The Very Thought of You (20 page)

“Leverage? What's that supposed to mean?”

“You majored in English. Figure it out.”

“Very funny.”

The loud crack of a bat brought his attention back to the TV. His brother was on his feet yelling and pumping his fist. The Giants must have gotten a hit, maybe even brought in a run while his sister conducted her inquisition. He took a few steps into the family room, feigning interest in a game he'd long since lost track of.

Barbara followed him. “Okay, I get the point. At least tell me if it worked.”

“Yeah, I think it did.”

Before his sister could pepper him with another battery of questions, he made his move. Not into the kitchen. Go in there and he'd be quadruple-teamed for sure. No, the empty chair beside his father beckoned. Quickly, he headed for the safety of men.

Molly couldn't remember the last time she'd spent such a sleepless night. Probably the summer after she'd turned twelve and her dad sent her to boarding camp for two weeks. The adjustment had been difficult, and she'd stumbled around like a sleep-deprived zombie for the first couple of days. Then, wham, as if someone had wound her up like a mechanical Barbie, she'd jumped into every activity and even brought home a swimming trophy.

Since then, she'd shed a few tears over a broken romance and spent an occasional restless night. Nothing like she'd experienced since she'd tossed the dice in Nick's kitchen. That wasn't all she'd tossed. Her common sense had flown right out his front door. Even a second glass of Chardonnay after she'd arrived home didn't ensure a restful night. If all Nick intended was to seduce her so she'd ditch his tenants and switch sides, then she'd rolled snake eyes for sure.

It would help ease her guilt if she had some idea how he felt about her. He'd acted as if he were attracted. It hadn't taken a whole lot of words from him to convince her. Heck, if she remembered correctly, he'd been pretty economical with those. What he did say had made her all squishy inside, along with the way he'd kissed and touched her. Could she have mistaken his interest? They definitely meshed. Chemistry ruled in his rustic kitchen. His hands were gentle, like a lover's. No slam-bang bam, I'll get my rocks off and the heck with you. There was caring in his kiss, in his touch. At her age, she'd had enough experience to recognize the difference.

She slumped down in her kitchen chair and leaned her elbows on the table. She clasped her hands, rested her chin on her bent fingers, and tried to rouse her listless body and confused brain.

She woke at 5:00
A.M.
in a tangle of sheets.

A half hour later, she abandoned sleep.

After she prowled around the apartment for a couple of hours and cleaned up a week's worth of mess, she fell back into bed and dozed fitfully.

Up again at 9:00, she dragged her body downstairs and fetched the Sunday
Chronicle
off the doorstep. She concentrated on the entertainment section. This was no morning to overload her brain with bad news.

Nothing caught her interest. She would have used the time to work on her next fund-raiser, but no interesting ideas surfaced. Instead, she spent an hour trying to reconcile her growing feelings for Nick. Her body got hot and tingly when she thought about him. Only one thing could put that to rest. Unfortunately, it was attached to his groin, and he was miles away. He probably slept like he'd downed a double dose of sleeping pills.

Maybe she was just suffering from a serious case of lust. She was as entitled to it as a man. Lust was a whole lot easier to recover from than unrequited love. She wasn't ready for love, unrequited or otherwise. Certainly not with Nick, not unless he lived up to his own sterling PR and proved he really was one of the good guys. Yesterday, he'd all but promised not to leave his tenants vulnerable. That required money. Did he have it stashed somewhere? He claimed not to, and she wanted to believe him. So what choice did he have? Either he evicted his tenants and forced them to take his latest offer of thirty thousand — which in about five years would turn into a dried-up sinkhole — or he'd have to halt construction on his project. Where would that put him financially? Maybe into bankruptcy.

Still, how could she urge the tenants to accept his offer? She couldn't turn traitor and sell them out. There was the clinic, too. What if they had to relocate? What if Nick forced it to close? He didn't have to act immediately. Once his condos sold, the additional properties might look attractive to him. Dominique had said as much. He could anchor the block with condos. He might even buy almost everything in between.

So what did her feelings about him matter? She could drop them on a BART track and wait for the 8:49 to thunder over them.

