Page 47 of Tell Me (Savannah 3)

“You’re certain?” Charlene said, unconvinced.

“Absolutely.” Ariella’s confidence was infectious.

“Done deal!” Nikki was already pushing back her chair. “Does that do it?”

Ariella started packing up her portfolios. “For tonight.”

“If you say so.” Charlene was still frowning as she picked up her now-cold cup of coffee. “I don’t think you’re taking this seriously, Nicole.”

“Mom . . .” Nikki fought back a sigh as she bussed her mother on the cheek. She then grabbed up her coat and purse while Ariella picked up her display books and samples.

“I, uh, heard you saw your uncle the other day.” A shadow passed behind Charlene’s eyes. “How is he?”

She thought about his lucid moments and the warning he’d sent her but kept it to herself. “Not so great. But . . . he didn’t seem unhappy.”

“Well, that’s good, at least. Living with Penelope had to have been trying.”

“You should visit him,” Nikki said. “Either at the retirement center or when Aunty-Pen takes him home.”

“Yes, I should,” Charlene said without an ounce of conviction.

Nikki knew it would never happen. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“In the afternoon. I have bridge luncheon, you know.”

Like clockwork. “Yeah, Mom, I remember.”

To Ariella, Nikki said, “Let me help you with these,” and she picked up two small baskets of samples, as Ariella’s arms were overloaded, and helped her tote her portfolios to her van.

Once they were outside and the door was shut firmly behind them, Nikki said, “She’s wrong, you know. Mom thinks I’m not into the wedding or the marriage, at least not enough to suit her standards, but I’m just dealing with it differently.”

“I get it.” They made their way along the lighted, curved path through the lawn to the drive. “Everyone’s different.” Ariella clicked the remote, and the lights of the van flashed.

“So you do this for a living, but you aren’t married?”

“Haven’t found the right guy.”

“What do you mean? You’re still with Jim, right?”

“Living together, but he’s traditional in ways that I’m not. He wants me to take his last name.”

“And you don’t want to?”

“It’s Smith. James Smith. Which is fine. Really. But I’m not giving up my business. A to Z, get it? Ariella Zondola. My initials. N

ot A to S.”

“Can’t you keep both?”

With another click of the keyless remote, she opened the van’s sliding door, causing the happy brides painted on the side panel to appear to dance out of the way before she placed the baskets and her portfolios inside. “I don’t know why, but Jim and I aren’t in any hurry. I don’t feel my biological clock ticking, at least not yet. Some people, like you, are sure, and thank God for you all or I wouldn’t have a job!”

Nikki smiled, not admitting to her own doubts. It wasn’t that she didn’t love Reed, and she wasn’t put off that he was a cop, which would make lots of women think twice. The truth was that marriage was a big step, and the unions in her family had never been all that solid. Not her parents’ marriage, despite their facade, nor her aunt and uncle’s, with its rumors of infidelity. And going backward, even her grandmother Ryback had been married more than once. As for her biological clock, it was ticking so loudly it sounded like a time bomb in her head.

“You don’t get any pressure from your family, or Jim’s, you know, about having a kid or passing on the family name?”

Ariella shook her head. “None I can’t handle. I tell them my life is my business and they back off.”

Nikki glanced back at the house, where her mother was standing in the front window, the lights of the living room throwing off their warm illumination as Charlene squinted into the darkness at them. “I don’t know what it would take to convince my mother to take a step or two back.”

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