Calculated Risk (4 page)

She reached over and snapped on the radio. “Listen to your doo-wops.”

 

****

 

Nick glanced at Cisney. Didn't she know doo-wops were more of a fifties or sixties thing? These tunes were classic seventies.

Her eyes were shut, but he'd bet she wasn't sleeping. Did she think she was the only one who'd been dumped? He didn't want to talk about Dana any more than she wanted to bring up Jason.

He flicked another glance her way. Had he hurt her? That wasn't his intention. Maybe he should apologize, even though he hadn't been the one to pry.

She sat erect. “Oh-oh-oh.”

He looked in all mirrors in quick succession. “What?”

She pointed at the time on the GPS screen. “We hit the midway mark for the trip five minutes ago. It's milkshake time. My family always stops for milkshakes when we're halfway to our destination. It's Daddy's tradition.”

He drew his brows together. “We're running late as it is. Don't you still have some of your soft drink left?”

She picked up her cup and sucked on the straw until the loud slurping sound screeched,
empty!

Shakes would put them behind at least another fifteen minutes. “Are you really thirsty?”

“No.” She sighed theatrically. “It's just a very special tradition I've never broken…until this trip.”

So, if he didn't stop, he'd look like the bad guy again. What would two more hours on the road being judged an ogre feel like?

They approached an off ramp, and he looked for the sign announcing the food choices. “This exit has a couple of fast food options. Can you tolerate a shake from a fast food joint?”

“Sure.”

He took the exit.

 

****

 

Cisney scooted through the door Nick held for her. Wouldn't shakes lift both their spirits? Heal the rift over her insensitivity to his love life? She gave him her cheeriest smile. “This ice cream shop is better than a fast food place. Look. They have peppermint shakes. Usually peppermint ice cream doesn't come out until after Thanksgiving.”

He stood with his hands in his pockets studying the menu above the service bar. His demeanor seemed neutral. That was good. Right?

A young woman with a voluminous ponytail approached the order station. “What can I get you?”

Cisney pointed at the menu. “Does the peppermint shake have bits of peppermint in it?”

The ponytail flopped up and down. “Yes, and bits of chocolate, too. You'll need a spoon, it's so thick.”

Cisney turned to Nick. “Isn't that great?”

He shrugged his brows and continued perusing the menu.

Cisney turned back to the eager server. “I'll have the peppermint shake with extra chocolate bits.”

“And you, sir?”

“Vanilla.”

“Cone, cup, or shake?”

The man couldn't even communicate what he wanted in an ice cream parlor. Cisney lifted her face and locked her gaze on his eyes. Was he getting her message to order a shake for the sake of tradition?

Nose-to-nose, and without taking his gaze from hers, he said, “Shake.”

A tingle surged through her. Recovering quickly, she pulled on her big thank-you smile, honoring his support of tradition.

He chuckled, his dimple appearing.

Since when did a man's simple announcement of an ice cream choice thrill her to her toes? It was all in his delivery. And those eyes. And that dimple. Who'd have thought ice cream with an actuary required a surge protector?

Jason would have chosen the cone to nettle her. He was like Daddy that way. Daddy seldom chose what Mom preferred. Unlike the usual males in Cisney's life, Nick was kind—when she wasn't overstepping his boundaries—as if he had nothing to prove.

Cisney accepted her shake from the server, who leaned over and inspected her pearl ring.

The ponytail wagged from side to side. “What a cool idea for an engagement ring. You two make a great couple. Opposites attract, and you two are definitely opposites. Peppermint with extra chocolate pieces versus vanilla.” She smiled as if she'd discovered the poster couple for the perfect match.

Cisney and Nick exchanged quick glances, his gaze dropped to her ring, and then he frowned.

She put her hand in her coat pocket. “I'm—we're not engaged.”

“Oh, sorry. You certainly fooled me.”

Cisney thumbed her ring on her concealed finger. Her elegant solitaire with its large pearl set in a raised Tiffany mount could be mistaken for an engagement ring.

They left the parlor with their milkshakes and headed toward his car. He opened her door. “I don't remember you wearing that ring on your left hand.”

