know, I know. Listen, I’m so sorry.” She pushed back the sleeve of her coat and squinted at her watch. “You waited—I can’t believe you stayed for twenty extra minutes. I prayed you would, but I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d left.”
The anger that had burned in him moments earlier evaporated so fast it shocked him.
“When did they turn Walnut into a dead-end street?”
“Years ago.” Of course she’d drive down the same street they’d used as teenagers. He’d forgotten the changes made over the last decade; it hadn’t occurred to him that she wouldn’t know. “You’re here now.”
“Yes…listen, I know I shouldn’t do this, but I can’t help myself.” Having said that, she slipped her arms around his waist and hugged him hard. His own arms went around her, too, tentatively and then with greater strength.
Closing his eyes and savoring the feel of her was a mistake, the first of many he knew he’d be making. She smelled like Christmas, somehow, and her warmth wrapped itself around him.
“Why’d you do that?” he asked gruffly as she released him and took a step back. He was trying to hide how damn good it’d felt to hold her.
“It’s the only way I could think of to thank you for staying, for believing in me enough to wait.”
“I wasn’t exactly enumerating your good points while I stood here freezing.”
“I know, I wouldn’t either—I mean, well, you know what I mean.”
He did.
Clearing off a space on the picnic table, Noelle climbed up and sat there just as she had when they were teenagers. “All right,” she said, drawing in a deep breath. “Let’s talk. Since you were the one to suggest we do this, you should go first.”
So she’d become a take-charge sort of woman. That didn’t surprise him. She’d displayed leadership qualities in high school, as well, serving on the student council and as president of the French Club. “All right, that’s fair enough.” She might be able to sit, but Thom couldn’t. He had ten years of anger stored inside and that made it impossible to stand still for long. “We argued, remember?”
“Of course I do. The argument had to do with our mothers. You said something derogatory about mine and I defended her.”
“As I recall, you had a less-than-flattering attitude toward my mother.”
“But you were the first…” She paused. “None of that’s important now. What we should be discussing is what happened afterward.”
Once again she was right. “We made up, or so I thought.”
“We made up because we refused to allow the ongoing feud between our mothers to come between us. Later that day, you wrote me a note and suggested we elope.”
Her voice caught just a little. He wanted so badly to believe her. It was a struggle not to. “I loved you, Noelle.”
She smiled, but he saw pain in her eyes and it shook him. For years he’d assumed that she’d used his love against him. That she’d stood him up just to hurt him. To humiliate him. He’d never really understood why. Was it vindication on behalf of her mother?
“We were going to confront our parents, remember?” Noelle said.
“Yes. I made a big stand, claiming how much I loved you and how I refused to let either of our mothers interfere in our lives. You should’ve heard me.”
“I did, too!” she declared. “I spilled out my guts to them. Can you imagine how humiliating it was to have to go back and confess that you’d tricked me—that you’d jilted me?”
“Me!” he shouted. “You were the one—”
Noelle held up both hands and he let his anger fade. “Something happened. It must have.” She pressed one hand to her heart. “I swear by all I consider holy that I’ve never lied to you.”
“You’re assuming I did?” he challenged.
“Yes. I mean no,” she cried, confused now. “Something did happen, but what?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I was here at three, just like I wrote you in the note.”
She frowned, and he wondered if she was going to try to tell him she hadn’t gotten his note. He knew otherwise because he’d personally seen Kristen hand it to her at school.
“The note said eight.”
“Three,” he insisted. Now it was his turn to look perplexed. “I wrote down three o’clock.”
“The note said…” She brought her hand to her mouth. “No, I refuse to believe it.”
“You think Kristen changed the time?”
“She wouldn’t do that.” She shook her head. “I know my sister, and she’d never hurt me like that.”
“How do you explain the discrepancy then?”
“I have no idea.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I remember it vividly. You’d sent it to me after your math class.”
His defenses were down. Time rolled back, and the events of that day were starting to focus in his mind. The fog of his pain dissipated. Finally he was able to look at the events with a clear head and an analytical eye.
“Kristen spilled soda on it,” Noelle said thoughtfully. “Do you think that might have smudged the number?”
“It might explain part of it—but not the nasty note you left on my windshield.”
She had the grace to blush at the reminder. “After waiting until after ten o’clock, I didn’t know what to do. It was pretty dark by then, and I couldn’t believe you’d just abandon me. I was positive something must’ve happened, so I phoned your house.”
He nodded, encouraging her to go on.
“Your father said you were out with your friends bowling. I went to the alley to see for myself.” Her voice tightened. “Sure enough, you were in there, boozing it up with your buddies.”
“Don’t tell me you actually thought I was having a good time?”
“Looked like it to me.”
“Noelle, I was practically crying in my beer. I felt…I felt as if I’d just learned about some tragedy that was going to change my whole life.”
“Why didn’t you call me? How could you believe I’d stand you up? If you loved me as much as you said, wouldn’t you make some effort to find out what happened?”
“I did.” To be fair, it’d taken him a day, but he had to know, had to discover how he could’ve been so mistaken about Noelle. “I waited until the following afternoon. Your mother answered the phone and said I’d already done enough damage. She hung up on me.”
“She
