her knees, and studied Nikki’s slender figure in the casual white sundress. “You look lovely in white, dear. You should wear more of it. By the way, did Mike tell you the news?” she asked, and her tone made Nikki feel apprehensive.
She sat up straighter in the wrought iron chair. “What news?” she asked.
“That’s what I thought,” she muttered. “Leave poor old Jenny to do the dirty work while he hides in the bathroom.”
“What news?” Nikki repeated.
Jenny took a deep breath. “That Ralley’s back.”
Bad luck seemed to come in bunches, Nikki thought as she sipped her iced tea and tried to look nonchalant. “Is he?”
“Oh, don’t play it cool with me,” Jenny grumbled. “Who sat up with you all night the day he married Leda and patted you while you cried? Remember me? Long-suffering Aunt Jenny, who loves you like a daughter?”
Nikki had to smile at that. She gave her aunt a quick glance. “Okay, long-suffering aunt. I heard you. I just don’t know what to say. I thought I loved Ralley, but now I’m almost sure I didn’t. I was just in love with love. He’s a good reporter, and Mike’s lucky to have him back. But as to how I feel about it.” She sighed, shrugging. “I don’t feel anything. I’m just too numb.”
“Not over the flood,” Jenny said with a shrewd glance over the troubled pixie face, the downswept thick dark lashes. “So what went on in Nassau?”
Nikki’s fingers curled around the frosty, sweating glass. She rocked it gently, listening to the soft, musical tinkle it made. “I met someone,” she said.
“You come home looking like a dog whose owner was just run over by a van, with shadows under both eyes and a bitter little smile that says more than you think, and all that boils down to three words. Okay, fair enough. Who, what, where, when, how and why?”
“I forgot that Mike found you doing rewrites for a daily newspaper.” Nikki laughed with a sparkling emerald glance.
“I could have won a Pulitzer,” Jenny said haughtily. “I just didn’t want to deprive the other staffers of all that opportunity.”
“Which means, translated, that after you covered your first wreck, you decided the rewrite desk was a nicer memory to take home to supper,” Nikki replied. “Right?”
The older woman made a face at her. “Now, if you’re through trying to drag red herrings across my feet, how about telling me the truth? If you’re ready to, of course. Never let it be said that I tried to pry.”
“It’s nothing, really,” she replied quietly, her eyes faraway and sad. “I met a very nice man, we went sightseeing together and had a great time. But he was really out of my league. I doubt anything’ll come of it.”
“Nothing!” Jenny threw up her hands. “What do you mean he was out of your league? Was he rich? Famous?”
“Oh no,” Nikki lied. She didn’t want anyone to know Cal’s identity, much less Mike and Jenny. Love her they did, but Mike wouldn’t be above calling up Callaway Steel to give him a piece of his mind if he knew who’d upset the apple of his eye. And Jenny had no secrets at all from Mike; it was one of the reasons their marriage was such a good one.
“He was just an upper-crust man,” Nikki said finally, “with an oversize ego.”
“Not going to tell me a thing, are you?” Jenny laughed at the expression on Nikki’s face. “Don’t worry. I won’t try to pump you. I know what a sucker you are for tears.” She smiled gently. “You really fell for him, didn’t you, honey? It happens like that sometimes. I saw Mike, and I knew. Just that fast.”
Nikki’s pale green eyes clouded. “I wouldn’t have believed anyone could care so much, so soon. Oh, Jenny, it hurts so!”
Jenny got up and took the shorter woman in her arms, rocking her, comforting her, as she had years ago when her mother died of a brain tumor and, six months later, when her father ran his truck into the river. She was good at giving comfort to Nikki, she thought sadly; the girl had gone through so much tragedy in her life. Leda’s death had been the last straw. She was glad Nikki had found someone to share a few smiles with on that trip. God knows she’d needed it desperately. And if a few tears were the price, they were surely worth it. Nikki’s pride would heal, and so would her heart.