Now she decided on silence after the top had already been blown off his world and he could actually use some extra input?
“You mentioned wanting kids.” He watched for her reaction, for her consent to continue. When a passing family caused he and Nola to pause, he skimmed a kiss over the top of her head for reassurance before continuing. “I assume you meant with your ex-husband? Or is that too personal a question?”
“I guess you and I stopped respecting each other’s boundaries a long time ago.” She stirred her straw through the ice, reminding him too vividly of how seductively she’d drawn on her milk shake.
“Pretty damn much. Why not go ahead and go for broke?”
“Yes, I wanted children.” Her eyes lingered on a mother ahead pushing a stroller while a toddler raced alongside with a balloon. “He kept putting it off. The timing wasn’t right and so on. Thank God, though. We didn’t need to have kids together with the way things ended up between us.” She jerked to look at him. “No offense meant to you and your ex.”
“None taken. It certainly would have been easier if we could have stayed together.” He gestured for his daughter to hold up while he stopped at a duck-shoot booth.
Lauren—still sulking and “torturing” him with the silent treatment—leaned against the corner, feigning disinterest. He wondered what Nola thought of his child and wished he could play home videos of his daughter giggling as she chased bubbles. Smiling as she shared flowers. She’d been such a happy, generous kid once upon a time… Now, she seemed determined to ignore Nola.
Was this how she treated Lindsay’s Ben, who Lauren labeled a “dweeb”? If she behaved this way, it was no wonder they didn’t get along.
Rick leaned on his elbows, took the toy gun and began popping the tin ducks.
Nola chewed her bottom lip. “There were, uh, other issues with Peter and me…”
“You don’t have to explain yourself.” But he hoped she would keep talking anyhow since he found himself drawn to her no matter how much he tried to keep those boundaries shored up. He focused on the worn yellow waterfowl that had seen better days and downed the next, smaller row.
“I look at your beautiful daughter and I…”
He glanced over from his toy gun. “Think ‘what if.’”>Her shoulders slumped. “Of course. You want me to go.”
He sighed and slung his arm around her shoulders again, obviously trying his best in a situation that had no doubt thrown him for a loop. “I don’t want you to go. You have to leave for your own protection.”
Her head spinning with images of Rick with his daughter, Nola trudged up the steps into her house. He’d handled the situation as well as any parent could when faced with a surly teenage runaway—a child so obviously hungry for love.
Nola snagged extra sheets from the linen closet. The sleeping arrangements would definitely change since they all couldn’t sleep in the garage. She imagined what Rick would want in the way of security. He would insist on sleeping in her living room after all, and Lauren would sleep on a roll away in her office. He would undoubtedly make arrangements to send her home ASAP.
The girl’s bravado hadn’t come close to covering her heartbreak.
Nola clutched the sheets to her chest. She knew Rick would place a call to Lauren’s mom and reserve a plane ticket for the girl. Meanwhile, the three of them would stick together like glue until Lauren had a seat on an airliner home.
No more hot tub moments. Nola had gotten her breathing space.
She should be happy. Instead she felt as if she’d screwed up and lost something.
Her phone jangled from across the room. She dropped the sheets on the sofa and rushed to snatch up the receiver in case Rick needed something more for his daughter.
“Captain Seabrook.” A low, electronically distorted voice eased over the line with insidious chill. “Did you enjoy your flight today?”
“Who is this?” Nola swallowed down a bilious dread and wished she had made arrangements with the phone company to have her calls traced. There could be no doubt but that her stalker had finally made contact. Did it mean he was getting more serious that he would risk a phone call? Things certainly felt more eerie, more horridly personal.
“I wonder how you paid for that airplane with all your financial problems lately. Your new man friend, I assume. I watched you both from the field. If only I owned a shoulder-held rocket launcher…”
He continued to talk about how he’d enjoyed his view from the ground. His words looped over her like an icy noose around her body. Thank goodness her flight had been a last-minute decision. If she’d planned ahead and somehow he’d found out he could have sabotaged the plane in countless ways.
Her knees folded and she sank onto the sofa arm. She couldn’t bear to think she would have caused Rick’s death. As much as she craved his comfort, she also longed to tell him to leave, go anywhere far away from her, but she knew well nothing would peel him from her side now. His protector instincts were too deeply honed.
As deep as her own, because she couldn’t leave his side now that he needed her help with his daughter. Hmm. What an odd thought and God, her mind was wandering when she needed to focus on what this maniac was saying.
She wished the cops had tapped her phone, or that Rick was in the room with her. Now wasn’t that the ultimate in selfish? She had no idea what she expected him to do, but she hated being alone with the mechanically altered voice. It could be anyone babbling on the other end of that line. A stranger.
Or someone she knew. “So you’re finally ready to talk to me rather than hiding behind letters.”
“Soon we will talk face-to-face and you will remember me then. Your time is almost up.”