Anything for Her

chapter FOUR



FABRIC RIPPLED AS Mrs. Sellers pressed her substantial way down an aisle. Three hundred pounds if she was an ounce, she emerged triumphant at the back of Allie’s store. There she stood blinking at a sight she clearly found startling.

“A new student?” She looked suspicious.

Allie’s mouth twitched at the expression on Nolan’s face. He sat kitty-corner from her at the table, where they’d been eating lunch. “I’m afraid I haven’t converted him yet. Mrs. Sellers, this is a friend of mine, Nolan Radek. Nolan, Honoria Sellers, one of my favorite customers.”

He stood and extended a hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

Mrs. Sellers’s now-slit-eyed gaze lowered to Nolan’s large, work-roughened hand. It was a long, grudging moment before she placed her own tiny, plump hand in his for the briefest of shakes.

She then surveyed their partially eaten lunches, spread out on the table. “A friend, you say.”

Allie heard the beginnings of a laugh next to her, ended when Nolan cleared his throat.

“Yes,” she said hastily. “We met when Nolan brought me a marvelous late-nineteenth- or early-twentieth-century quilt top to hand-quilt.” She told Mrs. Sellers the story and rhapsodized about the workmanship in the piecing. Her customer’s bristles subsided as Allie talked, until her nod at Nolan was almost pleasant.

“Good for you, helping that boy remember family. I can see why Allie likes you.” Mrs. Sellers’s gaze switched to Allie. “I’ve decided to buy the green leaf print for the backing of my quilt. You’ve got enough, don’t you? You haven’t sold any off that bolt since I was in Friday?”

“I wouldn’t dare,” Allie said truthfully. “I hid it away in back. Let me go grab it. And, yes, it’s nearly a full bolt. There’s plenty.” She stood. “Excuse me,” she murmured to Nolan, who nodded.

By the time she’d fetched the bolt from her small back room, taken it up front and cut the required yardage with her rotary cutter, several other women had arrived and spread out through the store. Allie rang up Mrs. Sellers’s purchase and went to the back to rescue Nolan, who was being grilled by a pair of elderly women.

Instead of being greeted by an expression of desperation, she found him suppressing a grin. She felt a now-familiar squeezing sensation in her chest. For some strange reason, his smiles always took her by surprise, rearranging his face until plain was the last word that came to mind.

“These ladies want to know what a rude, crude man is doing, loitering around here,” he explained, straight-faced.

They both giggled. “Now, you know we never said any such thing!” the elder of the two sisters protested.

He smiled at her. “I was encapsulating.”

She visibly melted. So did Allie.

“Nonsense,” Edith declared. “We’re delighted to see Allie has found a rude, crude man.” She patted his shoulder. “It’s past time. She’s such a lovely young woman.”

Nolan’s very blue eyes met Allie’s. “Yes, she is.”

Of course, he couldn’t say anything else, could he? But she blushed anyway. “We were only having lunch and chatting, Edith.” Well, it’s true, she insisted to herself, even though she knew it wasn’t true at all. They’d been...bonding. Exchanging important information. Flirting, too.

Allie turned to Nolan. “It doesn’t look like I’m going to be able to finish lunch right now. I’m sorry.”

“I noticed,” he said. “Your sandwich and cookie will keep. I’ll take the rest with me.”

She liked the fact that she had yet to see him display even a hint of impatience or irritation. Her first impression of him as steady and calm had been so far confirmed. He took her work seriously, too.

She felt another funny little cramp in her chest that this time she identified as fear. Ridiculous, but undeniable. He scared her a little, maybe because he seemed too perfect. Too tempting.

She was glad to be distracted by the sisters, who pounced on several bolts of gorgeous batik fabric that lay on the large table a safe distance from the food and drinks Allie and Nolan had been sharing. She had just begun unpacking a new shipment, which, if their reaction was anything to go by, would sell well.

Edith, who had confessed to being eighty-three, and her younger sister Margaret were longtime quilters who had learned from their mother who had learned from hers. They were a rarity now; interest in the art had languished in America by the 1940s. Most women these days had to turn to classes and books instead of their own female relatives.

After Nolan had left, pecking Allie on the cheek under the curious and pleased stares of half a dozen women, she advised customers, neatly sliced fabric from bolts and rang up purchases while diverting questions about him by handing out newly printed schedules for upcoming classes. As she did all this, she pursued the thought the Brown sisters had stirred.

