“Same thing. And it’s not late, it’s barely eight-thirty.”
“You were out alone?”
“No, actually, Noah was with me.” Since it wasn’t exactly a secret or anything. She unwound her scarf, hung it over the coatrack. Played it cool. “What happened to the movie?”
“I screwed up the schedule, it was half over by the time we got there. So we decided to call it a night. And what do you mean, Noah was with you?”
Her jacket joined the scarf as heat tracked up her neck, as if she was fifteen and had been caught necking with her boyfriend on the living room couch. Honestly. “We needed to walk off the pizza. Got a problem with that?”
“Something going on between you?”
Roxie tugged down her sweater sleeve. “No,” she said. Because it was true, for one thing. And for another, she wasn’t a big fan of repeating her mistakes. Which their conversation had reinforced all too clearly, thank you.
“Too bad. He’s a nice boy.”
It took a second. Then Roxie barked out a laugh. “Less than two weeks ago you warned me away from him.”
Her uncle grinned. Mischievously. “Less than two weeks ago I hadn’t met Eden.”
Oh, Lord. “Yes, Noah’s a nice guy,” she said, turning on another light, “but setting aside the fact that he’s not even remotely interested in marriage, kids, all that fun stuff, we have absolutely nothing in common. You want anything?”
“Yeah. For you to like Eden.”
Well. At least Noah had been booted out of the conversation. Apparently.
“Oh, Charley…” Roxie sat in the chair facing him, setting her phone on the coffee table. Trying not to squint from all the glowing across from her. “I want to. No, I really do. I just…” Crap. “Do you honestly know what you’re getting into?” she said gently. “Eden’s kind of…not Mae.”
Chuckling softly, Charley leaned back in the sofa, cradling his probably cold tea and looking pretty much on top of the world. His face even looked fuller. “Noticed that right off, didja?”
“Kinda hard to miss.”
His smile faded as his gaze sharpened. “Not looking for a clone of my dead wife, you know.”
“I wasn’t aware you were looking for anything.”
“I wasn’t. It just happened.”
Let it go, girl, let it—“Are you two really serious?”
“Serious enough she wants to cook Thanksgiving dinner for us. At her place.”
“Oh. Wow. And you’re sure…I’m invited?”
“For God’s sake, Rox—why are you being like this?”
“Because I love you and I don’t want to see you hurt?”
“Not because it hurts you to see me happy?”
It took a second or two to get to her feet and start out of the room, although this was stupid, she had no right to take umbrage when she’d thought virtually the same thing less than an hour before….
“Rox,” Charley said on a sigh. “Come back here.”
Nearly to the door, she turned, hugging herself. Knowing what he was going to say. So she preempted him. “Despite what you think, this isn’t about me—”
“That’s right, it isn’t,” her uncle said, standing as well, his posture more erect, his shoulders more square than they’d been in the past several months. “You want to be cautious about your own relationships after what happened? You go right ahead. You’ve earned that right. But that right doesn’t extend to anyone else. Especially me. And I refuse to make my decisions based on your fears.”
For a moment she simply stood there, assaulted by a maelstrom of emotions—embarrassment, mostly, at having her face so thoroughly rubbed in the truth. But she also found herself admiring her uncle’s damn-the-torpedoes courage, not only for taking on Eden, but for putting his heart out there again, period.
Didn’t exactly make her feel proud of herself for dragging her feet about facing Jeff. An oversight she silently vowed to remedy ASAP. But for now…hot damn she was proud of Charley. And he needed to know that.
She crossed the room, seeing surprise flash in his eyes a moment before she wrapped her arms around his waist, laying her head against his chest. “I apologize,” she said, then looked up at him. “And I’m going to be pleased for you if it kills me. I am,” she said at his chuckle. “Still. It’s so…sudden.”
Draping one skinny arm around her shoulders, Charley steered her to the sofa, where, once seated, she leaned into his side like she used to with her father when she was little. Like she’d wanted to with Charley right after her parents died, except stubbornness and pain and fear wouldn’t let her.
