Now a Major Motion Picture (19 page)

At the other end of the table, Sam and Andy were trying to keep Jonas from smearing food all over himself and them. Noah laughed as a spoonful of eggs flew off his purple, plastic spoon and landed in a buttery clump beside Geoff’s coffee mug.

“No-no, Jonas,” Sam said in the tone of a mother who’d uttered the words a hundred times since sunrise.

“Here you go, little man. Want your eggs back?” Geoff reached down to scoop the bite up with his spoon and fly it toward Jonas’ mouth, making the requisite airplane sounds. At the last second, he whizzed it away and shoved it in his own mouth. Jonas squealed with laughter and sent another spoonful of eggs flying across the table.

“All right, Dad. Stop encouraging him,” Sam said, trying not to smile.

Andy snickered and peeled the new clump of eggy mess from the table beside his plate. He popped it into Jonas’ open mouth.

As Noah watched the scene unfold, his stomach twisted with an unexpected pang of jealousy. Thinking back to his revelation the night he’d first kissed Erin, he envisioned the two of them in Sam and Andy’s place. He wanted what they had, wanted it bad.

His eyes followed his thoughts back to Erin. She was still talking to Nicki, oblivious to the toddler drama taking place at the other end of the table.

That doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t want kids.

He couldn’t believe he was worrying about this.
Isn’t it usually the woman who feels her biological clock ticking?
He laughed inwardly at himself and brushed off the thought.

* * *

That afternoon, Sam and Nicki left to get their hair done for the wedding, and Melanie and Jonas went with them. Leaving Geoff and Andy in front of the TV, Noah and Erin headed out for a tour of Girard.

It didn’t take long, of course. He drove her through the town square, past a few old friends’ houses, his church, his schools. As he made the rounds of forgotten streets, he looked at the old place—really looked at it—for the first time in years. Every trip he’d made here since he’d left had been a blur of family and photos and hugs and home-cooked meals. He hadn’t passed a substantial stretch of time in this town in nearly a decade. He found it unchanged, solid, as if it were suspended in time.

The constancy wasn’t comforting.

There was a reason he’d rushed through his visits here, a reason he’d driven through the town’s streets without seeing. Every sidewalk, every building, every blade of grass had her in it. Amelia was everywhere here, in everything he saw.

His mind was far away when Erin’s voice reeled it back in. He’d slowed to a stop at the edge of the middle school parking lot. It had been the junior/senior high school when he’d lived here, but since then, Girard’s school system had merged with the next town’s and the high school had moved there. Without realizing it, he’d angled his car away from the old brick building and toward the ball fields where he’d spent countless hours of his youth.

“Did you play?”

“Yeah.” His voice was scratchy, and he cleared his throat as he looked over at her. “I pitched three years. We won state my junior year.” His eyes glazed over as his mind traveled to that night, that party where his life had seemed to start.

“Wow. You never told me that.”

She stared past him at the empty diamond, its rough, grassy edges unkempt against the same old chain-link fence that had bordered the field when he’d played on it. He watched her, wondered what she was thinking.

“Did you play in college, too?”

He sucked in a sharp breath. “No. I had a scholarship offer at the U of I, but I turned it down to go to Brayburn. I could have walked on there, but there wasn’t really much of a program.” He smiled ruefully. “I played a little intramural ball. My fraternity won the intramural cup my whole four years.”

She studied him for a few seconds and then smiled the impish smile he loved. “Guess that explains the
Fever Pitch
-level Cubs obsession.”

He smiled back, appreciating what she was trying to do. But his eyes were serious.

“No. That came from Dad. The Cubs were our thing. We were totally outnumbered, right? Surrounded by women. Whenever all the estrogen started to get to us”—he grinned at her, and she rolled her eyes—”we’d drive up to Chicago and go to a game, just him and me.”

He looked away from her and stared out over the field. Spinning in his mind was a photo reel of him and Geoff, him in his playing days, him with Amelia.

After several seconds, he was conscious of Erin’s eyes on him.

“You see,” she said after a long moment, “I knew I’d learn a lot about you here.”

He put the car in reverse, but didn’t disagree. Suddenly he was in hurry to get out of this place, back to the safe distractions of home.

