Maybe Baby (18 page)

“Go to sleep,” Nick said. “That should pass the time for you.”

“Turns out, I’m nocturnal,” Finn said, pulling his feet up and resting the soles of his boots against the dash in front of him. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette.

“You smoke?” he asked, holding the pack out to Nick.

“No,” Nick said. “And Dana quit, so don’t smoke around her anymore.”

“She quit fifteen years ago.”

“Twelve.” Nick shot Finn a sideways glance. “And how did you know, anyway?”

“We had us some girl talk out on the terrace,” Finn said, shooting a look back at her. “And she’s sleeping now, anyway.”

“What part of ‘no’ do you not understand?”

“I’m just saying, I think she’ll withstand the temptation.”

Nick shot him a cold look. Finn huffed and tucked the cigarette back in the pack.

“Whatever your problem with me is, man, you might want to think about getting over it,” Finn said. “Whether you like it or not, we’re working together on this.”

Nick glanced back at Dana again. They hit a bump in the pavement, and the bird gave a little squawk. Dana didn’t move. Nick smiled; the woman could sleep through anything.

“You really should just marry her and get it over with,” Finn said.

“What, do I need an English-to-Sparky translator? None. Of. Your. Business.”

Finn sighed. “Just making an observation, killing some time.”

Nick flicked at the dashboard. “What kind of van doesn’t have a radio?”

“All I’m saying is, she’s obviously into you, and you’re obviously into her…”

“Who the hell makes cars without radios? Ten-speeds come with radios now.”

“… and this little dance you two are doing is going to end up in the sack eventually…”

Nick shot Finn an irritated look. “Don’t you need a girl to have girl talk?”

“… and from all the googly eyes shooting around when you two are in a room together, I’m just saying give her a ring already and put the rest of us out of our misery.”

“Pushing you out of a moving van would do a helluva lot for putting
me
out of my misery.”

“Would you settle for me shutting up?”

“It’d help.”

“Good, cause as it turns out”—Finn reached into his pocket and withdrew his pack of smokes—“smoking keeps me quiet.”

Nick granted an insult under his breath, then gave a brief nod. “Fine. Roll the window down.”

“You’re the boss, Hoss.” Finn pulled a cigarette from the pack. “So, what’s your deal, anyway?”

Nick tightened his grip on the wheel. “I thought you were going to keep quiet.”

Finn flashed his lighter and took a drag off the cigarette. “I’ll keep quiet about the girl. But when I’m working with someone, I like to get to know him.”

“Great,” Nick said. “Here’s my deal. I don’t like you. I don’t trust you. You do anything to screw with us on this bird thing, and I’ll kill you with my bare hands. That settle your curiosity?”

Finn exhaled out the window. “Long as we understand each other.”

Nick shot a look at Finn. “So, what’s your deal?”

Finn exhaled out the window. “Me? I’m a bird thief.”

“I see.” Nick glanced at the green sign on the side of the road. It would be another sixty miles until they got to the winery. The closer they got, the tighter the tension in his neck became. It had been six years since he’d set foot on the property, but heading back felt strangely like going home.

“You really should marry that girl,” Finn said, cutting into Nick’s thoughts.

Nick rolled his shoulders to release the tension. “Already tried.”

“No shit?” Finn sounded genuinely surprised.

“No shit.”

“What happened?”

“Didn’t happen.” Nick motioned toward the dash. “Even the cheapest cars come with AM radio.”

Finn looked over his shoulder at Dana. “You should ask her again.”

Nick shot him a sideways glance. “What’s it matter to you?”

Finn blew out another puff of smoke and shrugged. “Beats Twenty Questions.”

Ask her again.
Nick would have to be crazy and stupid even to consider it. It was no comfort to him that he knew he was a little of both.

Finn let out a long exhale. “So. I’m thinking of something.”

Nick sighed. “Animal, vegetable, or mineral?”

***

The rumbling of gravel under the wheels of the van shook Dana awake. She opened her eyes and pushed herself up, looking out the window. They were already on the long gravel road that curled around the edge of the vineyard, leading to her log home. She’d hoped she’d have a little more time to get used to the idea of Nick being there again after all this time, but there they were.

Already.

