after she’d left, she realized she’d been one more needy burden to a guy who’d carried his family on his back all his life. But now he looked even more disillusioned than he had the night she’d walked away. Four years hadn’t made him any happier.
“Come inside, Noah, and I’ll give you coffee.” Talking might ease the awkwardness between them. She was tired of ducking down alleys and around corners to avoid him.
Noah nodded. He paused to put a hand on Owen’s shoulder. His fingers were splayed, long and sure.
And kind.
Emma stared at the veins beneath his skin, the ridges of flesh on his knuckles. He could say he wasn’t in the business of protecting his family anymore, but he was lying to himself.
Noah loosened his tie as he crossed the threshold. “What do we need to talk about?”
She glanced back at Owen, who was gulping coffee from his thermos lid. His eyes bore dark circles. He hadn’t shaved in the five days he’d worked for her, and his hands shook as if he’d electrocuted himself with one of his own power tools. If he was drinking the hair of some dog, she might drag him up to the roof and throw him off herself. As Owen poured another cup, she shut the door and willed herself into a state of detachment.
“We need to get some things straight,” she replied.
He was lean, but he made the foyer seem small, despite its being as large as most of the apartments she’d rented in her wanderings across Europe and Asia. He dissected her with his gaze as if she were another problem he needed to solve.
She tugged at the hem of her T-shirt. Even with the windows open and a late-October breeze whipping fresh air into the house, Emma felt uncomfortably warm, too aware of the man. She turned down the hall, hiding her face from his intense gaze. Noah could read people in seconds and decide what came next.
Hence his skill at protecting his mother and siblings from their father.
After reaching the kitchen behind her, he walked around the island and took a couple of mugs from the long cabinet over the coffee maker. Just like the old days, when they’d visited her grandmother, who’d occasionally advised, but never judged or doubted that the guy from an abusive family belonged with the daughter of the town’s most scandalous woman.
“How long are you staying?” Noah asked.
“Gossip travels these hollows as fast as the breeze. I’m surprised no one’s told you I’m only here until Thanksgiving. The house should be finished by then.”
He poured the coffee for both of them and pushed one mug toward her. He turned back to the cabinet and took down sugar, then grabbed half-and-half from the fridge.
“So we don’t need to discuss anything. You’re just a visitor here. I’m never leaving Bliss. Case closed.”
“I don’t know if you think of me like most people here.”
He laughed, startling her. “Of course not. I was there, I saw everything, remember? Anyway, the very next day, I drove my father in his car to his brother’s in Kentucky, and then I took the bus back. He’s not welcome here.”
“I might have pushed him if he’d hurt my mother or Nan.” Or Noah. A piece of information she left in the past. “I’m not staying long, but I’ve dreaded seeing you.”
“No need.” Noah pulled at his tie once more. She must have imagined the tension she’d thought she’d seen in the movement. He seemed totally relaxed as he added cream to his coffee.
“We don’t owe each other explanations,” he said. “You left, and I stayed. That’s all we need to know.”
Then why did she feel as if she were testing an injury every time she saw him?
“I do wonder why you hired my brother,” Noah said.
“What?” If she meant nothing to him, why did he care? “Was I supposed to ask you before I hired him?”
“Answer me.”
She tried to see it through his eyes. “You think I might be using Owen to get at you?”
“Your father must have told you about Owen’s drinking. You came back for your dad’s wedding and Nan’s funeral. You must have heard about my brother.”
She rubbed the back of her neck as she remembered avoiding Noah at Nan’s service. She’d wanted to thank him for coming, but she hadn’t trusted herself. Her mother’s constant hunger for the next man had made her afraid Noah was her drug. There hadn’t been anyone as serious as him since she’d left.
“It’s an old habit,” he said, “trying to get my attention.”
Because he’d rarely focused it on her. “So you think I realized, after four years, I couldn’t possibly live without you, and then chose the one contractor who’d drag you to my home.”
“I just need to make sure you know that won’t work.” He looked straight at her, the kindness he’d shown Owen just as evident for her.
“Noah, I broke up with you, and I didn’t come back dying to worship at your arrogant feet.” Only, he wasn’t being arrogant. He was trying to let her down easy, just in case she needed letting down. The three years of their relationship had been an exercise in frustration she wouldn’t repeat for any reason. “I hired Owen to repair the termite damage to my house because his estimate was the one I could afford, and he has good references.”
Noah straightened the tie that seemed to be giving him so much trouble and drank from his coffee cup. “And we’re not getting involved again.”
“I only give my time now to people who deserve me,” she said. It would be true if any other man had mattered to her as much as Noah.
She had acquaintances, colleagues, clients in her website design business. No one who made her want to love again.
Noah took his mug to the porcelain sink she’d bleached to glowing perfection only that morning. “I should get out of here,” he said. “Why are you spring cleaning? Are you planning to sell?”
“It’s crossed my mind, but no. Nan just wouldn’t want me to neglect her belongings.”
“Yours now.”
“They’re still hers, but she’d hate the dust and grime.”
Owen, carrying a load of new pickets for the porch, stopped outside the open window and looked in. She shook her head, slightly.
Noah didn’t even look back. “Owen’s checking on you?”
“He’s still my friend.” Owen had always been like a brother to her. When she’d come back to town, they’d continued their friendship as if they’d been interrupted in midconversation. “You and I will have to work at being friends, but nothing’s changed between Owen and me.”
“Of course everything’s changed between us, Emma. You left, and you told me I could either come with you or we were through.”
“I