Was he accusing her of trying to give the impression they were engaged?

 

 

 

 

3

 

Nick pulled the car into Mom and Dad's driveway and killed the engine.

Cisney slept, her back against the seat and her head resting on her folded coat jammed against the window. Her legs were drawn up onto the seat.

While they'd consumed their shakes, she'd given him the silent treatment, for exactly what, he wasn't sure. Refusing to talk was a poor choice of weapon for an expressive woman like Cisney. It turned on her and bit her. For him, silence was a gift for pondering. For Cisney, it was a gap that needed filling.

Before she'd finished her peppermint and extra bits, she'd relented and amused him with a couple of stories. He enjoyed listening to her. That didn't mean fireworks were lighting the sky, though.

He leaned forward to see her face in the light from the porch. Her relaxed facial muscles made the usually spirited Cisney look innocent and vulnerable.

“Cisney, we're here.” He spoke softly.

She tucked her knees in closer to her body.

Should he touch her shoulder? He didn't want to scare her awake. He notched up his volume. “Cisney, we've arrived.”

She dropped her legs to the floor and sat up. “Sorry, I didn't mean to drift off.” She stretched and looked out the windshield toward the garage. “Oh, we're here. Why didn't you wake me?” She rummaged in her purse and produced a brush and a lipstick tube.

“You look fine.”

“What do you know about first impressions?” She snapped the visor down, took stock of herself in the lighted mirror, then brushed her hair and smoothed on lipstick.

A woman like Cisney looked good even if she dragged herself in from a storm wearing combat boots.

Mom and Dad were in for a treat. They'd had difficulty relating to reserved and quiet Dana, but Cisney would dazzle them with her electricity. Now, if they'd enjoy her for the holiday, and not fall in love with her, he'd be safe. He wasn't in the market for a woman, much less one who lived by self-adhesive notes.

 

****

 

Cisney raised the visor. The front door of the mansion-sized house opened, and a couple emerged onto the porch. The woman wore a my-baby's-home expression, and the man's build and features replicated an older Nick. Ellie and Roger.

Nick climbed out of the car, raising his hand in greeting. “Hey.”

His parents waved.

He skirted the hood of the car and opened Cisney's door. Lowering his head level with hers, he said sotto voce, “I'll bring in your wardrobe later.”

She scrambled out, stuffing her brush into her handbag. Not a great first impression if his parents thought she'd waited for him to open her door. “Hi!”

Ellie beamed. “Hello!”

On the porch, Cisney held back while Nick embraced each of his parents. Her eyes misted. This would be her first Thanksgiving away from Mom and Daddy.

Nick turned to her. “Mom and Dad, this is Cisney Baldwin.”

She blinked and angled her face away from the nearest porch lamp. Anything to prevent them from noticing the moisture in her eyes.

“We've looked forward to meeting you.” Ellie stepped forward and took Cisney's proffered hand into both of hers. “Please call me Ellie.”

Ellie's husband extended his hand. “Hello, Cisney. I'm Roger.”

Nick's father had aged well. If Nick was as fortunate, he'd attract starry-eyed actuarial analysts—if such a breed existed—when he someday rose to chief actuary.

Heads poked out the partially opened door like bristles on a brush. Curious grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, no doubt. So, this was what a lone flying fish felt like as it swam toward a school of hungry tuna.

“Come in. Everyone wants to meet you.” Nick's mother put a hand on her back to usher her inside. The older woman leaned close and tickled Cisney's ear with whispered words.

“I'm sorry. What did you say?”

Ellie tried again, a little louder. “Why do you have a note stuck to your back?”

Cisney's heart sank. This flying fish's face would be crimson in less than a second. So much for first impressions. She eyed the hungry tuna at the door. “Does it say, ‘Call Angela'?” she whispered back.

Ellie nodded, her eyes wide with curiosity.

Which did she want to do first? Chastise Nick for not telling her in the ice cream parlor that she had a yellow sticky plastered to her back, or explain to Ellie—and to Roger and the family tuna—that she didn't use her back as a bulletin board. She opened her mouth to explain.

