Chapter Fourteen #3
There was no need for her to feel so guilty. The fact that the little devil inside her had assumed Arthur’s voice just added insult to injury. She’d done everything she could to drown it out.
As it happened, the most effective way of drowning out her dead husband’s voice was by sleeping with Nick.
Of course, that only started the vicious cycle all over again.
Claire was tired, physically and mentally.
Maybe her instincts had been right the first time. Maybe things were moving too quickly with Nick.
She’d almost suggested it yesterday, but every time she looked at him, she just couldn’t seem to keep her clothes on.
Today, she had to be strong. She couldn’t allow herself to sleep with him until she’d come to terms with the voices inside her.
She was still telling herself that an hour later, when Nick knocked on her open office door.
“Hey,” he said, smiling. “I’ve got a few minutes. Mind if I come in?”
“Sure.” Do not fuck him. Stay the course. Slow things down.
He closed the door, and turned. When he leaned in to kiss her, Claire moved her head to the side. His kiss landed on her cheek.
“Is everything fine?” he asked.
“Yup.” Claire sat behind her desk, establishing a space between them. She clicked her keyboard and opened up a document on her laptop.
Nick stood still at her newly sanitized desk, confusion marring his gorgeous features. He shook his head and smiled, then ran a finger along the desk edge. “I’ve been having dreams about this desk, really good dreams.”
She stopped typing. “About that, Nick…I think we need to talk.”
“Okay.” He sat down in the chair opposite her. “What’s on your mind?”
How on earth was she supposed to explain herself without sounding like a weirdo? “I’ve really enjoyed our time together.”
“So have I.”
“And I want to continue enjoying myself with you. Funny thing, though. There’s been one strange little side effect.”
“Side effect?”
She forced a laugh. “Since we slept together that first night, I’ve been hearing Arthur’s voice in my head.”
“Arthur…talks to you?”
“Not really. I sort of talk for him. I have since he died, to be honest. It used to be little updates here and there. I’d tell him how things were going at the sanctuary, how certain cats were doing. But lately, the conversations have changed. They’re not going so well.”
“Ah. What does he say?”
“He definitely doesn’t like what we’ve been doing.”
“I see.” He glanced at his lap.
When he looked up again, she searched his face, but there was no sign that he thought she’d lost the plot.
“Listen,” he began, “I realize I never got to meet Arthur, but from what you’ve told me, I think he’d be happy you’re moving on.”
“That’s what I keep telling myself. Only there’s this thing Adele said a while ago, that maybe I’m just not ready for all of this. Maybe Arthur’s voice is a manifestation of that fear.”
“Do you think you’re ready?”
“I want to be ready. Most of the time, I think I am, but then I hear him again and it’s like a full-on assault from my psyche. And to be honest, I think I’ve been using you to drown out his voice. Sex with you shuts it down.”
“Okay.”
“I know how ridiculous this must sound.”
“I don’t think it’s ridiculous at all. If you ask me, it’s understandable.”
“Really? I haven’t scared you away?”
“Claire, you’d have to do a whole lot worse to scare me away.”
“Oh.” She’d been certain he would head for the door as soon as she mentioned Arthur’s voice. “Thanks for understanding. I didn’t want you to think I was being selfish in thrusting myself at you. It’s been fun, of course.”
“For the record, you can thrust yourself at me any time you want.”
His knowing grin made her want to pole vault over her desk, onto his lap.
“So, we’re okay? You don’t want to call a moratorium on our sexual adventures?”
“Fuck, no.”
A low growl underscored those two little words.
She would definitely be revisiting the memory of that growl later.
“All righty, then.”
“All right.” Nick got up and stalked toward her. He tipped up her chin and took her mouth in a kiss that she felt down to her toes. “I’ll see you later?”
“Not if I see you first.”
With a grin, he left her office.
Hmm. He didn’t think her strange for hearing Arthur’s voice, and he hadn’t blamed her for using their fling as a distraction.
Perhaps it wasn’t so bad after all.
Adele had wondered if Claire was ready for a relationship, and frankly, it was probably true. However, Claire and Nick were just having sex. There was no relationship.
As for the bizarre guilt trips from Arthur, they wouldn’t last forever.
Sex with no strings attached was awesome. It allowed Claire to live in the moment.
