After the Fall: An Inspirational Western Romance (Gold Valley Romance Book 2)

by Liz Isaacson

  “I did not break in.” She cocked a hip and folded her arms. “I had a key.”

  “Come here.” He gestured her toward him, beyond glad when she came. He embraced her, holding her close to his heart for several long moments. “So we’re okay?”

  She melted into him, snaking her arms around his back and holding onto him too. “I’m just a little scared, Sterling.”

  “Of what, love?” He stroked her hair, the need to protect her growing to intense proportions.

  She straightened and fell back a couple of steps. “So many things. Too many to get into tonight.”

  “Of me?” He closed one step of distance between them. “Of us?”

  “Yes.” She didn’t mask any of her feelings, and Sterling saw them all. “I’ve never wanted to have a boyfriend, get married.” A tear fell and she hastily brushed it away.

  “Well, we’re definitely to boyfriend.” Sterling kept his face as placid as possible. “Want to tell me why you’ve never wanted a boyfriend? I mean, I think I’m pretty awesome.”

  A half laugh came out with her exhalation. “You are.” She looked away. “It’s a long story.”

  “I’ve got time.”

  Norah met his gaze with naked fear in her eyes. “I’ve never told anyone this story.”

  “Well, if you’re gonna be my girlfriend, maybe you’ll have to trust me.” He gestured toward the couch. “Do you want to be my girlfriend, Norah?”

  “Yes.” Her mouth didn’t move, and Sterling could’ve imagined the word. But the way his fingertips tingled and his body warmed, he hadn’t.

  Sterling stepped to the couch and sat in his usual spot, his instincts telling him that if he pushed Norah, she’d run. He said, “Then come tell me a story,” anyway.

  Norah sat way down on the other end of the couch, in the same place she’d chosen when the furnace had gone out. Now, she felt just as cold, but this chill existed on the inside instead of only being skin-deep.

  “My brothers are only half-brothers,” she started, using the flowered rug as a focus point. She let her eyes trace the vines up to the next rose. “Javier has a different father than the other two boys. Erik and Alex…their dad stuck around the longest.” She shivered, though the furnace functioned and it wasn’t that cold in the cabin.

  Just thinking about their dad conjured up her headaches—and the escape he’d given her. She hadn’t thought about Sterling’s medication in weeks—since the orange pill bottles had disappeared from the counter.

  She pressed her lips closed. She wasn’t going to tell him about her addiction or her time at Silver Creek. Not tonight. Maybe not ever.

  Maybe you’ll have to trust me. His words looped in her head, causing her neck to tire from trying to hold everything in place. If she really wanted a future with Sterling, she’d have to tell him about her past love affair with hydrocodone and her first twelve weeks at the center.

  Sterling’s gaze felt heavy and soft on the side of her face, but she again traced the lines of the rug instead of looking at him. “Mama had been married to my father, but he passed away when I was a baby. After that….” She blew out her breath. “It was boyfriend after boyfriend, most of them stealing from us, or refusing to work, or sticking around until things got too hard for them.”

  Her fingers knotted together. “But no one ever really cared if things were too hard for me.” A surge of resentment coated her insides with sticky tar, it’s ever-present sickness. “After Cody—that’s Erik and Alex’s dad—left, Mama disappeared. She was diagnosed with her lung disease, and she suffers from major depressive disorder.”

  Finally feeling free and fierce, Norah looked up to find Sterling still watching her. Compassion and love radiated from his eyes. Nothing more. A muscle worked in his jaw, but he didn’t speak.

  “I’ve been taking care of everyone and everything for eight years.” The traitorous tears came again, and this time Norah didn’t wipe them away. “I’m tired, Sterling. And I’ve never wanted a boyfriend or to get married, because I’ve never seen it work out very well for Mama—or for me. Or for my brothers.”

  He got up and invaded her space, snuggling in close and wrapping his strong arms around her. He pressed a kiss to her temple and held her while she wept, not voicing that it would be okay, or trying to reassure her that boyfriends and husbands could be good too.

