Don't Let Go (36 page)

“Oh, wow.”

“I’m serious!” she said. “We could be part-time students together.”

I laughed, tickled at her sudden gusto. But would that just tease me back into something I didn’t have time for? Then again, why the hell not.

“Get me the info,” I said. “I might just take you up on that.”

“Deal.”

Our food came and I took that fried food down like it was my last meal. I looked at it as only the beginning of a heartburn-filled weekend. The chili cook-off guaranteed the rest.

Sitting back, fat and happy, I studied Becca’s demeanor. It was like the weight of the world had been lifted. How is it that I never saw how simple that would be?

“I want to be with you when you get your tattoo,” I said.

Another look of astonishment. I was really learning to love that shock value.

“Who
are
you?” she said, looking at me like I’d sprouted horns.

I opened my mouth to respond something cute, and then paused and closed it. “Maybe someone I wished my mom could have been,” I said. “And seriously, I want to be sure you’re at a safe place—it’ll be my graduation present. Start researching it.”

Her jaw dropped. “Seriously, you’re trusting me? With all of this? School and everything?

Burn. Again.

“Yeah,” I said. “I am.”

And that, dear Mother, is how it’s done.

• • •

There was a letter stuck in my door when we got home, like I’d closed it in the jamb a couple of times. Must have missed it. Wasn’t hard to figure out the pretty handwriting on the envelope, but it made my stomach hurt just the same.

I waited till Becca left to open it.

Hey Jules,

Short and sweet, but if you don’t know already, I’m going back home. I need family around to do this thing alone, and it’s not Noah’s fault about that. I’m actually glad it all came out, because I don’t think I would have had the stamina to hold that secret forever. And that would have been even more wrong.

I just wanted to tell you good-bye. You have been a really good friend to me. One I would have never expected to have, and I was blessed to know you.

He loves you, Jules. That’s a hard thing for me to write . . . it took me a few minutes to do it. But it’s true, and impossible to miss. And it’s okay, because I feel in my gut that it’s probably meant to be that way. I think you still love him, too, although you don’t admit it, maybe not even to yourself. You two have that thing that we all hope to find. Cherish that. Take care of him.

Love always,

Your friend, Shayna

I was trembling as I read it again, and folded it up. Yeah, I was a great friend, all right.

I laid in bed awake a long time that night after Becca left, watching the shadows on the walls move with the sway of the tree outside. Listening to the many settling noises of an old house, that only seem noticeable when the life inside goes quiet.

Somehow, I’d found the secret key with my daughter. Ironically, it was the same one I’d always needed myself, and my mother refused it time after time. All the way to her grave. I was so grateful that I learned this lesson now, so that Becca hopefully had a chance at the life she wanted. Or at least the opportunity to try. And maybe she wouldn’t be lying awake at forty-three, lamenting her life and cursing me.

I pulled my phone from my bedside table and pulled up my photos. One in particular. Seth and Noah looking at me, making my heart hurt again.
You still love him, don’t you?
Becca had said.
He loves you, Jules.

I’d spent a week of nights just like this, falling asleep to the memory of being in his arms. Remembering every touch and every kiss and every inflection of each word we’d said since he hit town. And every look. God, those looks of his—they were worth more than a million words. Did he go to sleep every night remembering those things? Could he close his eyes and smell me the way I could him?

My heart, that I’d kept protected and sealed off for so many years, even in some ways from Hayden, was now open and exposed and battered. Over a man that was taken, or so I thought. Now, all my wonderings over whether they were going to work things out—if he decided to take on another man’s child—that was all null and void. And meant nothing if he was leaving.

If he was leaving.

A very selfish and immature imp inside me kept asking how he could leave. When a second chance was right there for the taking. When he could look at me like he did—how in holy hell could he walk away again?

But that wasn’t the reality of the world. We weren’t independently wealthy people who didn’t need incomes. And Copper Falls held only grief and pain and bad memories for him. So, the logical thing to do would be to go.

I’d survived it before. I’d do it again.

And there was something else. Something that kept circling around after my talk with Becca. Something that made my heart race every time I considered it, and reminded me of the exhilaration on her face.

