Only Forever

She greeted him at the front door, holding a cup of therapeutically strong coffee in one hand. “You didn’t give me a chance to tell you on the phone, but…”

Nick grinned in that disarming way he had and assessed her trim figure with blatant appreciation. “Good, you’re dressed,” he said, walking past her into the house.

“You expected me to be naked?” Vanessa wanted to know.

He laughed. “I’m allowed my share of fantasies, aren’t I?”

Vanessa shook her head. Nick was impossible to shun. He was wearing jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, and he had the look of a man who knew where he was going to spend that chilly, sun-washed Saturday. “Come in, come in,” she chimed wryly as he preceded her down the hallway to the kitchen. “Don’t be shy.”

He grinned at her over one shoulder. “I’ve never been accused of that,” he assured her.

Vanessa had no doubt he was telling the truth. She gave up. “Where are we going?”

“Running,” he said. “Then I thought we’d take in a movie….”

Vanessa was holding up both hands in a demand for silence. “Wait a minute, handsome—rewind to the part about running.”

Nick dragged his languorous brown eyes from the toes of her sneakers to the crown of her head. “Bad idea? You certainly look like someone who cares about fitness.”

She sighed and poured her coffee into the sink. “Thank you—I think.”

“I guess we could skip running—just for today,” he said, stepping closer to her.

Vanessa’s senses went on red alert, and she leaped backward as though he’d burned her. “On second thought, running sounds like a great idea,” she said, in a squeaky voice, embarrassed. “You seem to have a lot of—of extra energy.”

He favored her with slow, sensuous grin. “Oh, believe me,” he said with quiet assurance, “I do.”

Vanessa swallowed. It was beyond her how accepting a single blind date could get a person into so much trouble. She swore to herself that the next time Janet and Paul wanted to introduce her to someone, she was going to hide in the cellar until the danger passed.

“Relax,” Nick said, approaching and taking her shoulders into his big, gentle hands. “You are one tense individual, Value Van.”

Vanessa blinked. “What did you call me?”

“I’ve gotten kind of caught up in this cable marketing thing,” he replied, his dark eyes twinkling. “I thought you should have a professional nickname, like your friend Markdown Mel. The possibilities are endless, you know—there’s Bargain Barbara, for instance, and Half-price Hannah…”

Vanessa began to laugh. “I never know whether to take you seriously or not.”

He bent his head and kissed her, innocently and briefly. “Oh, you should take me seriously, Van. It’s the rest of your life that needs mellowing out.”

She gave him a shove. “Let’s go running,” she said.

They drove to the nearest park in Nick’s Corvette. He led the way to the jogging path and immediately started doing stretching exercises.

Vanessa eyed him ruefully, then began, in her own awkward fashion, to follow suit. “One thing about dating a jock,” she ventured to say, breathing a little hard as she tried to keep up with his bends and stretches, “a girl stays skinny, no matter what.”

Nick started off down the path after rolling his eyes once, and Vanessa was forced to follow at a wary trot. “Are you saying that I’m not a fun guy?” he asked over one shoulder.

“What could be more fun than this?” Vanessa countered, already gasping for breath. She’d dropped her exercise program during the divorce, and the effects of her negligence were painfully obvious.

When they reached a straight stretch, Nick turned and ran backward, no trace of exertion visible in his manner or voice. “So, how long have you been a member of the loyal order of couch potatoes?” he asked companionably.

“I hate you,” huffed Vanessa.

“That really hurts, Value Van,” Nick replied. “See if I ever buy another pair of Elvis Presley bookends from you.”

There was grass alongside the pathway, and Vanessa flung herself onto it, dragging air into her lungs and groaning. She couldn’t believe she was there in the park, torturing herself this way when she could have slept in until noon and sent out for Chinese food.

Nick did not keep running, as she’d expected. Instead he flopped down on the cold grass beside her and said, “I appreciate the offer, but we haven’t known each other long enough.”

Vanessa gave him a look and clambered to her feet. “Tired so soon?” she choked out, jogging off down the pathway.

At the end of the route, which Vanessa privately thought of as The Gauntlet, the ice-blue Corvette sat shining in the autumn sunlight. She staggered toward it and collapsed into the passenger seat while Nick was still cooling down.

When he slid behind the wheel, she barely looked at him. “What did I do to Janet to make her hate me like this?” she asked.

Nick chuckled and started the car. “I’ll answer that when I’ve had a shower.”

Vanessa’s eyes flew open wide. Showering was an element she hadn’t thought about, even though it seemed perfectly obvious now.

Nick’s expression was suddenly serious. “Relax, Van,” he said. “It’s a private shower, and you’re not invited.”

To her everlasting chagrin, Vanessa blushed like a Victorian schoolgirl. She was a reserved person, but not shy. She wondered again what it was about this man that circumvented all the normal rules of her personality and made her act like someone she didn’t even know.

“It never crossed my mind that you might expect me to share a shower with you,” Vanessa lied, her chin at a prim angle, her arms folded.

“Liar,” Nick replied with amused affection.

He lived in a condominium on the top floor of one of the most historic buildings in Seattle, and the place had a quiet charm that surprised Vanessa. She had expected a playboy’s den with lots of velvet, chrome and smoked glass, but the spacious rooms were decorated in earth tones instead. There was an old-fashioned fireplace in the living room and a beautiful Navaho rug graced the wall above the cushy beige corduroy sofa.

“Make yourself at home,” Nick said casually, ducking through a doorway and leaving Vanessa to stand there alone, feeling sweaty and rumpled and totally out of place.

She went to the window and looked out on busy Elliot Bay. A passenger ferry was chugging into port, large and riverboatlike, and Vanessa smiled. In the distance, she heard the sound of running water and an off-key rendition of a current popular song.

The view kept her occupied for what seemed like a long time, but when Nick didn’t return after ten minutes, Vanessa began to grow uneasy. She approached the big-screen television in one corner of the room and pushed the On button.

Immediately the Midas Network leaped out at her in living color, life-size. She turned the set off again and began to pace, tempted to sneak out before this nonrelationship with Nick De-Angelo grew into something she couldn’t handle.

She was just reaching for the doorknob when his voice stopped her.

“Don’t go,” he said quietly. “I’m not going to hurt you in any way, Vanessa. I swear it.”

She couldn’t move, couldn’t drop her hand to her side or turn the knob and make her escape.

“Something really important is happening here,” he went on. “Can’t you feel it?”

Vanessa let her forehead rest against the cool panel of the door. “Yes,” she confessed in a strangled voice, “and that’s what scares me.”

He stepped closer to her and laid his hands very gently on her shoulders. She was filled with the scent of his clean hair, his freshly washed skin. “I won’t let anything happen that you’re not ready for,” he promised, and when he turned her around to face him, Vanessa was powerless to resist.