“I have no idea where this is going, Rox,” he said into her hair. “But at Edie’s and my age, we don’t have the luxury of taking things slowly. All I know is, we have fun together, and she makes me feel twenty years younger. Yes, she’s crazy, but after everything I went through with your aunt…maybe a little crazy isn’t such a bad thing.”
She almost laughed, then sighed. “I still worry about you.”
“Well, don’t. I’m fine. And if I get my heart broken—” she felt him shrug “—you can tell me ‘I told you so.’ How’s that?”
“Deal,” she said, then sat up to pick her buzzing phone off the coffee table.
“So you coming to Thanksgiving or not?”
“Of course I’ll come to Thanksgiving,” she said, frowning at the text from the unrecognized number. Beside her, her uncle hmmphed. The man was hardly a Luddite; he’d been working with computers long before they made them small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. But he never missed an opportunity to give her grief about being attached to her phone 24/7.
“Ohmigosh,” she said, blinking to make sure she’d read the message correctly.
“For heaven’s sake, girl! What—”
“It’s from the owner of this fabulous gallery in Atlanta! They got my resume and want me to come out for an interview! Ohmigod, Charley!” With a squeal, she lunged sideways to give him another hug. “I finally got a nibble! If this works out, I’ll finally be out of your hair! Won’t that be great?”
“Uh, yeah,” he said. Except he didn’t look nearly as thrilled about the prospect of her leaving the house, of leaving Tierra Rosa, as she might have thought.
And the kicker was, Roxie wasn’t nearly as thrilled about that as she might have thought, either.
Well, hell.
Noah told himself he’d crossed the street to his parents’ house for one reason, and one reason only: food. There was always something to eat there. As opposed to his place, which put Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard to shame. So sue him, he hated grocery shopping. Too damn many choices, he always came out with a bunch of junk he didn’t need and usually ended up not liking, anyway.
He’d come to a standstill in his parents’ small foyer, thinking that over while Blue whined and wriggled at his knees for some loving. Because some people, he mused as he idly patted the rhapsodic mutt, had no trouble knowing what they liked, what they needed, when they went into the store. If they went in for vegetables, they didn’t get distracted by the donuts. Or at least they didn’t get so distracted by the donuts they forgot the broccoli. Didn’t feel as if they were missing something when they left, either.
Must be nice, being that focused. Knowing who you were, what you wanted….
“Hey, honey,” his mother whispered, creeping toward him in her winter uniform of a loose sweatshirt, leggings and sheepskin booties, her fading red hair loose around her still-smooth face. “Blue, for heaven’s sake, a person’d think you were the most neglected dog in the world. What’re you doing here?” she said, accepting Noah’s hug.
“Scavenging. Where’s Dad?”
“Asleep,” she said, following Noah and Blue into the country-style kitchen that needed updating nearly as much as Charley’s. Except in Noah’s opinion the blue-and-darkred color scheme wore somewhat better than seventies bilious.
“It’s barely nine.”
“I know.” She pul
led a casserole of some kind out of the fridge. “But that project is whipping his butt. Poor guy ate dinner, watched a half hour of the sports channel and conked out in his chair. He looked so peaceful I tossed an afghan over him and left him there.” Noah came up beside her to lift the foil on what looked like lasagna, while an expectantly quivering Blue planted his butt far enough away to not get stepped on, but still close enough so nobody’d forget him, either. When Donna went for a knife, though, Noah took it out of her hand.
“I came for food, not for you to wait on me.”
“I wait on you today,” she said, reclaiming the knife, “you change my diapers tomorrow. Fair trade. Now go sit.” She cut him a big chunk of the lasagna, clunked the covered plate in the microwave. “You want some salad? It’s already made.”
“Sure.” Noah slid into the sturdy wooden chair at the table that’d been there his entire life, the familiarity of the kitchen, his parents, even the dog, settling like a warm blanket over him. Strange, how for somebody whose longest relationship so far had lasted maybe three months, he wasn’t real big on change in any other aspect of his life.
