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Typically, Syd hung up without a goodbye.
Jordan picked up his laptop and tried to focus on his writing. But his mind kept returning to the rush of attraction he’d felt when seeing Nicole that afternoon... something he was determined to ignore.
* * *
NICOLE’S CONVERSATION WITH Ashley Vanders finally ended. Ashley always wanted to talk longer, but Nicole was trying to wean the young woman from needing to be coddled by the agency. That had been how Kevin McClaskey had treated his clients when he’d owned Moonlight Ventures.
Rachel had warned them about Kevin’s management style before they bought the agency. She’d loved him and his wife dearly, but had wondered if their constant handholding kept her from being as independent as she should have been.
With a sigh, Nicole started her car again and drove on, reminding herself that every job had its drawbacks. And while Ashley was a challenge, she’d just gotten a contract as the “face” of a huge car dealership chain. It was a three-year deal and maybe she wouldn’t want as much attention once she settled down and started seeing herself on TV.
For her first two months in Seattle Nicole had worked closely with Kevin McClaskey, and he still came around a lot. It was okay. His old clients missed him and he had volumes of knowledge about the talent business. She sometimes wondered if he regretted selling, but suspected his visits to the agency and other tenants in the building were primarily because he needed company with his wife gone.
Nicole turned into the hardware store parking lot. There was a woman at the paint counter with “Jo Beth” on her name tag. “Can I help you?” she asked, gazing at Nicole attentively.
“I’m told primer is an excellent idea when you’re covering bold colors,” Nicole said. “I suppose I didn’t ask the right questions when I was here before.” She held up the paint can. “I also need more of this to go over the primer.”
The clerk efficiently put together what was needed, gave her a discount and loaded everything into Nicole’s trunk.
“Ask for me whenever you come in.” Jo Beth handed her a business card.
Nicole drove home and trotted the cans of paint and primer into the living room. She looked at Toby who’d dashed in to see her. “Okay,” she announced, “we’re trying this again.”
The beagle seemed to whine a protest.
She reached down and petted the dog. “I know, buddy, you’re bored watching me paint. Maybe we could work in the garden for a while instead.”
Toby loved the backyard, but preferred having her out there with him. Perhaps it was from being a rescue dog—the trauma of having been abandoned on the Seattle docks must linger.
Grabbing a shovel, she went out to where a fence divided the yard. Before moving in she’d had the deck installed and the front section landscaped, leaving space for fruit trees and a vegetable plot in the undeveloped area at the end of the double lot. She’d discovered that digging was therapeutic.
Her original plan had been to buy a loft in downtown Seattle. In the interim she’d sold her condo down south, furniture included, and rented a studio while she searched for something permanent. But after deciding to adopt a dog she’d known having a yard would be best, and the whole thing had escalated. As soon as she’d walked into this place, it had felt like home.
Toby lay nearby, drowsing in the sunshine. Nicole figured he liked the outdoors so much because of having been cooped up for months waiting for adoption. He was a sweet animal, barely out of the puppy stage, and loved being able to go in and out through the doggy door whenever he wanted to sniff around the huge fenced yard, or needed to do his business.
The purchase of the talent agency had gone as smoothly as her house purchase. With four of them sharing the investment, no one would be in trouble, financially at least, if Moonlight Ventures fell apart. But they were anxious to make it a success for other reasons, which was why she’d agreed to work with a reporter from PostModern magazine. They all respected the publication, and the editor had told her the articles would be an unbiased look at how a supermodel was transitioning into a serious businesswoman.
Nicole sighed. She didn’t want to be the story, and she was no crazier about reporters now than she’d ever been, but the publicity would be good for the agency.
* * *
AFTER AN HOUR of yard work, Nicole went back inside, Toby at her heels, and contemplated the living room.
She wasn’t ready to start painting again.
“Want to go for a run?” she asked Toby encouragingly.
