager to get to Massachusetts in one piece.”
“Don’t worry. That storm is miles off. Just some gray skies.”
The skies were not gray. They were black, the clouds swelling. Lightning flashed inside them and thunder grumbled menacingly in the distance. “Are you just contradicting me for fun, Nick, or do you have a factual basis for your opinions? Which would be a first in our relationship, of course.”
“Calm down, Harper. It’s maybe a little rain.”
“Or a tornado. Have you ever heard of one of those?”
A flock of blackbirds—dozens…no, hundreds of them—suddenly wheeled out in front of us. Fleeing the storm.
“Let the record reflect the Biblical signs of doom,” I said.
“Relax. Coco’s not nervous, is she?” I glanced at my dog. She sat on Nick’s lap, bunny in her mouth, staring at Nick, trying to hypnotize him into worshipping her for the rest of his life. Bad enough that my father, BeverLee and Willa all adored Nick. Now my dog had fallen, too. Suppressing a sigh, I looked ahead at the endless, straight road. It was now three o’clock. Had Nick broken the little-old-lady speed barrier and/or taken the interstate, I’d be on an airplane right now.
This was not good. Being around Nick…it was like taking a lovely stroll in the forest, sun shining all around, birds serenading, flowers perfuming the air, and then a rabid wolverine leaps out of nowhere and rips open your jugular.
“You ever regret divorcing me?” he asked, looking up abruptly.
See, Your Honor? I rest my case. “Nick, let’s not do this, okay? We divorced each other many years ago. In two more hours, maybe less, we’ll be in Bismarck. Two hours till we part ways. Can’t we all just get along?” I glanced over at him. The wind ruffled his hair—we still had the top down, as Nick was living the dream and all that—but his eyes were steady. “Do you?”
“I regret that we got married so young, Nick. We were naive, if not breathtakingly stupid.”
“That’s not how I remember it.”
“How lucky for you.”
“Remember our honeymoon?”
Crotch! “No. The electric shock therapy has done its job. Please, Nick. Let’s not talk about it.”
“Scared?”
“No! I’m just sensible. There’s no point in doing this. We’re different people now. Why pick scabs, huh? Huh, Nick? We’ve moved on.”
“Right. You’re with Dennis now.”
I didn’t correct him. He shifted in his seat, facing forward once again. Mercifully, his cell phone chimed, and I forced myself to unclench my fists from around the wheel. Nick glanced at the screen and his smile flashed like the lightning up ahead. “Hi, honey,” he said. Honey? Honey? Who was honey?
“I’m fine. What’s new with you? Oh, yeah? That’s great.” I glanced over at him, but he was smiling, petting Coco’s head as she now slept on his lap. “Oh, I’m fine. I’m in…let’s see…North Dakota. It’s flat. Open. A little spooky, maybe.” He laughed. “Okay. Love you, too. Bye.”
So. He had a honey. And he loved his honey. Why hadn’t he said anything? I was finding it a little hard to take a normal breath. Calm down, Harper, I told myself. Nick had a girlfriend. To be expected, after all. Just…surprising. We’d been together for the past four days, and he hadn’t said a word.
“So what’s her name?” I asked.
“Isabel.”
Isabel. Not a name one could mock, like Farrah or Bitsy. Nope. A real name.
“What does she do for a living?”
“She’s a student,” he answered.
Well! A little young, wouldn’t we say? A student. Really. What a cliché. Successful older man who drives red convertible Mustang also dates younger woman to demonstrate continued virility. Or maybe she wasn’t that much younger. Maybe she was getting her degree part-time. “Where does she go to school?”
“NYU,” he answered. “She’s a freshman.”
“Nick!” I sputtered. “A freshman? That’s just…gross. I’m sorry. You’re dating an 18-year-old? She’s half your age!”
“I’m aware of that, Harper,” he said. “But I’m not dating her. She’s my stepdaughter.”
My mouth fell open, my head whipped around to look at him. “You’re married?” I screeched.
“Watch it, Harper!” Nick said, and there was a thudding sound, and we bounced up and down. Coco yelped in surprise, and then there was a hiss, some steam, and the engine just died, and we coasted to a very anticlimactic stop.
Then the heavens opened, and hail rained down upon us like God’s wrath.