On the way there, he realized too late that the route he’d taken was going to lead them straight past Amelia’s old house, a place he hadn’t laid eyes on in years. He didn’t even know if her mother still lived there. He drove up the street in a silence so heavy it was almost reverent, his stomach tied up in knots. He forced his eyes to stay on the road and away from the familiar white structure with its sprawling, sagging front porch. But as he passed it, an odd movement caught his attention. He glanced left and his eyes locked for a split second with Brooke’s, who was on the sidewalk with one hand on the lid of her mailbox. Although the exchange was instantaneous—too quick for even a wave—he caught the shock of recognition on her face and was sure his expression mirrored hers.

He swung his gaze to Erin, whose eyes were lit with curiosity.

“Did you know that woman? She seemed like she knew you.”

He worked to keep his voice steady. “Yeah, um, small town. I know just about everybody.”

He flashed a shaky smile and turned onto Third Street.

“We’re almost home. Time to get ready, I guess. Sorry I’m dragging you to all this boring family stuff.”

She reached over and put a hand on his leg. “Don’t be sorry—that’s what we’re here for. And it’s not boring. Your family’s great.”

“Yeah, well, they feel the same way about you.” His voice caught on the last word. “I’m happy you’re having a good time.”

“I’m happy you invited me here.” As he eased the car to a stop in his parents’ drive, she leaned sideways and rested her head on his shoulder. “It means a lot to me.”

He turned her chin toward him and brushed a kiss across her lips.

“You mean a lot to me,” he said, still numb inside from the encounter with his past.

* * *

That night, Noah moved with Erin on the battered parquet dance floor in the banquet room of the Auburn Golf Club, the town’s nicest—and only, really—reception hall. A disco ball spun a multicolored web of light above them as they swayed to the swells of a too-loud ballad, typical wedding stuff.

I was right to bring her here
, he thought, watching the strands of color weave in and out of Erin’s hair and glint off her skin. She loved him, his family loved her. The world was starting to make sense.

They were dancing close, the curves of her body pressed into his.

“You know it’s impolite to outshine the bride at a wedding, right?” His voice in her ear was husky. “You look unbelievably hot right now.”

Her thick, dark hair was pulled away from her face, her shoulders bare except for a thin strap that looped around her neck. High heels, a rarity for her, put them on more equal footing, but he still towered over her by at least half a foot. From his vantage point, the swells of her breasts were just visible above the neckline of her black-and-white dress.

She flushed and looked up at him from under her lashes. “You’re not so bad yourself, Noah Bradley.”

The slow song ended, and the deejay followed it up with the “Cha Cha Slide.” Noah groaned as people streamed onto the dance floor around them and began forming into lines. The mingling scents of perfume, floral arrangements, and body heat were too much to take.

“Slide to the left.”

A girl in spiky heels and a tight, silver dress bumped into him as she slid to the right. He brushed his fingers along Erin’s arm, grabbed her hand, and tugged.

“Why don’t we go outside?” he shouted over the music. He gestured toward a set of double doors, one of which was open to a brick terrace that overlooked the ninth tee.

“Left foot let’s stomp.”

“Okay,” Erin mouthed, nodding. She kept her hand in his and trailed him past the lines of cha-chaing dancers toward the doorway.

Once they’d crossed the threshold, his lungs expanded to absorb the silky air of the mild June night. The smell of damp, fresh-cut grass hit his nose, a welcome change from the stuffy reception hall.

The terrace was more crowded than he’d expected, almost as packed as inside. He felt a prick of disappointment as his eyes roved the edges of the space in search of a quiet spot. Instead, he found his sisters, who were sitting at one of four big, round metal tables clustered along the east end of the patio. Three other women were with them—the bride’s sister Jennifer, another cousin named Caryn, and a friend of Nicki’s Noah recognized from years past…Marcy or Molly or something.

He gave up on the idea of alone time and drifted in their direction, Erin still trailing behind him. The women were absorbed in conversation, and he caught a few sentences before anybody noticed their approach.

