Meet Me in Manhattan (True Vows) (2 page)

RELAX, ERIKA TOLD HERSELF. IT'S JUST TED.

Standing in the drizzle on a busy SoHo corner outside Fanelli's
Cafe, Erika Fredell acknowledged that there had never been anything just about Ted. And ordering herself to relax didn't make
her nerves stop twitching. She'd raced here from the gym after
working out, showering, and blow-drying her hair-a lot of good
that did, since it was raining-and putting on some makeup so
she'd look good, even though it was just Ted she was meeting.
Fanelli's was only a few blocks from the gym, and she'd covered
those blocks at a trot in an effort not to be too late. Halfway there,
she'd realized that she'd left her wallet at home.

Relax. Yeah, right. She was really relaxed, she thought with a
sarcastic laugh.

Fanelli's had been a good choice for her reunion with Ted. A
bright yet cozy establishment, the one-time speakeasy attracted a
cross-section of patrons: artists, professionals, locals, anyone who
preferred a good hamburger and a cheap beer to pretentious
ambience and inflated prices. It was her kind of place.

Sixteen years had passed since she and Ted had been a couple,
and she no longer knew whether Fanelli's was his kind of place,
or, for that matter, what his kind of place was. But he was inside the neighborhood pub right now, waiting for her-assuming he
wasn't running even later than she was. She was supposed to have
arrived half an hour ago, but time had slipped away from her.
Maybe he'd given up and left already, figuring she'd chickened
out. Maybe he'd concluded that she'd stood him up, that she was
only going to break his heart again.

Oh, please. That had been so long ago. Teenagers' hearts get
broken all the time. Then teenagers grow up, their hearts heal,
and they move on. If Ted hadn't grown up, healed, and moved on,
he wouldn't have contacted her out of the blue and suggested
they meet for a drink.

She gave herself three seconds to check her reflection in the
rain-streaked window beneath Fanelli's red neon sign, adjusted
the stylish chunky necklace circling her throat above the scooped
neckline of her tank top, then decided what the hell and entered
the pub. Anxious last-minute fussing wasn't going to improve her
appearance. She looked how she looked. Sixteen years older. Her
hair was long again, the way she'd worn it in high school. Not the
short, playful style she'd been wearing when they'd had that
painful, awkward meeting at the airport in Denver, after she'd
started college. Back then, she'd been pretty sure he hadn't liked
her short hairdo. Back then, she hadn't cared what he thought.
She'd wanted a new look to mark the start of a new phase of her
life. No more New Jersey. No more high school. No more horses.

No more Ted.

But now her hair was once again long. She wondered if this
time he would be the one who didn't care. She wondered why she
cared whether he cared.

She commanded herself to get a grip. She reminded herself
that she and Ted were two old friends who happened to have both
landed in New York City and were meeting for a drink on a drizzly June evening. They weren't ex-lovers. They weren't high school
sweethearts. They were grown-ups, living their own lives. Nothing
more. She had no reason to be nervous.

Right. Tell that to her stomach, which at the moment was
performing acrobatics like an Olympics gymnast hoping to score
a ten.

Inhaling deeply for fortitude, she squared her shoulders,
pushed the door open and stepped inside. A wave of raucous
chatter washed over her; every person in the place seemed to be
talking at once. And there were a hell of a lot of people crowding
the tables and hovering near the bar. Maybe the boisterous crowd
would buffer them, diluting the intensity of their meeting.

Not that it would be intense. Just two old friends meeting for
a drink.

She surveyed the room but didn't see him. A waitress tried to
stop her as she worked her way through the crowd, but she mumbled something about meeting a friend-"An old friend," she'd
said because defining her and Ted as old friends soothed her bristling nerves-and then she spotted him, seated at the far end of
the bar, a glass of beer in his hand.

He looked terrific. Damn it.

He'd always looked terrific, of course. But he'd changed so
much from the lanky, gangly boy she'd been infatuated with that
summer after high school. He was still lean and muscular, but
more solid. His face had filled in a little. His dark hair was shorter,
the tumble of curls tamed, and he'd acquired enough facial hair
to grow legitimate, neatly trimmed sideburns. In his preppy cords
and collared polo shirt, he looked crisp and fresh, impervious to
the sultry heat of New York City in June.

He must have seen her the instant she saw him. His eyes
widened, his smile widened, and he tilted his head slightly. She strode the length of the bar, spotting the empty stool next to him,
and slid onto it. Bar stools at Fanelli's were at a premium, especially on a busy night like this. She wondered if he'd had to fight
people off to save it for her. He'd always been a scrapper in high
school, willing to fight if he had to. More than willing, sometimes.

But maybe he hadn't fought to save the stool for her. Maybe it
had been vacated only a moment ago. Maybe some other woman
had been sitting with him. A beautiful woman. Erika was so late,
he might have chosen to make the most of her absence.

The notion shouldn't have bothered Erika. They were old
friends meeting for a drink, after all. Not old, mature. Surely she
was a great deal more mature than she'd been the summer she'd
spent mooning and swooning over him, and trying to figure out
what love was all about.

"Hey," he greeted her, then shook his head. "Wow."