“Shit!” Nick yelled. “Harper, you ran over an antelope!”
“What? Oh, no!” I grabbed Coco to shield her little frame from the hailstones, wincing as they pinged off my head.
Nick turned around and grabbed the Mustang’s top, hauling it into place, clamping it to the top of the windshield. The noise of the hail was deafening. Coco barked.
I glanced at Nick. “An antelope?” I had to raise my voice to be heard.
“Roadkill,” he said, sweeping hailstones onto the floor.
“It was already dead? You sure?”
“I’m guessing it wasn’t just napping there, Harper.”
“In the road?”
“No, in the clouds! Yes, in the road! You ran over it! Don’t you remember?”
“Okay! I’m sorry! You shocked me, that’s all.” I paused. “So why did the car stop?”
“How should I know? I barely know how to drive.”
“At least you admit it.”
He gave me a dark look, and then I was laughing, so hard I was just squeaking, tears spurting out of my eyes, and Nick shook his head and started laughing, too. For a long time, there was just that—the rough drumming of the hail on the car, thunder rolling across the endless sky, my occasional squeak and Nick’s lovely, lovely laugh.
When a clap of thunder broke right over our heads, I shrieked a little and Coco reverted from fearless Jack Russell to vulnerable Chihuahua. Faithless mutt that she was, she chose Nick as her shelter, burrowing against his ribs, almost trying to hide behind him.
“Don’t worry, pooch,” he said, adjusting her a little.
“Give her the bunny,” I said, and Nick did, tucking Coco’s stuffed animal against his ribs. My dog nestled under Nick’s arm and sighed. For a second, I felt a little flash of jealousy. Toward my dog. Yes, I was jealous of Coco, nestled against Nick, his clever, beautiful hand stroking her from head to tail, head to tail. Okay. That’s enough, Harper. Snap out of it. He has a stepdaughter. Which means he also has a wife.
Scanning the horizon for a twister, I saw none, but my visibility was impaired as the hail ended abruptly and the rain began. It fell in sheets, streaming over the windshield. I cleared my throat. “So. Think we should try to find a ditch or something?”
Nick opened the door for a second, looked out, then closed it again. “I think we should stay put. Tornado Alley’s farther south, right? If we get out, we’ll just get soaked. And I don’t see any ditches or bridges, even if we did need one.”
“Okay. Call for help, then?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
I flipped open my phone. “No signal.”
He checked his phone, as well. “Me, neither. On to plan B, then. Sit here and wait for the Children of the Corn.”
This brought on another round of giggles. “I think it would actually be the Children of the Sugar Beets,” I said, peering out the rain-streaked window.
“Doesn’t have the same ring to it,” he said, flashing a smile. His eyes crinkled, gorgeous crow’s feet framing those lovely dark pools. (Crikey, listen to me, but there it was, his eternal effect on me.) And Nick was still looking at me, still smiling, and damn. My face felt a little warm. And my face wasn’t alone. Girl parts tightened, legs weakened. I sat up a little straighter and ran my hands along the leather-coated steering wheel. The rain was gentler now, which was reassuring.
“So. You have a stepdaughter, Nick. Does that mean you also have a wife?”
He didn’t answer for a minute, just turned his attention to Coco, who appeared to be sleeping. Another roll of thunder barreled across the sky, and rain streaked the windshield.
“We’re divorced,” he said.
Divorced. Twice—once from me, once from Wife #2. Knowing Nick, that must’ve hurt. A lot. “I take it she’s older if she has a kid in college?” Why, that didn’t matter.
“Right. She’s…let’s see. Forty-three? Yeah.”
“How long were you married?”
“Three years. We’ve been apart for almost four now.” He glanced at me, smile now gone. “Her name is Jane, she’s very nice. Works in finance. Amicable split.” He paused. “Still friends.”
I sat, listening to the rain drumming on the roof of the car, and swallowed carefully. First, I was jealous of my dog. Now I was jealous of his second ex-wife.
For a brief second, I tried to imagine having Nick as my friend over these past twelve years. It wouldn’t have worked, but still. The image of being able to think of him without a razor slash to the heart…that would’ve been nice, to have heard his laugh, to have been able to talk to him, meet him for coffee. I pictured the two of us walking down the street, arm in arm, old friends, a warm and easy affection between us. Yeah, right.