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CHAPTER TEN
“Congratulations!” Connie, perched on the corner of Nikki’s desk, dropped a white package with a big silver ribbon next to Nikki’s computer monitor. Rawboned and strawberry blond, she’d grown up in West Texas and had never gotten rid of her drawl. Her long legs swung freely from beneath a short black skirt and when she smiled her eyes sparkled like liquid gold.
“What’s this?” Nikki asked, but with a sinking sensation, she knew. The silver wedding bells on the wrapping paper gave the gift away.
“Open and find out.”
“I can’t.”
“Sure you can.” Connie pretended to look wounded. “Unless you want to wait until Trent’s around—”
“No!” Nikki grabbed the package, read the card and pulled off the ribbon and wrapping paper. Inside was a cut-crystal vase with fluted sides. “Oh, Connie, it’s beautiful,” she said, feeling like a thief. “I…I don’t know what to say.”
Connie grinned. “You don’t have to say anything. Now, check your schedule. Some of us want to throw you a belated wedding shower, probably early next month.” She leaned over the desk and flipped through the blank pages of Nikki’s calendar. “How about the tenth?”
“I…I don’t think so,” Nikki said, touched, but trying to come up with some reason to avoid the celebration. She felt like a phony and a fraud, a
person who would lie to get whatever she wanted.
“It’ll be fun. Jennifer knows a male stripper and—”
“Oh, Connie, really, don’t,” Nikki pleaded. Everything was snowballing too quickly and she felt as if her life was beginning to careen off course. She touched Connie on the back of the hand and decided she had to confide in her friend. “Look, I’ve got to tell you something,” she said, glancing over her shoulder.
Max Van Cleve was striding toward her desk. His wavy blond hair was combed perfectly, his white shirt starched.
“Later,” Nikki said to Connie. “I’ll tell you everything at lunch.”
“What is it? Trouble?” Connie guessed from the lines of worry that seemed intent on permanently etching Nikki’s brow.
“Just wait, okay?” She didn’t want Max overhearing any of their conversation, and thankfully, Connie seemed to finally get the message.
“I hear congratulations are in order,” Max said, showing off perfect white teeth. “How about a kiss for the blushing bride?” He was teasing, she knew. He’d been married to his wife, Dawn, for three years and the two of them still acted as if they were on their honeymoon. At that particular thought, Nikki’s stomach did a little flip. Honeymoon. Salvaje. Trent.
“First of all, I don’t blush, and secondly, I wouldn’t want to make Dawn jealous,” she quipped back. She felt like such a traitor. For years she’d prided herself on her honesty; she knew that much from the bad taste in her mouth every time she tried to lie.
“Me?” He pointed a finger at his chest. “Do anything to upset my wife? Never. Just the same, you owe me one.” He rapped his knuckles on the edge of her desk and walked toward the reception area.
Nikki blew out a sigh of relief, ruffling her bangs in the process. It was good to finally be alone, though her peace lasted less then forty-five minutes, when Connie returned bearing a steaming cup of coffee and a toasted bagel.
“Fresh off the cart,” she said, sliding the bagel, napkin, coffee and small container of cream onto a stack of Nikki’s mail.
“You’re a lifesaver.” Nikki poured in the cream and sipped from the hot coffee.
“Well, I’m glad you’re back. Things have been dull with a capital D around here since you’ve been gone.” A set of slim gold bracelets jangled as she motioned toward Frank Pianzani’s glassed-in office. “Worse than ever. Frank seems to think the only stories I can handle all have to do with triplets being born or teachers being fired. Heavy stuff.” She winked lashes thick with mascara. “You’d think someone would tell that man we’re closing in on the twenty-first century.”
“I know just the woman to do it,” Nikki said pointedly.
“Moi?” Connie pointed a red-tipped nail at her sternum and shook her head. “And chance losing my job? Uh-uh. I’ll leave all that brave and noble business to someone else. I’m just a working girl.”
“Sure,” Nikki said as Connie strolled back to her desk.
She finished her bagel, dusted her fingers and sipped coffee while continuing to scan her notes, read her mail, skim the last few issues of the Observer and generally catch up with the rest of the staff. Time still seemed out of sync for her, and whether from jet lag, her amnesia or her stormy relationship with Trent, she couldn’t concentrate fully on her work. Relationship. Ha! What she shared with Trent was no more than cold lies and hot sex.
That thought turned her stomach sour, and she tossed back the rest of her coffee, crumpling the cup and casting it into the wastebasket as she tore open an envelope. But work didn’t come easily. She wasn’t used to the noise and activity of the office. Secretaries clicked by in high heels, mail carriers pushed carts along the aisles between the cubicles housing individual desks, phones jangled, conversation wafted past soundproof barriers, and the fluorescent lights overhead hummed while offering a surreal light to the inner workings of the Observer.
She couldn’t seem to dislodge Trent from her mind. His face swam behind her eyelids and his vague accusations against Senator Crowley kept playing back in Nikki’s head like a record that was stuck. She twirled a pencil between her fingers and wondered about the connection between Crowley and Trent. Why was Trent so hell-bent to see Crowley destroyed?
Scratching the back of her head with the eraser end of the pencil, Nikki pulled up the files of stories she was working on before she left for Salvaje. Most of her work was finished and printed: old news. Only a few articles and interviews hadn’t been completed, but not one of the articles had anything to do with politics or Diamond Jim Crowley. As she read over her work, trying to feel some connection to this job, she experienced an undercurrent of dissatisfaction, solidifying her earlier guess that she’d been unhappy here at the Observer.