“Cisney adheres little notes in unusual places,” Nick said.

That did it. She'd lambast him later in private. For now, she smiled and addressed her audience. “I stuck the reminder to my handbag strap, and it must have transferred to my back when I slung the straps over my shoulder at a gas station.” She made the note disappear into her handbag. Out of sight, and with great hope, out of mind.

Ellie mumbled something to Nick behind Cisney as the tuna parted to let her inside.

He answered, “It'll be OK. Trust me.” Was he assuring his mother he hadn't brought a deranged person into her home?

While she shook family members' hands in the foyer the size of a ballroom, she caught Ellie's wrinkled brow and pinched lips. Now what faux pas had she committed?

She continued grasping hands, associating each person's name with identifying words she could remember, a memory trick Daddy had taught her. Aunt Sandy's hair was the color of sand.
Sandy-hair.
Nancy's glasses made her eyes look small. Nearsighted.
Nan-cyted.

When she reached the end of the reception line, Nick took his turn up the queue. Hugging welcoming relatives—and, oh—a kissing cousin. The last woman, Allison, had coined her own alias when she pulled away from his embrace and attacked his lips with a big smack. A
ll-on-son
.

Laughing, Nick steered
All-on-son
to the room off the foyer.

Cisney followed the family into the huge formal room. In the far corner stood her dream piano. She halted. The LeCrones owned a Steinway concert grand piano!

While she forced her jaw and mouth shut, members of the LeCrone clan found seats on the tasteful sofas, love seats, and armchairs interspersed around the room.

Grandpa LeCrone moved to her side, his hands buried in his pockets. “I see The Old Girl has stunned you. Do you play?”

“I do. But I've never played on such a Steinway.”

“You'll have to give The Old Girl a jingle or two.”

The Old Girl? Couldn't they have named the ebony piano something more elegant than The Old Girl? Only actuaries would name this magnificent piece of art something so crass. How irreverent.

Grandpa nodded toward Nick's parents. “Ellie and Roger inherited the piano when Grandma Thelma's arthritis would no longer allow her to play. Ellie is the next best pianist in the family, even if she is an outlaw.” He winked at his daughter-in-law.

“That's what Grandpa calls in-laws,” sister Nancy said.

Grandpa ushered Cisney to the loveseat where Nick had settled. After she sat next to Nick, all tuna gazes locked on them.

Nick turned toward her, maintaining the space between them. “I'm impressed you play.”

As her gaze volleyed among family members, she muttered through her clenched-teeth smile, “Let's drop it.”

Grandma Thelma clasped her gnarled hands. “Please play for us, dear.”

“Yeah,” Nancy said, “we're tired of conversation, and no one will play charades.”

Nick's sister appeared to be in her mid-twenties, as did Allison, who lounged beside Nancy on one of the sofas.

College-aged Fran and Fannie, Nick's fraternal twin cousins, chimed in, begging for something lively.

Two minutes inside the house, and the family wanted her to exhibit her skills? Her toes curled inside her boots. Maybe it was a test. If she was cultured enough to play the piano, they could overlook that she wore reminders on her back. “I haven't played in a while.”

Nick nodded at the Steinway. “Go on. You know you want to hear how The Old Girl sounds.”

She stood and smoothed her skirt. “I only perform one piece in public. You're going to laugh, but I've played it so much it's the only piece my fingers know by heart.” She swept her hand toward the twins sprawled on a sofa. “I guarantee it's lively.” Her stomach tightened, and her heart played its own concerto while her boots clicked her closer to the nine-foot instrument. She eased onto the bench and looked up at her waiting audience. “Do you mind if I just take her in for a moment?”

Chuckles sounded all around.

Her fingers caressed the keys. She closed her eyes and drew in a breath through her nose and let the air seep out through her pursed lips. She shook her hands and wiggled her fingers. “I warn you it's not your normal parlor tune. So feel free to laugh.” She launched into Rimsky-Korsakov's “Flight of the Bumblebee.” Her fingers flew over the keys as they thankfully found the right ones.