He’d promptly curled up on the floor for another nap. At the sound of her voice he opened his eyes briefly, then closed them again. So far running wasn’t his thing; he needed time to build his stamina after living in a kennel. A brisk walk was okay—brisk for his short legs, that is—but right now she needed to stretch her muscles in a way that working in the yard hadn’t accomplished.
After rubbing Toby’s soft ears she donned her running clothes and headed for the park. Then she saw Harvard Guy again. She instantly turned onto a side path.
Strange how familiar he seemed. There was something about his eyes that reminded her of...
Holy Cow.
Nicole stumbled and righted herself before she went down. Harvard Guy was Jordie Masters.
Jordan, she reminded herself. As a bratty neighborhood kid he’d been known as Jordie, then in high school he’d insisted on being called Jordan. Now he was a popular newspaper columnist. He’d changed a lot. She’d had no idea he lived in the Seattle area and knew there wasn’t any way he could have been at her house by accident. Nicole got a sinking feeling that he was the reporter doing the articles for PostModern.
Though she’d avoided Jordan whenever possible as a kid, she had a few vivid memories, such as when she was seven and wanted to learn how to skate. She’d put on her sister’s roller blades and started down the block, doing pretty well until Jordie had run into her. Nicole had always suspected it was deliberate. At the very least, he’d thought it was hilarious.
The resulting black eye had caused panic because she was supposed to model fancy dresses at a fashion show that weekend. They’d switched her to active wear and everyone had thought the black eye was makeup. The buyers had loved it. But after that, she wasn’t allowed to skate or bike or do anything active besides working out. Her parents had only agreed to let her take up running because it was good for her figure.
Fuming, Nicole continued her run. A black eye twenty-three years ago was unimportant, as were the other clashes they’d had as kids.
What concerned her were the articles.
Once friends, their mothers now hated each other, and except for one evening when they were in high school, Jordan had always acted as if he despised her. Obviously that was a long time ago and he might have put her out of his mind the way she’d done with him. But his columns were based on his observations and opinions and loaded with his dry wit, so the question was whether he’d changed enough to be impartial.
She shook her head, not wanting to think about it. At the moment she needed to release her tension, and she wasn’t going to let his presence in the park keep her from doing so.
Drat. There he was again, heading toward her. Determined not to let him put her on the defensive, she stepped onto a wide part of the path to let him pass. He stopped as well.
“Hi, Jordan,” she said coolly. “Cute trick, but the beard only fooled me for a while.”
“I wasn’t trying to trick you.”
“If you say so.”
He shrugged. “I’d come over to say hello since I’m doing the articles for PostModern.”
“I figured you were the one when I recognized you, but I thought you were a newspaper columnist, not a magazine writer.”
“The editor is a friend. She knows we grew up together and since I live up here, too, she asked me to do it.”
Nicole tried to remember if she’d ever heard where Jordan was living. She’d periodically read his columns and recalled that one of them had raved about tropical climes. If there had been any other indication about his home base, the information hadn’t stuck.
“Why didn’t you introduce yourself earlier, when it was obvious that I didn’t recognize you right off?” she asked.
“I planned to, but I got that phone call and you left for the hardware store.”
“Hmm.” Nicole narrowed her eyes.
It was possible it had been a simple slip-up in communication. She’d been distracted by the paint and hadn’t wanted to delay getting what she needed. Since Adam was in town helping with the agency for only a few days, she’d have less free time to work on the house after he was gone.
“Okay,” she said, deciding not to get into an argument...at the moment.
Nicole cocked her head and studied Jordan. It was hard to say how much he looked like the boy she remembered. In high school he’d had a military-style haircut, but now his dark brown hair was longish. The beard he wore was scruffy, rather than neat and trimmed. His Harvard sweatshirt was gone, and except for high-quality athletic shoes, his running clothes were on the worn side. For the most part he’d fit in with the guys who stood on a street corner with a sign, asking for money.
Or maybe not.
His muscled physique nicely filled out the faded black T-shirt he wore, reminding her of a night in high school she’d rather forget.