In fact, maybe she and Nick needed to make their arrangement official, in a sense. Not a romance, but something mutually beneficial until his job took him away.
Friends with benefits.
Yeah. Lots of sex but still some boundaries in place. And in the meantime, there were other things that Claire could do to move on.
She sat up straight. This weekend, she’d cross a few more items off her to-do list.
* * * *
Nick spent the rest of the week ensconced in the back yard.
Now that Claire’s office had been completed, he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep his mystery project a mystery for much longer.
There were still a couple of tiny touch-ups to do in her office, but the team could handle those fine details.
Their crew was used to working around furniture.
Like that desk.
Because of that desk, every time Nick thought about office furnishings, he got a hard-on. Who would have thought a few planks of wood could become such an obsession?
Of course, it was because he couldn’t stop thinking of Claire splayed out on it, or of the way he’d needed to support his trembling arms on it.
He liked that desk so much that he’d convinced her they needed a repeat. She’d happily obliged him just the other day.
Man, it was difficult working outside Claire’s office, knowing what they’d done inside it.
When Michael and Eli found him in the back yard on Friday afternoon, he was attaching some chicken wire next to one of the little ramps from his project.
It was possible he’d been distracted by a vivid daydream of Claire. At least, that was his guess when he realized he’d let his work get sloppy. Clearly, he hadn’t been paying attention to where he’d applied his staple gun. As a result, he had a bunch of staples overlapping one another.
“Hey,” said Michael, planting his hands on his hips.
Nick looked up. “Hey, yourself.”
“Wow,” said Michael. “That’s a lot of staples in the exact same spot.”
Nick grunted. Michael had noticed it too. Still, he didn’t need his brothers to point it out. “How can I help you?”
“You’ve, uh, been distracted lately,” said Michael.
They noticed that too? “No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“Look,” said Nick, “do you actually have something to say, or are you just here to annoy me?”
Michael turned to Eli and put up his hands in surrender.
Eli reached over and gingerly removed the staple gun from Nick’s hands.
“Why are you taking my staple gun?”
“Because if you add any more staples, this is going to start looking like a crime scene. Also, I don’t want you to be armed when I translate for Michael.” Eli paused. “What our brother really means is we’re concerned about you.”
“Why?”
“Well,” continued Eli, “you and Claire seem to have a thing for each other.”
Nick silently counted to ten. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Eli glanced at Michael. “I guess he’s going to play the game too.”
“Yep,” said Michael.
“What game?” asked Nick, annoyed now. “I’m not playing any game.”
“Sure, you are,” said Eli. “It’s the game all the Zorn brothers have played at one point or another. You know, when we pretend nothing’s going on, but in reality, there’s a certain woman we can’t get off our mind.”
“That game,” added Michael. “I played it with you guys when Emily came around.”
“And I played it when I fell for Bernie,” said Eli. “And now you, baby brother, are playing it because of how you feel for Claire. Boy, I really thought you might have learned from our examples.”
Nick glared. “I don’t have feelings for Claire. We’re just…helping each other get back in the saddle.”
“Whoa.” Michael held up a hand. “We weren’t looking for that level of information. How you do it is your business.”
Nick narrowed his eyes.
Eli continued. “It just occurred to us that this might not be the best time for a relationship for you. I mean, pretty soon, you’ll be in Victoria.”
“Have I told you what else is on the agenda?” asked Nick.
“After Victoria, I have gigs in Seattle, Chicago and Montreal, and that’s just for starters.
Who the hell knows where I’ll be after that?
Eli, believe me when I say I know this is a bad time for a relationship.
Which is why Claire and I aren’t labeling this thing.
It’s just sex. Like, really energetic sex. ”
Michael wrinkled his nose. “Again, way too much info.”
“Look,” said Eli, “we just wanted to make sure you were okay. You just came out of a bad relationship and we didn’t want to see you getting in too deep.”
“I’m fine, I promise.”
“Good,” said Michael. “Mom invited us all to dinner Sunday night. She said you hadn’t called her back yet. Are you going to come?”
“Yeah.”
“Great. Call her,” urged Michael. “We’re going to tell Mom and Dad that Em’s pregnant, but we wanted to make sure you were all going to be there.”
“I’ll be there.”
