Nora Roberts - Dance Upon the Air

Until she could think of him, until she could say his name without fear, she wasn't free.

She held the picture of him in her mind, imagined it breaking apart, her will a hammer against glass. "Evan Remington," she whispered, "you can't touch me now. You can't hurt me. You're over, and I'm just beginning."

The effort exhausted her, but she set Diego on the floor, then pushed herself to her feet, dragged on a sweatshirt and shorts. She would go back to work, design and evaluate her menu. It was time to figure out how to set up an office of sorts in the little bedroom.

If Gladys Macey wanted a party coordinator, that's just what she was going to get.

She had dropped the file when she bolted into the cottage, and now she gathered up all the scattered notes, magazine clippings, and carefully written menu selections and carried them into the kitchen. She was mildly surprised to see that the sun still shone.

It felt as if she'd slept for hours.

The clock on the stove told her it was barely six. Time enough to reevaluate the Macey job proposal, to create a comprehensive list of menu and service selections for what she was going to call Sisters Catering.

She would take Mia up on the offer of the store computer and design a look for her handouts, her business cards. She had to calculate a budget, set up books.

No one was going to take her seriously unless she took herself seriously first.

But when she put her files down and looked around, she wondered why the prospect of putting on water for coffee seemed so far out of her scope.

The knock on the front door had her spinning around. Her first thought when she saw Zack through the screen was, not now. Not yet. She hadn't had time to gather herself back to what she needed to be.

But he was already opening the door, already studying her across the short distance from the front of the cottage to the back. "Are you all right, Nell?"

"Yes."

"You don't look all right."

She could imagine how she looked. "I wasn't feeling well earlier." Self-conscious, she scooped a hand through her hair. "I had a headache, and so I took a nap. I'm fine now."

Hollow-eyed and pale, and far from fine, was Zack's judgment. He couldn't back off and leave her alone any more than he could have left a stray pup on the side of the road.

Diego gave him an opening, pouncing out of a corner to attack his shoes. Zack picked up the kitten, ruffling his fur as he walked to Nell. "You take anything?"

"Yes."

"Eat anything?"

"No. I don't need a nurse, Zack. It was just a headache."

Just a headache didn't send a woman bolting out of someone's house as if the devil were on her heels. Which was exactly how Gladys had described it. "You look pretty rough, honey, so I'm going to fix you the traditional Todd family restorer."

"I appreciate it, but I was going to work for a while."

"Go ahead." He handed her the kitten, moved past her to the refrigerator. "I'm not much in the kitchen, but I can manage this-just like my mother did when one of us wasn't feeling right. Got any jelly?"

It was right in front of his face, she thought crossly. What was it about men that struck them blind the minute they opened a refrigerator door? "Second shelf."

"I don't-oh, yeah. We always used grape, but strawberry should work. Go ahead and work. Don't mind me."

Nell set Diego by his dish of food. "What are you fixing?"

"Scrambled eggs and rolled-over jelly sandwiches."

"Rolled-over jelly sandwiches." Too tired to argue, she sat. "Sounds perfect. Mrs. Macey called you, didn't she?"

"No. I did run into her, though. She mentioned you were upset about something."

"I wasn't upset. I had a headache. The skillet's in the bottom cabinet, left."

"I'll find what I need. Place isn't big enough to hide much."

"Do you make scrambled eggs and rolled-over jelly sandwiches for everyone on the island when they have a headache?"

"That would depend. I'm making it for you because you tug at me, Nell. Have since I first met you. And when I walk in here and see you looking like something that's been flattened by a passing steamroller, it troubles me."

She said nothing when he cracked eggs, dumped in milk and too much salt. He was a good man, she believed. A kind and decent one. And she had no right tugging at him.

"Zack, I'm not going to be able to give you what you want, what you're looking for. I know yesterday I indicated I could-that I would. I shouldn't have."

"How do you know what I'm looking for, what I want?" He stirred the eggs in the bowl. "And whatever it is, it's my problem, isn't it?"

"It isn't fair for me to give you the impression there can be anything between us."

"I'm a big boy." He put enough butter in the skillet to make her wince. "I don't expect everything to be fair. And the fact is, there's already something between us. You pretending otherwise doesn't change it." He turned around as the butter melted. "The fact that we haven't slept together doesn't change it either. We would have yesterday, if I hadn't gotten that call."

"It would've been a mistake."

"If life wasn't full of mistakes, it'd be a mighty tedious process. If all I wanted was a roll in the sheets, I'd've gotten you there."

"You're probably right-that's my point."

"Right about the mistakes or the sex?" he asked and began slathering jelly on bread.

She decided that even if she had the answer, it wouldn't matter. Kind, decent, he was. And also stubborn as a mule. "I'll make coffee."

"Don't do coffee with this. Calls for tea. And I'll make it."

He filled the kettle, set it on the stove. Poured the eggs into the heated skillet in a sizzling rush.

"Now you're angry."

"I walked in half angry, and one look at you took care of part two. Funny thing, though, I can be pissed off at a woman and hold myself back from knocking her around. That's the kind of amazing self-control I have."

Nell drew a calming breath, folded her hands on the table. "I'm well aware that not every man deals with temper with physical violence. That's the kind of amazing intelligence I have."

"Good for us." He rooted around until he found teabags, an herbal blend he felt more suited to fancy china cups than the solid stoneware mugs she had available.

He scooped eggs onto plates, found forks, and tore off paper towels in lieu of napkins.

He'd said he wasn't much in the kitchen, Nell thought as he set a plate in front of her and went back to dunk the teabags in the mugs. But even here he had an appeal. He never wasted a move, she noted, and wondered if it came from grace or practicality.

Either way, it worked.

He sat across from her, let Diego climb adventurously up the leg of his jeans and knead his thigh. "Eat."

She forked up a bite, sampled. "They're better than they should be, considering you used a pound of salt per egg."

"I like salt."

"Don't feed the cat at the table." She sighed, ate. It was so blessedly normal, sitting like this, eating oversalted eggs and strawberry jelly squished in a piece of folded bread.

"I'm not the mess I used to be," she said. "But I still have moments. Until I don't, I'm not prepared to complicate my life, or anyone else's."

"That's sensible."

"I'm going to concentrate on my work."

"A person's got to have priorities."

"There are things I want to do, things I need to learn. For myself."

"Uh-huh." He polished off his eggs, sat back with his tea. "Ripley said you're scouting for a computer. The rental agency's looking to upgrade a couple of theirs. You could probably get a fair deal. You might want to stop by, ask for Marge. She manages the place."

"Thanks. I'll check it out tomorrow. Why aren't you mad anymore?"

"Who said I'm not?"

"I know how to read mad."