The ceiling light hurt her eyes. She closed them and an image of the good-guy Nick popped up behind her lids. If men were ice cream sundaes, he was a double scoop of butter pecan nestled in a well of hot fudge and topped with whipped cream, chocolate sprinkles, and a plump cherry. She rolled her tongue around her mouth. Where would she begin to lick him?

Her phone rang before she dug any deeper into her fantasy. Nick? She checked the caller ID. It was her Aunt Vi. Crap. Earlier in the week, they'd made a date to go to the Farmer's Market at the Ferry Building.

Molly eyed the vintage clock shaped like a big green teacup that her aunt had given her on one of her last birthdays. Twelve twenty-two. She'd prowled around for hours and accomplished zip. Unless she counted printing the word Nick on her pad three times in big block letters. She'd drawn a halo over one and a pair of horns above another. Since she sensed he fell somewhere between an angel and a devil, she left the third blank.

She grabbed the phone before voice mail activated.

“Hi, Aunt Vi.” Her deeper than usual voice warned of a scratchy throat. Terrific. This was no time to come down with a cold. Not when she needed a clear head. Something told her a showdown between Nick and his tenants couldn't be too far off. She pulled her limp body out of the chair, ran some water, and carried a glassful back to the table.

“I heard you walking around up there. Are you ready to go to the market?”

Molly stifled a groan. “Oh, sure. I just need time to shower and dress.”

“You're taking your time today. You must have had fun up in Napa.”

“Oh, yes. It was … nice.” Molly almost bit her tongue.

“Have you eaten lunch?”

“Not yet.”

“When you're ready, come down and we'll grab a quick cup of tea and some fruit and one of those yummy alfalfa scones Trudie baked yesterday. I have some interesting news from her. It might not mean much, but then you never can tell.”

The mole.
Molly braced herself for disaster. Her aunt hung up before she could inquire.

Molly pushed herself out of her chair and tore off the sheet of paper. She stared at it for a moment. What were the chances Nick had spent a sleepless night and paced the floor as she had, all lustful and unfulfilled? What fantasy, if any, might he have played out about her? Would she see him again and not just on a drive-by? He'd been pretty quiet on the return to San Francisco. When he did chat, he'd steered clear of their friendly little tussle. Maybe he'd already forgotten he'd touched her in a very intimate place and that she'd touched him back. Or at least, she'd been about to when his friend shattered the spell.

She hesitated to ball up the sheet of paper. That would be like disposing of Nick, plucking him out of her heart and mind. She wasn't ready yet. How could she keep it lying around, though? What if her aunt or cousin found it? NICK, NICK, NICK. Like she'd erected a stupid shrine. Now her aunt waited to grill her about the balloon ride and its aftermath.

Molly folded the paper carefully and carried it into her bedroom. She slipped it into her underwear drawer between the lacy bra and bikini panties she'd purchased the previous month. An impulse buy, they'd cost more than she could afford. Why had she splurged on them? At the time, there hadn't even been a hint of a hot relationship. So maybe she was ready for one, ready for someone like Nick — but without needy tenants or any other kind of baggage — to shake up her life. He'd rocked her foundation yesterday. Would he try for a repeat? She doubted it. Instead of lamenting the loss, she should be grateful. A repeat clearly spelled trouble in letters a hundred times larger than the ones in which she'd printed his name.

She showered, dressed in cut-off khakis, a raspberry T-shirt, and sandals and by twelve-thirty sat in her aunt's kitchen. She sipped a cup of tea and choked down one of Trudie's alfalfa scones.

“I didn't hear you come in last night.” Vi gathered a pair of wicker baskets from a utility closet and lay them on the floor beside the table.

“Oh?” Molly had never employed such stealth. When she'd arrived home, she'd removed her shoes and climbed up to her apartment on tiptoes. “Did you go to bed early?”

“No earlier than usual. Maybe I became too engrossed in the new cooking show on cable. It's called
Eat And Purge Your Way To Better Health.
Next weekend I'll try the oat bran waffles. You break open a few capsules of Vitamin E and add that to a pinch of desiccated cod and pulverized seaweed for the topping. I'll bring you up a batch. Supposedly, they freeze well.”

