“This is a classic,” he said approvingly. “Where did you get it?”
“The super gave it to me.”
Sam lifted a quizzical eyebrow.
Nicole set the vase down on an end table and went back into the kitchen.
“Winfield is one of the good guys,” she said. “Some former tenants left that chair behind when they vacated. Win and a buddy lugged it upstairs for me. One of the legs was broken, so he repaired it for me.”
“Nice of him. I understand the super at my place can’t fix a thing.”
“That’s typical. But you’re only going to be there a month, right?”
“Right.”
There was a clinking sound that had to be wineglasses and the squeak of a cork being pulled.
She came back in with the bottle and the glasses and sat down on the love seat. “Sorry. I don’t have any cheese and crackers.”
“You weren’t expecting company.” Sam leaned forward to look at the label. “This is a really good wine.”
“Someone gave it to me last Christmas.” She poured and handed him a glass, then poured one for herself, lifting it. “Cheers. Welcome to the neighborhood.”
“So far it seems... pretty neighborly. I even know some people in my building. Small world.”
“New York is, sometimes. But I couldn’t say I know all my neighbors, even though you can hear everything in the halls.”
“So I noticed.” He laughed. “On my way up I heard a quarrel over how long to cook fresh ravioli, jazz music, and an old lady talking to her cat.”
“I know her. Mrs. Green lives right below me. That cat’s been dead for years.”
Sam seemed very comfortable in the massive chair. He was the first person to sit in it who hadn’t seemed swallowed by its size. And, with one long leg slung over the other, he was masculine as all get-out. Trade the work clothes for a tuxedo and smooth down his hair with brilliantine, and he’d look like a 1930s ad for very expensive scotch.
Nicole studied him for an extra few seconds. Actually, a man like Sam would look most at home in a log cabin with antler lamps and cowhide decor. She set down her glass of wine. It wasn’t helping. She told herself to stop styling him.
“So,” he said, breaking the silence, “I thought I saw a couple of snowflakes on the way over.”
“Wishful thinking.” She gestured toward the freezing rain on the window. “December is usually just gray. But that could change. Sometimes it does snow right around Christmas. Not very much, though.”
“Got it.” Sam seemed a little disappointed. “I just talked to my folks in Colorado. The snow’s already drifted halfway up the house.”
“It must be pretty.”
He nodded. “Yes. But I get the feeling they’d like to live somewhere else in winter, now that they’re retired.”
“My mom and dad say the same thing. But if I mention Florida or Arizona, they start finding reasons to stay where they are.”
Sam laughed. “I know what you mean.”
Nicole jumped when she heard her cell phone ring. She leaned over to look at the number on the screen. “Yikes. I have to answer that. Sorry. ”
“Not a problem. Go ahead.”
“Could be work. I won’t be long.” She picked up the phone and took the call. “Hi, Finn. What’s up?”
Sam looked casually around the room, admiring her artwork again. Then he glanced out the window. It seemed to have stopped raining for the moment.
He couldn’t help overhearing a rapid-fire stream of words from Finn, who seemed to be male. Nicole couldn’t get a word in edgewise. For Sam’s benefit, she rolled her eyes as the guy talked nonstop.
“Today?” she said when Finn paused to breathe.
Sam heard an impatient yes, loud and clear.
Nicole wrapped up the call, looking apologetically at Sam. “Okay. That was my friend Finn Leary from ENJ. Someone canceled and they need me for an all-nighter downtown. The first meeting is in an hour.”
“Christmas windows?”
“Yup.” She got up, seeming distracted. “Where did I put my sneakers?”
Sam spotted a pair with untied laces wedged under the love seat. He eased them out with the toe of his boot.
“Thanks,” she said, sitting down again. She bent forward to wiggle her feet into them and tie the laces just so, her hair spilling over her face.
“What does ENJ stand for?” he asked.
“Take a guess,” she mumbled.
“No idea. Tell me.”
“The Emperor’s New Jeans,” she answered, looking up, her face flushed and laughing. “Yes, you heard right. That’s the brand name and concept. Their jeans retail for seven hundred dollars. ”
Sam threw her a disbelieving look. “Seriously?”
“I’m not kidding.”
“Why would anyone pay that much money for jeans?”
“I don’t know.” She rose from the love seat and he got up out of the chair. “They look a lot like the ones I buy at the thrift store.”
Sam took his jacket off the hook while she shrugged into hers. “There must be a difference.”
“The word is distressed.” Nicole found a warm scarf and hat but didn’t put them on. “I understand they take new jeans into a back room and do terrible things to them.”
She turned to rush back into the living room as if she’d forgotten something. “Don’t let me forget—oh, there it is. Finn said to bring my portfolio. One job leads to another.”
He looked disappointed, but he covered with an encouraging, “Of course. You’re talented.”
She picked up a black portfolio stashed next to her drafting table. “Oh, they just need a warm body who can operate power tools. Still and all, ENJ is the big time. It’s a step up.”
“Guess so.” Sam sighed, sorry that the visit was over so soon.
The phone in her pocket rang again.
She moved away from Sam and looked at the number on the screen. “I’m on my way, Finn,” she said with exasperation, not answering it.
Nicole rummaged through her kitchen cabinets and then under the sink, retrieving a big plastic bag to slip over the portfolio. She grabbed a tote and stuffed workclothes into it next. “Almost forgot those too,” she said, pretty much to herself. “That’ll do it. I’m ready.”
“It stopped raining,” Sam said.
“I don’t trust this weather,” she told him. “I’m going to make a mad dash, if you don’t mind. I don’t care if I get a little wet, but my portfolio shouldn’t.”
