A Bride at Last (8 page)

They were screaming their fool heads off.

Nadine popped open her camera, pulled the film out and, crouching down, dropped it into an empty canister and popped the top on. She was finished for the night.

“There you are.” Trace’s voice behind her made her whirl around in surprise. He wore a denim jacket tonight, blue jeans and cowboy boots. He looked
like a rodeo poster boy, rugged and almost too handsome.

“Hi.” She smiled up at him and he reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “You’re early.”

“I’m even earlier than you think. I watched the final game.”

“They’re pretty good, aren’t they?”

“I wouldn’t know.” He took her bag from her and pulled her close. “I kept getting distracted by this cute reporter on the sidelines snapping pictures.”

Nadine just shook her head at his lavish compliments. As they passed a group of celebrating teenagers, a few of the girls cast admiring glances Trace’s way. Nadine knew she shouldn’t feel proud, but she did. Nothing boosted a girl’s ego more than knowing that other women, no matter how young, thought your escort was good-looking.

She looked up at him and caught him smiling down at her. He dropped a quick kiss on her forehead and drew her closer. “I missed you, Nadine,” he said.

Nadine looked away, her feelings uncertain. On the one hand she felt inundated with his charm, his obvious attraction to her, yet she couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable with how quickly he’d seemed to lay a claim to her. This was only the second time they had been together, not counting their first “date.” His intensity didn’t seem right, for a reason she couldn’t put her finger on.

They walked out to his truck and as they did, Nadine’s cell phone rang. She pulled it out and answered it. It was Grandma.

“I’ll be home in a while, Grandma. Don’t wait up for me.” Nadine rolled her eyes at Danielle’s response, then ended the phone call.

“Handy things, aren’t they?” Trace said with a grin as he unlocked the door for her.

“Not really. I wish I didn’t have to carry it around, even though it is a great tool for a reporter.” Nadine got into the car and laid the phone on the seat as she buckled up.

“Where do you want to go tonight?” Trace asked as he started up the car and reversed out of the school parking lot.

Nadine shrugged, stifling a yawn. She had been busy all day and hadn’t given a thought to dinner.

“You look tired,” Trace said as he pulled into the street. “How about someplace quiet?” He grinned at her and, gunning the engine, headed down the street.

Nadine felt a little better once she’d eaten supper. Trace was stimulating company and he made her laugh. The talk stayed light, something for which Nadine was grateful. She was tired and was also thankful when Trace said that he had to leave early.

“Looks like your grandma is still up,” he commented as they walked up to the apartment

“She likes to stay up until I’m home. Says you never know what might happen.” Nadine shook her
head. “I’d invite you in, but with Grandma still up…”

Trace shrugged. “I don’t want to bother her. Besides, I’ll be coming here tomorrow after church. If that’s okay,” he added quickly.

Nadine smiled back, a feeling of well-being bubbling up in her. “I’m looking forward to it.”

Trace caught her close, and just as he was about to lower his head to kiss her, a cough sounded in the hallway behind them.

“Nadine, are you coming in?” Danielle demanded, her gray head poking out into the hallway, her voice querulous.

Trace pulled back and winked at Nadine. “I should let you go.” He ran a finger lightly down her chin and then looked past her. “Hello, Mrs. Laidlaw. How are you?”

“Tired,” said Grandma succinctly.

“I’m sorry.” He looked back at Nadine. “I guess this is good-night?”

Nadine nodded, curiously glad Grandma had shown up. She felt once again that Trace was moving too quickly. Too quickly for her, anyway.

Trace ran a finger gently down her cheek. “I’ll see you at church tomorrow?”

“I’d like that,” she said softly.

“Good.” He winked at her and then, with a quick wave at Grandma, turned and left.

Nadine watched as he pulled open the doors and sauntered down the walk. He got in the truck, waved at Nadine and drove away.

“So,” Grandma said from behind her. “Why didn’t he come in?”

Nadine sighed and turned to face her grandma. “Because I think he’s a little afraid of you.”

Danielle “humphed” at that. “He looks a little too polished for my liking.”

“How can you say that? He wears blue jeans and cowboy boots.”

Danielle just shrugged and sat down on a kitchen chair. “It’s just an impression.”

Nadine turned on the tap and filled a glass with cold water. “I don’t know why you don’t like him.”

“I don’t dislike him, Naddy. What a thing to say.” Danielle sounded hurt.