As his brothers walked away, Nick let out a sigh of relief. He wasn’t sure why the conversation had gotten up his craw, but it had, for some reason.
If forced to admit it, he had been spending a lot of time with Claire lately. It was possible that his thoughts had strayed into a zone that wasn’t emotion-free. It could hardly be helped. He liked her.
A lot.
Suddenly, a wild thought occurred. One of Claire taking a place at his parents’ dinner table at a family gathering.
Nah, he couldn’t afford a relationship right now. Not only was it a case of bad timing, she didn’t want it.
Hell, she was still thinking of Arthur.
He didn’t blame her, but it had hurt a little to hear her say she was using sex with him to drown out Arthur’s voice.
It didn’t really matter. He was helping her, and she was helping him.
They’d been clear with each other from the start.
Things were good.
He finished his work for the day, and began to pack up his things. He was just about ready to seek out Claire when Lacey appeared.
She met him at his truck, as he was putting his tools away. “Hey, do you have a minute?”
“Sure. What’s up?”
“Nick, I wanted to talk to you before anyone else.” Lacey took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I wanted you to know I have a new job.”
At first, Nick didn’t flinch. Of course, she had a new job. So did he. They had a new job together, on Nick of Time.
But he quickly realized they weren’t talking about the same thing. “Wait. A different new job?”
She nodded, her shoulders trembling as she held back her excitement. “With the Create Network.” She let out a squeal.
“Holy shit.” Create was Lacey’s Holy Grail.
She’d been trying to get a slot for Handymen on Create since its inception.
The large American home improvement network was everything Inspiration was trying to be.
Ever since the Zorns had started working with Lacey, all they’d heard about was Create. “Congratulations. This is huge.”
“I know!” She jumped up and down, then stopped, in case anyone saw her.
No wonder she’d been distracted at times. He’d also noticed her acting secretive on her phone calls. Nick had known something was up, but had never thought this was it. “What will you be doing for them?”
“Directing, as usual. They want me at the helm of their new show. The hosts are a well-known celebrity couple who happen to share a passion for design. I’m not allowed to drop any names yet, but we’re talking A-listers. Well, maybe more like B-plus, but they’re still really cool.”
“Damn, Lacey, this sounds right up your alley.” He hugged her hard. “I’m happy for you.”
“I’m just sorry I won’t be able to do Nick of Time with you. It has nothing to do with your show. This is an opportunity I can’t turn down.”
“I understand. This is fantastic. When are you going to tell everyone?”
“I think I’ll gather everyone together on Monday, but I wanted you to know first, because we were going to work together. I’ll talk to Michael and Eli, and then I’ll tell the rest of the crew.”
“Sounds like a plan. I won’t tell anyone before you do.”
“Thanks. Have a great weekend!” She hurried off to find Eli and Michael.
Nick put a hand on his truck door. For some reason, he couldn’t quite focus on the pebbles at his feet.
Oh, yeah. It must be because his head was spinning.
He was thrilled for Lacey, but he’d never envisioned doing Nick of Time without her.
He wouldn’t survive without her guidance.
On Handymen, she was the one who’d told him and his brothers what to say, how to say it, where to stand and when to smile at the camera.
Hell, she even told them what to wear, although they normally fought back a little on that one.
Lacey was the backbone of the show, and he’d counted on her being there for his new venture.
Without her, he wasn’t sure he wanted to do it anymore.
Only he did. With Handymen, they’d been able to help so many families renovate their homes, and had been able to share tips with a wide audience.
Nick wanted to do more of the same on his own gig.
He liked to think they taught people things, and he saw himself doing so for at least a few more years.
This meant he’d be getting a new director. What if Lacey’s replacement didn’t have as much patience? What if they didn’t like him? What if he didn’t like them?
What if the whole thing failed? He wouldn’t have Lacey there to go to bat for him with the executives.
First, he’d lost his brothers as co-hosts, and now this.
All of a sudden, Nick’s throat thickened. Even though he knew his airways were clear, he struggled to breathe.
Together, Michael and Eli had been his rock. But in her own way, Lacey had been an anchor for the last few years. What if, without her, without all of them, he just floated away?
Needing to hold on to something, anything, he got into his truck. Hands gripping the steering wheel, he peeled out of the Haven lot and drove until he wasn’t sure where he was driving anymore.