6. Mica
“Are you working with him to sell this place? I need to know right now if that’s why you suddenly appeared.”
Mica had been walking to her car when she saw him leaning against her trunk. He wore his usual cargo work pants, boots, and the thick leather jacket he put on when it was time to come outside. Temperatures had dropped suddenly yesterday and Mica had been forced to head to one of the department stores in town to purchase a heavier coat. She’d bundled up tight in the sky-blue puffy coat with matching hat and gloves before leaving her tiny office and braving the bone-chilling cold.
“Who are you talking about and who said this place was being sold?”
She shivered as she spoke and began moving past him to the driver’s side door.
“Earl,” Nash replied.
He’d followed her so that now he was holding the door as she leaned in to put her purse and briefcase on the passenger seat.
“I don’t understand your question. I told you before, I’m working to find the financial solvency of this company. Once I do that, I’ll be preparing a forecast which will undoubtedly reshape how this place is run and hopefully increase profits,” she told him. “But I’m not sure what you think Banyon has to do with that.”
Sure the guy was the general manager, but he was also a controlling jerk who she planned to knock down a few notches in the very near future.
“So you have no idea what Earl’s up to?”
He sounded as if he didn’t believe her. Mica didn’t know if she should be insulted or not. What she did know was that it was too cold to continue standing out here arguing with him.
“Look, can we talk about this in the morning, or rather Monday morning, I guess?” she asked, remembering that it was Friday.
On Fridays Mica and Pam used to head to the local bar where Pam’s boyfriend played in a band. Earlier today Mica thought about this and the fact that she had no idea what she was going to do tonight. For the past couple of weeks she’d spent her weekends cleaning and rearranging things in that big house that now belonged to her. But she missed going out and socializing even if she’d only done it once a week back in Paris.
“Are you heading home? I can follow you and then we can talk,” Nash asked.
She was about to say yes but caught herself in time. “Ah, actually, I was going to head into town to look for something different to eat for dinner. Kind of tired of the grilled cheese sandwiches or fried eggs that I’ve been having.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” he said. “And before you start overthinking it, this is not a date. I just want to talk to you about something without any interruptions. So, if you follow me back to my place, I can do a little better than grilled cheese and eggs for dinner.”
Follow him back to his place?
Warning bells immediately sounded in her head. She’d only known Nash for a few weeks and other than what she’d learned of him during the ride and lunch they’d shared, she had no clue about what type of man he truly was. Going to his house where he could do who knew what to her, wasn’t a smart idea. Except even with the little she did know about Nash she knew she wasn’t afraid of him.
Then there was the fact that she was still attracted to him. The memory of that kiss they’d shared was as fresh in her memory as if it had just happened yesterday. She’d recalled every delicious second of his lips on hers multiple times a day and every moment she lay in her bed at night that sleep did not claim her. Thinking about him had become an obsession, wondering what it would be like to have his mouth all over her, his muscled body on top hers, him inside of her…she sighed heavily.
Both of those factors could lead to a very lengthy debate in her mind, she could go on and on making the case that going to his place was not a good idea. Yet, she couldn’t dismiss the fact that Nash was the shop manager at the dealership and he had just asked her about the general manager and what she suspected were Nash’s suspicions about the man. As her entire reason for being here at this point and time revolved around Bellamy Motors, there was no other answer Mica felt she could give to Nash’s request.
“Sure. I’ll follow you to your place,” she said before getting into her car.
Nash closed the door behind her and walked across the lot to where she watched him climb into the cab of a red Ford F150. Mica shook her head at her new automotive knowledge. After weeks of studying bikes, she’d also done comparison research on automobile dealerships and trends. As she backed out of her parking spot and switched on the heat in her car, she figured Nash had left his bike at home in lieu of a warmer mode of travel.
Twenty minutes later she followed Nash’s truck into an apartment complex parking lot. He was out of his truck and on his way over to her car by the time she’d grabbed her purse and opened the door. Nash stood on the sidewalk in front of her car, his keys jingling in his hand.