  Theoretically, Norah knew they could. She knew Tom and Rose were happy. She’d seen Dr. Richards with his wife and two grown sons. She’d celebrated with Shelly and her husband for their twentieth anniversary.

  But that happiness existed outside of Norah’s sphere, and she’d always believed it would.

  “I’m sorry,” Sterling finally whispered. “No one should have to do what you do.” He stroked her hair and kept his steady pulse pressed against her cheek. After she felt spent, she wiped her eyes and took a deep breath.

  Sterling allowed a knuckle of space between them. “How about if you let me show you what a boyfriend can be like?”

  Her pulse spiked. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, not all boyfriends steal. Or lie. Or leave. I can be trustworthy until you trust me.”

  “I do trust you,” she said, though he only knew the tip of the iceberg of her life.

  Tucking a piece of hair behind her ear, he smiled. “I know you do, Norah. But you don’t trust the idea of me, of us being together. And that’s okay,” he rushed to add. “I understand it’ll take time. And like I said earlier, I’ve got time.” He searched her eyes, trying to see something, but she didn’t know what. “I just don’t want you to give up on us before we can even start, because of something that may or may not happen.”

  Sterling leaned close, closer, his lips touching her neck just below her ear. “Okay, Norah?”

  She nodded, the emotion spiraling through her now that of gratitude for this gentle man and his strong will. She had no idea she could speak freely with someone without the fear of judgment or the sting of rebuke.

  “Thank you, Sterling.” She leaned her forehead against his.

  “You can tell me anything,” he said. “I—” He cleared his throat and pressed his lips to hers. She wasn’t sure what he’d been about to say—and if she were him, she’d prompt him until he told her—but she felt something new in this kiss.

  Something joyful and wonderful and worth having. As she kissed him back, she struggled to identify what it was.

  When she realized what she felt was love, she pulled back, utterly surprised that she could feel such strong things for Sterling so soon.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Nothing.” She wasn’t about to tell him she’d felt the first inklings of love for him. Not after only six weeks together. Maybe not for a long time.

  She sighed. “I should go. It’s late, and—oh, wait. I don’t have to drive up here to get you tomorrow.”

  He sat back on the couch, keeping one arm around her shoulders. “Actually, I don’t exactly have a car….” He rubbed the back of his neck and chuckled. “So can I get one more ride? And will you take me car shopping tomorrow?”

  “Car shopping?” she asked. “Do you know how long it takes to buy a car?”

  “Couple of hours?”

  “More like all day,” she said. “I’ll have to bring my brothers, take them to lunch or something. They can’t sit around the house alone all day.”

  “Bring ’em,” he said. “I’ll pay for whatever they want to do.”

  She cringed inwardly as she stood. “I am not telling them that. Javier will want to try the new virtual reality theater.”

  “I want to do that, too.” Sterling joined her as she headed for the staircase. “He can try it if he wants.”

  “It’s expensive,” Norah said over her shoulder. Sterling already gave her too much gas money. She wasn’t letting him foot the bill for her brothers’ entertainment. Certainly not anything beyond a pizza or a hamburger.

  Sterling kissed her again near the exit, the way he’d
greeted her and said good-bye to her everyday for the past couple of weeks. “Bye, Norah,” he whispered. Again, that new edge of love rode in his voice. Had she imagined it?

  “Bye.” She spilled into the brightly lit garage and hurried to her car while Sterling pushed the button to open the door.

  It only took thirty seconds of the twenty-minute drive for her to convince herself she’d been hallucinating. “He doesn’t love you,” she said out loud. Number one, it was too soon for that, and number two, he was Sterling Maughan.

  And she was nobody Norah Watson.

  “Even dating him is laughable,” she said, though they were definitely dating according to her standards. His too, obviously.

  And if Dr. Richards knew she’d been kissing him for weeks, he’d think they were dating too.

  Slow it down, Norah, she told herself, and not just because she needed to brake to take a hairpin curve as she came off the mountain.