“That sounds yummy.” Maybe next weekend Molly would check if the Russians still booked flights to their space station.

“So, how did the balloon thing go?” Vi asked.

On the way downstairs, Molly had prepared herself for the question. “It went well.”

“Good. No mishaps? I burned an incense stick to be on the safe side.”

“I'm sure that helped.”

“Did Nick enjoy himself?”

A thousand tingly pinpricks invaded Molly's chest and danced south.
Oh, yes
. “He seemed to.”

“So, what do you think?”

“What do I think about … ?”

Vi made a horizontal wavy motion with her hands. “About you and Nick getting together again?”

“You mean on a real date?”

“You've thought along those lines, haven't you? Good. I like him. The way he looked at you, kiddo, he's very interested.”

Molly finished her tea and carried the cup over to the sink. “He thinks I can convince his tenants to lower their demands. I can't. He claims to have their welfare at heart. Does he? I don't know for sure. He also claims to be practically broke. Is he? I don't know that, either. It's too complicated. So don't expect him to ring this bell again anytime soon.”

“I'll burn more incense.”

“Don't bother. There isn't enough of it on the planet to change things. Anyway, it isn't like I'm in love with him or even gaga over him.” Well, she was sort of gaga, at least, if her heart and body were any indication. It was best, however, not to confess that to her aunt. Not unless she wanted an overload of incense clogging her nasal passages for the next year. “He's handsome, sexy, forceful, bright, and probably has ten more positive attributes I haven't even discovered. Even with all those pluses, he's not for me.”

Vi rose, picked up the wicker baskets, and handed one to Molly. “Wanna bet?”

“No.”

Molly slung her purse over her shoulder and followed her aunt out the front door.

“You're sure this isn't too early? Did I rush you out before you finished your scone?” They walked toward her aunt's truck.

The remains of the scone, wrapped in a paper napkin, resided in Molly's purse. “Tell Trudie she's a genius.”

Dappled sun spread through the leafy trees and warmed Molly's skin. She hoped her energy would soon return. She'd hate to spend the rest of the day moping.

“Another reason I wanted to get to the market and back before three is I need to work on my costume for the upcoming Love Parade.”

Last year, against her protestations, her aunt and Trudie had dragged Molly along with them. A fistfight had broken out midway through the festivities and the police had swarmed the area. The hem of her aunt's gown — she'd recreated Mother Earth with a “living” hat — had fallen victim to a horde of marauding gender-bending pixies and they'd had to fight to keep the gown from being ripped off her body.

They settled in the truck.

“Trudie knows just about everyone who has a connection to a city agency,” Vi said. “She should since she's worked at the Hall of Records for forty years.”

“You mean snooped.”

“I guess you could say that.”

“I would and worse.” Molly grabbed the armrest as the truck swerved around a bicyclist who'd wandered too close to traffic.

“Anyway, she's friendly with a gal who works for the Department of Buildings. It seems Nick isn't the only one who's staked a claim to that particular area of SoMa.”

“Someone else is building condos?”

“The Blackthorn Group. They bought up a whole chunk of city real estate across the street from Nick's project. At least half the block. The plans are drawn and the permits issued. It's still hush-hush right now. Trudie said their project is mixed use. The plans call for a commercial high-rise almost as tall as the Trans America Pyramid and a hotel. The remainder is slated for residential. A small park in the middle with trees and benches will create a tranquil space. The ground floor of the commercial building will house restaurants and shops, the top floors condos. Trudie said it sounds swanky. Whoever builds nearby is going to make a killing. Nick included.”

Molly, who'd slumped in her seat, jolted up and faced her aunt. “What do you mean by ‘a killing?'”

“Whatever Nick expected to price his lofts at, he can easily ask more. That half of the block will turn into a showplace. Trudie's friend says to expect builders to swarm down there.”

Nick had never mentioned the Blackthorn project. If he knew about it, would he let thirteen people stand in the way of his making “a killing?” All that money would just about ensure his interest in expanding down the street. Angel or devil? Molly still wasn't certain. This latest news ensured something was about to happen, maybe quickly. Mentally, she pictured Nick beneath a halo and hoped for the best.