“Why the starving artist imitation?” she asked, brushing her own cheek instead of pointing to his beard. “You look like Leonardo DiCaprio in that movie, The Revenant.”
“I just got back from a month in Fiji.”
“What was the story down there?”
“None. I can write my column from anywhere in the world. For the last month, it was Fiji.”
“Nice work if you can get it,” she quipped. Jordan’s eyes were the same brooding brown they’d always been. Darn it.
“I’ve been lucky, same as you.”
“Well, I didn’t get to choose which countries I visited. I mostly worked hard once I got there, before moving on to the next location.”
His wry, almost patronizing smile revealed his true feelings. Okay, maybe she was overreading, but he probably agreed with the people who thought modeling was a breeze and life for a model was one long air-brushed idyll. The general belief seemed to be that someone with her level of modeling success couldn’t have any problems; therefore, they should just keep quiet, forgo their privacy, live the way the world thought they should live, and remember they were the lucky ones.
She was lucky, but life wasn’t always that simple. Someone smiling from an airbrushed photograph could be concealing a broken heart or other problems. Money and fame weren’t guarantees of happiness.
Curiously, she was disappointed to discover Jordan was the same as so many other people with gross misconceptions about her “ideal” life. But then, his childhood had been turbulent—the epic battles between his parents had been legendary in the neighborhood. Maybe he needed to believe there was a world where everything was as perfect as the way it looked on a magazine cover.
“How about dinner tonight?” Jordan suggested.
“Sorry, but I need to get on with my painting project.” Nicole kept her tone polite and impersonal, the way she always tried to sound with the press.
Still, she needed to remember that Jordan wasn’t one of the paparazzi-enemies of earlier years, the ones who’d invented a wild, party-girl history for her. Nor was he a friend. For the time being, he was simply a man writing about her and Moonlight Ventures. That it probably wouldn’t be the open-minded piece she and her partners had been promised was a concern, but there was no need to start out with knee-jerk reactions.
“How about tomorrow night?” he asked.
“I’ve got plans.”
“In that case I’ll try another time,” he told her smoothly and started up the path.
Refusing to watch him leave, Nicole continued her run. She hadn’t seen Jordan since high school and had thought little about him through the years. But if anyone had asked, she would have said he must have improved—after all, being a jackass wasn’t an incurable condition, was it? It appeared the jury was still out on that question.
One thing was for sure, he was as good-looking as ever, even with the beard. It was embarrassing to recall her brief crush on him when she was sixteen. The whole thing had started at a party when he’d kissed her on a moonlit patio. At first she’d been curious—as a senior he’d had quite a reputation with girls and she wanted to understand what all the fuss was about—then she’d realized how great his lips felt. Snuggling closer, she’d kissed him back wholeheartedly.
No one inside the house had known, probably because most of the kids had been drinking. Her folks had shown up soon after, terrified she was going to spoil the “clean teen” image that had helped make her so popular. Besides, her mother had declared angrily, alcohol was fattening.
For the next several weeks, while on location in Hawaii for a modeling gig, Nicole had lived that kiss over and over again in her imagination. The days had crawled by as she’d anxiously waited to see Jordan again. But when she got home, he’d treated her with the same scorn as always.
Her crush had abruptly ended with the realization that he’d probably been too drunk to know which girl he had kissed. Nicole hadn’t blamed him; she’d been the idiot with no better sense than to let a single kiss make her forget the way he had always behaved toward her.
Still, that was the past. The question was...what was he like as a reporter today?
Chapter Two (#u9c86c194-2932-5459-a77e-0431c154d25e)
JORDAN RETURNED TO his condo and showered, scrubbing off the sweat from his run. He’d gone several extra miles, trying to tire himself so that he could sleep on West Coast time, instead of Fiji’s clock. Changing time zones could be a challenge, especially for a chronic insomniac.