Most women probably took up quilting because they could make something beautiful they couldn’t otherwise afford. But there was certainly another element to the astonishing revival of quilting in the past twenty years. This was one art that offered a way of reconnecting with the past.

Most patterns had a history. Some had been popular with women who’d traveled the Oregon Trail. Others had their origins in regional folk art—the Pennsylvania Dutch, or the quilts made by slaves that hinted at their African heritage. Women had named their patterns to celebrate personal and familial triumphs and tragedies, but also political events and figures.

Mostly, though, Allie suspected, in the back of her mind, every woman who quilted felt the ghostlike presence of her own ancestresses, who had sought to keep their families warm and make something beautiful, too. These days when families weren’t as close as they’d once been, women felt a need to tie themselves to the past and make something for the future.

Allie could talk glibly on the subject at great length. She often did, in fact, to newly excited quilters or as an introduction to a class for beginners. She didn’t exempt herself from her generalizations. But she had also never asked herself why the draw had been so powerful for her from the moment she stepped into that fabric store and saw the blocks the women in that class were sewing.

So...what about me?

Well, duh, she scoffed at herself. She was the quintessential woman with no past. Of course she wanted one, even if she had to stitch it together herself.

It might have helped if Mom and Dad hadn’t abandoned so much when they fled their former life. Some of that, Allie thought, had been necessity, but not all. Mom would say she wasn’t sentimental. She didn’t like “old” anything. Allie had furnished her apartment from antiques stores; her mother didn’t understand why she didn’t want nice new things.

As for Dad...Allie didn’t know. She thought maybe he had grieved so much for what he was losing, he hadn’t let himself hold on to any reminders.

Could that be true of Mom, too? Allie let herself wonder, and discovered she had no idea. Perturbed by how much she didn’t know about her parents, she was immersed enough in her brooding not to notice how seriously a middle-aged woman was studying the Feathered Star quilt Allie had displayed on the wall until she began to ask questions.

Allie had completed it almost a year ago, and had begun to think it might not sell. The colors were darker than she usually chose—earthy and comforting, she thought, but she’d overheard a woman murmur to a friend that it was gloomy.

“I don’t know how you can put so much work into a quilt and then sell it,” said this woman, who’d introduced herself as Helen Richards. “It must feel like giving up your newborn baby for adoption. But if you’re really willing, I want it.”

The Feathered Star quilt was queen-sized and elaborately hand-quilted. The price paid, with no quibbling, was exceedingly generous.

Once Helen Richards happily left with her purchase, Allie found herself in her customary state after selling one of her quilts—torn between pleasure because her creation had found the right home, delight at the profit and grief at losing another piece of herself. She wondered if Nolan felt the same when he sold a sculpture.

When Allie finally waved goodbye to her last customer of the day and closed out the cash register, her mood was strange. Yet there was really no reason to feel such a way.

She’d been exceptionally busy today, and nearly everyone had spent money. With the sale of the quilt added in, she had no doubt she would find the receipts would be her new record. And she’d been able to see Nolan, even if their visit had been cut short. Lately she’d felt a little low in the morning of any day when she knew she wouldn’t see him.

Maybe that was why she felt so unsettled.

We’re dating. We’re having fun. I think I’d like to make love with him.

That was all perfectly normal. So why did she sometimes wonder if the changes he was bringing to her life might not end up doing some damage?

I’m a mess, she admitted to herself, and identified part of her fear: Nolan wanted to know her, and how did she dare let him guess how shallow that self was?

* * *

“HAVE I EVER had a pet?” Dumb question to induce panic, but it had. It was one of those stupid things that made her run a mental check. Taboo, or not taboo? Answer: not. “Um, yes. Not for a long time, though. Why?”

Naturally, it was Nolan who had asked in one of the phone calls she’d begun to live for. They usually came around bedtime. Sometimes they talked for an hour, sometimes only long enough to exchange brief snippets about their days, to say without words, I was thinking about you. He always kept his voice quiet, and she suspected he waited until Sean had disappeared into his bedroom to call. She hadn’t mentioned these conversations to her mother, either.

“I want to get Sean a dog,” Nolan said, sounding pleased with himself. “I thought we’d visit shelters this weekend.”

