Now a Major Motion Picture (17 page)

He had no idea why he was so on edge. Erin was the one meeting his family for the first time. She should be the nervous one, not him.

A minute later, she breezed back through the doorway, and his eyes popped open.

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

He pushed both suitcases out ahead of him and propelled himself forward. She reached out and snagged hers, and they walked at a brisk pace along the terminal’s main corridor toward the Avis counter. He wondered how they looked to passersby, Erin with her sunny smile and Texas drawl, him with his shirt untucked and worry lines between his eyes.

A few minutes later he was slinging their bags into the back of a compact sedan, and they were threading their way through the airport parking garage. He felt Erin’s eager eyes on him as he followed the signs out of the terminal and south onto the highway. She was bouncing up and down in her seat.

“Will Sam and Nicki be there when we get there?”

Both his sisters were coming to town for the wedding he and Erin were in Illinois to attend. His cousin Alison, who’d grown up a couple towns over from his hometown of Girard, was getting married, and it had seemed like the perfect opportunity to introduce his girlfriend to the entire family at once.

He sucked in a sharp breath and glanced over at Erin, who was watching him and biting her lip. Her eyes gleamed, and he smiled in spite of himself. She was just so damn excited.

“I think Nicki’s already there. Sam’s got a long way to drive. And with Jonas in the car, who knows?”

He felt his tension drain a little as his mind shifted to his family. He hadn’t seen his nephew in six months. Jonas had just turned two, which meant he’d be a totally different kid from the eighteen-month-old he’d seen at Christmas. They changed so fast at that age.

So far, Jonas was the only Bradley grandkid. Nicki—at twenty-six, the youngest of his siblings—was nowhere close to settling down. She’d traveled the farthest to go to school, Colorado, and she’d moved the farthest away after getting her degree. She lived in San Francisco, where she worked as an assistant curator at the city’s modern art museum. His eyes sparked as he thought about seeing his kid sister. She was fun to pick on.

He moved over the familiar roadways on autopilot as Erin kept up the game of twenty questions.

“What’s your mom like? I mean, you’ve talked about her, but I don’t really know what to expect. Do you think she’ll like me?”

He glanced over at her again, reading in her face that she wasn’t really worried—she just wanted affirmation.

Basically, she’d set herself up.

“Hmm…”

He gave her a speculative look, but didn’t say anything else. After a long, silent moment, she swatted him on the arm, and he grinned.

“Yes, she’s going to love you. She’s downright ecstatic that you’re coming.”

He regretted the response the second it left his mouth.

“Really? Have you brought many girls home to meet your parents?”

He glanced over at her again. The look she gave him was teasing, but he could see real curiosity burning beneath the surface.

Noah stifled a groan—there was no right answer to this question. He was thirty years old. If he said no, he seemed like a loser. If he said yes…well, for one thing, he’d be lying.

“Well, now, wouldn’t you like to know?”

She pursed her lips, feigning annoyance, and raised her eyebrows.

He sighed.

“No. Actually, you’re the first.” He cringed as he glanced back over at her. Her eyes were as wide as Texas, though he knew the answer shouldn’t have been surprising.

“The
first?
Really? I’m honored.” She studied him for a second and then added, “Well, the first since Amelia.”

His lips pressed into a straight line. That was one topic he didn’t want to discuss with Erin, and she knew it. He felt his stomach tighten into a knot and realized she’d hit on the source of his earlier tension. Considering the fact that she really was the first girl he’d brought home since Amelia, comparisons this weekend were inevitable.

He thought about the coming introductions.

His mom truly
was
ecstatic that after all these years, he’d met someone—someone he cared about enough to drag all the way up to central Illinois to meet his family. His parents had loved Amelia like she was one of their own daughters, and he had no doubt they’d love Erin, too. But would they love her as much? Did
he
love her as much?

Their relationship had started slow, mostly because of him and his unrelenting workload. In the first couple of months they’d seen each other only two or three times, but then he’d had a little time between projects and they began to date in earnest. Before he knew it, he’d found himself in the first full-fledged relationship he’d had in nearly eight years. In the last six months, the topic of Amelia had come up, but he’d stuck to the basics: Erin knew he’d started dating Amelia in high school and that they’d dated throughout college, gotten engaged, and broken off the engagement in their senior year.