“What time is it?” she asked.

Finn turned around in the passenger seat and shot her a smile. “Hey, sleeping beauty. How ya feeling?”

“I smell like bird. Time?”

Finn shrugged. “I’m guessing around four in the morning.”

“Three forty-six,” Nick said, glancing at his watch. Dana tried to catch his eye in the rearview mirror, but he wasn’t looking at her. She leaned forward between the two front seats and watched as Nick pulled the van up to the house. Finn looked at her and smiled.

“I’ll get the bird,” he said.

Nick pulled the keys out of the van and tossed them at Finn, who caught them clumsily.

“
I’ll
get the bird. Dana, you get Finn set up for the night.” She caught his eyes in the rearview. They were smiling. “That okay by you?”

Dana smiled back and nodded. She scooted out of the back of the van and walked Finn up the steps to her porch as she felt around in her bag for her keys.

“Sleep well?” Finn asked.

“I’ll tell you when I wake up.” She unlocked the door, and Finn pushed it open and held it for her. They walked in, and Dana flicked on the lights and tossed her purse on the coffee table.

“Nice,” Finn said, touching one hand to the bare log walls. “Very rustic.”

“Rustic,” she said. “Isn’t that city-speak for creepy?”

“No,” Finn said, smiling. “I grew up in Vermont. I like the country. Just not enough to actually live in it.”

“Well, that’s a glowing endorsement if ever I heard one.” Dana pointed toward the sofa. “That’s a pull-out. I’ll go get the sheets.”

Finn nodded and started removing cushions. Dana walked down the hallway to the linen closet, only noticing the shaking in her hands as she reached for the sheets.

Good God. She’d hoped the nap would get all the ickiness out of her system from her fight with Babs, but there it was. Not to mention that she was here with Nick, back to the home they’d shared for three years. She hadn’t been here with him since the night of the would-be wedding, when she’d walked in on him and Melanie. Seeing him in the city had been intense, but this…

This was real.

She shook out her arms and stretched from side to side, hoping to slough off some of the bad mojo that clung to her. Babs had been right about one thing—what had happened with her parents was history, and she needed to let it go. Their marriage had been their marriage, and just because she didn’t personally know anyone who’d gotten married and hadn’t ended up a shriveled mockery of the person they once were didn’t mean that she and Nick…

Oh. Wait. Nick? How did Nick hop onto the marriage thought train? They’d kissed a few times. That didn’t mean he was thinking marriage again.

Oh, God, she thought. What if he’s thinking marriage again?

She took in a deep breath and exhaled through her nose. Nick wasn’t crazy. Nick wouldn’t be thinking marriage yet. If ever, considering how horribly everything had worked out the first time.

Relax. Just let it happen as it happens.
Get a rubber band, put it on your wrist, and snap it whenever you think a what if? thought.

She was trying to remember where she’d put the rubber bands when she heard the front door open, followed by a squawk from the bird and a terse exchange between Nick and Finn. She pulled some clean bedding out of the closet and headed back into the living room, where Finn had the sofa bed pulled out. Nick was standing by the front door, the cage with the sleeping bird on the floor at his feet. She started to unfold the fitted sheet when Finn reached to take it from her.

“Let me get that.” He gave her a kind smile, and she smiled back. She didn’t care that he was a bird thief or that he probably couldn’t be trusted or that Nick seemed to really, really hate him. She liked him. He was nice.

And he did have honest eyes, damnit.

She looked up at Nick while Finn worked on the sofa bed. Nick gave her an unsure smile and glanced in the direction of the master bedroom. The bedroom they used to share. Dana’s stomach took a roller-coaster tumble, and she tried to smile back, but feared she looked plastic, like one of those models who show off the cars at the mall.

“I’ll just put the bird in there, then?” Nick asked.

“Sure,” Dana said. “Sounds great.”

Nick hesitated for a moment, then picked up the cage and went into the bedroom. Dana watched as the door shut behind him.

“Do you have any cigarettes left?”

Finn cocked one eyebrow at her. “Thought you quit.”

She grabbed a pillow and stuffed it in a case. “Yes. I did. I did. I quit.”