“Did he ask for a dog?”

“No, but I’ve seen him stop to pet them. He and his grandmother had some kind of terrier mix. I don’t know what happened to it. I hope it died before she did.”

Allie knew exactly what he meant. On top of everything else, he’d feel guilty if the poor, bewildered dog had been taken to a shelter in the wake of Sean’s grandma’s death.

“You didn’t ask?”

“The dog was mixed in with other topics. I try to let him tell me the hard things when he’s ready.”

She wondered if he sensed how deep her empathy for his foster son ran. She should hope not, because there was no way he’d understand it. What did a twenty-eight-year-old businesswoman have in common with any fourteen-year-old boy, never mind one with Sean’s background?

Nothing, that’s what.

Too much.

“I thought maybe you’d like to come,” Nolan said. “You can advise us.”

How a voice so low and rumbly could also be coaxing, she couldn’t have said. But she found herself reluctantly smiling.

“Out of my great store of knowledge? Didn’t you ever have a dog?”

“My mother didn’t like them. She always had a Persian cat. You notice I said she. These were not kid-friendly pets. They made great pillows, but that’s about all you could say for ʼem. Dumb as a box of rocks—and I know my rocks.” Amusement suffused that voice now. “Softer, though. I remember one that I was never sure could actually walk. I swear Mom would carry that damn cat to the litter box and then back again to its throne.”

Curled up in her easy chair, Allie laughed at the image.

“Not exactly a growing boy’s dream pet.”

“A dog was bound to chase the cat, Mom insisted. I thought some exercise would do the cat good.” Plainly, he liked making her laugh. He wasn’t being entirely serious now. “That was assuming the dog ever noticed that the fluffy peach-colored mound at the end of the sofa was alive.”

“So why didn’t you get a dog the minute you left home?”

He was quiet for a minute. “Too busy, I guess. Ironically, I do have cats.”

“No!” she gasped in mock surprise.

“Make fun of me, will you.” There was the amusement again. “They showed up on my property about two years ago, a couple of scrawny half grown, half wild mongrels. Can a cat be a mongrel? Anyway, they’re only distant relations to my mother’s cats. I figured somebody dumped them. So I started putting food out, trapped ’em before the female threw a litter of kittens. They’re still mostly outdoor cats. They let me pet them, but haven’t decided whether to trust Sean yet.”

“A dog might chase them,” she pointed out.

Silence. “Okay, is it bad if I admit that hadn’t occurred to me?”

“Very bad,” she said solemnly, suppressing this laugh.

“We can be sure we get a dog that’s lived with cats before. Or a puppy.”

Realizing how much she wanted to be with Sean and Nolan when they picked out the dog, she had to ask. “Do you really want me to come? This sounds like something the two of you should do together, without an outsider along.”

“You don’t feel like an outsider,” he said, and his voice had deepened further.

She had to press the heel of her hand to her breastbone to quell the sharp pang.

“I... Thank you.” Allie closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Why don’t you ask Sean? My feelings won’t be hurt if he’d rather go without me. Please don’t press him.”

“Fair enough,” Nolan said after a minute. “I thought you’d enjoy it.”

“I would,” she admitted. “But not if I ruin the whole thing for Sean. Anyway, I really can’t afford to take Saturday off.”

“I checked. They’re open on Sundays.”

He’d checked because he wanted her to go with him. He was hinting at a whole lot more than a dating relationship, which shouldn’t have stunned her but did.

“Let me know,” she said, working hard at sounding cheerful and offhanded. Nope, doesn’t matter to me either way. She ended the call as soon as she could without having him notice anything was wrong.

It’s not wrong. It’s good. It’s great. I like him.

Then why this flutter of alarm?

I don’t know how to do this.

And that, she realized, was the truth.

If she’d ever known how to be intimate with other people, she’d forgotten. She hadn’t had a really close friend since middle school. Before. Being so terrified of what she might inadvertently say, she didn’t dare say anything at all—which was an excellent way of appearing unfriendly to other teenagers. Or pathologically shy. Or maybe of making a person pathologically shy, eventually.

Am I?

Yes and no. Not in the quilt shop, but when the possibility of something closer arose...maybe. After all, she still had to think every time before she opened her mouth.

