“You’re way out of line, girl!” Spence was suddenly agitated, combative. “You don’t know any of this. You’re just saying it to protect Ross!”
“I’m saying it to protect you!”
His face flushed dark red. “You think I’m stupid? You think I can’t see what’s going on? You and Ross are—”
He caught himself, but it was too late. She knew exactly what he was going to say next. Her mouth tightened. “Get out, Larry,” she ordered, barely able to contain her fury. “Right now. And don’t come back.”
He swept past her with a grunt and went out the door, slamming it behind him. She watched him stomp back to his cruiser, climb in, and drive off. She was so angry she kept watching until he was out of sight, half-afraid he might change his mind and try to come back.
When the phone rang, she was still seething. She stalked into the kitchen and snatched up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Nest? Hi. You sound a little out of sorts. Did I pick a bad time to call?”
She exhaled sharply. “Paul?”
“Yeah. Are you okay?”
She brushed back her curly hair. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound fine.”
She nodded at the wall, looking out the window at the empty drive. “Sorry. I just had a visitor who rubbed me the wrong way. How are you?”
“I’m good.” He sounded relaxed, comfortable. She liked hearing him like this. “You got my earlier messages, right?”
“I did. Sorry I didn’t call back before, but I’ve been pretty busy. I have some guests for the holiday, and I’ve…”
She ran out of anywhere to go with this, so she simply left the sentence hanging. “Well, it’s been hectic.”
“That’s the holidays for you. More trouble than they’re worth sometimes. Especially when you have a houseful.”
“It’s not so bad,” she lied.
“If you say so. Anyway, how would you feel about having another guest, maybe sometime after the first of the year?”
She couldn’t tell him how much she wanted that, how much she needed to see him. She was surprised at the depth of the feeling he invoked in her. She knew it was due in part to her present circumstances, to the loneliness and uncertainty she was feeling, to her heightened sense of mortality and loss. She knew as well that she still had strong feelings for Paul. A part of her had never really given up on him. A part of her wanted him back.
“I’d like that.” She smiled and almost laughed. “I’d like that very much.”
“Me, too. I’ve missed you. Seems like a million years since I’ve seen you. Well, since anyone’s seen you, for that matter.” His voice turned light, bantering. “Good old Hopewell, refuge for ex-Olympians. I can’t believe you’re still there. Seems like the wrong place for you after all you’ve done with your life. You still train regularly, Nest?”
“Sure, a little.”
“Thinking about competing in the next Olympics?”
She hesitated, confused. “Not really. No.”
“Well, either way, you’ve got a great story to tell, and my editor will pay a lot for it. We can talk about your career, memories, old times, flesh it out with what’s happening now. I can use an old picture of you or have the photographer take a new one. It’s your choice. But you might get the cover, so a new one makes sense.”
She shook her head in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“Of the magazine. The cover. I want to do a story on you while I’m visiting. Mix a little business with pleasure. It makes sense. Everybody wants to know what’s happened to you since the last Olympics. Who can tell your story better than me? We can work on it in our spare time. They’ll pay a pretty good fee for this, Nest. It’s easy money.”
All the breath went out of her lungs, and she went cold all over. “You want to do a story on me?” she asked quietly, remembering the editor from Paul’s magazine she had hung up on a month or so earlier.
He laughed. “Sure. I’m a journalist, remember?” “That’s what coming here to see me is all about?” “Well, no. Of course not. I mean, I want to see you, first and foremost, but I just thought it would be nice if—”