Nadine gulped down the water and set the glass on the sink. “You don’t treat him very well. The last time he stopped by here, he asked me what I had told you about him.”

Danielle fingered the belt of her housecoat, her eyes downcast. “I don’t trust him, Naddy,” she said softly, her voice suddenly quiet. She looked up, her blue eyes softened with concern. “I’m just not comfortable with him. I would much prefer it if you were to go out with…”

Nadine held a hand up. “Stop right there, Grandma.” She tilted her head sideways, studying her grandmother as realization dawned. “I think you don’t like him because you didn’t handpick him for me yourself.”

“I already said I don’t dislike him,” protested Danielle.

“Well, then, treat him better tomorrow, because he’s coming over,” Nadine announced, a warning note in her voice.

“I will, Nadine. I’m not rude.”

“No, you’re not,” conceded Nadine. “But I know how you can smile and sting at the same time.”

“I’ll be very kind and considerate.”

But Danielle didn’t have to exert herself to that extent, because Trace didn’t show up at church the next day and consequently didn’t come to the Laidlaw residence for the Sunday lunch Nadine had risen so early to prepare.

Nadine tried to hide her disappointment and Danielle tried to hide her triumph. Neither were very successful. As a result, Sunday was not the blessing it should have been.

N
adine spread the latest edition of the
Derwin Times
out, propped her elbows on the desk and began her Tuesday-morning, once-weekly hunt for typos. It didn’t matter how up-to-date the technology or how eagle-eyed their copy editor, on a good day only one typo slipped through, on a bad…

Nadine sighed, pulled out her red pen and circled the spelling mistake that jumped off the page at her.

She glanced over a few more articles, turned, a few more pages, then stopped at her article on Skyline. She skimmed over it, then reread it to make sure she had been balanced and fair.

Nadine frowned, trying to read it critically, always difficult when the words were so familiar. It had taken her a couple of drafts to get it just right.

“Their labor practices are questionable, and when they were asked for a copy of their safety code, this reporter was brushed off. What do they have to
hide? And why do they continue to obtain government grants by fair means or foul…” Nadine read. And it got stronger after that.

Because when it came to Skyline, she had emotion to spare. Nadine sat back and closed her eyes, reliving once again the helpless anger and frustration and grief of her father’s life wasted by a company that lied. So much had been taken away from them, with so little explanation.

I want to bring these guys to justice, Lord,
she prayed, as she so often did when she thought of Skyline and all the sorrow their actions had caused.
Show me the right way, show me how to do this.
But the prayer brought no peace, no answer. She knew only that she felt better doing
something
instead of merely sitting back, a helpless David facing down an indifferent Goliath.

“Call for you on line one, Nadine. Oh, and some woman phoned a few minutes ago. Didn’t leave her name.”

Drawing in a deep breath, Nadine picked up the phone. “Nadine Laidlaw here.”

Trace greeted her cheerfully. In an hour he was going to be meeting her at the restaurant, and from there he would accompany her to the school meeting she had offered to cover. Nadine would be the happiest when they found a new reporter. Covering for a missing reporter kept her and Wally busier than she liked.

“How are you?” she asked.

“I had to run into Edmonton to meet with one of
the company execs that I’ll be working with. I won’t be back on time, so keep your cell phone handy.”

Nadine hated taking her phone into meetings. It was disrupting, and it annoyed her to be at her phone’s mercy. “So what time will you be back?”

“I have a better idea. I’ll meet you at the inn after your meeting, say, nine-thirty?”

Nadine sighed her disappointment. “Okay,” she said softly.

“Hey, sweetie, I’m sorry.”

“Of course you are.” She tried not to remember Sunday and his broken promise then, as well. It shouldn’t matter as much as it did. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about Trace, but it was so wonderful to be wanted, to look forward to being with someone. “I’ll see you later, then.” At least coffee with him was better than nothing.

She hung up the phone and fell back against her chair. Not an auspicious start to the week, she thought.

An abrupt rap on the door made her sit up. “Come in,” she called, folding up the newspaper.

It was Clint.

He dropped the newspaper on her desk and stood in front of her, his eyes narrowed.

“I thought you weren’t going to run the article,” he said tightly.

Nadine looked at the paper, folded open to her story on Skyline. “That was your idea, Fletcher, not mine.”

“I called you into my office last week and asked
you not to run the story.” His voice was even, but Nadine could hear the suppressed anger.

