Page 13 of Willow in the Wind

James had ordered a bottle of wine for the table, one he knew Nancy liked. He filled her a glass. She watched him with catlike eyes.

“You aren’t here to wine and dine me, are you?” Nancy teased.

James laughed. “If only.”

Nancy sighed and spread her hands across the tablecloth. “I know she’s hiding something.”

“Have you met the guy?”

Nancy shook her head. “I know there is one, though.”

“Did she show you a picture?” James asked.

“Is it really that bad?”

“It’s worse,” James said.

Nancy hung her head. “I wanted her to go to an Ivy League school!”

“Pratt is a great school,” he reminded her. “And it’s not like Taylor ever took her education seriously enough to go to an Ivy League. Can’t blame her for that.”

“Because she’s so much like you,” Nancy shot back. “She’s living life by the seat of her pants!”

“That’s not all,” James said.

Nancy winced.

“She asked me not to tell you, but you’ll find out eventually,” James said. “She’s taking next semester off and going on tour with him.”

Nancy’s face went pale. “Over my dead body!”

James couldn’t help but laugh. He’d never seen Nancy like that. He thought she might faint.

“Stop laughing,” Nancy snapped. “You’re loving this, aren’t you? It’s exactly what you always did when you were her age! You ran around. You did whatever you wanted!”

“And it worked out for me!” James reminded her.

“She’s twenty!”

“We were once twenty,” James said.

“When I was twenty, I was in school,” Nancy pointed out. “I stayed in school till I graduated. It’s just what you do.”

“There is no roadmap for life,” James said.

Nancy was quiet. She pressed her lips into a thin line. “We can’t let her go.”

And this, James realized now, was why he’d wanted to talk to Nancy ahead of time. He’d wanted to mitigate disaster.

“All we can do is make sure she’s safe,” James said. “I’m going to give her phone numbers and addresses. I know plenty of people in this business. If something happens…”

“Nothing is going to happen because she’s not going,” Nancy repeated.

James sighed. “I wish it was that simple.”

The server came to take their order. Nancy ordered a salad, and James ordered carbonara. Once upon a time, Nancy would have ordered carbonara, too. But she’d stopped eating carbs twenty years ago and never looked back.

“I’m going to be sick with worry the entire time,” Nancy whispered when the server left.

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