“It’s crazy, right?” Nicki threw her hands up in an exaggerated shrug. “You know what’s crazier? I don’t think he even knows. I started to say something a couple nights ago, and I thought he was gonna take my head off at the sound of her na—”

“Oh, hey guys,” Sam said in a loud voice, cutting Nicki off. She giggled.

Noah stiffened as Nicki’s words registered in his mind. He shot Sam a quizzical look, but she just smiled, her face blank.

“How are you holding up, Erin?” Sam said, her voice warm. “I hope all this family stuff’s not driving you nuts. We wouldn’t want to scare you off.”

Erin laughed quietly, her eyes on Noah. “I’m having a great time.” She tore her gaze away from him to look at Sam. “It’s the opposite—you might not be able to get rid of me.”

Sam held her placid smile, and Nicki, who’d been frozen in place, relaxed and smiled, too. Noah frowned. What the hell was going on? He’d forgotten all about his weird conversation with Nicki in the kitchen Thursday night, but it came back to him now with sudden clarity. What had they just been talking about, and what did it have to do with Amelia? His lips formed a question, but before he could ask it, Sam dragged Erin into the women’s midst and shooed him away.

“Outta here, brother. Time to quit hogging Erin and give us some girl time.”

He didn’t move. As the girls rearranged themselves to give Erin room to sit down, he gave Sam a long look, but she stubbornly ignored it. Exasperated, he finally wandered off. He found Andy at the far side of the deck talking to Noah’s uncle, John, and cousin, Eli. He wedged himself in beside them and attempted to join their conversation, but after two or three minutes he realized he hadn’t heard a thing they’d said. His mind was tracing over and over Nicki’s words.

He glanced back at the other group. They were talking and laughing, and Erin was laughing along with them. But as he watched, she turned away from the others, her eyes searching the patio until they locked with his. A moment later, one of his aunts stuck her head through the open doorway and announced that Alison was about to throw the bouquet.

All the girls jumped up, breaking his and Erin’s gaze, and the crowd on the terrace thinned as guests moved inside. In what seemed like no time, Alison and her new husband, Brent, were climbing into a white limo and the party was winding down.

In the car on the way back to Girard, Noah was quieter than usual. Beside him, Erin talked in a chipper voice about the wedding and Alison’s dress and the aunts and cousins she’d met and what they’d said to her. He nodded and mm-hmm’d and answered her questions, but he had a hard time focusing on them.

When a few minutes had gone by without any chatter, he glanced over and realized she was studying his silent, brooding form.

“Is everything okay?” she asked. “You’ve been quiet since we left.”

A spasm of guilt ran through him.

“Yeah, I’m sorry. Just a little family overload, I think. I’m really glad you got a chance to meet everybody. It’s been a good trip, huh?”

“It’s been a great trip,” she said with feeling. “Better than I’d expected.”

He turned his eyes from the road long enough to glimpse her sheepish expression, and then laughed.

“What’s that supposed to mean? What’d you expect?”

She bit her lip, her eyes unreadable in the darkened car. “I don’t know…nothing,” she said. “I just didn’t know if it’d be weird, you know? The whole meeting-the-family part. This is still new to me. It’s been a long time since I’ve done the whole serious relationship thing.”

He stared straight ahead. “Tell me about it.”

They rode in silence for a few minutes, the engine’s hum and the crackling drone of a Springfield rock station the only noises in the car. Fields stretched for miles on either side of the four-lane highway, the tender shoots of early crops inky black against the moonlit sky. In the distance, the lights of a coal mine twinkled like an eerie, deserted theater that had lost its audience.

Erin’s voice was the first to break the stillness.

“What’s next for us, Noah?” She didn’t look at him.

He swallowed hard. His eyes left the road again as he studied her in the dim light flickering from the dashboard. He’d been asking himself the same question just the day before, but tonight, things felt like they’d shifted in some indeterminate way.

“I don’t know. I’m happy with the way things are going, though.”

She didn’t answer for a long time.

“I love you,” she finally said, and the words were tinged with a melancholy he didn’t understand. “I didn’t expect to love you this much.”

By then the lights of town had replaced the blue-blackness of the wide swaths of farmland. He turned off the main road and onto the narrow residential streets that led to his childhood home.