Nadine steeled herself to look up into Clint’s irate eyes so close to hers, trying not to remember their time in the coffee room. “The article is correct, and the facts have been verified by enough people that I feel more than justified in running it,” she replied, her own anger building. “I also told you that we could call an editor’s meeting and make a diplomatic decision on whether to run it or not.”

Clint looked down at her, his hand resting on her desk. “It shouldn’t have to come to a showdown of authority, Nadine.”

“Maybe not,” she acknowledged, “but an editor of a paper should be just that. An editor. Last I checked, that gives me certain authority and say in what goes into the paper.”

“And last I checked, my name is on the masthead, as well.” He straightened. “As the owner.” He looked down at her, holding her challenging gaze. “I wish we could work together on this, Nadine,” he said with a sigh.

Nadine watched him, her heart doing a slow flip. He suddenly looked vulnerable. And for a brief moment she felt a stirring of pity, mingled with attraction. It bothered her more than she cared to admit It hearkened back to numerous daydreams she had spun over him years ago—and if she dared to admit it, even more recently.

And now, to her dismay, it seemed as if all those dreams and emotions were threatening to undermine
her. Taking a deep breath, she concentrated on Skyline and the pain they had caused her family. “I don’t know if we can,” she said, her voice more sharp than she intended. “Skyline has blood on their hands. Men have died working for them. We have a responsibility to stop them.”

“Your father among the lives lost,” he said quietly.

Nadine nodded.

Clint blew out his breath and rubbed his neck. “And this is going to help?” he asked, indicating the open newspaper.

Nadine stood up and drew in a steadying breath. “I intend to serve notice to them that we report on more than just local sports and library board meetings.” She leaned forward as if to emphasize her point. “We have a God-given duty to expose companies like Skyline. They’re crooks and liars, and if they did the same thing in Calgary or Edmonton, they’d have a pack of reporters on their back.” She drew in a breath, afraid she was beginning to sound shrill. “I really need to do this, Clint.”

Clint looked across the desk at her, his features softening. “I understand why…”

Nadine waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. Their gazes met, locked, and it seemed that all else, for that moment, drifted away. Nadine felt gripped by the same curious feeling she had felt the other evening in the coffee room. Once again she felt the tug of attraction, the pull of his personality, and she
knew that the feelings that were surfacing were the same ones that had plagued her so long ago.

She forced herself to look down, to break the intense connection with his eyes, busying herself with the newspapers on the desk.

She refolded his newspaper and handed it back to him, her eyes going no farther than his dark tie cinched around the collar of his gray shirt. “Here’s your paper,” she said.

Clint cleared his throat. “Thanks,” he said as he took it. He tapped the paper against his thigh, still towering over her.

He hesitated, then finally left.

When the door closed behind him, Nadine pressed her fingers to her eyes as once again she felt a rush of tears. She dropped her face into her hands, and in the privacy of her office allowed the confusion of her emotions to overwhelm her.

She missed her father, she still grieved her mother. She felt alone, though surrounded by people who cared for her. She had been put off by Trace for the second time in two days.

And now she was falling for Clint Fletcher all over again.

How do these things happen, she wondered. How can a heart work so totally independent of a mind?

Was she an idiot? How could she fall for a man whose presence intimidated her so much that she resorted to deflecting his attention with cutting comments?

She looked heavenward.
Why, Lord? Why am I
falling for this man? He doesn’t like me that way, never has. Please take away these feelings. Please.

She stopped, as if waiting for something, anything. A feeling of reassurance, a still, small voice guiding her, helping her. But she felt nothing, heard nothing. Nadine felt as if her prayers went only as far as the ceiling above her.

And later that evening, as she sat alone in the inn, waiting in vain for Trace, she wondered what she had done to deserve the loneliness that seemed to surround her.

“Two cameras, film, notebook.” Nadine scooped her hair away from her face and retied her ponytail as she took a quick inventory, pencil stuck firmly in her mouth. She looked up at Wally as he rubbed his forehead, looking a little pale.

“I think I still got the flu,” he mumbled.

“I thought you were finished with that.”

“Maybe it was your article on Skyline that brought it back on,” he joked weakly.

Nadine didn’t think that was funny. She and Clint avoided each other, but the tension in the office between them was palpable.

Wally groaned again and doubled over. “I think I better get back home,” he said as he clutched his stomach.

“Okay,” she grumbled, annoyed at him for still being sick, and feeling guilty at her reaction. “I’ll drop you off on my way. Can you make it to my car?”

He nodded and slowly got up.

