The edge of the table felt hard and unyielding behind Nell. But did she really regret what she’d done with Archer?
“Where was Archer this evening?” Vivian asked, almost as if she’d divined the direction of Nell’s thoughts. “He knew I expected him here.”
She willed away a blush. “He had to return to Colorado.”
“Boy needs to settle down,” Vivian murmured and pushed herself wearily to her feet. “This is quite the little hole of an office you’ve made. You could have chosen any other space. Outfitted it however you like.” She picked up the crystal bowl full of pens. “Still can.”
Nell really hoped that bowl wasn’t precious. “I don’t need a lot of space.” Her job was temporary. Once the library was a reality, it would be finished.
“You’ll have time to think about it.” Vivian set the bowl down again. “How do you feel about your first week here?”
Like it had been so, so much longer. “I think how you feel about it is a little more relevant.”
Vivian smiled slightly. “You accomplished something no one else has.”
Nell had to step away from the edge of the table again because it felt like it was burning into her butt.
“Squire,” Vivian prompted.
Nell nodded a little jerkily. “Right.”
“I did his first wife a terrible wrong a very, very long time ago when I was married to my first husband. She was his half sister, you see. Illegitimate. Back in the day when those things mattered. Trivial, you know. You find that out when you get old.” Vivian pushed the chair up to the edge of the table. “If I can finally make that right, then maybe I can finally have some peace.”
Nell frowned. “I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”
“Now you sound like Archer. Don’t worry. I don’t plan to kick the bucket any sooner than the maker plans for me. I’m reducing my load of regret. Not increasing it.” She startled Nell when she patted her cheek. “Good night, dear.”
Then she left Nell alone in her office.
Alone to think about her own regrets. And to face the fact with absolute certainty that Archer wasn’t one of them.
“I need a favor.”
Nell pushed up on her elbow to stare blearily at the screen of her cell phone, then she fell back against her pillow and put the phone back to her ear.
“It’s two in the morning,” she told Archer. Her heart was jumping around all over the place and not entirely because it was his voice on the other end.
It had been nearly three weeks since the cocktail party. Since she’d last seen him.
But his absence hadn’t meant she’d been able to get him out of her thoughts. Or her fractured dreams.
And it certainly hadn’t meant she hadn’t talked to him on the phone. Somehow, he’d developed the art of calling her at the most inconvenient of times.
When she was stepping out of the shower in the morning.
When she was in the middle of discussing site selections for the library now that the town council had finally green-lighted the project.
When she was sound asleep in her bed while dreams of Archer danced in her head.
He called to ask about the cat. He called to talk about the workshop they’d be conducting at the wellness event. He called to check on Vivian.
“The phone rings at two o’clock in the morning and you answer it because you think something disastrous has happened,” she told him, not caring at all that she sounded cross. “Not because you think someone’s calling for a favor. I’m already feeding the danged bobcat every day for you.” An inconvenience that had tempted her more than once to give up her boycott of his guesthouse. Particularly since she still hadn’t found better lodgings than the Cozy Night, where she didn’t even have the engaging Gardner and her three boys next door anymore. They’d packed up earlier that week to head onward to whatever it was that had been calling them ever farther away from their Ohio origins. “What more do you want?”
He laughed softly. “Dangerous question, Cornelia.”
She covered her eyes with her arm. She still couldn’t blot out the image of him, sweating and breathless, moving against her.
It had been the main feature of the dream her ringing phone had interrupted, and her insides still felt shaky and hollow.
“What’s the favor?”
“Judge Fernandez called for a status meeting for tomorrow morning for a client of mine. I’m still here in Denver. Have court all day and I’m not going to be able to make it. Need you to stand in for me. Should only take a few minutes.”
Judge Fernandez was the judge who’d handled the Lambert estate.
Nell dropped her arm and stared up at the dark ceiling. Regrets, she thought.
Ever since the night of the cocktail party, the memory of Vivian talking about dragging around her pile of regrets had been haunting her.
“What time?” she asked resignedly.
“Nine o’clock in the judge’s chambers.”
“Client?”
“Matt Rasmussen. Drunk and Disorderly ninety days ago. Third one. He’s been attending cessation meetings twice a week. Walking the good walk. He’ll meet you at the courthouse.”
“Fine.” She waited a beat. “Anything else? Any briefs you need me to write for you, too?”
His laugh was soft in her ear. “Good night, Cornelia.”
She muttered a cranky good-night back to him and swiped her phone silent. But she still could feel the smile tugging at her lips as she buried her face in her pillow once more, and she wondered if he’d be calling again in