The phone rang again shortly after Nolan and she said good-night, and she snatched it up, noting belatedly that the caller was her mother, not Nolan calling right back to say, Sean would love to have you come with us.

Yeah, right.

“Hi, Mom. This is late for you to be calling.”

“I’m not quite as stodgy as you think I am,” her mother said with a laugh. “You start your day earlier than I do.”

“That’s true. I was actually about to head to bed. Does that make me stodgy?”

Mom laughed. “Really all I wanted was to line you up for a shopping expedition on Sunday. I was contemplating my winter wardrobe, and I decided it needs some major refurbishment.”

Allie hesitated. “I...think I have plans for Sunday already. I’m sorry.”

There was a tiny pause. “You think?”

“We haven’t finalized them yet, but I did agree.”

More silence. “This is the man you’re seeing?”

Allie stiffened at her mother’s tone. Her fingers tightened on the phone. “Nolan. Yes.”

“Well. I admit I’m disappointed. Since Sunday is the only day we can spend together.”

Which was true enough—Mom worked the standard Monday through Friday, while Allie closed her shop on Sundays and Mondays.

“Depending on where you want to go, we could make it an evening,” she offered, even as she regretted the lost time on Sean’s quilt.

“Oh, I had a full-blown expedition in mind. Seattle, I was thinking. And lunch, of course, my treat,” her mother said persuasively. “I can’t persuade you to ditch him for your mom?” The last was said humorously, as if it wasn’t to be taken seriously. But Allie had no doubt that it was.

“Refurbishing your winter wardrobe isn’t exactly an emergency,” she pointed out. “It’ll be mid-October before you so much as need a sweater.”

“Well...that’s true. Shall we plan for the next Sunday, then?”

“That sounds like fun,” Allie said, relieved. She hadn’t liked hurting her mother’s feelings. “And I’ll let you know if our plans for this Sunday end up getting canceled.”

“Oh, good,” her mother said. “I’ll look forward to it. Good night, sweetheart.”

“You, too.”

She could use some new clothes, too, Allie reflected, as she went to the bathroom to brush her teeth. She hadn’t paid all that much attention to her own wardrobe lately, until she met Nolan. Shopping would be fun.

So would helping pick out a dog or puppy, if Sean didn’t resent her addition to the expedition.

The thought gave Allie pause again. Nolan probably shouldn’t have asked her. Maybe she should Just Say No, per the antidrug campaign. Let the two do something meaningful together, without her trailing along.

But oh, temptation...

* * *

SEAN MADE IT apparent pretty damn quickly that despite his mumbled agreement to Allie’s inclusion today, he hadn’t actually wanted her along at all. Nolan ground his teeth as he pulled into the parking lot for the Everett Animal Shelter. He was mightily tempted to say, Trip’s canceled, and take them all home again. Except, then what? Did he drop Sean off alone at home and spend the day with Allie, the way he wanted to? Drop her off alone at home, and no matter how pissed he was spend the day with a kid who didn’t deserve to win this standoff, if that’s what it was?

To hell with it, he decided. We’re here. Maybe he’ll get over his snit. Or remember he likes her.

He set the emergency brake and turned off the engine. In the sudden silence, nobody moved. He watched a family hurrying in, looking eager. Close behind them came a woman and boy, maybe seven or eight, who had a dog with them on a leash. The dog’s tail wagged expectantly. The boy was crying, and Nolan realized in dismay that they weren’t here to adopt—they were here to get rid of their dog, who had not a clue what his fate was to be. God.

“Well,” he said. “I guess we should go in.”

He got out, waited until Sean opened his door, then locked up. Allie slid across the bench seat after his foster son. They walked across the parking lot themselves, Sean behind Nolan and Allie, letting the distance increase.

“I’m sorry,” Nolan said in a low voice. “I don’t know what got into him.”

“Maybe I should, I don’t know, wander off and look at cats or something while you two check out the dogs.”

“No,” he growled. “We invited you. He’s old enough to not act like a two-year-old ready to throw a temper tantrum.”

“No, but...” Allie let whatever she’d been going to say trail off. She sounded undeniably unhappy, and he didn’t blame her.

Opening the door and standing back for her to go ahead, Nolan then waited for his foster son. Sean slouched, dragging his feet, head hanging. Nolan was unhappily reminded of the first two times he’d encountered the boy. Maybe, it occurred to him, he’d been too hard on that first foster father. Nolan hadn’t liked the way the man had talked to Sean—but teenagers were darn good at goading their parents, biological and otherwise.

