“Could we get our check, please?” Colin asked.
With a look of mute surprise, she turned and hurried away, returning a few seconds later with their tab. Colin pulled out his wallet and placed a couple of bills inside the small, black folder. He smiled his eye-crinkling smile, nodded at the server, and grabbed Amelia’s hand. He stood and pulled her toward the door.
* * *
Out on the sidewalk in a flash, she glanced around herself, disoriented. The streets were now teeming with people—neighborhood residents, NYU students, and tourists melding together, all out to enjoy a slice of the famous New York nightlife.
Colin still had her hand, she realized, and his skin burned against hers. She watched as he held out his other hand to flag a passing cab. When it stopped, he threw open the door, beckoned for her to enter, and followed her in. As soon as the door closed behind them, she heard him sigh.
“Where are you headed?” The driver’s accent was thick and Greek.
“Hmm, not sure. Give us a second.” Colin’s eyes narrowed, questioning her.
She shrugged.
He peered at the driver in the rearview mirror. “Columbus Circle?” He turned to her again. “What do you say to a walk in the park?”
Her eyes widened in surprise. The past ten minutes had gone by in such a blur she hadn’t had time to think, but when they’d left the bar, she’d assumed their night together was over. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Inexplicably, Noah’s face passed through her mind again. She pushed away the image, pursed her lips.
“Um, sure,” she said. “It’s a beautiful night.”
Colin watched her thoughtfully. “Sure is.”
She felt the blood rush to her cheeks. There it was again, that shimmer of hope. It was unfamiliar, unsettling. Her mind flashed to Noah again, and she tried to figure out why. Was it because Colin had some indistinct quality that reminded her of him? Because the movie gave the two of them some covert connection?
Because surely, surely it wasn’t guilt she was feeling.
Again she shoved Noah’s image out of her mind—for the last time, she told herself. She studied Colin studying her in the dim light of the cab. To her surprise, the air between them pulsed with electricity.
Too soon, the driver swung the car up to the curb at the southwest corner of Central Park.
* * *
Amelia stepped from the car and gulped in the soft night air. It was cooler here, no tall buildings looming to stifle the breeze. She wasn’t sure what to expect from this point, and the butterflies revisited her stomach as she watched Colin pay the driver and start in her direction. He smiled a dazzling smile, and the corners of her lips turned up in response.
As the two of them walked past Merchant’s Gate and onto the park’s meandering pathways, she made a conscious decision not to overthink what was happening. It was a beautiful night, and she was having a good time—the best time she’d had in a long time.
Neither she nor Colin spoke for several minutes. Her thoughts were indiscernible as she lost herself in the setting, a verdant refuge in the midst of the ultimate urban chaos. Leafy branches arched over them, shielding them from the outside world. The city grew quieter as they walked—the car engines, the honking horns, the pedestrians’ voices faded until they disappeared, and all she heard was the wind moving through the leaves, the sound of their footsteps, and the sudden whoosh of tires as a cyclist passed them, giving them a wide berth.
Amelia loved the park, and it had been years since she’d walked these paths. A sense of comfortable familiarity settled over her, and she sighed.
Colin glanced down and inched close enough to swing an arm over her shoulders, pulling her into his side. She could smell the tingly scent of his aftershave. His skin was warm.
“This is nice.”
“Mmm.” It was the only reply she could manage.
“So tell me,” he said in a quiet voice, “what’s your life like back home? What do you do when you’re not touring or writing?”
He paused long enough to glance at her expression, but not long enough for her to respond. “Are you dating anyone?”
Her heart leaped into her throat. She raised an eyebrow, determined not to let him see how much that last question affected her.
“Which question do you want me to answer first?”
His lips twitched. He stopped walking, turned to face her.
“Guess.”
Her breath caught, and a tingle raced down the length of her spine. She opened her mouth to speak, but her comeback was lost as Colin placed one finger against her lips. His eyes held hers as he slid the finger down to her chin, tilted her face up, and bent his head toward her.
Her eyes closed as his lips met hers. They were soft, gentle, warm like the rest of him.
She sighed and wound her hands up and around his neck. His arms moved to her waist and he pulled her closer, one hand pressing into the center of her back.
The kiss seemed to go on and on, and she lost herself in the overpowering sensation of it. When she finally pulled back, breathless, she nuzzled her head into his chest, amazed at how easy it felt to be there.
He wrapped his arms all the way around her and buried his face in her hair.
“Amelia.” He said it as if trying out the name on his tongue, not expecting a response.
They stood that way for a long moment before he pulled away and slid his arm across her shoulders again. They resumed their slow walk through the park, stepping in and out of the shadows cast in the glow of streetlamps.
“This is…unexpected,” he said.
She looked up at him, feeling the weight of the understatement.
“Completely unexpected.”
She had no idea what she was doing. She wasn’t prepared for this, didn’t know what to do or say next. All she knew was that suddenly she was afraid for the moment to end.
She asked the question on her mind without thinking.
“What now?”
