when we lived on 55th?”
Nadine smiled at Patrick, praying the fake expression she pasted on masked her seething thoughts. She tried to suppress memories of Patrickas a boy—selfish, overbearing and constantly teasing her.
Other than rudely turning around and returning to her office, which would be most un-Christlike and unforgiving, she had little choice but to sit down and try to make some kind of small talk.
The talk turned out to be very small, with Grandma and Nadine asking Patrick polite questions about where he worked and lived. Patrick had changed little, Nadine reflected, or possibly he had become even more boring.
After a while Nadine had to do something. Stretching her leg under the coffee table, she gave her grandmother a gentle nudge.
Danielle didn’t even flinch.
“Our Nadine is quite the little cook…” Grandma continued, ignoring Nadine’s next push, delivered with a little more force.
“I’m neither little nor a good cook,” interrupted Nadine. She gave her grandmother a warning look, then glanced back at Patrick. “Grandma would love me to be more domestic, but for me, gourmet cooking means putting brown instead of white sugar on my cereal.”
Grandma didn’t miss a beat. “She’s such a joker, our Nadine.”
Thankfully, at ten o’clock Patrick rose and excused himself. He thanked Danielle and Nadine for a lovely visit and, with a playful smile at Nadine, left.
Danielle turned to Nadine. “He’s such a nice boy. Don’t you think?”
“If you like that type,” Nadine said dryly.
“He wanted to see you again. I can tell.” Danielle bent over to put the mugs on the tray and then, as the clock struck, straightened. “Goodness, Nadine. You had better get to bed. I’ll clean up. You need your sleep.”
And with that, Danielle bustled off to the kitchen.
Nadine shook her head. She had to do something about Danielle, or her meddling grandmother was going to take over her life.
She yawned a jaw-cracking yawn and glanced at her watch. But not tonight.
It was still early morning when Clint Fletcher pulled open the door to his office. He smiled as he looked around the neat room. The sun had just come up, and lit the eastern sky outside his window, illuminating the space with a gentle light.
His office, he thought with a proprietary air. During the years he’d worked in the city for one of the large newspapers, he had been lucky to have his own desk in a large, crowded newsroom. Even then he would often come back from an assignment to find it appropriated by a colleague whose computer was down.
Now, not only did he have his own desk, he had his own phone, his own door and an element of privacy. He set his briefcase down on his desk and walked to the window. His uncle Dory had occupiedthe office farther down the hall. It was larger, but when Clint had taken over the papers, he’d also moved to this office. He preferred the view. He liked to look up from his desk and see people in the park across the street or walking past the office busy with their town errands.
It had been Nadine’s office before he came, and he was sure there was a certain resentment over that, he thought as he idly watched the play of wind in the trees arching over the street. He still didn’t know what he had done to create Nadine’s guarded looks, the touchy attitude. Nor did he understand why she still called him Fletcher.
She had always called him that. His first memory of her was of brown eyes watching him warily from a porch swing as he came to their home to pick up her older sister. She had been reading a book, and when he came up the walk she put it down and demanded to know who he was. After that he was simply addressed as “Fletcher.” It became a challenge to coax a smile out of her, to get her to speak more than a few words.
He had gone to church with Sabrina as much to see how Nadine would react as to please his girlfriend. She wasn’t impressed. Nor was she impressed when he started