By the time Sean reached Nolan, Allie had crossed the lobby and was studying a bulletin board.

“Is this something you don’t want to do?” Nolan asked bluntly.

The boy flashed a look of alarm. “No! I mean, yeah. I do want a dog.”

“What’s the problem, then?”

“Why’d you have to bring her?”

“I did ask your permission.”

“Yeah, like, what could I say?” he sneered.

“‘No’? ‘Can we go by ourselves?’”

“Like that’s what you wanted to hear,” Sean said in a hushed, angry voice. “You weren’t really asking.”

Was I? Nolan asked himself, and in all honesty had to admit, Maybe I wasn’t. Damn it.

They pretty much had to go forward now.

The woman and boy with the poor, ignorant dog were talking to someone at the front desk. By the time Nolan reached it, another employee had come out to take the leash and lead the dog away. It belatedly tried to resist. The boy clutched his mother’s leg and cried silently. She had begun to fill out some required form and paid no attention to the suddenly scared animal. Nolan had developed an acute dislike for her, even though he realized there were legitimate reasons to have to give up a pet. He knew he shouldn’t judge so harshly without knowing her story.

Sean’s distress was obvious as he watched the dog disappear in back, but when he saw that Nolan was looking, he quickly resumed the sullen mask.

Nolan explained that they were here to look at dogs and they were allowed to go in back.

Rows of sparkling clean kennels were filled with dogs of every size and shape, half of them barking. The racket was astonishing. He hoped the cats were adequately insulated from it, or they’d be even more scared.

Sean seemed to shrink, and Nolan had the thought—yeah, a little late, huh—that possibly he would identify too closely with the abandoned animals that had become sucked into the maw of an authority they didn’t understand. He hadn’t gone to an institution, thank God, but how had he felt at having strangers look him over as they tried to decide if they wanted to take him into their home? The call to Nolan had undoubtedly been his attempt to grab back some element of control. He’d have told himself he had chosen Nolan.

And I wanted to think we’d recognized something in each other, Nolan thought ruefully. Self-delusion.

“Maybe this wasn’t the best place to start,” he said. “There’s a small, no-kill place in Arlington.”

“No,” Sean said with unexpected force. “These dogs, um, they need someone to take them home.”

Oh, yeah, he was identifying, all right. Good or bad? Nolan worried, as they wandered.

Allie tried to rejoin them, but Sean snubbed her so obviously she dropped back again. Once she exclaimed in delight, as she had at the zoo, and called, “Sean! Look at this guy. No, girl.”

Nolan turned. She had squatted, and was getting her hand thoroughly bathed by a scraggly creature of extremely mixed breeding. There had to be some terrier in there somewhere to explain the wiry hair. The tail was waving wildly.

“I saw it,” Sean said disagreeably, and turned his back.

Nolan was this close to announcing there’d be no dog. But, damn it, there were so many dogs that did need homes. There’ll be as many next week, he told himself, staring down at a heap of plump, brown-and-black bodies that writhed as the puppies wrestled.

Puppies were bound to get homes. Weren’t they? But he saw a number of litters when he looked around. And they were all going to be big dogs, mostly Lab or shepherd mixes. Really too big for the average city dweller. Down the row he saw the family he’d spotted in the parking lot now trying out a dog on a leash. Medium-sized, maybe a corgi mix, not one of the hapless black Labs.

Nolan’s mood deteriorated further. Allie became more and more closed in, her face showing little. When he tried to drop back by her side, she flapped her hand at him and said, “He needs your attention.”

“He doesn’t deserve my attention,” he said grimly.

“No, but...this won’t help matters.”

Sean glanced back, his expression hateful. Nolan ground his teeth some more and positioned himself halfway between woman and boy. They completed the circuit.

“See any that interest you?” Nolan asked.

The boy shrugged with clear insolence.

Nolan’s anger might be slow to catch fire, but enough was enough. “That’s it,” he declared. “Time to go home.”

Sean faced him, expression shocked. “What? But I haven’t...”

“You’ve had all the chance you’re getting. We’re leaving. Now.”

“That’s bullshit!” His voice rose. “Why’d you suggest this at all, when all you wanted was to be with her?”

