her first two months in Seattle Nicole had worked closely with Kevin McClaskey, and he still came around a lot. It was okay. His old clients missed him and he had volumes of knowledge about the talent business. She sometimes wondered if he regretted selling, but suspected his visits to the agency and other tenants in the building were primarily because he needed company with his wife gone.
Nicole turned into the hardware store parking lot. There was a woman at the paint counter with “Jo Beth” on her name tag. “Can I help you?” she asked, gazing at Nicole attentively.
“I’m told primer is an excellent idea when you’re covering bold colors,” Nicole said. “I suppose I didn’t ask the right questions when I was here before.” She held up the paint can. “I also need more of this to go over the primer.”
The clerk efficiently put together what was needed, gave her a discount and loaded everything into Nicole’s trunk.
“Ask for me whenever you come in.” Jo Beth handed her a business card.
Nicole drove home and trotted the cans of paint and primer into the living room. She looked at Toby who’d dashed in to see her. “Okay,” she announced, “we’re trying this again.”
The beagle seemed to whine a protest.
She reached down and petted the dog. “I know, buddy, you’re bored watching me paint. Maybe we could work in the garden for a while instead.”
Toby loved the backyard, but preferred having her out there with him. Perhaps it was from being a rescue dog—the trauma of having been abandoned on the Seattle docks must linger.
Grabbing a shovel, she went out to where a fence divided the yard. Before moving in she’d had the deck installed and the front section landscaped, leaving space for fruit trees and a vegetable plot in the undeveloped area at the end of the double lot. She’d discovered that digging was therapeutic.
Her original plan had been to buy a loft in downtown Seattle. In the interim she’d sold her condo down south, furniture included, and rented a studio while she searched for something permanent. But after deciding to adopt a dog she’d known having a yard would be best, and the whole thing had escalated. As soon as she’d walked into this place, it had felt like home.
Toby lay nearby, drowsing in the sunshine. Nicole figured he liked the outdoors so much because of having been cooped up for months waiting for adoption. He was a sweet animal, barely out of the puppy stage, and loved being able to go in and out through the doggy door whenever he wanted to sniff around the huge fenced yard, or needed to do his business.
The purchase of the talent agency had gone as smoothly as her house purchase. With four of them sharing the investment, no one would be in trouble, financially at least, if Moonlight Ventures fell apart. But they were anxious to make it a success for other reasons, which was why she’d agreed to work with a reporter from PostModern magazine. They all respected the publication, and the editor had told her the articles would be an unbiased look at how a supermodel was transitioning into a serious businesswoman.
Nicole sighed. She didn’t want to be the story, and she was no crazier about reporters now than she’d ever been, but the publicity would be good for the agency.
* * *
AFTER AN HOUR of yard work, Nicole went back inside, Toby at her heels, and contemplated the living room.
She wasn’t ready to start painting again.
“Want to go for a run?” she asked Toby encouragingly.
He’d promptly curled up on the floor for another nap. At the sound of her voice he opened his eyes briefly, then closed them again. So far running wasn’t his thing; he needed time to build his stamina after living in a kennel. A brisk walk was okay—brisk for his short legs, that is—but right now she needed to stretch her muscles in a way that working in the yard hadn’t accomplished.
After rubbing Toby’s soft ears she donned her running clothes and headed for the park. Then she saw Harvard Guy again. She instantly turned onto a side path.
Strange how familiar he seemed. There was something about his eyes that reminded her of...
Holy Cow.
Nicole stumbled and righted herself before she went down. Harvard Guy was Jordie Masters.
Jordan, she reminded herself. As a bratty neighborhood kid he’d been known as Jordie, then in high school he’d insisted on being called Jordan. Now he was a popular newspaper columnist. He’d changed a lot. She’d had no idea he lived in the Seattle area and knew there wasn’t any way he could have been at her house by accident. Nicole got a sinking feeling that he was the reporter doing the articles for PostModern.
Though she’d avoided Jordan whenever possible as a kid, she had a few vivid memories, such as when she was seven and wanted to learn how to skate. She’d put on her sister’s roller blades and started down the block, doing pretty well until Jordie had run into her. Nicole had always suspected it was deliberate. At the very least, he’d thought it was hilarious.
The resulting black eye had caused panic because she was supposed to model fancy dresses at a fashion show that weekend. They’d switched her to active wear and everyone had thought the black eye was makeup. The buyers had loved it. But after that, she wasn’t allowed to skate or bike or do anything active besides working out. Her parents had only agreed to let her take up running because it was good for her figure.
Fuming, Nicole continued her run. A black eye twenty-three years ago was unimportant, as were the other clashes they’d had as kids.
What concerned her were the articles.
Once friends, their mothers now hated each other, and except for one evening when they were in high school, Jordan had always acted as if he despised her. Obviously that was a long time ago and he might have put her out of his mind the way she’d done with him. But his columns were based on his observations and opinions and loaded with his dry wit, so the question was whether he’d changed enough to be impartial.
She shook her head, not wanting to think about it. At the moment she needed to release her tension, and she wasn’t going to let his presence in the park keep her from doing so.
Drat. There he was again, heading toward her. Determined not to let him put her on the defensive, she stepped onto a wide part of the path to let him pass. He stopped as well.
“Hi, Jordan,” she said coolly. “Cute trick, but the beard only fooled me for a while.”
“I wasn’t trying to trick you.”
“If you say so.”
He shrugged. “I’d come over to say hello since I’m doing the articles for PostModern.”
“I figured you were the one when I recognized you, but I thought you were a newspaper columnist, not a magazine writer.”
“The editor is a friend. She knows we grew up together and since I live up here, too, she asked me to do it.”
Nicole tried to remember if she’d ever heard where Jordan was living. She’d periodically read his columns and recalled that one of them had raved about tropical climes. If there had been any other indication about his home base, the information hadn’t