She didn’t know why the wedding was called off. She’d brought it up a couple of times, but his body stiffened and his jaw clenched every time Amelia’s name was mentioned, kind of like they were doing now.

Erin knew he didn’t like to talk about it, and he figured she’d made her own assumptions. He glanced at her and realized she was still waiting for a response. He swallowed hard.

“Yes, the first other than Amelia.” He had to force the name off his tongue.

Erin started to say something else, but stopped short when she finally seemed to notice the uncomfortable set of his jaw. He hated doing that to her, but Amelia just wasn’t an open subject. If he could help it, she never would be.

“Hey, we just passed the city limits sign.” He forced himself to smile. “Welcome to the giant metropolis of Girard, Illinois, population a whopping two thousand, five hundred.”

The distraction was effective. Erin’s eyes flew to the window as she took in her first glimpse of the slow-moving town.

“Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever even
been
to a town this small.” She turned her smiling eyes on him and shrugged. “Because, you know, everything’s bigger in Texas.”

His grin was real this time. “That’s right. Guess that’s why I had to move there.” He waggled his eyebrows.

“Ohmigosh, you’re so funny. And so original. I’ve never heard a guy make a penis joke before.” She rolled her eyes.

He snickered, relieved she wasn’t still talking about Amelia.

“Who’s joking?”

She’d stopped paying attention to him. He followed her gaze through the windshield, and all at once he saw his hometown through a new lens. The streets were narrow, the buildings small and homey. Overall, the town looked dingier than he remembered, but it exuded a pleasant simplicity, a protective sort of charm.

He glanced at the speedometer and eased his foot off the gas pedal—the speed traps in Girard weren’t so pleasant.

He cruised past the Prairie State Bank & Trust, the turnoff to the high school, the Food Mart. He made a left onto Madison and passed by Little Italy’s Pizza. Its red-and-green sign had faded in the fifteen years or so since he’d last hung out there—the “a” in pizza was mostly rubbed out, the pie above the logo blurred by age and years of harsh prairie winds. He swung a right onto his parents’ street and glanced at Erin.

“Well, now you know all there is to know about me. You’ve seen my humble roots.”

“I doubt that, Noah Bradley.” Her astute eyes met his. “You are quite the enigma. I bet there’s plenty to learn about you here.”

His eyebrows shot up as he pulled the dark-red sedan into the driveway of the two-story house he’d grown up in. His family had moved here when he was two years old, a few months before Samantha was born. He watched Erin take in the crisp gray siding, the gently peeling black shutters, the L-shaped front porch with its white-painted stone pilasters and wide concrete steps. Not a thing had changed in the years since he’d left.

He cut the car’s engine and returned Erin’s gaze.

“That sounds like a threat.”

“It does, does it?” She raised an eyebrow. “That must mean I’m onto something. Am I gonna find some skeletons in your closet? Because, you know, I’ve always found you a little too good to be true.” She leaned toward him on the last sentence, her eyes twinkling.

He ducked his head and kissed the tip of her nose before clicking his seatbelt unlocked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He opened his car door and stepped onto the black pavement. He reached up and rubbed the side of his forehead with one hand.

“Ugh. I guess you’re about to find out. Let’s get this over with.”

* * *

The introductions went smoother than he could have hoped. As soon as they reached the porch steps, Melanie flung open the front door—she must have been watching from the front window for them to drive up. She turned and yelled into the house, “Geoff, they’re here,” and then stepped onto the porch and scooped Erin into a tight embrace.

“Erin, it’s so nice to finally meet you!” Her blue eyes sparkled. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Same here,” Erin said, laughing. “It’s great to meet you, too.”

Melanie, petite, blonde, and younger-looking than her fifty-five years, moved on to Noah. She reached up to hug him, rolling onto her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek.

“Sweetheart, it’s wonderful to have you home. I’ve missed you.”

He returned the squeeze, embarrassed by her exuberance.

“Mom, it hasn’t been
that
long.”

