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  “Thanks guys,” Amy said smiling from ear to ear at her friends’ toast.

  “Everyone is so happy for you, Matt is such a great guy,” Lily the newest member of their tight knit group, and soon to be Nikki’s sister-in-law, since her brother Eric had popped the question a couple months ago, reached out and patted Amy’s knee supportively. “Even Eric thinks so. He couldn’t be happier and you know how over-protective he is.”

  Lily had been hired by Karina to choreograph her Winter Wonderland tour. She’d moved to Hope Falls “temporarily” for rehearsals, and happened to rent the home right next door to Nikki’s brother. Eric had fallen hard and fast for his new neighbor. Lily had tried to keep her distance, but Nikki’s brother was persistent.

  At the time Nikki hadn’t understood why Lily, who seemed like such a sweet, open person and who obviously had a thing for Eric, would be so resistant to any kind of relationship. But that became clear when a man from Lily’s past had attacked Lily in her home. Eric and his dog, Shadow, had saved her and then everyone found out that Lily had spent years in WITSEC, the federal witness protection program, due to a murder she’d been a witness of as a teen.

  The attacker had been fatally wounded by his own gunshot. Now that her past was no longer a fear, Lily and Eric seemed beyond happy together. Lily definitely brought out the lighter, happier side of Nikki’s normally grumpy, serious brother.

  Nikki felt a little overwhelmed as she looked around her. These were all amazing, strong women who had managed to find their way on the bumpy road of love. So why in the hell was she having such a hard time?

  Wait? Did she just say love? Who was talking about love?

  This wasn’t about love. She barely knew Mike. In fact, after spending hours upon hours today obsessively reading every single article she could find, looking at every picture that was on the internet, she actually felt like she knew him less and less.

  But she could not stop thinking about him. And she had no idea what her next move should be.

  Actually that wasn’t true. She knew she just needed to stop whining, put her big girl panties on and send the freaking text.

  Before she lost her nerve, she quickly pulled her phone out of her purse, typed a short message and pressed send.

  There. Done. That wasn’t so hard.

  Smiling proudly from her totally undeserved sense of accomplishment, Nikki looked up to find twelve pairs of eyes staring back at her.

  “What?” she asked as the smile faded from her face.

  “We were going to ask you the same thing,” Karina said in her trademark flat tone.

  Nikki’s brow furrowed.

  Karina cleared her throat before nodding down to the cell phone that Nikki was clutching tightly in her hands, “Everything okay? You’ve been quiet. Distracted.”

  Nikki shrugged her right shoulder in an attempt at seeming casual and unaffected, “Oh yeah. I’m just tired.”

  They all sat, eyes trained on her, no one saying a word.

  A loud vibration cut through the silence and Nikki’s eyes flew down to her phone.

  It was him. Mike was calling her!

  Excitement flooded her as she jumped off the couch almost spilling Amy and Amanda’s wine. She rushed out of the room, ignoring the intrigued and confused expressions on her friends’ faces. “I’ve got to take this.”

  Nikki practically sprinted down the hall to Lauren’s office. She stepped inside, quickly closing the mahogany door, and then slumped against it trying to catch her breath. She hadn’t been this nervous-slash-excited-slash-borderline hysterical about a phone call from a guy since she was a teenager. Even then she didn’t think she’d felt all of the emotions that were now rioting through her like a hurricane.

  Taking a deep breath she pressed answer and put the phone to her ear. Her hand was shaking uncontrollably as she managed to get out, “Hello.”

  Chapter Ten

  Mike knew that he wasn’t exactly ‘playing it cool’ but he really didn’t care. The second her text had come through, he’d quickly gotten off the phone with Judge Randal and called her back. Adrenaline was flooding through his system like a dam had broken inside of him.

  Maybe he should have given it a little time before responding. But he just couldn’t stop himself. It’s not even that her text had been all that encouraging. All it had said was:

  Hi, it’s Nikki. Now you have my number.

  That was it. Not particularly friendly or even in the neighborhood of flirty. But it was enough to make his heart slam into his ribs.

  Even though he already had her number—he had programmed it into his phone after he found it on Facebook the day before—this was different; she’d contacted him.

  He held his breath while he waited for her to pick up the phone. He couldn’t breathe even if he’d wanted to, it felt like an elephant was sitting on his chest.

  The phone stopped ringing and he heard someone taking in short breaths before Nikki’s voice softly said, “Hello.”

  Everything in his body relaxed at the sound of her voice. It was really her. He hadn’t realized how much the thought of never speaking to her again, never seeing her again, never touching her again, had affected him. He may not know if the other two were ever going to happen but at least he was talking to her.

  “Hi,” he said, his voice sounding more than a little strained. When she didn’t immediately respond he asked, “Is this a bad time?”

  “No,” she let out a forced laugh.

  “Is everything okay? I can let you go.” His heart sank even as he heard himself say the words. He had hoped that she would have been happy to hear from him but if she wasn’t, he didn’t want to prolong the conversation.

  “No,” she emphatically declared, “Everything’s fine. I just…I mean I’m just…well, it’s just…I’m really…oh fuck, I don’t know what I am,” she said with exasperation.