Lord, a therapist would have a field day with him, he mused as he scratched the dog’s ears, the head belonging to the ears now wedged between Noah’s thigh and the table.
His mother slid the plate in front of him, heaped with fragrant, gooey lasagna on one side and her everything-she-had-on-hand salad on the other. “Blue! Go! You know better than that!” The dog slunk off to collapse with a put-upon moan by the stove, biding his time until the Big Bad Woman wasn’t watching to sneak right back for a handout. “So how’s Charley’s house reno coming along?” Donna asked, sitting opposite him with a cup of something Noah doubted he’d like.
“Pretty good, all told. Kitchen demo’ll be done tomorrow, we start tiling right after. Cabinets and countertops won’t be in for a few days, though.”
“Your father says you’re supervising the whole job? Even the cabinetry?”
“Yep.”
“Lord, it’s about time,” Donna said on an exhale. “I’ve been on his case for I don’t know how long about him needing to give you more responsibility.”
This was news. “You have?”
She nodded. “But you know your father. Pigheaded as they come. Oh, while I’m thinking about it—why don’t you invite Charley and Roxie here for family dinner on Thursday night? They don’t have a kitchen,” she said before Noah could protest. “It’s the Christian thing to do. And speaking of Roxie…” Her cheek nestled in her hand, she smiled. “I hear she’s been a big help.”
Noah shoveled a bite of lasagna into his mouth, refusing to take his mother’s bait. Never mind that he couldn’t get Roxie’s scent, or the feel of her in his arms, or her teary eyes when she told him about her past, out of his head. But for damn sure he wasn’t about to share any of that with his mother.
So, “Yeah, she sure has,” was all he offered as he got up to pour himself a glass of milk. When he returned to the table, the smile hadn’t faded one bit. Tough, he thought, forking in a bunch of leaves and…stuff, then kicking back several swallows of milk. “Charley say anything to you guys about that gal he’s dating?”
His mother’s hand crashed to the table loud enough to rouse the dog. “Charley’s dating? Who?”
“Nobody you know. Some gal from Santa Fe.”
“You met her?”
“Sorta. I was still at the house tonight when they came in.”
“She nice?”
“She’s…different. Used to be on Broadway. Long time ago.”
“Broadway? You don’t say.” Donna sat back in her chair with her arms crossed, as if she was trying to process all this. “Well. Good for him, I suppose. What does Roxie think?”
“Roxie’s…” Twiddling his fork in his fingers, Noah weighed his words. “She’s got some stuff in her past that might be coloring the way she looks at the situation.”
“She doesn’t like her.”
“She doesn’t trust her.” At his mother’s arched brow, he said, “And I’ve already said more than I should. So if you don’t mind, can we just leave it?”
“You brought up the subject.”
Yeah, desperation will do that. “I know. But…I probably should’nt’ve.”
“Interesting,” Donna said, an inscrutable smile pushing at her high cheekbones. “Roxie sharing things you can’t talk about with your own mother.”
“Mom. No.”
Donna laughed and covered his free hand with her own. “You are so much fun to torment, you know that—?”
“Thought I heard voices,” his father said, yawning as he chuffed into the kitchen. Shaking his head, he opened his eyes too wide. “Guess I passed out. There any more of that?” he said, nodding toward Noah’s nearly empty plate.
“Right on the counter, help yourself,” Donna said. “Although not too much, or you’ll be up all night with indigestion.” Behind his wife’s back, Gene rolled his eyes for Noah’s benefit. “And you can quit it with the eye rolling right now, Eugene Garrett!” Then, while Noah chuckled around his last bite, she twisted around to face his dad. “Did you know Charley was dating somebody?”
Getting up to help himself to a piece of apple pie on the counter, Noah listened to his parents’ conversation, as soothing and predictable as always. The sound of best friends, of true partners. Again, like with the grocery shopping thing, he felt a prickle that was almost envy, not exactly for what they had as much as for who they were.