“I’m in the building down here. I think all my neighbors get off work between three and four in the afternoon because by the time I get home all the spots in front of my entrance are taken,” he was saying as Mica stepped up onto the curb and began walking beside him.
“It looks like a nice, quiet place,” she said as she surveyed her surroundings.
It was already beginning to get dark, but she could see the three-story brick structures coordinated into a ‘U’ shape with a small area of grass and a couple of benches in the center, pretty clearly.
“I guess you had to find an apartment when you came here too,” he said and then opened a glass door, holding it until she walked in first. “Where are you staying?”
His question came as she waited for him to come inside and take the lead once more.
“Me?” she asked, wondering how best to respond. She couldn’t tell the truth.
“Yeah. You’re new to Destine, right? Since you didn’t know about the diner where we had lunch.”
Nash had begun walking up the stairs. This was after he’d stopped to unlock one of the mailboxes on the wall just inside the door.
Mica walked behind him, again wondering what to say. She hadn’t known about Lola’s Diner, but she had remembered how good the meatloaf was there and had actually taken a ride back to the place last Sunday for dinner.
“Yes, I am new to Destine. I, um, had relatives here so there was no need for me to find someplace to stay.”
That was true enough. But was it informative enough or would Nash press further? She’d already noted that Destine wasn’t a big city, so she figured there was a good chance that lifetime citizens here would know just about every other resident.
Thankfully, Nash didn’t press further, probably because they were at the door to apartment 2C by this point. He opened the door and Mica once again followed him inside.
It wasn’t a big place—living and dining rooms combined with a small kitchen. Straight to the back were patio doors which she figured led to one of those small balconies she’d seen from the outside of the building. Furniture was sparse and dark brown. There were no pictures on the beige painted walls. The television mounted on one wall was big—not as big as the one her father had installed in what was now her house—and the glossed wood floors were bare. There were blinds at the two windows across the room, a floor lamp in one corner, remote controls on an end table. It was neat and it smelled just like Nash. Another deep inhale and Mica exhaled quickly, shaking her head in warning to herself. She wasn’t here to smell him, or to long for another one of his kisses. This was about the dealership and that was all.
“Have a seat,” he told her as he held out a hand for her coat.
She unzipped the coat, took off her hat and gloves and handed them all to him. Then she moved further into the apartment, heading toward a love seat with one white pillow in its center. She picked up the pillow before sitting down and ran her hand over the embroidered top thinking how dainty it was amidst this obviously masculine place.
Minutes went by before Nash joined her. He’d removed his coat but still wore his boots, pants and a t-shirt that shouldn’t look so good as it molded against his thick muscular physique. He sat in the recliner to her left and looked more than comfortable there.
“Earl came to us today talking about some cuts he’d like to make. I thought maybe you were working with him in some way, telling him what’s best financially for the dealership, since that’s your area of expertise.”
He was talking slowly, as if he was still thinking about all possibilities. Mica was okay with that. She’d thought about his quick accusation when he’d approached her, during her ride over here. She had simply shown up out of the blue and made no secret that she was trying to find out if the dealership was financially stable enough to stay in business. But he was dead wrong about her working with Banyon. In fact, in light of the things she’d discovered, the plan she was now putting in place was in direct contrast to that scenario.
“I didn’t know Earl Banyon before I came here and I’m not working with him now.” It was a simple statement. A truthful statement.
He sat back in the chair then, letting his hands fall to rest on his thighs. “I don’t trust him.”
“Neither do I.”
“But I don’t think there’s anything I can do about it. Nothing legal that is,” he said with a shrug.
She should tell him that she could do something about Banyon. That she could have him out of the dealership in the blink of an eye. Then again, no, she couldn’t tell him that. Not yet anyway. At the end of the month—which was two more weeks away—she was going to announce who she was and all the changes she planned to make to the dealership for its future growth. She was also going to fire Banyon and there might also be criminal charges in the man’s future.