His encounters with Nicole wouldn’t make sleep easier, especially if he couldn’t erase the image of her on the fitness trail from his mind. Her heightened breathing had drawn attention to the spectacular figure beneath her close-fitting T-shirt. He’d been glad that his sweatpants were fairly loose, and annoyed that it had become an issue for him.
It wasn’t as if he’d been starved for feminine companionship. Most recently he’d enjoyed the company of an attractive and intelligent woman in Fiji, who had simply wanted a vacation fling.
Stepping out, he wiped the fog from the mirror and scrutinized his beard. In Fiji, he hadn’t paid attention to his appearance. It was a great place to practice just being alive, and he had been tempted to stay another month. But it was just as well that he was home again. If he’d continued drifting in tropical-beach mode, his writing might have suffered. His readers didn’t mind the occasional column about food or interesting parts of the world, but most of the time they expected a sharp edge to his writing.
Amazing how much hair could grow in a few weeks. It took a while to shave, then he showered again to wash away the last prickly bits.
After dressing he felt more like himself and sat down with his computer. Syd had sent him a ton of material. He didn’t mind research, he just wasn’t interested in the notes about Nicole. Still, he’d agreed to do the articles and would make good on his promise.
One of Nicole’s last jobs had been modeling swimsuits and other sportswear, and she’d also done a top designer’s wedding collection. Her absence from the modeling scene hadn’t been immediately noticed because the fashion world tended to work ahead of itself, so after Nicole had dropped out a few months ago, magazine covers and ads with her image had continued to appear for a while. They still were, for that matter.
According to the research material, the Moonlight Ventures talent agency had been purchased around the time of Nicole’s last job, and the buyers had been Nicole, Adam Wilding, Rachel Clarion and Logan Kensington. All were connected to the fashion world and were supposedly close friends. Though Nicole was the only one on the Seattle scene full time, there were reports that the others would eventually join her.
Jordan immediately started wondering if egos might get in the way of running the agency. It seemed possible.
There was an interesting entry from the researcher that Nicole’s decision to “retire” had apparently come shortly after attending her sister’s wedding to a Montana building contractor. Jordan had liked Emily George, who’d been in a number of his classes. She’d been nice, funny and smart. Even as a kid it hadn’t seemed right to him the way her parents focused their energy and attention on Nicole, leaving Emily on the periphery.
In the notebook he kept for possible ideas to explore in his newspaper columns, he wrote a suggestion—parental favoritism, long-term effects?
After reading for an hour, he closed the computer, got up and stretched. His muscles were tense despite the run. It wasn’t the articles ramping up the stress; he was worried about his sister. While Chelsea hadn’t been seriously injured in the car accident, the whole thing was mixed up with her skunk of a boyfriend. The other driver had been at fault, but it had complicated her breakup with Ron.
His other sister, Terri, was trying to convince Chelsea to fly up to Seattle from Los Angeles for a visit. Jordan had already gotten her a ticket, hoping she’d decide to come.
In the meantime, he had a job to do. Jumping to his feet, he grinned. Maybe Nicole could use some help painting the interior of her house.
* * *
WHEN THE DOORBELL rang Nicole thought it was her pizza being delivered. And it was, except a clean-shaven Jordan was holding the box as the delivery guy walked back to his car.
He’d looked good with the beard, but without it he was strikingly handsome.
“Hello,” she said, taking the box. “You probably cost that pizza joint any future business from me. A delivery person shouldn’t just hand a pizza to a stranger on the street.”
“Aren’t you being harsh?” Jordan protested.
“No. You aren’t a woman who needs to feel secure about food being delivered to her door. And the person making the delivery. Ask your sisters how they’d feel in the same situation.”
He frowned. “I never thought of it that way. I offered the guy a good tip, but for all he knew, I was a stalker or something.”
“Exactly.”
“I apologize. Look, I didn’t know you’d ordered a pizza, so I got takeout on the way over. How about a potluck dinner?”
“I told you I was painting.”
“But you’re obviously stopping to eat, and I came set to help.” He held up a new paint roller with one hand and a large bag with the other.
