Safe in Noah's Arms

by Mary Sullivan

  “What happened to you this evening?” Dad asked the question quietly, but it screamed through Monica’s consciousness like a fighter jet. I’ve been betrayed.

  She couldn’t answer him without shattering. Better to just leave before exposing her vulnerability to him. She no longer trusted this man.

  “I’ll have my lawyer call you tomorrow with details.” With that parting line, she left the room.

  Before she could leave her former home, she heard him on the stairs and turned around.

  He’d pulled on a pair of sweatpants. The hair on his chest was going gray. He was growing old. They were losing each other.

  “I would have given you any amount of money you wanted,” he said when he reached the bottom of the stairs. “You didn’t have to threaten either me or Lee-Anne like that. Why?” It was all so quietly, so reasonably spoken when the entire situation was anything but reasonable.

  “No, you wouldn’t have given me any money I wanted, not without conditions. Remember, Dad? You already promised me this money and then took it away when I refused to let Marcie help with the benefit.”

  “You should have given her an important role.”

  “She stole the money.”

  “What?”

  “The money we made today at the benefit? Marcie stole it. Noah witnessed it. There’s no mistake. She’s guilty.”

  Stunned, he stood for a long time without speaking. He dropped to sit on a stair and seemed to diminish.

  Air seeped out of the balloon of her indignation. They were losing each other, she and her father. “Why are you sleeping with a married woman?” she asked quietly. “There are lovely single women in town who would jump at the chance to go out with you, Dad. Why choose someone like her?”

  He spread his hands. “I—I don’t deserve those lovely women. They’re too good for a man like me.”

  “What do you mean a man like you? You’ve always been great. Until recently. I don’t know why you have to drink so much these days. I don’t know who you are anymore.”

  “When Marcie contacted me, when she came back to town, I realized how much I’d screwed up when you two were born.” He gripped the newel post. Monica heard movement upstairs and the bathroom door closing. “Your mother and I should have worked out something better. You were right about that. At the very least, I should have told you the truth years ago.”

  “Yes, you should have. Answer this one question. Honestly. Did you really try to find Marcie after Mom died?”

  “Yes. I spent a fortune trying to find her, but Donna was smart and crafty.”

  “So now you’re beating yourself up about it all?”

  A sigh gusted out of him. “Yes.”

  “Stop,” she said. “I want my father back, the good guy who did his best raising me. You can be that man again.” She gestured toward the upstairs hallway. “First, get her out of here.”

  With a rigid nod, he conceded, “I’ll ask her to leave. I love you, Monica. I don’t want to lose you.”

  “Like I said, I want my father back. Do that for me, Dad. Become good again.”

  “I can do that.”

  She left the house and strode down the walkway to the sidewalk, where she came to an abrupt halt.

  This was supposed to be a night of triumph and celebration. She was supposed to be spending it with Noah. She didn’t know where to go.

  Her lonely apartment waited, silent and dark, the place where all of her problems had started on a night in June when her loneliness overwhelmed her.

  She drove to that place anyway, because there was nowhere else to go. On Main Street, she passed Tonio’s just as Joseph and Maria were locking up.

  Monica, on a quick stop, parked and called, “Maria.”

  Maria grinned. “What a success! What a wonderful night. You must be so happy.”

  When Monica approached, she passed under a streetlamp.

  Maria frowned. “What is it?”

  When Monica stood in front of her, Maria opened her arms. “Come here. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  Monica stepped into her embrace, laid her head on her friend’s shoulder, felt Joseph’s big warm hand rubbing her back and cried.

  * * *

  MARCIE SAT IN the dark alley, back against the wall of the hardware store, surrounded by cardboard. Dampness from the concrete seeped into her buttocks and the backs of her thighs.

  So what? She was beyond saving. She’d gone too far tonight. The second she’d driven back into Accord it had registered that she didn’t want to lose this place, or her father, or her sister. Too late.

  Her envy and need had blinded her. There was no way this would ever work.

  A rodent scurried behind the garbage can against the opposite wall.

  Her hollow laugh bounced from the walls. This was where she belonged. With the rats.

  She swiped her damp cheeks. She didn’t cry often, but she cried now, for the loss of her humanity—she was subdued and battered by her need for more.

  She’d just pulled the most stupid stunt of her life. Noah had been right. She didn’t deserve a sister like Monica.

  In her lap sat the bag of money, mocking her, reinforcing what she’d learned about herself since she’d entered this small town—that she needed to grow and become a better person. That she needed to learn to accept. That there really was a point when a person realizes I have enough.

  How ironic to learn this too late, after one heinous, irredeemable, impulsive act.

  Beside her, the ridiculous little purse she’d stolen from her twin sat on the damp cement. She opened it. Monica’s cell phone sat amid a small jumble of lipstick, a twenty-dollar bill and a bunch of change.

  Lo and behold, it also held a condom.