  12

  Norah spent most of Saturday night and Sunday morning battling herself. Turned out that buying a car with cash didn’t take all day. Sterling walked in, picked out the truck he wanted, drove it for a few minutes, and wrote a check.

  Wrote a check for twenty thousand dollars.

  Norah had stared, dumbfounded at the numbers, at the way he scribbled his name, at the salesman who came back only ten minutes later with the keys and paperwork.

  They’d breezed in and out within an hour and then gone for pizza—and the virtual reality theater. Alex was too young to go inside, so Norah had waited the hour with him while Sterling, Javier, and Erik “shot up the space aliens,” and “had the best time of their lives.”

  “Is Sterling coming to church with us?” Javier asked as he came down the hall, straightening his tie.

  “Not sure,” Norah said, trying and failing to stop thinking about Sterling. “I didn’t talk to him about it.” She had been driving up to the cabin to get him for the past several weeks. But the man owned a truck now, and he could get himself wherever he wanted to go.

  Javier frowned. “Can I call him to find out?”

  “Javier,” Norah warned.

  “What?”

  “Let’s leave him alone for a day.”

  He looked like he wanted to argue, but he didn’t. Just got out the oatmeal and made a pot that would feed everyone. Norah couldn’t help the well of admiration that gathered in her stomach as she watched him.

  He could make it. He could take care of himself, and he thought about other people too.

  “Heard anything yet from Montana State?” Norah usually kept up on what Javier had heard—she checked his email and monitored the mail. But she hadn’t been doing that lately.

  “I got in.” He beamed at her.

  A grin exploded across her face. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I just got the email a couple of days ago. I got the needs-based scholarship too.”

  “Javier.” Norah pressed one hand to her heart and willed back the tears. “That’s so great.”

  “Yeah, only two years to my welding certificate.”

  Norah schooled her emotions. “Then move to California or something. Get out of here.”

  Javier glanced over her shoulder, where Erik and Alex walked down the hall. “Thanks, Norah,” he mumbled before dishing up breakfast for his younger brothers.

  She knew what he meant when he said thanks. She could’ve asked him to stay in Gold Valley, find a technical trade school here, get a job, help with the bills and raising Erik and Alex. And when he said thanks, he meant Thanks for letting me have my own life.

  It was a gift Norah wanted to give him, a gift no one had given her. But watching him interact with the younger boys, and with the memory of Sterling’s words in her mind, Norah thought she might actually have a shot at living her own life one day. And she’d never felt like that before.

  Sterling’s skin itched, like he’d fallen into an anthill and couldn’t get out. He sat in his new truck, the engine idling to keep the heater blowing, and stared at the front doors of the church. He’d arrived early, because if he hadn’t left when he had, he knew he wouldn’t go to church.

  And he wanted to go to church.

  Sure, he may have been coming just to see and spend time with Norah before, but now something deeper called to him, tugged on his desire to sleep in and shuffle around the house in gym shorts.

  Getting himself to go in alone was proving much harder than he’d anticipated. He knew if he went inside, he’d be fully committed again. Sterling had always had a keen sense of right and wrong, and even after he’d let his religious side wither, he’d still known if what he said and did was good or not.

  But if he recommitted, he’d have to live it. Not just know about right. But do right. Say right. Be right—as best as he knew how—everyday, all the time.

  Families started arriving, and people moved through the bright sun and into the building. Sterling watched them without seeing, his mind still in turmoil with his spirit. When he caught sight of a tall boy walking next to a curly-haired woman, he straightened.

  Javier and Norah led Erik and Alex down the sidewalk and into the church. Still, Sterling wrestled with himself. He didn’t want to go to church because of someone else. He wanted to go because he wanted to be there.

  Will I ever want to be here? he wondered.

  Just go in and find out, came the answer.

  Without hesitation, he yanked the keys from the ignition and jumped from the truck. He strode as best as he could, his head held high. In the chapel, he located Norah about halfway back, positioned between Javier on her left and the littler boys on her right.