Nolan gripped his arm. “We’re going now.”

Sean stumbled beside him. “I didn’t do anything!”

Feeling as if his face had become as stonelike as a carved monolith—an Easter Island moai, or a grim-faced pre-Columbian warrior figurine—Nolan stalked past Allie, half dragging Sean.

“Stop,” she snapped to their backs.

Nolan did, letting his hand drop from his boy’s arm. He turned reluctantly.

“You shouldn’t have set us all up for this,” she said quietly to him. Her eyes glittered gold with something that might have been rage, or incipient tears. Or both. Then she looked at Sean. “And you. Think! Any dog you saw today might be euthanized by next week, instead of going home with you. All because you’re mad at Nolan, or me.” Her head was so high, she had to be stretching her neck painfully. “I’m going outside to wait. You two do what you want.”

She brushed by them and pushed through the swinging door.

Nolan breathed an expletive under his breath. He’d deserved that. Sean wasn’t the only one behaving very badly. And to think he’d congratulated himself not that long ago on how even-tempered he was.

“Um...some of these dogs really are going to be killed this week?” Sean’s voice cracked.

Nolan hesitated. “Maybe. I don’t know, but...probably. There are never enough homes.”

“I guess I knew that.” He hesitated. “Which ones have the worst chance?”

“Big dogs.” Nolan had read enough about the problem of pet overpopulation to answer without hesitation. “Older ones.”

“There aren’t that many small dogs here.”

“No.”

The boy swallowed. “Do we have to go?”

“Sean.” When their eyes met, Nolan said, “You have to choose a dog that’s right for you, not only because you have some noble goal of saving it. You’re a kid. You’re entitled to...” He hesitated. “Take one home who will be fun. Even a puppy, if that’s what you want.”

Sean looked at him defiantly, his cheeks flushed. “Pedro was... He was a good dog, and he was old. I loved him.”

“Your grandmother’s dog.”

He nodded.

“What happened to him?”

“When she died, he was put down.” He shrugged jerkily. “I mean, I think it was the right thing to do. He was pretty sick. The vet said his kidneys were toast. Grandma kept saying she was going to do it, but she didn’t want to. You know?”

“I know.” Nolan took a chance and laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder. He gave a gentle squeeze and let go. “You’ve been a shit today.”

Sean ducked his head. “I just wanted...”

“I get it. I was insensitive.” You think? “I’ll say I’m sorry if you do the same.”

“Yeah. Okay,” he mumbled. “I shouldn’t have... I mean, I’m sorry.”

“All right. Were there any dogs that especially caught your eye?”

Of course there had been. Nolan kept thinking about Allie, waiting out in the hot sunlight in the parking lot. He should have given her the keys so she could at least sit in the truck. Maybe he should excuse himself... No. She knew this might take a while. She was probably hoping it would, that they didn’t emerge still angry at each other, sans dog.

They didn’t. Nolan inspected the three or four that had attracted Sean, and they finally came to a stop in front of the kennel that held a black Lab mix female that was supposedly five years old and, yes, cat- and kid-friendly. Her family had moved and had, for whatever unimaginable reason, been unable to take her.

Nolan thought again of the dog they’d seen being released earlier, but it was smaller and therefore probably less at risk.

The black Lab wasn’t barking at the front of the kennel, like many of the other dogs. She lay curled in the back, depression in the chocolate-brown eyes that watched them. Nolan noted her release date and wondered if she’d given up.

Sean coaxed her to her feet, and talked to her until she bumped her head against his hand and her tail gradually began to swing hopefully. They were allowed to put her on a leash and walk her outside, where she sniffed noses noncombatively with several other dogs and generally proved her good manners. She sat on command, and wrapped a long pink tongue around Sean’s wrist when he patted her.

“I want her,” Sean said, his glance anxious.

“I like her, too,” Nolan agreed, glad to feel no hesitation. He was well aware that the responsibility was ultimately his. When—if—Sean headed off to college, the dog would be staying behind with Nolan.

They were subjected to an interview and approved. Nolan filled out the papers and paid the fee, after which they walked out.

Allie waited, sitting on a curb, her arms wrapped around her knees, her expression pensive. She turned her head, saw them and didn’t move for a long moment. Her face was completely unreadable.

Nolan felt a chill of apprehension.