Victoria gazed with contentment at the pink sky and glanced at the pleasant sway of the trees. She settled into one of the outdoor armchairs and Nick took a seat on the tasteful sofa across from her.
“I’m glad to see you’re keeping busy, Victoria.”
The gracious older woman smiled. “Oh, you know me. Of course I am, dear.”
Nick hadn’t brought up Courtney yet, although she’d been on his mind all weekend. He half hoped he might run into her. “So I meant to ask you, how’s your new tenant working out? I actually met her the other day. Small world, eh?”
“You did? She didn’t mention that. Courtney’s wonderful. She brought me my favorite cherry pie yesterday. Isn’t that thoughtful? You don’t meet many young people these days who’d do that for an old-timer.”
Nick grinned. “Who are you calling old-timer? I bet you could outrun me.”
But wow. He was impressed.
Victoria was grateful. “Oh, Nicholas, you’re intent on keeping me young, aren’t you? Anyway, why don’t you go and say hello?” She gestured toward the guesthouse. “She doesn’t know many people in town yet. She’s probably getting lonely.”
Nick was skeptical. He found it hard to believe that Courtney could be lonely. She’d been so outgoing and sure of herself.
“Oh, go on! She’s just about your age, isn’t she?”
Although Nick had gone so far as to ask Courtney out the other day, since then, he almost wished he had never asked.
He scrubbed a hand across his jaw. First of all, he would only be setting himself up for heartbreak. All the warning bells had gone off inside his head. She could do a number on him if he let her in. It would just be easier not to.
But if he did, and something more developed between them, his second reason was even more important. Courtney would only be here through the first of next year. The fall season, Christmas, New Year’s Eve—then she’d be gone.
After Sam left, Kira said her boss would only agree to hire new writers on short-term contracts. Sam had been a full-time employee, like Kira. But Beecham didn’t want to get burned again and risk someone quitting so soon, so he’d hired Courtney for a short-term contract position, seven months in her case. She’d have to be offered a new contract at the end of the term, if she even wanted to stay by then, and who knew if that would happen?
Courtney didn’t seem like the type of woman that he could have a casual fling with. And most people couldn’t hack the winters this far north, either. He couldn’t count on her staying.
Ash reappeared from the other end of the porch and leaped up onto the sofa next to Nick, then promptly settled in for a rest on his lap. “Whoa there, boy.” Nick rearranged him so he wouldn’t fall and started scratching behind his ears.
“Now Ash, that’s very bold of you,” Victoria scolded gently. “One thing that animal is not is shy.”
“You’ve got that right.” Nick laughed and went on petting the cat.
He hadn’t been able to get Courtney off his mind all weekend. If he weren’t lying to himself, or to Victoria, he’d admit that he even hoped to run into Courtney today. He’d have played it off as a coincidence, but it wouldn’t have been one.
“So are you going to say hello?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I only met her once. I don’t want to bother her at home.”
“Oh, Nicholas, don’t be silly. Go and knock on her door. That girl could use a friend. Come to think of it, I’ll bet you could use a friend, too. When was the last time you mentioned any pretty young ladies? You’re beginning to worry me. Your grandmother wouldn’t have wanted to see you end up a bachelor. You’re no spring chicken anymore, young man.”
Nick laughed again. He hadn’t dated anyone, at least not seriously, in over a year.
He leaned back in his seat. He was getting choosier. Victoria was right about that.
“Since when did you become a matchmaker, Mrs. Brady?” he joked, trying to ignore the uneasy churn of his stomach. Nick rearranged himself on the spacious patio sofa with the cat sprawled across him.
The older Nick became, the more he found himself attracted only to women with whom he could imagine some sort of future. The type he could have a good conversation with—genuine, smart, witty. Women with whom he had a lot of things in common. Women who could hold their own, on multiple levels.
Maybe he was getting too picky, but he couldn’t help it. He knew his type.
He didn’t like needy or melodramatic or helpless. And he didn’t like superficial. Unfortunately, those kinds of women were all too easy to find.
The problem was, the kind of women he considered his type didn’t usually waste their time on guys who rolled up their lofty career goals and sent them barreling out the window. Or guys who seemingly preferred riding bicycles to climbing the social, professional, and economic ladder.
It seemed his choice to leave the field of medicine made him look twice as bad to women as if he’d never been in med school at all.
His ex-girlfriend, Regina had shown him that. They’d dated for two years. She was an M.B.A. student, and she had mapped out an ambitious future for them together. Two high-powered careers, an expensive house on the pricier side of town. A couple of kids, a nanny. He had been blindly in love with her and gone along with it.
But when he dropped out of school, it took her less than a month before she completely lost all faith in him.
“I didn’t sign up for this,” she’d said. “You and I, we had plans. We knew where we were going. And I still want all that, Nick. I still want it.” Long pause. “Even if you don’t.”
It still made him wince just thinking about it.
“So, if you’re going to take the easy way out, I’m sorry, but we can’t be together. I’ll find someone else who wants those things.”
With one soft kiss, she told him goodbye and sashayed out of his life forever.
Nick sighed heavily.
It seemed these days, unfortunately, women of his type now seemed, more or less, out of his league. If he got involved with someone he was truly interested in, sooner or later, she’d find out about his choice to drop out of med school and give him that look—loser, damaged goods, man-child, not worth it.
The “call me if you ever get your life together” look. He’d seen it twice since Regina, over casual dinner conversation. There had never been a second date with either of those women.
So he’d taken to dating only casually— women he wasn’t interested in for the long haul. It may have felt a bit pointless, but it was a heck of a lot easier than setting himself up for rejection. And he never brought those women over to meet Victoria.
So Victoria was right—he hadn’t mentioned anyone in a long time because there hadn’t been anyone worth mentioning.
Nick and Victoria turned and gazed at the vast, deep-blue expanse of the lake over the horizon, both lost in thought.
“You don’t have to worry about me, Victoria. I’ve got lots of friends. Lady friends, too.” He grinned, hoping to convince her.
Victoria crooked a finger at him. “Don’t lie to me, sweetheart.”
Nick laughed.
He and Tom had done a fifty-mile bike ride this weekend, crisscrossing the peninsula. Nick thought it would take his mind off of Courtney, but it had done the opposite. He’d had way too much time to think.