It was her memories that worried Jenny. She held Nikki closer and stroked her hair.
* * *
RALLEY HALL WAS tall and blond and blue-eyed, and Nikki had loved him with all her heart. But when she walked into the office and found him sitting behind the newspaper’s editorial desk, she didn’t feel anything at all except a friendly warmth and sympathy.
“Hello, Ralley,” she said gently, shaking his hand while Mike Wayne watched nervously. “How are you?”
He shrugged. “Coping,” he replied with a faint smile. “I sold the house and moved back here,” he added. “The memories were too much. Even the job reminded me of her.” His face contorted, and she saw the sadness in it for an instant before he erased it. He’d looked like that at the funeral.
“You’ll enjoy being back,” she assured him, trying to keep her memories out of the way. “Mike might even let you do the update on the airport, if you bribe him with a fifth of bourbon.”
Ralley jumped right in, staring over Nikki’s shoulder at the older man. “Really?” he asked with arched eyebrows.
“Depends on the brand,” Mike said with a grin.
Ralley mentioned a well-known one, and Mike nodded. “It’s yours. Just as well—Nikki doesn’t know the fuselage from the altimeter.”
“I do so!” she said indignantly. She tossed back her short, dark hair with a haughty hand. “I’ll have you know I could have been the poor woman’s Wright brothers with just a little more training.”
“Remember that airplane model I got you for Christmas two years ago?” Mike asked her. “The one you put the wings on upside down?”
Her face flushed. “They weren’t marked.”
“Most people know what they look like.”
“I got the propeller in the right place,” she reminded him. “One out of two isn’t bad.”
“Weren’t you going to interview the mayor on that new water system we’re getting federal funds to build?” he asked her.
“Right!” she said, backing out of the office. “You bet. I’m on my way. Good to have you back, Ralley.”
Ralley smiled, and it was genuine. “It’s good to be back,” he said, and meant it. It was in his whole look.
“Pictures,” Mike reminded her.
She made a face. “I’ll forget to put film in the camera again,” she protested.
“I already loaded it. Bye!”
She shook her head as she walked toward her own office. “Oh, the perils of being a journalist...” she mumbled.
The next few days went by in a rush. Nikki forced herself to keep busy, not to think about the past at all. She and Ralley were still a little distant with each other, but she was beginning to understand Mike’s reason for bringing the reporter back. Ralley was a good editorial writer, one of the best. He got his facts straight, and he wasn’t afraid to state them, despite the flak. He wouldn’t pass the buck to Mike, either. If an irate reader called, Ralley talked to him, soothed him, explained his point of view and listened to the reader’s. He’d matured a lot in the past year, ever since Leda’s death. But what Nikki had once felt for him was gone forever.
On the other hand, Ralley was noticing Nikki in a way he hadn’t before, even when they were engaged. She’d just been someone to go around with back then, pretty and cute and sparkling. But Nikki had changed, too; she was much more of a woman now, and Ralley found himself regretting his impulsive elopement with Leda. Not that he hadn’t cared for Leda; he had. But no one knew how strained the marriage had become in the past few months. Leda and he had been perfect together physically. She’d given him something that Nikki had never tried to give. Where Nikki was chaste and reserved and unresponsive, Leda had been a veritable volcano. She’d captivated him, and he’d let himself be led to the altar. But once the first few weeks of marriage had dampened those high-burning fires, he’d begun to notice things about Leda that he hadn’t noticed before the marriage. She was lazy. She didn’t like housework, she hated to cook, she wanted to be with him constantly. He couldn’t even escape her in the evenings; she followed him around like a puppy. In desperation he’d suggested that she might enjoy a job of her own, but she’d refused flatly to go to work. She had a husband to do that. All she needed to do was look beautiful and make sure his clothes went to the cleaners once a week.