“Were Earl and Bell close friends?” she asked Nash.
“I don’t think I’d call them friends. Bell was sick for a long time.” He sighed heavily with those words. “Looking back, I can remember when he started to look differently. When that cough became more than ‘just a tickle’ as he always used to say. I should’ve asked if he was seeing a doctor. He would’ve done that for me.”
Mica nodded. From the people she’d spoken to in the last weeks she’d heard that Bell was a giving and compassionate guy. He was respected and loved and that all made her even sorrier that she hadn’t gotten the chance to see all those things in him herself.
“Lung cancer,” she said, citing her father’s cause of death. “Stage four when it was diagnosed.”
“Did you know him well?” he asked, catching Mica off guard.
She’d thought it either luck or fate that nobody had asked her about her relation to Bell before now. They’d accepted that she was there at the lawyer’s behest, but none of them ever wondered if she had a real stake in the dealership. That could be construed as a good, and bad thing.
“I met him two years ago,” she admitted, again giving as much truth as she possibly could. “He seemed like a good man in the time I spent talking to him. Then he informed me that he was sick and I wanted to come here to see him.”
“All the way from Paris.” It wasn’t so much a question, but a slow observation. “You were going to come see him and then what? Were you two having an affair?”
Mica’s mouth gaped as she stared at Nash in disbelief. His brow was furrowed, lips drawn tight after asking that absurd question.
“Of course not! He was old enough to be my father,” she said raising her voice much more than she’d intended to. She’d wisely left off the “he was my father” and clasped her fingers nervously.
He shrugged. “People have been wondering, so I just had to ask.”
“That’s a pretty wild thing for someone to wonder,” she countered.
“Not really. You’re an attractive woman,” he said, his gaze raking over her unabashedly.
Every part of her warmed under his perusal. And when his tongue snaked out to swipe along his bottom lip, her gaze rested there.
“I’m much younger than him,” she said, her traitorous voice way to soft now.
“Age is just a number,” he replied.
Nash was ten years older than her. A fact she’d thought about frequently since their kiss. In fact, she’d wondered if once they’d gotten the age out of the picture, if that hadn’t been why he hadn’t touched her since that day. Why there’d been no more offers to take her for a ride, or attempts to kiss her or more. Of course, if she really wanted to take things there with him, she could’ve gone to him and made her needs—because at this point this attraction to him felt more like a burning need to experience him—known, but she’d chosen not to. She chose to focus on business first.
Perhaps Nash had made that choice also. It certainly seemed like that was all he’d been concerned with tonight, until just a few moments ago.
When she didn’t immediately reply to his remark, he picked up yet another remote, this one that had been tucked into an opening on the arm of the chair and he turned on the television. For endless moments they watched the local news. Then, during the third commercial break the sound of a buzzer pierced the air.
“Dinnertime,” he said with a wiggle of his brows. “TV trays are over in that corner. If you can get them set up, I’ll go get our food.”
Mica walked to that corner and grabbed the trays he indicated. It seemed like a very domestic action but she pushed that thought aside.
“Oh, that smells wonderful. How did you do all this so quickly?” she asked when she’d sat down and Nash returned holding two plates, thin streams of steam drifting up from each.
“I order family sized entrees from Lola’s twice a week. Keeps me from having to cook and from eating frozen meals and take-out all the time,” he answered.
With her plate in front of her on the TV tray, Mica barely noticed that Nash had left once again. This time when he returned, he had two glasses of pink lemonade in hand.
After he gave her a glass, Nash sat. They both blessed their food and began eating. “This is the best lasagna,” she said after her first bite.
“I know, that’s why I order it at least twice a month,” was his reply.
“So, you like meatloaf and Italian food,” Mica said. “That’s good to know.”
There was a moment or so of silence before Nash replied, “I’d like to get my hands on you again too. Is that something you find good to know?”