I just didn’t get a chance to put it up this morning, that’s all.” She’d tried a couple of times, but for some reason her fingers wouldn’t go through the familiar maneuver, and the fold of hair kept slipping sideways. In the end, she’d let it drop around her shoulders, still sheened and slippery from yesterday’s salon conditioning treatment.
“You should wear it that way more often,” Kyla said.
White-blond Kyla wore lots of jewelry, and lots of black. She was a single mother with a five-year-old daughter, Nettie, and although she came across as a ditz sometimes, she got things done. Sam depended on her more than Kyla herself ever let the man guess.
“I would, only it’s not very practical,” Celie answered.
She had that churned up, self-conscious sensation again. Somehow, she didn’t feel quite safe. She suddenly remembered last night’s dreams, and the reassuring advice of the woman who stood by the mirror.
“I’m supposed to call someone,” she said aloud. “Check on someone.”
She stood up in a panic, and it came to her in a rush. That figure, lying on a kitchen floor, wearing a nightdress and with one leg stuck out strangely…
Mom.
Eleven years ago, Celie’s older sister, Veronica, had already been away at college when their father died, and her mom hadn’t coped with Veronica’s absence or with widowhood and grief too well. Celie herself had gone to college at Ohio State, so that she could remain at home. She’d moved into an apartment of her own several years ago, but still she never wanted to let her mother down. She spent a lot of time at Mom’s, helping her out, and this morning’s call to her seemed urgent, now.
A cluster of senior Delaney’s executives and regional managers entered the room at this moment, carrying briefcases and sheafs of papers. Nick and Sam wouldn’t be far behind.
“If they’re ready to start, Kyla,” she gabbled. “Tell them…uh…that I won’t be long. Or—could you take notes for my Mr. D, if he needs it?”
“Sure. What’s up? You look—”
“Nothing. I’m sure everything’s fine.”
Celie hurried to her private office, adjacent to Nick’s, and keyed in her mother’s phone number, but her mom didn’t pick up, and neither did the machine.
Celie’s mother had had a bone-density scan a few months ago, and the result had come back low. She took risks, too—vague, thoughtless ones that she didn’t even realize were risks until Celie pointed it out. She went down the basement stairs of her little house without turning on the light. She put a step stool on the grass in the yard to reach up and prune a branch.
Celie had the phone number of her mom’s neighbor Mrs. Pascoe in her address book, and she’d called a couple of times in the past to ask Mrs. Pascoe to check next door.
“Sure I’ll go across, honey,” Mrs. Pascoe told her today. “Just don’t you worry, okay?”
But when Mrs. Pascoe called Celie back a few minutes later, her voice sounded very different.
“Thank heaven you called me when you did, Cecilia!”
Her mother had fallen from her step stool two hours ago while trying to change a lightbulb in the kitchen. She’d broken her leg, and she hadn’t been able to get to the phone.
“I’ve already called 911,” Mrs. Pascoe told her. “The ambulance is on its way.”
Celie hung on the line, shaky and hardly able to breathe, and it seemed like an hour before the other woman came back to the phone again to report, “She’s going to be okay, although the paramedics say it looks like a bad break. They’ve just left, and they’re taking her to Riverside. You can probably hear the sirens in the background. She’s in shock, after lying on that cold floor for so long.”
Mrs. Pascoe hung up, but Celie’s fingers were curled tightly around the phone and she couldn’t seem to let it go. Nick appeared in the doorway while the receiver still hung in her hand.
“Kyla said—” Nick stopped, midsentence. “Heck, what’s wrong, Celie? You’ve gone white.”
“My mother’s broken her leg. She had to lie in pain on the kitchen floor for two hours, with no help on its way. I dreamed about it. Which is just so weird.”
“You dreamed your mother broke her leg?”
“Yes. I saw a figure lying on a floor, only I didn’t know who it was. Someone in the dream told me, ‘Call her in the morning.’ I remembered the dream just now, so I did call her, and when I did…” She took a shuddery breath. “Thank heaven I called!”
“Celie, it’s all right. Keep remembering to breathe, okay? Are you going to faint?”
“No.” She’d never fainted in her life, and didn’t intend to start now.
“Help is with her now, right?”
“She’s in the ambulance.”
“So it’s okay. And for heaven’s sake, don’t worry about a little thing like a dream!”
“No. Of course. You’re right.”
Celie felt herself sway. She didn’t think she would have fainted, since she never had before and was so determined not to, but when Nick’s arms came around her for support, strong and warm, she clung on to her boss for dear life and whispered hoarsely, “Don’t let go.”
Chapter Two
“We should get back to work,” Nick muttered, after a couple of minutes—or maybe a couple of lifetimes.
Celie felt a little firmer in his arms, now, thank heaven, and a little firmer on her feet. He was no longer afraid she might just crumple into a heap on the floor, as he’d been a minute ago. She’d seemed completely boneless, as if she wasn’t quite real, as if a formless wraith had invaded her body. He loosened his arms cautiously, and was relieved when she didn’t crumple against him.
Still, he was reluctant to let her go.
She felt amazingly good.
Too good.
And different.
Surprising.
He didn’t want an executive assistant who surprised him, and yet every sense told him that this was good. She felt far softer than she looked in her crisp suits. Warmer, too. As warm as if he’d just climbed into bed with her on a winter morning, or as if she’d been toasting herself in front of an open fire moments earlier.
As for the way she smelled…Faintly rose-scented, like soap and shampoo lingering on clean skin and hair. There were some other scents in there, too, but he couldn’t pick them. Good scents. Spring scents. Classic. Not astringent and artificial, but soft.
His face had never lingered this close to her neck before. Who knew that his efficient, unsurprising and utterly reliable executive assistant would
