Working Man (14 page)

D
akota managed to get through the party only because she was used to keeping her face straight and her emotions in check when she was dealing with something really heinous. The talent served her well on this occasion because she got through the afternoon without lighting into Nick and accusing him of all kinds of things. She was serenely calm and gracious to everyone and even though she was burdened with raging emotions, she held it in. And she didn't go for the jugular when they got in the car, either. She was quiet, yes, but that was because she was trying to think of the right way to say what she had to say.

“You're real quiet over there, Miss Lady. You tired?” Nick asked with real concern.

“No, I'm not tired. I'm confused. Yesterday I find out that you have an ex-wife and today I find out who she is,” Dakota replied tiredly. She let that statement hang in the air for a moment before adding another comment. “I find it a little surprising that your ex-wife is also your employee. And I'm more than a little curious as to why you haven't mentioned it before.” Her voice sounded tight and angry, and she couldn't have cared less because that's just how she was feeling.

Nick didn't seem to be ruffled in any way by her obvious hostility. He just nodded and said they had some things to talk about. “I wasn't deliberately hiding anything from you, Dakota. I mean, as much as we care about each other, we've only started getting to know each other. There're a lot of things we don't know yet and I figured it would come with time. I don't know a lot of things about you, but what I know, I know for sure. I know you're the best thing that's ever happened to me and I know we're meant for each other. All the rest of it doesn't matter,” he said.

“That sounds really nice, Nick, but it still doesn't explain how your ex-wife happens to be your office manager. Wouldn't you like to know if my boss was my ex?”

“You don't have an ex-husband,” he said in an infuriatingly calm tone.

“How do you know? I could be keeping all kinds of secrets from you.” She stared out the passenger side window, unable to look at him.

“You wouldn't do that,” he said in the same calm voice. “You're too honest and too impatient to lie. Lying takes up a lot of energy because you've got to remember who you told what lie to and then you have to tell a whole bunch of other little lies to keep everything straight. You don't live like that.”

Dakota jerked her head around to glare at him. “I could be telling lies of omission,” she said nastily. “I could just not be telling you something vital, which is essentially the same thing as lying.”

“Is that what I'm being accused of? You putting me on trial for a, what did you call it, lie of omission? You got me convicted yet?”

Dakota went back to staring out the window, refusing to answer. They arrived at his house and she was about to open the door when Nick stopped her. “Hold it, baby. We're not going to bring anger into the house. We're going to clear the air out here and leave it out here, okay?” He waited for her answer and when he didn't get one, he continued speaking.

“Look, Lettie married her baby daddy, Lester, and they had another child after that. Lester was a lousy husband and an even worse provider. He was a drunk, a mean one who beat her and the kids. She didn't have a real good relationship with her family at the time and they said she was on her own 'cause she was stupid to get involved with him in the first place. She finally had to get away from him because he beat her so bad she was in the hospital for a week. She was scared he was going to kill her or one of her kids and she just picked up and ran. She went to her people in Danville, but it didn't work out too well. People say they'll help you out, but they don't really mean it. Well, maybe they mean it when they say it, but they don't know how it's going to affect them long-term and they can't handle it. Whatever the reason, Lettie was on her own again. She couldn't find a job, she didn't have a place to live and she and the kids were staying in a shelter when she got in touch with me.

“She was somebody who once meant a lot to me and I couldn't turn my back on her. I got her a place to live and gave her a job. It was supposed to be temporary, but she's real good at what she does, so I kept her on. Lettie is my office manager and she happens to have been my first wife, that's all. It may not be the most conventional arrangement in the world, but I'm not a conventional man. You don't have anything to worry about where she's concerned because once I'm through with something, I'm through. Period. I don't look back, I don't wonder what if, I don't try again. When I'm done, I'm done, and when I found out that she was pregnant with another man's child that was it for me. But I wasn't going to let her and those kids starve in the streets, either.”

Dakota was looking at her hands, which were clasped in her lap. She didn't want to look at Nick because now she was really confused and ashamed as well. What Nick had done was the act of a man with a big heart and a conscience as well. How could she be mad at him for that? But she had to wonder if they were rushing into talks of marriage. There was so much they didn't know and hadn't talked about. Maybe they had just gotten caught up in some really good sex and they just weren't thinking clearly.

“Look, baby,” Nick said softly. He gently used his long forefinger to turn her face to his. “We could have a computerized questionnaire made up and it would answer every question we could possibly have about each other from what your favorite color is to what size shoe you wear, but what would be the point? Even when you know somebody, or think you know somebody like the back of your hand, there's bound to be some surprises. Hell, I've known Lettie since I was ten and I wouldn't have believed that she'd sleep around on me. I've known you for a month and I know you'd never look at another man. So what does that tell you?”

Dakota finally said something. “It tells me that Lettie was an utter fool to let you slip away and that I'm not crazy. I overreacted because I was overloaded with too much information at once. I apologize, Nick. I'm going to work at not doing that again.”

Nick was watching her, watching the setting sun turning the beautiful summer day into a warm dusk that tinged her skin with gold. “Don't apologize to me. I'm not perfect and neither are you. I've never seen perfection as a goal except on a project sheet and you're not a project. I'm not a project, either. We're just an imperfect man and woman who've been lucky enough to find each other. Can't we start from there and take it one day at a time?”

“Okay, Nick, take me in the house now because I'm about to cry and your neighbors will think you're beating me or something,” she sniffed.

Nick laughed out loud but agreed that he was tired of being in the car. He got out and came around to her side to open her door and held out his hand to help her down. Suddenly she was wrapped in his arms for a long and much-needed hug. “You're fine, Miss Lady. We're gonna work this out, just like everything else.”

