they’d have wound up in divorce court eventually, but Ralley wasn’t sharing that tidbit with anyone. Let them think it was the perfect marriage; it would be better for all concerned, especially for him. If Nikki felt sorry for him, he might have a chance of winning her back. This new Nikki was exciting, and he sensed a new maturity in her. And since there was obviously no other man in her life, she’d probably never gotten over him. He’d smiled secretively at the thought. How sweet of her to pine over him. Perhaps he wouldn’t have to try too hard after all.
It should have gotten better. She should have been able to put Cal in the back of her mind and finally blot him out of it entirely. But each day the wanting was worse, the ache was worse, until she wound up awake until two and three o’clock every morning, pacing, pacing, like a caged little animal.
Her mind fed on him, on bits and pieces of memory that she threaded and sewed into a silken veil to clothe the raw wound inside her that being without him had caused. She went to work mechanically, she did interviews, she wrote stories, she took pictures, she helped make up the paper, she stripped in corrections and wrote headlines. But nothing she did gave her any pleasure. She grew melancholy and pale, and even Ralley began to notice how dull her emerald eyes had become, how her steps dragged. She barely ate at all anymore, drinking cup after cup of black coffee and walking the floor at night.
Cal was probably out with a new woman every night, she told herself, and cried just at the thought of another woman holding him, touching him, caressing him with her eyes as Nikki had, loving him...
She was literally mourning him, and nothing eased the pain, nothing lessened the gnawing hunger for him.
Late on Friday night she was reluctantly watching a police drama with Mike when Jenny went to answer the phone.
“Nikki, it’s for you,” Jenny called, and there was a note in her voice that puzzled the younger woman.
Nikki lifted the receiver and said, “Hello,” bracing herself to fend off Ralley one more time.
“Hello, yourself,” came a deep, unmistakable voice from the other end of the line.
She felt a tingle of excitement the length of her body and had to sit down because her knees buckled. Easy, girl, she told herself. Easy.
“How are you?” she asked politely.
“How the hell do you think I am?” he growled. “You don’t sound so good yourself.”
She cleared her throat. “I’ve been working hard,” she told him.
There was a muffled curse. “Look, meet me at the Ashton airport in an hour.”
It was like an electric shock, lifting her from the chair. “Do what!” she burst out.
“You heard me. One hour.” And the line went dead.
She sat there looking at the receiver with the same expression a fisherman would have on his face if he threw in his line and pulled out a chicken dinner.
“Well, was it him?” Jenny and Mike chorused, watching her from the doorway of the living room.
She nodded.
“Is he coming here?” Jenny asked, poised to grab a broom and a mop and head for the stove to cook.
“I think so. He said to meet him at the airport in an hour.”
“He’s coming.” Jenny took off like a shot.
“I’ll put some ice in the cooler for drinks,” Mike murmured, following her.
Nikki clutched the receiver against her, cradling it, rocking it, while she finally let the tears loose.
She was sitting at the airport in Mike’s T-bird fifteen minutes before Cal was due, with the doors locked and the CB unit on as Mike had made her promise, since the airfield was deserted. The airport manager’s family lived in the mobile home just beside the apron, and their lights were still on. Mike had probably called them, too, Nikki thought with a smile. He and Jenny were like a couple of mother hens with a chick over her. It was good to have people care about you, even if they did carry it to extremes. Nikki didn’t know what her life would have been like if it hadn’t been for them.
A droning sound caught her attention. She straightened her white shirtwaist dress and primped in the rearview mirror under the dome light, making sure her face looked its best with the hint of soft pink lipstick, her dark hair curled toward her face in a soft style that she