Date Next Door

“Not really, no,” Aislinn admitted sadly.

Even though she’d said it herself, it hurt to hear Aislinn confirm it.

“You had a feeling this wasn’t going to work out well, didn’t you?”

Aislinn made patterns in her ice cream with her spoon. “I had a feeling you were going to be hurt,” she admitted. “I did try to warn you.”

“I know. And I didn’t listen. I thought it would be worth it.”

Looking at her intently, Aislinn asked, “And was it?”

Nic rolled her glass between her hands, giving the question some thought. The last few weeks had been so special that she could hardly look back at them now without tears. Would she eventually be able to think of them with pleasure, treasuring the moments she and Joel had spent together, savoring the memories of lazy evenings and passionate interludes?

“I don’t know yet.”

“Give it time. And whenever you need to talk, you know I’m here.”

Nic nodded.

“There’s just one more thing I need to say, and then we’ll change the subject for now, okay?”

“What is it?”

Aislinn reached out to lay her hand on Nic’s arm, a warm, supportive gesture. “It really isn’t you, Nic. There’s nothing at all wrong with you. You don’t have to compare yourself to anyone.”

Tears threatened then, but Nic blinked them back. “Thanks. You could be a little biased.”

“Hell, yes. But I’m still right.”

Managing a weak smile, Nic reached for her ice cream again. “Well, of course you are. You’re always right.”

Aislinn’s answering smile was strained. “There are times when I wish I were wrong.”

He didn’t really want to, but Joel went home for Thanksgiving. He might have made excuses to stay away that year, claiming to be too busy with work, but it seemed so important to his mother for him to come. Besides, his father had been ill—nothing too serious, just an upper-respiratory infection—and Joel would have felt too guilty to skip out on them, even though he’d been home only a few weeks before for the reunion.

He regretted his decision almost immediately. The memories that haunted him here now were ones of Nic. Every time he passed the guest room, he half expected to see her in the doorway. Each time one of his parents said something that amused him, he found himself looking for her to share a secret smile.

He noticed that he had begun to walk down the upstairs hallway without looking at the walls. For the first time all those old pictures bugged him. He hadn’t realized how much his family was stuck in the past. What was keeping them from moving on? Was it partially his fault?

Maybe it was past time he put away a few photographs of his own.

Having arrived late Wednesday afternoon, he would be leaving early Saturday morning. He stayed close to his parents’ house during his visit, not particularly anxious to run into any of his old classmates again so soon.

His mother waited until Friday afternoon to broach the subject of Nic. Everyone had asked about her as soon as he’d arrived, of course, but after he’d assured them she was fully recovered from her fall, they hadn’t mentioned her again.

“Have you seen Nicole much lately?” Elaine asked as she and Joel worked on a jigsaw puzzle together at a table in one corner of the den. It was one of her favorite hobbies, and she often drafted her husband or one of her sons into helping her, mostly just to keep her company.

“Not really,” he said, keeping his gaze focused on the jumble of puzzle pieces. “We’ve both been busy. It’s been a couple of weeks since we talked.”

He didn’t add that he, for one, had been very careful to avoid running into Nic, and he was sure she had done the same thing. Considering they lived only a few yards apart, it was odd how few fleeting glimpses he’d had of her since their breakup two weeks earlier.

“So she hasn’t had any dangerous escapades lately?”

Joel scowled down at the puzzle piece in his hand. It really should fit into the section in front of him, but he couldn’t seem to find a place for it. “She’s a police officer, Mom. What you and I might consider dangerous escapades are just a typical part of her work week.”

The bitterness he heard in his own voice made him grimace. So maybe he was exaggerating just a little. As Nic herself had pointed out, it wasn’t as if she worked a SWAT team in a teeming metropolis. But the fact was, she did respond to dangerous domestic-disturbance calls. And she did confront the occasional violent addict or aggressive drunk.

She spent a great deal of her time dealing with people who broke the law and were resistant to the idea of being punished for doing so. She wore a sidearm as casually as some women donned pearls. Downplay it all she wanted, her job was a dangerous one.