It was going to be a long night.

Chapter 24

It was freezing out. Not really, but colder than my thin robe and bare feet like to dance with for long. Luckily, my newspaper was just a few feet off the porch, and Mrs. Mercer couldn’t frown too much about my attire.

Not that I cared. Mrs. Mercer was likely the only one to ever see me that undressed again.

But it was okay. Just not being depressed on this day was a first. For the first time in so many years, I could face January 29 with joy, because I knew the person it belonged to.

“You should teach Harley to come pick that up for you,” said a voice to my left as I stooped to pick it up; it sent my skin to a whole new level of goose bumps.

I dropped the paper as I whirled around, leaned over to pick it up again, and stood up feeling like a jumping bean. How the hell did he always manage to catch me naked? And then that thought dissolved as the expression on Noah’s face warmed me from my very core on out.

Gone were the tortured, troubled, conflicted expressions that I’d become used to seeing on his face. In its place was a calm, a contentment. Dare I say he even looked happy? Had that been there last night?

They offered him his dream job.

He was leaving. This was my good-bye.

Everything in me died.

“I—um—well, if I did that, what exercise would I get?” I said.

Jesus, what drivel was that? I wrapped my arms around myself and wished for an ankle-length robe. One that wasn’t sending frigid air and too-close-to Noah-vibes up into my girlie parts. No, it wasn’t just being so close. It was the look. Not the death glare. Something entirely different, and damn it to hell I was just getting used to the other one.

“Today is Seth’s birthday,” Noah said, not blinking.

“Yes, it is,” I said, a small smile pulling at my lips. “First time I can actually put a name to it.”

“Do you have to work today?”

What the hell was this? “Yes, it’s the first day of the carnival, it’ll be crazy down there.” I licked my lips and adjusted my robe. “What’s up, Noah?”

His expression grew real. Too real. “Wanted to talk to you.”

I nodded, feeling my heart go numb. “Okay.”

“But what’s Mrs. Mercer gonna say when I follow you into your house now, with you just wearing that?” Noah said, gesturing toward me and then waving toward her window.

Was he playing with me? I couldn’t tell. He was different, but if he was jacking with my head, it wasn’t funny. I tilted my head to study his eyes and clenched the paper tighter in my hand.

“Follow me in?” My knees started to shake for reasons that had little to do with the cold. “That’s okay, we can talk out here.”

“You aren’t quite dressed for it,” he said, his voice smooth.

“If you came to tell me good-bye, Noah, I’d rather it not be in my house,” I said. I was pretty impressed that the words made it out of my mouth without pause or stutter.

His eyes narrowed just slightly. “And if I came to tell you I love you?” he said, taking a step closer. “Do I get to come in then?”

All my breath whooshed out of me like a hippopotamus sat on my chest, hope dancing around on top, and the newspaper landed on my foot with a thud.

“Not fair,” I whispered.

Noah’s eyes smiled as he picked up the paper at my feet and rose again only inches away. “Never claimed to play fair,” he said.

His smell enveloped me, subtle and oh so sexy, making my senses take off like a tornado. I wanted to climb inside his jacket and live there forever. But that wasn’t an option. For days I’d waited. Waited for this moment. For him to leave again. To tell him good-bye. And now—what the hell did he just say?

My mouth worked with rapid-fire questions pinging my brain, but it wouldn’t form the words.

“Shayna’s gone,” he said.

“You said that last night,” I said. “I’m sorry. I know you wanted that.”

“We weren’t going to make it, Jules,” he said. “We both knew it. It was a last-ditch effort we were making for the baby.” His jaw tightened. “But now—”

“You could have been—”

“I’m taken, Jules.” Noah’s hands landed on my upper arms, and the heat branded me through the thin fabric. “I always have been, I was just too bullheaded to face it.”

“So what are you saying?” I asked, my head swimming.