  No doubt her sister had planned to celebrate her success with Noah. Those plans were shot now, courtesy of Marcie.

  Marcie took out the cell phone. Only one person in this town would help her now. Only one person liked her the way she was, ugly warts and all.

  She called him.

  Ten minutes later, John Spade strode down the alleyway, dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt that clung to his chest. A black leather jacket swung from his left hand. Black leather and John Spade. If she didn’t find it so hot, she would think it an oxymoron. Sure, the man might pamper himself, but he also worked out. Ob-vi-ous-ly.

  She’d never seen him dressed down. She liked this version of him.

  His glance took in the dress he must have recognized as Monica’s. He noted the sun hat tossed into a puddle nearby.

  “What have you done?” That it was merely a question, that there was no accusation in his tone, said a lot about either him or her. She wasn’t sure which. He expected that she’d done something bad and was prepared to deal with it. Because he was a lawyer and had seen the worst in mankind? Or because he expected the worst in her and accepted it?

  The answers didn’t matter, she was so crazy happy to see him.

  She picked up the bag of money and handed it to him.

  In the dim lighting cast by a security light over a door six feet away, he unzipped it then whistled.

  “When you go bad, you do it in a big way. The money raised at tonight’s dinner?”

  She nodded.

  “Why take it? Are you that hard up?”

  Why did people always think the only thing that motivated her was money? She threw Monica’s stupid little bag against the far wall.

  “It’s not about money, okay?” she shouted.

  He held out a calming hand, just as she imagined he would in a courtroom, but she didn’t need a lawyer—well, yeah she would eventually. What she really needed at this screwed-up, broken moment was a friend to fill the empty chasm of her soul.

  “Be my friend for one night, okay? J
ust for a little while.” To her horror, her voice broke.

  He sat down beside her.

  “Aren’t you afraid of getting your designer jeans dirty?” The bitterness of her tone cut like acid through the night.

  “You’ve got me all figured out, haven’t you?”

  “You bet.” Why did he always have to sound so calm and reasonable? Why couldn’t she ever catch him in a weak moment, like he seemed to always do with her?

  Her hard edges threatened to send this man running, yet she couldn’t stop herself. Fear and her conscience, the sure knowledge that she’d hurt a couple of truly good people in Noah and Monica, sent up her defensive walls.

  “Just once, I’d like to break through that damned serene wall of your grand lawyerly facade.”

  He lunged close and grasped her by the waist. The world spun. Next thing she knew she was lying across his lap, her jaw cradled in his determined hand, his strong body enwrapping her in warmth.

  “You don’t know a goddamn thing about me.”

  “I do so. I—”

  “Shut up.” When he kissed her, he came down hard, his body thrumming with passion. She felt it everywhere he touched her—in his arms, his chest, in the hard thighs beneath hers. She hummed with an equal passion, part lust and part need, lightning striking in every part of her.

  This man. This man could undo her like no one she’d ever known. Undo her and then put her back together in a better way, as a stronger her. He made her more her.

  By the time he came up for air, she was a pile of pliable jelly in his lap. She would have done anything for him, gone anywhere with him.

  Her knee-jerk response kicked in. She gave nothing to no man.

  When he felt her stiffen in his arms, he laughed. The smugness in that chuckle sent her hackles rising up her back like spreading wings, razor-sharp and ready to whip.

  She rose up onto her knees to run, but he stopped her.

  “Don’t.” He snagged her wrist, his fingers a manacle. “Stop running. Stay and deal with the problem you’ve made.”

  He was right, damn him. “I don’t know how.”

  “I’ll help.”

  She wasn’t in the habit of trusting people. “Why would you help me?”

  “Because I like you.”

  So simple. So direct. “That’s it?”

  “That isn’t enough?”

  There it was again. That word. Enough. “Yeah. It is.”

  “Okay. Come home with me and we’ll sort this out.”

  “What about the money?”

  “Bring it with you and we’ll figure out how to manage this so you don’t go to prison for years.” He curled his fingers through hers and picked up Monica’s little purse.

  Prison. She’d screwed herself so badly.

  She tottered on her sister’s high heels beside John.

  He stopped beside a parked car. A Porsche. Surprise, surprise. She made a sound of derision that might have been a snort. “You people and your ridiculous amounts of disposable income.”

  He smiled. “The bank still owns half of this car.”

  “Doesn’t that worry you?”

  “Nope. I have my affairs in order.”

  Once they were both seated, John put the car into gear and took off. He pointed to the bag of money in her lap. “You do understand the repercussions will be serious.”

  “Yeah.” She turned to face him. “I know I will be arrested. I know I will probably go to prison, but you know what I’m learning?” Her voice sounded thick with tears.

  “What?”

  “That incarceration and a criminal record aren’t the worst that could happen.”

  “What is?”

  “Losing my family.”

  In the dim light from the dashboard she detected the hint of a smile on his face. “Bingo. I’m glad you’ve come to your senses.”

