You Say It First
Page 42

With that, she rose and left. Nick waited until she was gone to pull Pallas to her feet.
“Hey, you,” he murmured.
“Hey, yourself.”
He kissed her as she wrapped her arms around him. As heat warmed her, she felt herself surrendering to the moment. If she locked her office door, they could—
Her cell buzzed. She glanced at the screen, then stepped back when she saw the caller ID.
After pushing the button for the speakerphone, she said, “Hi, Nova. I just saw Marla. You’re going to love everything she’s come up with. We’re all so excited about how the wedding is coming together.”
There was a moment of silence followed by a choking sob. Pallas gripped the phone more tightly as her stomach knotted and her skin went cold.
“Nova?”
“W-we can’t do this. It’s my dad.”
Dread joined Pallas’s other emotions. “Is he okay?”
“N-no. He’s taken a turn. It’s bad.”
Nick put his arm around her, but didn’t speak.
“Oh, no. How can we help?” Pallas asked, thinking about the warm, loving father whose last wish had been to see his daughter get married.
“You can’t. No one can. He’s dying. They don’t expect him to last the week. The wedding is off.”
Pallas felt her eyes fill with tears. “Nova, I’m so sorry. Do you need anything? Do you want us to bring the wedding to you?”
She had no idea how that would happen, but there were plenty of smart, determined people involved. They could find a way.
“It’s too late. For everything. Look, I’ll be in touch, but I have to go now. I need to spend every second with him.”
“Of course. Give him our best.”
“Thank you.”
Nova hung up.
Pallas set her phone on the desk. “I barely know the man. It shouldn’t matter, but it does.”
Nick pulled her close and held her. He didn’t speak but feeling the warmth of his embrace turned out to be just what she needed.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
NICK HELD THE chain saw in his hands. The weight was familiar as was the sense of waiting for the wood to tell him what it wanted. He stood in back of the studio with a five-foot-high log secured in heavy metal clamps. After circling the log a couple of times, he started the chainsaw, then turned it off. He had no idea what to do next.
He wondered why that was. Usually when he approached a piece like this, he only had to take a few minutes before he knew exactly what he was going to do. It was a symbiotic relationship as if the more he cut into the wood, the more it spoke to him. But not this time.
He didn’t know what was wrong. Maybe because he’d been working with other materials since moving to Happily Inc? Maybe because he was so pissed he couldn’t see straight? Neither was conducive to a good outcome, especially when he wasn’t sure exactly what he was pissed at. Tim dying? The unfairness of life? Regardless, he had to get his head on straight. Practice was required for the work he did and being angry risked hurting the material or himself.
He set the chainsaw on the ground, then pulled off his safety goggles. He dropped his gloves on the ground and stared at the wood.
It was so damned wrong, he thought grimly. All of it. Tim dying, the wedding being canceled. Pallas had been devastated. He would guess the other vendors involved were equally upset. Not only had they all wanted to pull together to create a one-of-a-kind experience for the bride and groom, they’d had something to prove to themselves. The project had brought them together, challenged them. Now it was over.
He saw movement out of the corner of his eye—Ronan stepping outside. His brother eyed him cautiously.
“You okay?”
He and Ronan hadn’t had much contact in the past few weeks. From his perspective, his brother was withdrawing from both him and Mathias, but maybe he was wrong about that. It was possible that he was as much to blame.
“It won’t talk to me,” he said, motioning to the log.
“It will or it won’t.”
A statement more realistic than unhelpful. Because the medium had to have a voice. People assumed an artist simply sat down and created, but it wasn’t like that. Everything they touched had come from the earth in one form or another. Matter could be changed but it was never destroyed.
He briefly wondered if people who worked with plastic or other man-made material ever heard the whispers, then shook off the question. The answer would in no way help him and he was getting tired of not knowing.
“What’s going on?” Ronan asked. “Except for restoring those panels, you haven’t worked with wood since you got here.”
“I needed to think.”
“About?”
Nick was surprised Ronan was reaching out. “A wedding got canceled.”
“So?”
Irritation flared. Nick tamped it down, telling himself Ronan didn’t know the details.
“That papier-mâché I’ve been working with—it was for that wedding.”
“The one based on the game?”
“That’s it. Nova and Joel needed the wedding put together quickly because her father has cancer. He wanted to walk his daughter down the aisle before he died. We just heard that he’s gotten sicker and he’s not going to live long enough.”
Nick circled the wood, noting the placement of a couple of knots and a raw slice where a branch had been cut off.
“It’s not only the wedding,” he continued. “It’s what it all meant to us. We were pulling together, making something bigger than ourselves. It was important to Pallas.”
Which made it important to him. Not that he had to say that—Ronan wasn’t stupid.
“You’re seeing her?”
Nick nodded.
“Is it serious?”
“I’m going to Dubai. It’s for now.” And it was great. She made him laugh. She was easy to be with, and they never ran out of things to say. The sex was amazing, but he’d reached an age where he wanted more than just to get laid. He wanted...
“It’s just a wedding,” Ronan told him. “I’m sorry about the old man, but shit happens.”
“You ever think of getting a job with a greeting card company?” Nick snapped. “Would it kill you to give a damn about someone other than yourself?”
“What do you mean?”
“Somebody’s father is dying.”
“Somebody’s father is always dying. If you’re talking about me getting involved, that’s not going to happen.”
“I can see that.”
Nick knew the frustration building inside of him had very little to do with Ronan, but his brother had just become an easy target for what he was feeling. Despite how things were between them, he knew it was safe to let loose at Ronan. Maybe not the least bit fair, but safe.
“Why don’t you care anymore?” Nick asked, approaching his brother. “Too scared?”
Ronan—his height and about twenty pounds of muscle heavier—bristled. “Back off, bro.”
“Afraid someone might get inside and make you feel something. Then what? You’d have to get your head out of your ass and stop your pity party? If you didn’t have to sweat how bad you had it, you wouldn’t know what to do to fill your day.”
His brother glared at him. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Then explain it to me.”