  He went to their row and leaned down. “You guys have room for one more?”

  Javier’s face lit up like a jack-o-lantern. “Sterling. Sure, man.” He nudged Norah, who whispered for the other boys to move down.

  Disappointment cut through Sterling that he couldn’t sit next to Norah and hold her hand or smell her perfume. But that feeling evaporated under the narrowed gaze of Dr. Richards, who sat a couple of rows up and across the aisle.

  Sterling lifted his hand in a friendly wave and focused his attention toward the pulpit. His heart thundered like a murderous Montana storm, but sitting with a family—not just Norah—couldn’t be considered inappropriate. Could it?

  He simply didn’t want to sit alone, and he didn’t know anyone else in town. No big deal.

  The pastor got up and welcomed everyone to the Sabbath services. Sterling pretended to listen, but the words sounded muted behind the film of peace infusing his heart. He took a deep breath, and the weight he’d been carrying for the past several months lifted.

  Gone. Just gone.

  Like the Lord had taken it from him.

  The strength Sterling needed, the strength he thought he lacked, was suddenly present. He closed his eyes as sudden emotion overwhelmed him.

  Thank you, he thought. Thank you for not giving up on me.

  After church, he leaned forward. “Norah, you guys want to come for lunch?”

  “We can’t—”

  “Yes,” Javier said at the same time Erik asked, “Can we, Norah?”

  A pinch of guilt tripped through Sterling. He should’ve asked her privately instead of putting her on the spot. He flashed her an apologetic grin while at the same time his eyebrows rose. He really wanted her to come, and he knew she could. What excuse would she use and how could he circumvent it?

  “Javier,” she said through clenched teeth. “Remember what I said this morning?”

  “What did you say this morning?” Sterling asked, finding Norah doubly desirable when she got fired up.

  “Nothing.”

  “She said we needed to leave you alone for a day.”

  Sterling chuckled though he wanted to frown and ask Norah why she wanted a day off. “Norah should know by now that I don’t like to be alone.”

  “Can we go, Norah?” Javier asked.

  “Hey, you’re eighteen, righ
t?” Sterling thumped Javier on the knee. “Why don’t you come? I’ll grill us something.”

  Javier stared at him with wide eyes. “I’m not eighteen until the end of April.”

  “Close enough, man.” Sterling refused to glance at Norah. He could practically smell the fury coming from her. “You’re a senior, right? You won’t have to check with Norah when you go to college.”

  Javier swung his attention from Sterling to Norah and back. “You got burgers?”

  Sterling grinned, the scent of victory a lot sweeter than Norah’s frustration. “Sure thing.”

  “He does not,” Norah said. “Unless he went to the grocery store late last night.”

  Sterling lifted his eyes to hers, a teasing sparkle in his grin. “I happen to know where the store is, I’ll have you know.” He switched his flirtatious smile to a pleading look. “Come on, Norah. What was on your meal plan?”

  He wished he could tell her he didn’t want her to go back to her house, where her mom could cause new hurts and reopen old wounds. That he wanted her with him so he could ensure she was treated right, to make her happy, to show her how he could take care of her. The craving to do so made his stomach tight, and he swallowed to contain his emotion.

  The chapel had nearly emptied, and still Sterling sat on the end of the row. Erik and Alex waited on Norah, and Javier broke the silence with, “I’m going. I’ll take the boys with me. You can have an afternoon off, Norah.”

  Sterling’s pulse missed a beat as it fell to his feet. “That’s a great idea,” he forced himself to say. “Take a nap, relax.” Her declaration of how tired she was hadn’t escaped Sterling. He knew she didn’t just need a nap; she needed a lifestyle change.

  “Fine.” She stood and practically shoved the younger boys down the row toward the aisle opposite of Sterling. “We’ll come. I can take a nap in one of your fourteen bedrooms.”

  “That’s a great idea too!” he called after her, though the cabin only housed eight bedrooms, thank you very much. He glanced at Javier. “Did I push her too hard?”