sad look had returned, undermining her smile and chasing it from her eyes. He was tempted to ask her what was wrong.
But that would be getting ahead of the plan.
“Thanks, you’re a doll.” He turned toward his apartment, then stopped, realizing that he hadn’t told her the approximate time. “The store said the deliverymen would be by between eleven and three.” That was asking her to stay put for four hours. “I know it’s a huge imposition—”
Nicole waved away the concern she saw etched across his face. “No problem. Like I said, I wasn’t planning on doing anything today anyway. I’ll see that it’s delivered in one piece.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that.”
Dennis turned and taped a note to his door. Nicole watched, surprised. “You were rather sure of yourself, weren’t you?”
He turned to look at her over his shoulder. “Hopeful,” he amended. “Always hopeful.”
She smiled sadly to herself. Hopeful. She’d forgotten what that was like.
Chapter 2
T he moment after she had agreed to wait for the delivery, she’d regretted it. There was nothing Nicole hated more than having to wait for something or someone. Whether it meant sitting in Dr. Pollack’s office, waiting to be seen, anticipating a delivery, or standing in line before a movie theater, waiting always made her feel fidgety and impatient.
But Dennis Lincoln had looked particularly needy and she was free for the day, so in a moment of weakness, she had said yes.
Now she was stuck with the situation. Sighing, she decided not to waste the day completely and went to work on her ongoing conversion of the small, second bedroom into a nursery.
She had just finished painting one wall when she heard a distant, rumbling noise, like the sound of a truck approaching. Setting down the roller, she looked at her watch. She’d expected the deliverymen to arrive later than the allotted time frame. It was just fifteen minutes into the first hour.
“Nice surprise,” she murmured, wiping her hands on a rag as she went to the front door.
“Mr. Lincoln isn’t home,” she called out to the burly man stepping out of the passenger side of the delivery truck. “But I can let you in.”
A kindly smile negated the impression his leathery features created as the deliveryman looked at her condition. He shrugged shoulders that looked as if they belonged on a much taller man. “All the same to us as long as someone signs for it.”
The thinner of the two men hopped onto the back of the truck. He angled the television set onto a dolly and then pressed the hydraulic lift to bring them both down to curb level. As he maneuvered the set up onto the curb, Nicole unlocked Dennis’s door and pushed it open.
She meant to wait outside. But idle curiosity goaded her on. Succumbing, she walked into the apartment. Nicole looked around slowly. For a man, Dennis kept a very neat home, she thought. There weren’t any boxes piled up, the way she might have expected since he had just moved in. Everything looked picture perfect.
“Where do you want it?”
The burly deliveryman’s question brought Nicole back to the present. “Oh.”
Nicole looked around, debating. Dennis hadn’t said anything about where he wanted the set and it wasn’t the sort of item that could be easily moved around. Once it was set down, it would be there for the duration, unless he had some strong friends.
There was an empty space facing the sofa. She noticed the cable outlet on the wall a few feet away.
Nicole pointed to it. “There, I guess.”
The burly man nodded. “Looks good to me.” He and the other deliveryman moved the set into position. Within moments, the cardboard packing was being removed.
While his partner took the flattened cardboard out to the truck, the burly man took out a clipboard and presented it to her. He jabbed a short, stubby finger at a space on the bottom of the form.
“Just sign here, madam, and we will be out of your way.”
Nicole wrote down her name, then paused. The deliverymen were probably expecting a tip. She felt in her pocket for a bill. It was empty. Nicole frowned. “I’ll just go get my purse—”
The man took the clipboard from her as he shook his head. “No, that’s okay. You buy the baby something from me.”
He laughed under his breath. Walking out of the apartment, he called out something to his partner. The other man peered out of the back of the truck and laughed as well, but it was a benevolent sound.
Nicole remained in the apartment a moment longer. She was tempted to look around a little more. It wasn’t right, but then she’d never slavishly tread the straight and narrow path. If she had, she would have never run off with Craig to begin with.
She approached the closet between the living room and the master bedroom, wondering if it was as neat as everything else or if he was the type to stuff everything out of sight. After a momentary debate, decorum won over curiosity. That and the fact that if the closet was crammed with possessions, they would come tumbling out if she opened the door. She didn’t want to spend the next half hour trying to stuff everything back.
Nicole let herself out, locking the door behind her. The delivery truck was just pulling out of the complex. The day looked much too nice to remain cooped up in the apartment with cans of light yellow semigloss paint. Nicole pocketed Dennis’s key and decided to pay a visit to her sister and her brand-new nephew. She needed her spirits lifted.
The sun was fading from the sky when Nicole returned. Walking through the door, she kicked off her shoes. She’d bought them for comfort, but now they pinched. Her feet felt swollen, just like the rest of her. Not that she could see her feet to verify that.
Nicole sighed, trying to take heart in what she’d seen this afternoon. Three weeks after delivery and Marlene looked great. Miraculously, her figure was back to what it had been before she had gotten pregnant.
She opened the refrigerator and poured herself a glass of orange juice. Nicole fervently hoped she’d look as good as Marlene did three weeks after she delivered. Even six weeks after she delivered.
There was something different about her sister, Nicole mused. A definite change that transcended appearance. That undercurrent of urgency to prove something, to constantly achieve something had dissipated. Marlene was a different person now.
Miracles, it seemed, still happened.
Suddenly too tired to make the trip from the kitchen to the living room, Nicole sank down in a chair beside the kitchen table and nursed her glass of juice.
If Marlene still seemed a little tense, she thought, it was because she was really trying hard to be the perfect mother as well as a successful businesswoman.
Nicole’s mouth curved, but there was only bitterness in her smile as the word mother echoed in her mind. It was small wonder if Marlene felt lost. Her sister had no example to follow. Neither of them did. There were no warm memories of a mother’s love