"I know. Wow," she responded, wondering whether they were
wow-ing the fact that they'd both landed in the same city, or that
they were both sitting at the same bar, or that after all this time,
all these years, there they were, face-to-face. Her wow reflected
her opinion of how fantastic he looked, but she wasn't about to
tell him that.

So there they were. Were they supposed to hug? Air-kiss? It
occurred to her that if they were truly old-or mature-friends,
she would know what to do. But the truth slapped her in the face.
Sixteen years after Ted had told her he wanted her out of his life
for good and forever, they could never be just friends any more
than he could ever be just Ted.

Her stomach executed a vault worthy of a gold medal. "Listen,"
she said, smiling nervously. "I know it's been forever since I've seen
you, but I don't have any money on me." Oh, God, she thought, I
am such an ass. And a nervous wreck, even though this is just Ted.

He grinned. "Don't worry about it. We'll be fine."

She managed to smile and prayed he wouldn't notice how flustered she was-even more flustered because he seemed so damned
calm and collected. He gestured toward the bartender, then thought
to ask Erika, "You want a drink?"

God, yes. The bartender moseyed over, gaunt and fashionable,
emanating unemployed-actor vibes like eighty percent of the
servers in New York. Rather than have Ted order for her-that
would imply something other than friendship-Erika requested
a beer. If Ted was drinking Budweiser, she would drink Bud, too.

The bartender turned to Ted. "You ready for a refill?" he asked,
nodding toward Ted's glass.

Ted appraised his glass and shook his head. "Not yet," he said,
then took a drink. He set his glass down and Erika watched the
residue of foam drip down its sloping sides. For some reason, it
was easier than looking at Ted.

"So," he said. "How are you?"

She laughed, partly to shake off her tension, partly because the
question was so banal, and partly because she wasn't sure how to
answer. How was she now? How had she been last year, or five
years ago, or ten? How had she been the day she'd left New Jersey
for Colorado? The day she'd seen him in the airport? The day
he'd told her he would never love her again?

"I'm fine," she said. "And you?"

"I'm also fine." He grinned. "Thank God we got that over
with."

Okay. Maybe this wouldn't be too awkward, after all. Maybe
they'd be able to chat-not like old times, but like two people
who shared some pleasant memories. If they could both chuckle
about the awkwardness between them and the stilted start of
their reunion, she could survive this encounter.

She'd survive it a lot better if she had her beer. "I'm sorry I'm
late," she said. "I hope you didn't have to wait too long."

He shrugged as if to reassure her that her tardiness was unimportant, then gestured toward the crowd mobbing the front
room. "I had to fend off hundreds of people to hang onto that
stool."

"Hundreds?"

"I'm lying. It was really thousands."

She smiled. All those years ago, she'd fallen in love with his
sense of humor as much as his intensity, his energy, his native
intelligence, his sexy green eyes, and his mop of tousled curls. The
curls were gone, but he still exuded intensity and energy. And his
eyes were still terribly sexy.

Her smile grew pensive. In sixteen years, she'd never met
another man who could make her feel the way Ted had once made
her feel. She was fine with that. She loved her life. She wasn't one
of those desperate thirty-something single women, willing to
settle for any guy just so she could get a ring on her finger. She'd
never fallen in love after she'd ended things with Ted, and she'd
never felt that this was a tragic deficit in her life.

But ... being Ted's girlfriend all those years ago had been sweet.

"How's your family?" she asked, deliberately steering her
thoughts in a new direction.

The bartender materialized in front of them with her drink,
and Ted waited until he was gone before answering. "They're
good," he reported. "My folks are still up in Maine."

"Your dad always loved it up there," Erika recalled.

"Yeah. East Machias." He shrugged. "Most older people head
south to Florida when they retire. I guess those New Jersey winters just weren't cold enough for my parents."

"And your brothers?"

"Still obnoxious," he joked. "They're all good. Married, raising
families, doing the usual stuff. My sister's hanging in there, too.
How's your family?"

"They're doing well." Erika recalled how in awe she'd been of
Ted's big, boisterous family. Four boys! She'd always felt kind of
sorry for Ted's absurdly outnumbered younger sister, although
she supposed a girl with four older brothers boasted a certain
cachet. The Skalas had lived in Chester, a small town on the rural
outskirts of Mendham, in an antique house that had once been
the site of a cemetery, according to Ted. He'd insisted the place
was haunted. She imagined that any creaks and thumps heard in
that house were most likely caused by five athletic kids storming
up and down the stairs.

"And work?" he asked. "What are you doing to pay the rent
these days?"

"As a matter of fact, I just got a new job with one of the big
international banks."

"Yeah? Doing what?"

"I'm-" she hoped he wouldn't think she was bragging "-a
vice president."

He looked not surprised nor impressed but oddly satisfied.
"You were always so smart. I figured you'd be running the world
by now."

"It's a job," she said, which it was. A good job, a high-paying
job, a prestigious job. She'd been excited enough when she landed
the position to splurge on a Cartier watch for herself, and she'd
booked a celebratory vacation trip to St. Bart's. She'd felt powerful, successful, proud to be a vice president at a major financial
corporation.

But as she was learning, even a VP at a huge financial company
could feel wobbly and anxious sitting at a bar next to her first boyfriend sixteen years after they'd broken up, after they'd broken each other's hearts. No exalted title or humongous salary
could change that. "How about you?"