His father appeared behind them in the entryway.

“Son,” he said in a booming voice. He grinned and nodded at Noah.

“This is Erin, Dad.” He gestured toward her.

“I figured that,” he said, laughing. He looked at Erin. “It’s so good to have you here.”

She stepped forward and into his embrace.

“It’s nice to meet you.” Her voice was soft, polite, and Noah watched in amusement—he’d never seen her so reserved. “Thank you all for inviting me.”

“Well, of course. And come in, come in,” Melanie said, stepping back over the threshold. “I’ve just made dinner. I’m sure you two are starving after your trip.”

“I could eat.” Noah’s grin was a mirror image of his father’s.

“Of course you can. I stocked the fridge as soon as I heard you were coming.” Melanie winked in Erin’s direction. “That’s my Noah.”

Erin smiled, too, and followed her through the front door while Noah and his dad jogged down the front steps to bring the bags in from the car. When they entered the house a couple minutes later, Erin was standing near the entrance to the dining room chatting with Nicki, who had, in fact, beaten them into town.

Noah wandered into their midst, ruffling his sister’s hair with one hand.

“Watch it, bro.” She ducked out of his reach. “I’m not five anymore, you know.”

“You’ll always be a kid to me.” He stepped aside to avoid the punch she’d intended for his bicep and slid his arm across Erin’s shoulders. “I see you’ve met Erin.”

He took his first real glance at Nicki, dark-haired like their father and tall and svelte like him. She looked even more grown up and polished than the last time he’d seen her, and the thought made him shake his head, incredulous. Then she turned right back into the sister he knew, bursting his bubble of pride.

“Yep, told her to proceed at her own risk,” Nicki said, her voice grave. “She doesn’t know what she’s getting herself into.”

Noah glowered at her. “Well, welcome to the Bradley household, Erin,” he said. “It’s like this all the time.”

Erin smiled, her eyes moving between the two of them. “This is going to be a fun weekend.”

It took a few more minutes of his and Nicki’s teasing before Erin loosened up and joined in the sarcasm, which wasn’t like her. She’d been a tiny bit more nervous than she’d let on, he thought. Soon, though, she and Nicki had formed a common bond: picking on him. A smile played at the corners of his lips.

They were still standing outside the dining room when Melanie rushed in, wiping her hands on a dish towel. She ushered Erin upstairs and showed her around for a couple of minutes before hurrying back down to put food on the table. Noah, meanwhile, hefted their bags up the staircase in the center of the house. He dropped his off in his old room and rolled hers down the hardwood floor of the hallway toward the guest room. When he walked in, she was standing at the foot of the bed, her fingers tracing the stitches of a quilt that was folded over the footboard. It had been made by his grandmother. The room’s blue walls, honey pine furniture, and cross-stitched wall art hadn’t changed in years. It oozed his mom’s heartland, Americana sensibilities.

Noah moved behind Erin, wrapping his arms around her waist and resting his chin on the top of her head. Neither spoke for several seconds.

“So what do you think?”

She spun to face him.

“Your family is wonderful, Noah. Seriously incredible.”

“Yeah, they’re pretty great.” He looked her in the eyes. “They love you, you know. I can already tell.”

She smiled. “I love
you
,” she said, standing on her tiptoes to kiss him on the mouth. The kiss lasted a few seconds longer than he expected, and Noah groaned.

“Now, none of that here,” he mumbled against her lips. “Separate rooms, you know. And we’re under strict lock and key. My mom’s very old-fashioned.” He winked and pushed the door closed with his foot.

She grinned. “Like mother, like son.”

He tightened his arms around her, his mouth moving over hers in a way that didn’t feel old-fashioned. She had it half right, though. Their relationship
had
moved slowly in that area. It just hadn’t been his idea.

His mind swung to their first conversation about sex. It had happened a couple of weeks after they’d started seriously dating—the first time they were in a situation where it seemed likely to happen.

They’d just gotten back to his condo after seeing a band at the Granada on Greenville Avenue. It was a Saturday night, but after the show they decided to go home rather than follow Mark and Hilary, the friends they’d been out with, to another bar.