My One and Only(76)

The lawyer part committed hari-kiri.

Nick reached out and touched my cheek. “Good night, Harper. See you in the morning.”

“Yes! Okay! Right. You too, Nick. See you, I mean. In the morning.”

He glanced back at me as he walked down the hall to his own room, a half smile on his face, and if he’d been two steps closer, I would’ve grabbed him by the shirt and dragged him into my room, common sense and history be damned.

Okay, why did he leave? Huh? Hmm? Huh? Men. I mean, really! Men! Who knew what went on in their tiny brains? Had he just saved me from myself, or completely insulted me? Hmm? Should I be grateful or furious? I yanked on my pajamas, washed my face, brushed my teeth and got into bed, frustrated…and yes, maybe a little relieved.

Suffice it to say I didn’t get a lot of sleep. Tangled thoughts battered me like a debate team on steroids.

Nick and I lived in different states.

So? Try the long-distance thing.

We have completely separate lives.

They don’t have to be separate.

We already tried this, and it was an epic failure.

You’ve changed.

Please. People don’t change.

He still wants you.

He just walked away from me.

Don’t be coy.

We’ll never get over our past.

Hmm. That might be true.

The past certainly haunts me.

Yes. Okay, you win.

With a sigh, I kicked back the covers, got out of bed and clicked on a light, earning some very tragic and confused blinking from my dog. Great. It was 3 a.m., not an hour when sound decisions are often made.

Then I did something I hadn’t done in a long time. I sat down in front of the mirror and took a good hard look.

I knew—intellectually, anyway—that I was pretty. Beautiful, even. My hair was envied by most of the population on earth. Eyes were green and clear. Bone structure quite strong yet still feminine.

It’s just that it was my mother’s face, too.

I didn’t simply take after her…I was practically a clone. My father was tall, thin, dark and handsome. I was tall, red-haired and fair. Every day for the past twenty-one years…every day…I’d had to look in the mirror and see the face of the woman who walked out on me. I hadn’t heard her voice in more than two decades. In all that time, she had only managed to send four postcards with a combined total of twelve sentences.

And as of today, I was the same age she was the last time I’d last seen her.

That was quite a thought. Quite a thought indeed.

The envelope was still in my computer carrier. Slowly, I got up and withdrew it, sat back down and, with another glance at my reflection, opened it up.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

NICK WAS ALREADY drinking coffee and staring out the window of the little hotel restaurant when I came in from walking Coco the next morning. My dog jumped up on the seat next to him and stole a slice of bacon, and I ruffled his hair before sitting down.

“Hey,” he said, looking a little confused at the gesture of affection.

“Hey yourself,” I answered. “Sleep okay?”

“Not really,” he said. “I lay awake for hours, horny as a teenage boy.”

“Duly noted,” I said. “So. Are you bound and determined to get to Minneapolis today, Nick?”

His eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Feel like a little detour?”

He must’ve sensed something was up, because he gave me a long, speculative look, as if reading my soul. (Wow. Corny. Sorry.) “Where would you like to go?”

“Aberdeen, South Dakota. Maybe three, four hours from here. If I drive, that is.”

“And what’s in Aberdeen?”

“You mean in addition to the Sitting Bull monument?” I asked, having spent some time on Google a few hours ago. I took a sip of his coffee, which he noted with a wry look.

“Yes. In addition to that.”

“My mother.”

Saying those two words out loud…it took something out of me, because suddenly, I couldn’t keep up the cute banter and my hands were shaking, Nick’s coffee sloshing over the rim. He took the cup from me and held both my hands in his, held them tight.

When he did speak, it was brief. “Ready when you are.”

MY THIRTEENTH BIRTHDAY had fallen on a Saturday, but my parents and I headed to Boston on Friday. On a plane, oh, yes. The ferry only went to Woods Hole, whereupon we’d have to take a bus or drive our aging Toyota, which just didn’t fit the glamorous night my mother had planned.

She and I had spent weeks researching the very best restaurants in the city, comparing views, decor, street desirability, menus and wine lists…not that I’d be drinking of course, but just to assess the class of the place. Class was a very important noun to my mother. And so we’d come up with Les Étoiles. “Perfect,” she pronounced. “Harper, this is definitely our kind of place. Now we just have to clean up your father, and we’ll be all set.”

She let me stay home from school that day, and I was thrilled. My mother was my absolute favorite person and always had been. She was much younger than most mothers of kids my age; in some cases, almost a generation younger. And she was so beautiful! She’d been a model, of course, and never lost her love of looking fantastic. Still a size four, that glorious hair, those green eyes. My mother looked ten years younger than thirty-four and she knew it. She was a wonderful flirt, and all the fathers loved her, of course, discreetly checking out her ass or her boobs, which she showcased in low-cut tops and tight jeans or miniskirts. She had flair, she had style, and she was fun. I was so proud to be hers, it was impossible to voice. The only real difference between us was that I was a really good student, and she hadn’t been. Otherwise, we were practically twins.