He looked at her, but didn’t speak. She found her answer in his silence. She was leaving in the morning. This would be all the time they’d have. After all these years, she’d finally met someone, and all they’d gotten was one night. Her heart sank, but she didn’t have time to process the thought before Colin spoke.
“Now,” he said. “Now I read for a part in your movie. And hope beyond reason that it works out.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Homecoming
Noah, June
Noah ignored the tension in the pit of his stomach as he snagged the second suitcase off the conveyor belt in the baggage claim area of Springfield’s compact Capital Airport.
He glanced over at Erin, who was bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet, and hefted the bulky rolling bag in her direction. She took the handle, slid it into its extended position, and started walking.
“Lemme make a quick pit-stop.” She stopped short by a door marked with the universal stick-figure-in-a-skirt symbol. “I’m a mess, right?”
They’d been traveling what seemed like all day, a delay in their connecting flight from Chicago adding an extra two hours to their itinerary. She should have looked rumpled and weary from the trip, he thought, but she didn’t.
Erin looked sunny and energetic, as always.
He shook his head and grinned a lopsided grin.
“You look gorgeous.”
She smirked. “Riiight.” She dropped the handle of her suitcase back into his free hand and disappeared through the door.
He dragged their bags out of the middle of the corridor and leaned against a wall, surveying the long room. The walls were off-white and plain but for a single maroon stripe, and patches of maroon and teal formed intermittent geometric patterns on the tile floor. The place looked dingy, and smaller than he remembered.
A couple passed in front of him, hand in hand. The girl had dyed-black hair and an eyebrow ring, and she swung a dingy, black backpack in her free hand. Her boyfriend wore a dark suit wi
th a pale purple tie. Noah cocked his head, thinking odd couple. The guy leaned down to listen to something the girl said, and Noah glimpsed the top edge of a tattoo peeking out above his starched collar. He nodded to himself and then wondered where they’d flown from, where they were headed.
He turned his focus further outward, scanning the room. Men and women in business-black slacks and shoes walked fast, absorbed in their smartphones. Husbands and wives with kids in tow juggled car seats and diaper bags along with their suitcases. Another couple passed in front of him, the woman talking loudly.
“Did you take Marissa to Joanne’s, or did Missy pick her up?”
Her Midwestern accent was thick, and he breathed deep, as if breathing in the sound of home. The woman’s voice faded with her footsteps, and he closed his eyes and let his head drop back against the wall.
He had no idea why he was so on edge. Erin was the one meeting his family for the first time. She should be the nervous one, not him.
A minute later, she breezed back through the doorway, and his eyes popped open.
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
He pushed both suitcases out ahead of him and propelled himself forward. She reached out and snagged hers, and they walked at a brisk pace along the terminal’s main corridor toward the Avis counter. He wondered how they looked to passersby, Erin with her sunny smile and Texas drawl, him with his shirt untucked and worry lines between his eyes.
A few minutes later he was slinging their bags into the back of a compact sedan, and they were threading their way through the airport parking garage. He felt Erin’s eager eyes on him as he followed the signs out of the terminal and south onto the highway. She was bouncing up and down in her seat.
“Will Sam and Nicki be there when we get there?”
Both his sisters were coming to town for the wedding he and Erin were in Illinois to attend. His cousin Alison, who’d grown up a couple towns over from his hometown of Girard, was getting married, and it had seemed like the perfect opportunity to introduce his girlfriend to the entire family at once.
He sucked in a sharp breath and glanced over at Erin, who was watching him and biting her lip. Her eyes gleamed, and he smiled in spite of himself. She was just so damn excited.
“I think Nicki’s already there. Sam’s got a long way to drive. And with Jonas in the car, who knows?”
He felt his tension drain a little as his mind shifted to his family. He hadn’t seen his nephew in six months. Jonas had just turned two, which meant he’d be a totally different kid from the eighteen-month-old he’d seen at Christmas. They changed so fast at that age.
So far, Jonas was the only Bradley grandkid. Nicki—at twenty-six, the youngest of his siblings—was nowhere close to settling down. She’d traveled the farthest to go to school, Colorado, and she’d moved the farthest away after getting her degree. She lived in San Francisco, where she worked as an assistant curator at the city’s modern art museum. His eyes sparked as he thought about seeing his kid sister. She was fun to pick on.
He moved over the familiar roadways on autopilot as Erin kept up the game of twenty questions.
“What’s your mom like? I mean, you’ve talked about her, but I don’t really know what to expect. Do you think she’ll like me?”
He glanced over at her again, reading in her face that she wasn’t really worried—she just wanted affirmation.
Basically, she’d set herself up.
“Hmm…”
He gave her a speculative look, but didn’t say anything else. After a long, silent moment, she swatted him on the arm, and he grinned.
“Yes, she’s going to love you. She’s downright ecstatic that you’re coming.”
He regretted the response the second it left his mouth.
“Really? Have you brought many girls home to meet your parents?”
He glanced over at her again. The look she gave him was teasing, but he could see real curiosity burning beneath the surface.