  Mike’s head fell back as laughter rolled through him; he felt relieved. Not only was Nikki hilarious by simple virtue of her phrasing and timing, she also sounded like herself. Like the girl he’d met in the bar.

  “Soooo me being a total basket case is funny to you? I am so happy I can amuse you,” she said with the same fire and spunk he’d witnessed her display when she’d been holding court, sitting on the barstool in the hotel.

  She had no idea just how much she amused him.

  “I’m glad you texted,” he said with a smile still firmly planted on his face.

  “I’m glad you called,” she shot right back.

  “I’ve been thinking about you. A lot,” he knew it might be too soon to reveal something like that but the words left his mouth despite that fact.

  “Yeah, I know the feeling,” she did not sound all too happy about that admission.

  “Really?” He, on the other hand, liked the sound of that and definitely wanted to follow up on that statement.

  “Yes. It seems that you’ve taken up permanent residency in my brain. It’s pretty annoying,” she said not sounding all that annoyed.

  “Permanent, huh?”

  “Well temporarily permanent,” she clarified.

  “I think that’s an oxymoron.”

  “Yeah, tell that to my brain Senator,” she said putting an extra emphasis on his title.

  Figuring this was probably the best opening he could possibly get he asked, knowing full well he was most likely not going to like the answer, “Does that bother you? Me being a senator?”

  She was quiet for several beats. He could hear the low noise of the traffic on the freeway outside of his office window, the hum of the heater as the warm air moved through the vents, and through the phone he could hear the sound of her breathing.

  Standing, Mike began pacing the floor of his office. He always paced when he needed to think and apparently when Nikki needed to think as well.

  “I like even playing fields,” she finally said.

  “Okay?” he said, not really following.

  “You’re not just a
senator, which if I’m being honest is intimidating as hell, you’re like a rock-star senator. I mean come on, you were named one of People’s 100 Most Beautiful People. You are also on like fifty Most Eligible Bachelor lists. On most of them, you take the number one spot,” her voice was getting louder and louder with each point she made. “I mean I feel so stupid for not knowing. Seriously, I had no idea…”

  “Nikki, I know that I should have told you-”

  “No, I’m glad you didn’t. I’m glad that I didn’t know all of that stuff when we spent the night together. It would have been…too much,” her voice grew quiet as she said the last two words.

  Yep. That’s what he’d been afraid of. Those were the words he didn’t want to hear come out of her mouth. That it was all too much.

  Damage control was his only hope. “Listen all of those things you said, they’re not really me. All of that is just what people think of me, or what they are trying to make me into. The person you got to know, that’s me. The real me. All of that other stuff, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s not real.”

  He waited to see if she was going to say anything. She didn’t but he had a feeling that this conversation could very easily slip into the ‘I just don’t think it would work out’ maybe even the ‘it’s not you it’s me’ talk if he didn’t do something quick.

  “Are you busy this Saturday?” he asked.

  “Umm, why?” she replied.

  There it was. Why. Her favorite word.

  “I have a luncheon that I’m speaking at for an after-school program I’m a part of-”

  “After School Success. Didn’t you start that?” Nikki interrupted.

  “Yes, but now I am just on the board. Other, much more qualified people, run all the day to day logistics. We are going to be presenting several students with college scholarships in Sacramento this Saturday and I would love it if you would come with me, as my date.”

  Again Nikki said nothing. This girl definitely did not have an issue with trying to fill in any awkward silences. It was just one more thing he could add to the list of refreshing things that Nikki did.

  “Okay,” she finally agreed.

  The weight on his chest lifted and he felt like he’d just been handed a winning Lottery ticket. Like his whole life was about to change.

  “I can pick you up at ten,” he offered. Not only because it was the gentlemanly thing to do, but also because he wanted to spend as much time as he possibly could with this girl.

  He’d looked up Hope Falls on Google maps and seen that it was about seventy-five miles northeast of Sacramento. In the windy mountain roads, that would give them about two hours alone in the car. Two hours of uninterrupted, private time with Nikki sounded like heaven on earth to him.

  “No. You don’t need to come all the way up here to get me. I’m flying out of SFO early Sunday morning. I’ll drive myself and just head to San Francisco after the event.”

  “I really don’t mind. And I can drive you to the city,” Mike normally was not this pushy but damn he wanted to get to know this girl.

  “Then I wouldn’t have my car to drive back home on Wednesday,” she reasoned. “I’ll meet you at the luncheon, just text me the details.”

  He didn’t like it. He wanted to say he would drive her back on Wednesday but he was pretty sure that would freak her out. And if it did he wouldn’t blame her. He was freaking himself out.

  “Okay, I’ll see you Saturday.”

  “Okay, bye.”

  Getting off the phone with her was the last thing that he wanted to do but he figured he would quit while he was ahead.

  “Bye.” He hung up and leaned against the bookshelf that took up an entire wall in his office. The message light on his landline was blinking frantically. He looked down at his phone and saw that he’d missed four calls while he’d been on the phone with Nikki and received seven text messages.

  Back to reality. Until Saturday.