“Clearly not enough,” he said, laughing. “Did you miss the part earlier when I said—”

“No, I heard you,” I said, my fingers landing on his lips to keep him from saying it again. “That’s back where my heart stopped, I’m pretty clear on it.” His eyes darkened with desire at my touch, and that along with the feel of his mouth under my fingertips sent heat to every inch of my body. Was it possible to sweat in forty-degree weather with nothing on but a piece of faux silk? I dropped my hand but he caught it, holding it against his chest. Yeah, not better. “I just—it’s not that simple, Noah.”

“Oh, yes, it is,” he said, using my hand to pull me closer. “It’s what I should have depended on back then, and I didn’t.” His gaze bored into mine. “I won’t make that mistake again.”

“But your job interview,” I began. “It—you got what you wanted, didn’t you? I can see it on your face.”

“Really? I’m that eaten up that my
job
is what’s on my face right now?” he said. “Because that is very much
not
what I’m trying to say.”

“So you did get it?”

“I did,” he said, so close that I could feel the heat from his body.

My breathing quickened. “And?”

“And it’s a job, not a life,” he said. “I’ve had it the other way around. This time’s different. Part of the deal was that I live wherever I want,” he finished. “With the woman I love.” His hands slid upward into my hair, holding my head as he leaned his face toward mine. “I . . . am . . . taken,” he said softly, not blinking. “Do you understand?”

My heart was thundering in my ears. “Starting to catch on.”

His lips brushed my forehead and then moved down my cheek. “Thank God.”

“Hmm,” I whispered, my hands moving upward to his face all on their own. “No more obstacles?”

“Nothing.”

“No girlfriends—”

“Maybe one girlfriend, if she’ll have me,” he said, his lips touching mine lightly and making my bare toes curl on the sidewalk.

“No ‘Love Shack’?” I said against his mouth.

“I’ll throw my phone in the toilet,” he said, claiming my lips with his. “I’m yours.” It was the friggin’ sexiest thing anyone had ever said to me.

His mouth was warm and electric and on fire. And mine. He was mine. Hot emotion burned my eyes at that realization as I wound my arms around his neck and pulled his head in tighter to me. The ground left me as he lifted me off my feet, kissing me like a man starved.

“We should probably go in,” he said finally on a breath, then kissing me again. “Mrs. Mercer’s going to have cardiac arrest.”

“So might I,” I breathed.

“You don’t have a man upstairs again, do you?”

“Not today, it’s been a slow week.”

He chuckled and drew my bottom lip between his teeth, running his tongue along it and making my fingers tingle. “For me, too.”

“We should remedy that.”

Noah groaned against my lips, and I felt his fingers flex in my hair and around my waist where he held me up. “Is that an invitation?”

It was everything in my power not to wrap my legs around him right there in the front yard and hump him like a dog. God, I’d never wanted or needed anyone more than I wanted him.
Right there
.

“I love you, Noah,” I said with every ounce of everything I had in me, and relishing the rush of emotion that passed across his face.

“Those are good words,” he said, his voice a whisper.

“Yeah,” I whispered back.

Gently, he set me on my feet and took my hand, and we walked up the porch steps and through the front door. Harley was back asleep on the couch, guard dog that she was, but I was grateful. I didn’t want the distraction. I didn’t want him to have to stop for anything.

I didn’t even pause to turn around as he closed the door behind us. I walked steadily up the stairs, letting the robe slip off me as I went.

“Jesus,” I heard him mutter under his breath before the sounds of footsteps followed me.

By the time I reached my bedroom, my need was cranked so high he could have made me orgasm from the stairway. And the look on his face when he reached the doorway and I turned to face him just about did it.

His eyes did a slow drag of my body, stopping at my face with a look of so much—everything—I had to grip the bedpost behind me. Not in twenty-six years had I seen intensity like that. Desire, lust, love, happiness and—raw energy. He approached me slowly, never taking his eyes off mine, and when he simply pushed a strand of hair from my eyes, my knees nearly buckled.

“Say it again,” I whispered raggedly.

“I love you, Jules,” he said, his eyes dark with heat and love and something primal. Shit, that took my breath away. “And you’re lucky I didn’t know you were naked under that robe or we’d have never made it to the porch.”