Page 97 of Ten Years and Then…
“Nora, I—I can’t wait until later. Until tonight. I’ll be counting the minutes.”
One more kiss.
“Me too, Daniel. Until tonight.”
She opened the door, stood there in the doorway. After a few seconds—or an hour, it was hard to tell—she pushed it shut.
One of them had to, right?
Chapter 30
The second day of the conference—Kansas City, MO/Sioux City/ SD
Daniel, July 16, seven-thirty in the morning
The whole team was already at the booth when Daniel got there. Thomas was directing them, getting all the computers booted up and ready and cleaning all the podiums.
“We weren’t expecting you for at least another hour,” Red said.
“Yeah,” Edward chimed in. “I hope you didn’t kick her out of …” He didn’t finish the sentence; Blue smacked him in the head with a stack of brochures. Daniel made a mental note to buy her a drink later, or maybe some flowers.
He took a deep breath, tried to settle himself. “I’m sorry I ditched you guys last night.”
“Don’t apologize, Daniel,” Bryce said. “If I ran into my lost love, I would have ditched everybody for her, too.”
“Not exactly lost,” Daniel said, as much to himself as to them. “I don’t even know how to explain it.”
Red beckoned him over, and hugged him when he got to her. “You don’t need to explain anything.” She raised her voice. “You all hear that? No harassing our Team Leader. He doesn’t pry into our personal lives, so we’re not going to do that to him.”
“Speak for yourself,” Blue said. “I want to know what the deal is with that necklace.”
Why shouldn’t he let her see it? It was proof he was loved, and why should he hide that? He pulled it out from under his shirt and held it up for her to see. Blue came up to peer at it. “She made it for me. Had it made, I mean. But she designed it herself.”
“It’s beautiful,” Blue breathed.
“The aquamarine is for me. My birthstone.”
Red hopped over to see for herself. “And the sapphire is hers?”
“So we’re always together. She gave it to me the morning I graduated. Two years ago. That’s the last time I saw her before yesterday.” He didn’t know why, but it wasn’t nearly as difficult talking about this as he’d expected it to be.
Probably because he was going to see her again tonight. It wouldn’t be as easy when he had to say a final goodbye to Nora Sunday when the conference was over.
“I hope you can make it work with her,” Red said. “You looked so comfortable with her last night. It was really nice seeing that.”
“And the singing,” Blue added. “It’s a shame we don’t have it on tape. Nobody’s going to believe it back in the office.”
Daniel laughed at that. “I can hardly believe it myself,” he said, tucking the necklace back under his shirt. “But let’s get back to work. We’ve got a big day coming up, I want to be sure we’re as ready as we can be.”
He was sure they weren’t done talking about him, but he could live with that. They weren’t mocking him, they genuinely seemed to be happy for him. Even Edward, in his thoughtless way.
If they all believed he deserved good things, maybe he could believe it, too.
Nora, two hours later
When she’d closed the door on Daniel, she’d thought she would be up all night with racing thoughts. But she’d fallen asleep the moment her head hit the pillow, and she’d woken up with a clear head at the first buzz of the alarm she’d set.
Was it the three glasses of water he made her drink when they’d gotten back to his room last night—and the aspirin he’d insisted she take? Or was it just the mere presence of him—her Daniel?