  --- ~ ---

  Nikki tilted her head to the side, resting it against the hard wooden doorframe. She needed a moment to collect herself. She was feeling extremely off balance from all of the thoughts and emotions coursing through her.

  If it was possible to overdose on adrenaline then she would definitely be in danger of that happening. She was flying high after her phone call. She wanted to jump up and down and scream like a giddy school girl when she thought about the fact that it had taken Mike less than sixty seconds to call her back after she’d texted him. And then there was the small insignificant detail that she would be seeing him again in a few short days, which made her want to do cartwheels and backflips.

  Emotionally, the conversation had been slightly therapeutic. Talking to Mike and verbalizing some of the things that had been bothering her, was surprisingly, a relief. Opening up to people did not come naturally for Nikki. She was perfectly content to keep people safely at arm’s length. Letting people in, behind the curtain, meant being vulnerable. Vulnerability was a four letter word in Nikki’s vocabulary. Somehow though, letting Mike see her weakness wasn’t scary, it felt…right. And that is what terrified the shit out of her.

  Pushing off the door she decided to table all of the conflicting emotions she was experiencing and just go out and have a nice time with her friends. For the first time—in the last forty-eight hours since she’d met Mike—she was going to attempt to go a few hours without obsessively thinking about him. She wasn’t real optimistic that it was going to happen but she was going to give it the old college try.

  Nikki smirked to herself, knowing that it would be easier said than done. Turning the silver doorknob she still held her phone tightly in her left hand, feeling like holding it somehow connected her to Mike. Shaking her head at how ridiculous that sounded even in her own head, she looked up as she stepped into the hallway and was met with twelve pairs of eager eyes staring back at her.

  She jumped about a foot off the ground as she let out a startled scream. Amy quickly moved beside her. “Sorry, we didn’t mean to scare you. We we’re just-”

  “Eavesdropping,” Nikki finished her sister’s thought.

  “Well,” Amy hesitated before admitting, “yes.”

  “But sadly, we couldn’t really hear anything through the door. And I had my ear pressed against it,” Karina admitted with absolutely zero embarrassment or apology in her voice. “So you are just going to have to fill us in on all the dirty details.”

  Nikki’s wasn’t mad at all that her friends had listened in on her conversation. She knew that if she was standing where her friends were she would have done the exact same thing. Right now though, standing at all was a little tricky since her legs were feeling wobbly. “Okay but first, I need to sit down.”

  Her jelly legs could just have been from lack of sleep or her body trying to adjust to being in four different time zones over the last week. But most likely it was just all the adrenaline that had flooded her body.

  As the girls all made their way back to the front room Amy stepped beside Nikki, worry filling her large blue eyes. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” Nikki assured her sister. “Just tired.”

  And totally overwhelmed by what was happening between her and Mike. She figured she would keep that embarrassing tidbit to herself.

  “Alright, so who’s the guy?” Karina asked the second they were all seated around the fireplace. “We asked Ames but she wasn’t talking.”

  “It’s not my story to tell,” Amy shrugged.

  Nikki loved her sister for that. She knew that Amy had been a much better sister to her than she had been to Amy. But, she was working on changing that. “Thanks Sissy,” Nikki said sincerely before scanning the room of which she was currently the center of attention.

  This was it. It was finally her turn in the book club hot seat. She’d seen a lot of the other women in this room occupy this very spot and for some reason it always looked a lot more fun than it felt right now. Being on the outside looking in at other people’s romantic entangle
ments was a heck of a lot more entertaining than being on this side of the romance fence.

  Nikki took a sip of wine that Sam had graciously poured for her and decided that filling in her friends was like a cliff and she just needed to jump. “I met this guy.”

  “Oooh I knew it,” Amanda clapped her hands together excitedly.

  “We all knew it,” Lauren pointed out matter-of-factly.

  “Ignore them,” Karina waved her hand at her two friends before instructing, “continue.”

  “We got grounded in Dallas due to weather and I met him at the bar. We talked for hours about…well I guess not about anything really. We ended up getting stuck in an elevator together then spending the night together.

  “The next morning, I got called in to work a chartered flight. I showered and left while he was still sound asleep. Honestly, thinking I would never see him again. I wanted to, but I didn’t think I would-”

  “You could have left him your number,” Sam suggested.

  “Or at least woken him up to say goodbye,” Amanda tilted her head.

  “I know, but I didn’t,” I was too freaked out then and that was before I knew who he was, Nikki thought to herself. “So anyways, turns out he was the one who chartered the flight. Well, not him actually it was his campaign manager.”

  “Campaign manager.” Lauren’s perfectly arched brow raised, “He’s in politics?”

  Nikki let out a puff of air before finishing off her wine. Then she confirmed with a sharp nod, “Yeah.”

  “What’s his name?” Karina refilled Nikki’s glass.

  She knew what her friend was doing, trying to use the wine as truth serum. Which was probably working considering how warm and fuzzy Nikki was feeling.

  “His name is Mike Gowan, Senator Mike Gowan.” Saying his name out loud, like that, made all of Nikki’s anxiety come rushing back.

  “Seriously?!” Karina’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped.

  “Do you know him?” Lily asked Karina.