“—I haven’t had the heart to change anything.” She paused, took a second look and added, “Yet.”
Curiosity nudged at Noah. He wanted to know more, like what she meant by “yet.” And why she seemed to hold back parts of herself as she spoke, as if she was filtering out the bad scenes of her story.
Noah knew those signs. Knew the way someone sounded when they tried to paint a pretty picture, instead of telling him the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
So help him God.
But in the end, he hadn’t been all that good at divining the truth, had he? He may have seen the signs, but he’d ignored them, all the way down to the bottom. And in doing so, he’d disappointed the one person who was depending on him to make things right—his brother.
And now, Justin was on the streets, out of Noah’s grasp.
Against his hip, his now recharged cell phone began to vibrate. He glanced down at the number, then muted the ringer. He couldn’t deal with that.
Not now anyway.
What could he say to Robert, who was fighting a war on the other side of the world? “Oh, yeah, I know I screwed up when I promised I’d rescue your kid. But don’t worry. The same system that failed him will surely save him.”
He’d be throwing platitudes at a disaster, like using a squirt bottle to put out a five-alarm fire.
“There’s an apple pie, too,” Victoria said, interrupting his thoughts. “I baked it while you were outside helping Larry get your truck loaded up.”
“I had an aunt,” Noah said, the memory slipping from his lips before he could stop it, “who used to make us all fruitcakes for Christmas. The trouble was, she didn’t know how to bake. She was pretty nearsighted and had a little trouble telling the teaspoons from the tablespoons.”
Victoria laughed. “Oh, I shouldn’t laugh, but I can just imagine how badly that went.”
“Hey, at least you didn’t have to eat it.”
“I promise, mine will be better.”
Noah’s stomach growled with a memory of the dozens of pies of his childhood, served warm, cold, however, but always good. The sweet scent in the air formed a mental image with the treat baking in Victoria’s oven. “It’s been a really long time since I’ve had pie.”
“Pies are like families, don’t you think?” she asked, raising a fork to make her point. “No crust is exactly the same, but all the ingredients in the filling make it turn out perfect.”
“Not all families are like that,” he said quietly. “Not by a long shot.”
Victoria opened her mouth to say something, surely to ask him what he’d meant by that. He stood and tossed his napkin onto the table, the now silent cell phone a heavy reminder of the reality he was avoiding. “I’m, ah, full. Rain check on the pie?”
“Sure.” But the look of disappointment in her eyes made him feel awful.
She didn’t understand and he couldn’t explain.
Noah gathered up his dishes and headed into the kitchen. Charlie trailed after him, but wisely kept his own counsel about his temporary owner and curled up in a corner, leaving Noah’s jeans unscathed. Noah loaded the dishes in the sink, ran some water and squirted some soap over them, then turned and looked around the kitchen. No dishwasher.
Somehow, it didn’t surprise him. He began to wash, circling his plate over and over again, trying to scrub off a crimson stain that didn’t exist. One that wouldn’t disappear, no matter how many times he blinked.
“Are you okay?” Victoria’s quiet voice at his shoulder.
“Yeah.” No. He hadn’t been okay in a long damned time.
“It’s clean,” she said, gently taking it from his hands, running it under the water and putting it into the dish drainer. The action brought her closer to him, her breasts brushing against his back, the sweet fruit scent she wore whispering around them. She was warmth and goodness, something he hadn’t thought existed, at least not in his corner of the world.
He inhaled her fragrance. Kiss her. Kiss the woman who made you a pot roast. Baked you a pie.
Cared.
No. A kiss would only extend the thread between them, adding another knot in the tenuous string already begun.
He reached into the sink, picked up his glass and plunged the sponge into it, again and again, seeing all his mistakes pile up in the soap bubbles, quadrupling onto each other, weighing on him like so many stones.
“Noah.” She laid a hand on his shoulder. The touch suddenly seemed too much.
“Don’t,” he said, his voice a growl, a warning. “Don’t get close to me.”
She backed up, and he immediately wished he could take the words back, hit Rewind, do it again with more tact and less anger. But she’d gotten between him and some mighty bad damned memories. Victoria had just become another casualty in the war with himself.
And that wasn’t fair.
He spun around, the water dripping from his hands onto the checkerboard tile. “I’m sorry. I—”
What could he tell her? That he’d let down the only people in the world he loved? The only family he really had?
That he’d failed with the one kid who’d needed him more than any other? That he hadn’t been able to say the right words or be there at the right time to stop a life from spiraling into the depths? That he’d kept the real truth about Justin’s street life from Robert, because Noah had thought he, of all the people in the fourteen-year-old’s life, had the right combination to pull him back from the brink?
That he was a man who deserved to be alone, to hide from the world and lick his wounds?
Way to make a good first impression, McCarty.
“I know,” she said, and she approached him again, clearly not afraid of his grizzly bear attitude. She reached out. He watched her hand approach, telling himself he should back away, run from her.
From contact. From caring.
But then her hand touched his arm, warm skin against warm skin, and the human part of Noah that he had told himself was dead roared to life, craving the touch, the nearness of someone who had that understanding look in her eyes.
Longing. Needing. So very desperately needing this, just for now, just this once.
“Noah,” she said again, his name slipping from her tongue as gently as the summer breeze.
He swallowed hard. Then he ignored the warning bells in his head, leaned forward and kissed her.
CHAPTER THREE
WHEN Noah McCarty’s lips met hers, Victoria’s entire world screeched to a halt.