Nadine zipped her bag shut “I need more film. I’ll meet you outside.”

Wally only groaned in reply and stumbled out the door. Nadine followed him down the hall, making a quick stop at the darkroom to grab her film.

As she closed the door behind her she met Clint walking up the hallway, a frown on his face. “What’s with Wally?” he asked.

Nadine swallowed and willed her beating heart to slow down. This was the first time since yesterday morning that they had spoken. “The f-flu…I think,” she stuttered.

“Didn’t you need him today?” he asked with an impatient frown.

“I guess I’ll have to do without him.”

“You were headed out to the Foodgrains Project, weren’t you?”

Nadine only nodded, wishing she could just leave. It was bad enough she had had moments of discomfort around Clint before the Skyline article. Since yesterday and her own awakening feelings, it was harder.

Clint tapped the sheaf of papers he was carrying, his lips pursed. “Do you want me to help out?” he asked, his voice casual.

Nadine’s head shot up. Why would he want to come? “No, no,” she said hurriedly. “I’d just as soon do it on my own.”

Clint nodded and Nadine realized that it sounded as if she was brushing him off. Donna’s reprimand
warred with her own confusion around her boss as she forced a smile at him, and she amended her statement. “I mean…that’s okay. I don’t want to bother you. You’ve covered for Wally enough the past few days.”

“I don’t mind. I could stand to get out for a bit.”

Nadine glanced at his clothes, and he looked down himself.

“Don’t worry. I’ll change,” he said.

Nadine chewed her lip, wondering what it would be like to have him around an entire morning, wishing he’d be called to a sudden emergency. Then, feeling distinctly un-Christlike, she nodded. “Sure,” she said, forcing a cheerful note into her voice.

“Okay.” Clint nodded without smiling. “I’ll meet you at Nanninga’s quarter in about an hour.”

Nadine’s eyes met his and once again she felt a pull of attraction. Their gaze held and then she glanced away. “Sounds good,” she said quietly, then turned and went out to her car where Wally was waiting.

Clint got to the town limits and pushed the accelerator on his sports car to the floor. He felt boyishly excited and knew he shouldn’t. Nadine had made it fairly clear that she allowed his presence on sufferance. He wondered why he kept harboring some faint hope that she would soften toward him. Two things precluded that—her boyfriend and her opposing stance on Skyline. He had gone to her office on Tuesday morning hoping he could try yet
once more to talk her out of the latter, and if not that, at least try to get her to tone down her rhetoric.

His partner had called today with predictable news. He had just come out of a meeting with Skyline’s lawyers. Another lawsuit was pending.

The newspaper was making a comfortable living for all involved, but not a huge profit. And it got less with each court challenge Skyline mounted.

Nadine put him in an awkward situation. He lost no matter which way he turned.

Because for better or worse, he was unable to change his feelings for Nadine Laidlaw. Deep feelings. Serious feelings.

He had always been attracted to her, but she’d often made it fairly clear what she thought of him. However, she had slowly warmed to him the longer he went out with Sabrina. Though even after spending half an evening laughing and talking with him and her sisters, Nadine had always kept a reserve about her.

But lately he had caught a hint of vulnerability, a softening that drew him, made him want to peel away the sarcastic outer shell.

He knew what he would find beneath that. He read her articles, sensed her deep, unwavering faith, caught the wry humor that permeated her writing. When she wrote, she showed a side of herself that she seemed wary of showing to him.

Clint turned down the tree-lined driveway leading to his home and couldn’t help but smile.

When he had moved here as a sullen teenager,
Uncle Dory had put him to work, planting, mowing, weeding and in general maintaining the large yard and surrounding pastures and outbuildings. Growing up in the city, he had never had to do any physical work.

His parents were both professionals who were never home, and when they were, they fought. Clint was an only child who had turned into an ornery teenager whom his parents didn’t know how to handle. When he was caught shoplifting they shipped him off to Uncle Dory with the hope that this calm, straightforward man would be able to turn their son around. What Dory did was keep Clint very busy.

As well as three newspapers, Dory owned eighty acres, ten cows, three horses, chickens, rabbits, potbellied pigs and about six dogs. Clint was responsible for feeding and cleaning the barns and stalls.

In time he began to enjoy the horses nuzzling him as he doled out their grain ration, nickering to him when he came to fork hay for them. He began taking more time with his daily chores. Working with the animals brought about a sense of satisfaction that had been missing from Clint’s life in the city.