Dakota held on as long as she could, then looked up at him with a question in her eyes. “Is this our first fight?”

“I wouldn't call it a fight, exactly.”

“Good. I don't want to fight with you, Nick.”

“I don't want to fight with either, Dakota. I do want to get a massage from you, if you have one to spare. But I definitely don't want to fight.”

“You've got yourself a deal, sweetie.”

 

That night, Nick had yet another surprise for her. It was spread across the bed when she went into the bedroom. Nick was downstairs playing with Cha-Cha and Dakota had come upstairs to see what he had that could be used for massage oil. Her eyes widened at the sight of the long violet gown she'd modeled on Friday. Once again, he'd done something really sweet for her. Her eyes got teary as she thought about all the ways he expressed his love for her without words. He found her sitting on the bed, holding the gown with tears trickling down her face.

“Dakota, what's the matter? I thought you'd like it,” Nick said.

Cha-Cha proved she hadn't totally deserted her owner by jumping on the bed and going to Dakota, standing on her hind legs to examine her face anxiously. “I'm fine, sweetie.” She leaned down to nuzzle her cat and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

“You're just so sweet I can't stand it,” she sniffled. “You know, I never even asked you how you knew about the stupid fashion show and you show up to support me and then you bought me this beautiful gown and I just don't deserve you.”

Nick looked as though light had dawned. “Billie told me about the show and your friend Toni got me backstage and whatnot.” He came over to the bed and stretched out, pulling his woman into his arms. “You looked hot, baby. You were the prettiest thing out there and you were walking like you'd been doing it all your life.”

Dakota gave a weak laugh. “That's all thanks to Billie. She drilled me for a week before she had to leave.”

“Dakota, I need to ask you a question that you might think is kinda personal because it is. But I need to know, is it about time for your cycle?”

She froze in his embrace and he could tell she was doing some mental calculations. “Yes! Yes it is. I should start day after tomorrow. I forgot to warn you honey, when I PMS I'm like a crazy woman. It lasts for exactly twelve hours in which time I'm the most whiny and miserable person on the face of the earth. And for some reason I can't keep it in my head for twenty-eight days that it's going to happen again. Every month it's a horrible surprise. I endure a half day of utter misery and two days later it's like ‘Oh, that's why I was so evil.'” She gave him a bashful smile. “I guess this is one of the things we're learning as we go along, huh?”

 

Later, Dakota was making good on her promise of a massage. Nick was lying face-down on the bed, stretched out on another bath sheet. She was straddling him and they were both naked. His skin was still warm and moist from the shower and she was using some lightly fragranced oil that she'd found in the bathroom. She poured big drops of it in a neat row down his spine and applied a little more to her hands, rubbing them together before using the palms of her hands to smooth the oil into his skin. When she began the movements of the massage he released a long breath of relaxation.

“That feels good, baby. Thank you.”

“I'm happy to do this for you,” she murmured. “I haven't told you this, Nick, but I was engaged before I came here. I met this man named Jonah Kittridge. He was from upstate New York and he was a lobbyist for the dairy industry. Lobbyists are interesting people, if you like that sort of thing,” she said offhandedly. “Anyway, he was at a book party that was being given by my publisher and we hit it off. He was handsome, charming and he had really nice teeth, which I found out later were very expensive caps. But that's irrelevant,” she said, mostly to herself. “Anyway, he had a law degree, an MBA and a Porsche and he wined me and dined me and took me to the symphony and the ballet and all sorts of pretentious affairs. And eventually we got really serious and he asked me to marry him. With moonlight and roses and vintage champagne,” she added.

“Then he started in on me. Didn't I think I should cut my hair, and shouldn't I get highlights? Did I really need that dessert because after all, I wasn't getting any smaller? Couldn't I work on my laugh a little, because I sounded like a barmaid instead of a respected journalist and author? Shouldn't I start going to the Presbyterian church which had much more status than the little A.M.E. church I'd been going to for years? That kind of thing was his specialty,” she said as she continued to knead Nick's warm, smooth shoulders and back. “The weight was his favorite target, though. He said being ‘bootylicious' was fine for some video tramp, but not what he wanted to see walking down the aisle to take his name in marriage. He didn't want to see us in
Jet
magazine looking like Jonah and the whale, he said.”

Nick was trying hard not to explode with the rage he was feeling. He wondered what it would feel like to put his hands around the creep's neck just for a few minutes. Dakota was still talking in the same calm, measured voice. “But I was liberated from that debacle by the most welcome distraction. He found some little girl who had just graduated from Sarah Lawrence and who had a much better pedigree than mine, and once he found her, he dropped me like a hot rock. She weighed about ninety-five pounds soaking wet and she was much easier to manage than I ever was. I thought I was brokenhearted, but I wasn't really. I was mad as hell at myself for getting involved with a chump like him, and I really questioned my judgment for a long time. I'm supposed to be pretty smart, but apparently I have the emotional IQ of a tree stump. I didn't trust men and I didn't like them too much, either. And I wasn't really crazy about me, either.”

She didn't say anything for a while; she devoted her attention to giving him the best massage he'd ever had. “I decided that what I needed was new surroundings so I took the job with the
Herald
, packed up my computer and my kitty and headed to the Windy City. And I met you, and Toni and my sister came and snapped me out of my mope and guess what? I'm happy, Nick. I'm happy with me. I walk around the house naked all day long if I feel like it and I love what I see in the mirror. I love my hips, I love my breasts and I love my booty. I have a good strong body that takes me where I need to go and I'm quite proud of it now.