  On the short drive into and through town, and on down the road to John’s mansion in the countryside, Marcie contemplated her future. It looked bleak.

  Inside his house, she barely noticed her surroundings, only that her hand was wrapped warmly in his as he dropped the bag onto a table and led her upstairs, stopping finally in a dark bedroom.

  “What are we doing here?”

  “I’m not sending you to jail before we’ve had a chance to make love. I don’t fancy conjugal visits in prison. Let’s start our relationship here.”

  “Conjugal? But doesn’t that mean... We don’t even know each other.”

  “I know my own mind. Do you know yours?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I’m so confused.”

  “Do you want to spend the night in the spare bedroom?”

  This man scared her with his self-possession and sophistication, but she wanted him more than she’d ever wanted another man. Spare bedroom? No way!

  “Let’s make love,” she said.

  He answered her with a deep, low, satisfied laugh.

  * * *

  THEY SAT IN the living room on opposite sofas. They had showered since making love.

  Marcie had never been so thoroughly loved in her life. She hoped John felt the same way.

  She wore a plush white bathrobe, the sleeves rolled up. She’d never worn anything more sinfully decadent in her life. She might has well have been wrapped in the arms of a couple of dozen angora rabbits.

  John wore jeans and a shirt.

  “Down to business.” John cradled a snifter of brandy.

  Marcie sipped from a cup of hot cocoa, sorry that her brief divine interlude was over. The second John had taken her into his arms in the bedroom reality had disappeared. Now it was back with a vengeance.

  He placed the bag of money on the coffee table.

  “You should never have taken it.”

  “No, I shouldn’t have. I don’t know what happened. I didn’t plan it.”

  “If I thought you had, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

  “I saw how successful Monica was, how much everyone admired her, and how much Noah loved her, and I snapped. I saw where she put her clothes in one office. I saw where Noah put the money in another. I knew the security guard would think I was Monica. I grabbed the opportunity to make her pay.” She sighed. “For something she’d never done. She hadn’t hurt me. Our parents had.”

  She curled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs, holding on as though for her life. She dropped her head to her knees and cried, hot, heart-wrenching sobs she hadn’t known she’d had in her.

  John, in his great wisdom, let her cry herself out. Long minutes later, he said, “Feeling better?”

  She lifted her head and there in front of her face hovered a box of tissues. She took it from his hand and cleaned herself up.

  The bag of money still mocked her from the coffee table.

  She should not have taken it. Monica had never been responsible for the way Marcie’s life had turned out. And Noah... God, the guy had done nothing to her.

  Picking up the bag, she stared at it. What now? She sensed John walk behind her before hard hands fell onto her shoulders.

  “You need to come with me.” With a light pressure on one shoulder he urged her to stand.

  “Where to?”

  His hand at the small of her back, he directed her down the hallway and into an office.

  “Sit,” he said.

  He opened the top drawer of a beautiful oak desk and pulled out one sheet of paper and a silver pen.

  “You’re going to write a letter of apology to Noah and Monica. One will do. I imagine they’re both at his place this morning, which is where we’ll go next.”

  She wrote the letter, pouring her heart into it, they got dressed and then they drove out to Noah
’s farm, but Monica wasn’t there.

  At first, Noah didn’t give an inch, but eventually he agreed to read her letter.

  She’d never written anything more genuine or important in her life.

  The three of them sat and talked for an hour until Noah became convinced of Marcie’s remorse and that she would never do anything like this again.

  When they stood to leave, John put his hands on her shoulders, his support priceless.

  “Noah, the money’s been returned,” John said. “Marcie’s sincerely sorry for her actions. Is there any way we can keep this out of the courts? Is it enough that the money is here now?”

  Noah stared at Marcie for long, long moments until she said, “Remember last night when you asked me if I understood the concept of having enough?”

  “Yes.”

  “Today, I understand. I’ll make it up to you and my father and Monica. I will never pull this kind of trick again in my life.”

  He studied her with a pensive frown and nodded. “I believe you.”

  He hugged her and shook John’s hand. “No charges. As long as Monica agrees.”

  As they were leaving, Noah said, “Good luck getting Monica to listen to you, even to an apology. She won’t talk to me.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  MARCIE FOUND MONICA in her apartment, wary, angry and hurt. Marcie knew where she lived because she’d researched everything about her sister.

  Yesterday, or the day before, or her first day in town, she would have been curious to have a look around Monica’s home, but not today. Today, nothing mattered but making things right.

  “Can we talk?”

  “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say to me. I don’t trust a word that comes out of your mouth.”

  “I don’t blame you, but please let me say my piece and then I’ll leave.”

  She swallowed. This was more difficult than anything she’d ever done. She had so many amends to make.

  “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I am truly sorry for everything I’ve done to you.”

  Monica didn’t respond. It was like she had a force field around her, repelling Marcie’s words.