Noah stifled a groan—there was no right answer to this question. He was thirty years old. If he said no, he seemed like a loser. If he said yes…well, for one thing, he’d be lying.
“Well, now, wouldn’t you like to know?”
She pursed her lips, feigning annoyance, and raised her eyebrows.
He sighed.
“No. Actually, you’re the first.” He cringed as he glanced back over at her. Her eyes were as wide as Texas, though he knew the answer shouldn’t have been surprising.
“The first? Really? I’m honored.” She studied him for a second and then added, “Well, the first since Amelia.”
His lips pressed into a straight line. That was one topic he didn’t want to discuss with Erin, and she knew it. He felt his stomach tighten into a knot and realized she’d hit on the source of his earlier tension. Considering the fact that she really was the first girl he’d brought home since Amelia, comparisons this weekend were inevitable.
He thought about the coming introductions.
His mom truly was ecstatic that after all these years, he’d met someone—someone he cared about enough to drag all the way up to central Illinois to meet his family. His parents had loved Amelia like she was one of their own daughters, and he had no doubt they’d love Erin, too. But would they love her as much? Did he love her as much?
Their relationship had started slow, mostly because of him and his unrelenting workload. In the first couple of months they’d seen each other only two or three times, but then he’d had a little time between projects and they began to date in earnest. Before he knew it, he’d found himself in the first full-fledged relationship he’d had in nearly eight years. In the last six months, the topic of Amelia had come up, but he’d stuck to the basics: Erin knew he’d started dating Amelia in high school and that they’d dated throughout college, gotten engaged, and broken off the engagement in their senior year.
She didn’t know why the wedding was called off. She’d brought it up a couple of times, but his body stiffened and his jaw clenched every time Amelia’s name was mentioned, kind of like they were doing now.
Erin knew he didn’t like to talk about it, and he figured she’d made her own assumptions. He glanced at her and realized she was still waiting for a response. He swallowed hard.
“Yes, the first other than Amelia.” He had to force the name off his tongue.
Erin started to say something else, but stopped short when she finally seemed to notice the uncomfortable set of his jaw. He hated doing that to her, but Amelia just wasn’t an open subject. If he could help it, she never would be.
“Hey, we just passed the city limits sign.” He forced himself to smile. “Welcome to the giant metropolis of Girard, Illinois, population a whopping two thousand, five hundred.”
The distraction was effective. Erin’s eyes flew to the window as she took in her first glimpse of the slow-moving town.
“Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever even been to a town this small.” She turned her smiling eyes on him and shrugged. “Because, you know, everything’s bigger in Texas.”
His grin was real this time. “That’s right. Guess that’s why I had to move there.” He waggled his eyebrows.
“Ohmigosh, you’re so funny. And so original. I’ve never heard a guy make a penis joke before.” She rolled her eyes.
He snickered, relieved she wasn’t still talking about Amelia.
“Who’s joking?”
She’d stopped paying attention to him. He followed her gaze through the windshield, and all at once he saw his hometown through a new lens. The streets were narrow, the buildings small and homey. Overall, the town looked dingier than he remembered, but it exuded a pleasant simplicity, a protective sort of charm.
He glanced at the speedometer and eased his foot off the gas pedal—the speed traps in Girard weren’t so pleasant.
He cruised past the Prairie State Bank & Trust, the turnoff to the high school, the Food Mart. He made a left onto Madison and passed by Little Italy’s
Pizza. Its red-and-green sign had faded in the fifteen years or so since he’d last hung out there—the “a” in pizza was mostly rubbed out, the pie above the logo blurred by age and years of harsh prairie winds. He swung a right onto his parents’ street and glanced at Erin.
“Well, now you know all there is to know about me. You’ve seen my humble roots.”
“I doubt that, Noah Bradley.” Her astute eyes met his. “You are quite the enigma. I bet there’s plenty to learn about you here.”
His eyebrows shot up as he pulled the dark-red sedan into the driveway of the two-story house he’d grown up in. His family had moved here when he was two years old, a few months before Samantha was born. He watched Erin take in the crisp gray siding, the gently peeling black shutters, the L-shaped front porch with its white-painted stone pilasters and wide concrete steps. Not a thing had changed in the years since he’d left.
He cut the car’s engine and returned Erin’s gaze.
“That sounds like a threat.”
“It does, does it?” She raised an eyebrow. “That must mean I’m onto something. Am I gonna find some skeletons in your closet? Because, you know, I’ve always found you a little too good to be true.” She leaned toward him on the last sentence, her eyes twinkling.
He ducked his head and kissed the tip of her nose before clicking his seatbelt unlocked.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He opened his car door and stepped onto the black pavement. He reached up and rubbed the side of his forehead with one hand.
“Ugh. I guess you’re about to find out. Let’s get this over with.”
* * *
The introductions went smoother than he could have hoped. As soon as they reached the porch steps, Melanie flung open the front door—she must have been watching from the front window for them to drive up. She turned and yelled into the house, “Geoff, they’re here,” and then stepped onto the porch and scooped Erin into a tight embrace.
Now a Major Motion Picture Page 13