Finn flicked the blanket out and laid it on the sofa bed. “Hey, I’m not being righteous. I’ll happily give you all the smokes you want, if you’re sure you really want them.”

Dana fluffed the pillow in sharp movements. “No, no. You’re right. I don’t want to smoke. Thank you. I’m just a little…tense.” God. Why was she so tense?

Finn sat down on the edge of the bed. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on with you two, and to be honest, I think my head would implode if I tried to figure it out. But if the whatever is too much, either one of you is welcome to come out here and bunk with me.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Oh, really? And which one of us did you have in mind?”

He grinned. “Well, if I had to choose…”

She laughed and held the pillow out to him. “Good night, Sparky.”

Finn pushed up off the arm of the sofa, took the pillow from her, and tossed it on the bed. When he turned back to face her, his expression was serious.

“Hey,” he said. “I mean it. If things get too intense for you in there, I sleep like the dead, I have it on authority that I don’t snore, and I won’t make a move. You’ve got my word.”

Dana looked into his eyes for a moment.

“You really mean that, don’t you?”

Finn looked at her, his face totally sincere. “Yeah.”

“You’re really not hitting on me?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?” she said, feeling slightly stupid for being offended, but there it was. “I’m not that much older than you. Am I not attractive or something?”

Finn gave her a confused look. “Did you
want
me to hit on you?”

“No.” Dana glanced toward the bedroom door, then looked back at Finn, speaking in low tones. “It’s my hair, isn’t it? I have cargo van hair.”

Finn rolled his eyes. “You’re fine. You’re gorgeous. And trust me, if it wasn’t for the fact that you’ve got a huge neon sign over your head blinking
occupied
, I’d be thinking about it.” He sighed, jerked his chin in the direction of the master bedroom. “Go on in. Come back out if you need to.”

She smiled at him. “Thanks. You’ve been really sweet.”

“Yeah,” he said, turning away from her and pulling the covers back on the sofa bed. “I’m the damn poster boy for sweet.”

Nineteen

Nick settled the cage in the corner of the room, then looked around and sighed. Jesus. He never thought he’d see this place again, yet now that he was there, it was just like nothing had changed.

In fact, nothing had. The same yellow curtains hung from the same wooden rod over the window. The same blue-and-white quilt lay smoothed out over the bed, and the same stupid picture of a bunch of babies in buckets hung on the wall. Even the slightly crooked angle was the same.

Dana must really like those babies.

He shrugged off his jacket and tossed it on the bed, retreating to the bathroom, which was at least a little different. The yellow ducky shower curtain she’d bought all those years ago—in direct defiance of Nick’s requests for something less juvenile—had been replaced, by a curtain with yellow and orange duckies. Nick chuckled to himself as he turned on the cold water and splashed it on his face. Stubborn, beautiful, crazy. That was his girl.

He rubbed the towel over his face and leaned his back against the wall.
His girl.
He hadn’t thought of her like that in a long time. Yet it was all so easy, falling back into the old habits with her. Kissing her, arguing with her, laughing with her. Wanting her. He wasn’t sure anymore which way was up, how he was supposed to act. He could only fall back on instinct, which insisted he grab on and not let go. Time would only tell how well that would work out for him.

He tucked the towel back up on the rack and glanced at himself in the mirror when he saw
it
hanging on the back of the bathroom door. He spun around and looked at it directly, to be sure he wasn’t imagining it.

He wasn’t.

The dress. She had the wedding dress
—the
wedding dress, from their wedding—hanging in the bathroom. He reached out and touched it lightly, remembering how Dana had taken his breath away when he’d first seen her in it, walking toward him down the aisle.

God, she’d been so beautiful.

“Jesus,” he muttered to himself as he ran his hand over his face. “I need to get some sleep.”

At that moment the door opened, and the dress and door came flying at him, smashing him on the nose.

“Ow, hell!”

Dana poked her head around the door, her eyes wide. “Nick? Oh, God, are you okay?”

“Ah! Damn!” He stumbled back and sat on the toilet as Dana rushed in after him.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, putting her hands on his face. “Are you okay?”

Nick kept one hand over his nose, blinking as his vision returned. “I’m find.”

“Find?”
She rolled her eyes, tugging lightly at his hand. “Let me see.”