He understood that she couldn’t turn down gigs, but she still seemed a little too eager to shoo him out. Sam let it go.
Nicole opened the door and waved him through with the hand that held the gloves and hat. “After you. Did you bring an umbrella?” Not that she remembered seeing one.
Into his jacket, he put on the Stetson and touched a finger to the brim. “This’ll do it for me. How are you getting there?”
“Bus.”
“I’ll walk you to the stop.”
She took his arm once they were out on the street. Sure enough, the rain began again, a light drizzle that soon intensified. She used her scarf to wipe her face.
Sam noticed. He took off his Stetson and put it on her head. Nicole was secretly delighted. It was too big, but she wasn’t going to be wearing it long.
Sam grinned down at her. “You should buy one. You look damn cute in a cowboy hat. And get some boots to match.”
“I have a pair somewhere. But that’s neither here nor there,” she protested, laughing. “You’re going to get soaked.” His thick hair was full of raindrops and his wet eyelashes seemed even darker.
Sam shrugged. “I don’t care.”
“Well, it’s really nice of you to get wet to keep me dry.”
They stayed close until they got to the corner. There was no one in the open shelter and the seat was drenched with splashes from passing traffic. They stood huddled together, looking down the congested avenue. Not a bus in sight. She chattered about the route she would take, and Sam listened patiently enough. The street noise reverberated in the shelter.
Nicole looked up at him. The cold air and driving rain had brought out a high color in his cheeks and his dark eyes gleamed. He wasn’t even shivering. A bus shelter was about as outdoorsy as you could get in this part of New York, and he seemed totally ... himself somehow.
Sam’s gaze stayed on her face. She thought for a minute that he was reading her lips, and then realized that he was about to do what she didn’t want to think about.
Before the bus finally lumbered across the intersection, it happened. Brief though it was, the kiss was anything but chaste. Her lips stayed parted when he raised his head. Nicole gazed up into dark brown eyes that regarded her with serious intensity.
The blue and white bus pulled up, the doors opened with a wet
whoosh,
and a lot of people got off in front, ignoring the driver’s admonition to use the back door. Sam and Nicole waited until the last second.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Sam said softly. He brushed a stray lock of her hair away from her cheek.
She hesitated to answer but only because she didn’t want to leave him.
“Yo, lovebirds,” the bus driver called. “You two gettin’ on or what?”
“Just me ... Oh—here’s your hat!” She took it off and handed it back quickly, fumbling for her MetroCard before she let Sam give her a hand up the bus stairs.
He remained in the shelter as the bus pulled away, giving her a gallant salute with the Stetson in his hand. Swaying in the center aisle, she waved back, even though she knew he couldn’t see her.
Nicole got a seat after several minutes of standing. She rubbed the condensation from the bus window with a gloved hand, holding her portfolio and the tote on her lap as rush-hour passengers crowded on.
She couldn’t think of the right word for how good that kiss felt. Sam Bennett was trouble. A poignant sigh escaped her, unheard on the packed bus.
She would be smart to quit while she was ahead and set a few boundaries. Especially since Sam was going to be leaving New York so soon. Whirlwind romances weren’t worth the loneliness afterward.
But he’s something different. Take a chance.
She ignored the inner voice that dared her and looked absently out the window.
The slow-moving traffic was a blur of taxi-yellow streaks punctuated with red lights as drivers hit the brakes on the slick streets. Most of the store windows and building entrances were already decorated for the holidays with colored tinsel garlands and gleaming balls.
She rubbed a clear spot into the foggy window to see better, thinking that she still hadn’t picked out a Christmas tree. Nicole considered stopping by Theo’s lot tomorrow. Last year he’d had one of his helpers deliver a tree for her. The guy had lugged it two blocks over and up five flights of stairs, and then refused a tip.
Nicole rested her head against the cool window. The window fogged over again.
Bundled up, she was overly warm inside her woolly cocoon. The weather had gone from bad to worse in less than an hour, with winds from the east turning sleet to accumulating slush on every corner.
The driver announced her stop and she rose, exiting with several tourists who were eager to start shopping on Fifth Avenue. They walked north, she headed south.
She rewound her scarf so that her mouth was covered and pulled her hat down to her eyebrows. She kept close to the buildings, trying to dodge the sleet and walking as quickly as she could on the slippery pavement. The icy freshness of the air didn’t snap her out of her reverie.
Wouldn’t it be nice, she thought wistfully, to be back with Sam under that bus shelter. There was something magical about the simple act of walking with him—she felt protected. He took the curb side, for one thing. And he kept her near him.
Talk about wanting what she couldn’t have.
It wasn’t like she could tell Sam to go away. Nicole fully intended to hire him again to do the unfinished window at Now before the boutique owner came back from vacation.
Her cell phone chimed with an incoming message. Nicole stepped into a doorway for shelter and found the phone. She looked at the sender: Darci Powers.
Hello fromm Aspen! Wish u war here!
Her boss had yet to master texting. Nicole opened the attached photo, taken on a ski lift. The rock-jawed blond guy whose lap Darci was sitting on had held the phone to snap it.
He had blindingly white teeth and wraparound goggles that reflected Darci’s adoring gaze. Good luck, Nicole thought. See you around the ski lodge. Her boss’s latest romance would gather speed and slam into a tree soon enough, at which point Darci would come home.
A longer text quickly followed. Nicole deciphered it. Darci was very happy with Lars. And she loved the completed window. Her accountant would make out a check for Nicole to pick up.
Adjö.
Swedish for good-bye. She was staying in Aspen for a second week.