Wes grinned. “Tell me your Dot Voline theory.”
“It’s a bit of a game for her.” The idea had come to Nadine gradually over this last visit, when she’d been examining the room as Dot sparred with Wes.
“What makes you think so?” For once, his tone was curious rather than combative, so Nadine answered in kind.
“You know that table shaped like a pineapple? Last week, it had a music box with a silver tree. This week, it was a copy ofThirty Pieces of Silver.”
“Your big revelation is that an author had one of her own books on display?”
Nadine kept her temper for the sake of making her point. “Have you seen any of her other books out?”
“Dot might have wanted to change up her decor.”
“No.” Nadine was confident. “Nothing else in the room had changed. Also, she said she regretted not writing a mystery.” This had come out after Nadine had seen a beautifully bound Agatha Christie.
She waited for Wes to debate her more, but he looked thoughtful. “You’re probably wrong, but let’s see if it happens again next week,” he said. “It could be we’re both right. She’s scared and she’s also having some fun.”
“The second seems like her,” Nadine said.
The black car with the shaded windows came by again, slowing down to almost a crawl as it passed. By common but unspoken agreement, both Nadine and Wes stared at it, briefly united against a common enemy. Would they have the nerve to try to tell them to leave? Nope, it looked like silent intimidation was their plan.
“We’re done talking, but I don’t want to give them the satisfaction of thinking they ran us off,” said Wes.
Nadine waved her phone. “I have something to read and nowhere to be for the next ten minutes.”
“That’s some petty stuff, Barbault.” Wes looked through the open window of his car, then leaned over to grab a book from the seat. She did her best to not check out his ass, but it was right there in front of her, looking surprisingly juicy for such a lean guy. Wes stood back up, and she made sure to be looking at something innocent. “Exactly what I expect of you.”
It didn’t sound like an insult, Nadine thought as she began scrolling. He sounded almost fond. She probably misread him.
“By the way,” he said, looking up from his book with an earnest expression. “Do you think a person’s inability to avoid chewing candies is related to increased levels of overall impulsivity and lack of patience? Asking for a friend, purely as a hypothetical.”
Yes. She had definitely misread him.
Eleven
If Wes had to give a lecture on the differences between the rich and the poor, at least one of his slides would feature transportation. When you were rich, it didn’t matter where you lived because you could drive wherever you wanted. No car? Pay other people to drive you around. You had the luxury of not caring about good transit to your house because you never needed it. And if you didn’t need it, why would anyone else?
He was thinking these deep thoughts as he stared out the dirt-streaked bus window at a woman walking multiple Chihuahuas and a single Great Dane, their leashes tied around her waist like a maypole. He was late to meet Nadine after his car gave a pathetic little shudder and died when he turned the key, forcing him to run for the first of three buses.
When he arrived at Dot’s gate, hot and sweaty from jogging the six blocks from the final stop, it was to find Nadine waiting for him. She looked as cool as always, with her dark hair falling straight to her shoulders, streaked red in the sun, and a white linen blouse with a black linen skirt. Her outfit was flowing and unstructured, but the sunlighthighlighted the outline of her body through the fabric. His throat suddenly went dry. Must be from dehydration.
“I was about to text you.” She looked him over. “Did you run here?”
“Yeah, I’m becoming an ultramarathoner, and this is part of my new training regime.” He passed a hand over his face and tried to breathe without panting. He hated feeling disheveled. That only worked for guys like Tyler, who turned coffee stains and rumpled shirts into badges of honor that demonstrated how hard they were working. Wes, on the other hand, felt the eyes of judgment linger over every shirt wrinkle.
“In those clothes?” She motioned to his pants, which had lost their creases.
“They’ve got a new category for people who hate spandex.”
“I knew a guy who did one,” Nadine said thoughtfully. “He trained for a year straight and broke his ankle on the last kilometer. He crawled the rest of the way so he could finish.”
Wes adjusted his bag. “Dedicated.”
“His knees were bloody.” Nadine looked at his knees as if wondering if they were strong enough to crawl through a thousand meters of forest or desert or whatever.
“Sounds interesting,” Wes finally offered. “Should we go see Dot?”
“Right. Get in.” Nadine pointed to the car.