What the hell was going on with him tonight?
A little later he said his goodbyes and walked out into the night, reminding himself that right now his brothers were all probably struggling to get kids asleep in houses strewn with toys, that they couldn’t simply leave when the mood struck. That in a few minutes Noah would walk into his apartment, and it would be empty and quiet, and he could walk across the floor without impaling his foot on a Lego piece or something, and he could sleep naked—hell, he could walk around naked if he wanted—without worrying about impressionable little minds.
Then he thought about Roxie, the pain in her eyes when she talked about her first fiancé, the baby she’d lost, about his reaction of wanting to make it better, make her better, and how that didn’t jibe at all with everything, anything, he’d ever thought about himself.
And here he’d always assumed that things got clearer as you got older.
So much for that.
By the time Noah got to Charley’s the next morning, Roxie had already stripped a good chunk of the stairwell wallpaper, a project that must’ve taken hours already.
“You even go to bed last night?” he called up the stairs, his renegade heart going ka-thump when she grinned down at him.
“I was up at four. Couldn’t sleep.”
“Meaning I was up at four, too,” Charley muttered from the head of the stairs. Dressed in neatly pressed khakis, a blue button-down shirt open at the collar and a heavy brown cardigan that didn’t droop from his shoulders nearly as much as it would’ve even a couple of weeks ago, the older man jerked his head in Roxie’s direction as he passed her on the way down. “Girl’s got news.”
“Oh?” Noah said, his stomach crashing as he hurtled to the conclusion that The Moron and she had patched things up. What the hell?
“I might have a job! In Atlanta!”
More stomach crashing. But again…what the hell? Wasn’t like he hadn’t known all along she’d be blowing this joint sooner or later. Besides which, there was nothing going on between them.
Then she bounced downstairs, eyes sparkling, face glowing, curls bobbing, and he just thought, Hell. “It’s for this really chi-chi gallery. They want me to come for an interview next week! So, by the way, I won’t be here Friday.” Man, that grin was bright. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
Then she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him.
“Don’t take it personally,” Charley said. “She’s hugging everything in sight.”
; “That’s…really great,” Noah finally said, trying not to react to all that enthusiastic, sweet-smelling softness pressing against him, then setting her apart before she realized exactly how well that was not working. “You must be real excited.”
Behind them, Charley grunted as Roxie bubbled, “You have no idea! And Atlanta!” Then she took him by the shoulders and planted a kiss on his cheek. Lord, he half expected her to twirl around and burst into song. Instead, she clasped her hands and said, “I think this calls for Evangelista’s cinnamon rolls and breakfast burritos, don’t you?”
“I’ll go,” Charley said, trekking to the front door, obviously seizing the opportunity to escape.
“Bring back enough for everybody! Silas and Jesse, too, they said they’d be here this morning!” Roxie shouted after him, then released a happy sigh. Until she must have seen something in Noah’s face that made her happy to take a hike. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Except I haven’t been up since four, so I’m not firing on all jets yet. So. Wow. Atlanta. That’s…far.”
“I know,” she said dreamily, drifting back up the stairs with a goony smile on her face. “Oh, by the way…” She leaned over to look at the front door, even though they’d both heard her uncle’s truck roar off. “Charley and I had a heart-to-heart last night. About Eden. And I realized…I have to let it go. That it’s not up to me to protect him.”
“And that maybe he doesn’t need anybody protecting him?”
“That, too,” she said over the sound of another swath of old wallpaper biting the dust.
“But you’re still worried.”
“Like you wouldn’t believe. Still.” She cut the air with one hand. “I’m done.”
Noah leaned on the banister. “You call back your ex?”
Her eyes bounced to his, then back to the wall. “And ruin this good mood? No way.”
“Rox—”
“I know, I know. And I will. I swear. But not right now.”
Noah thought for a moment. Decided to spit it out anyway. “Would it help if I was around when you did?”
Big old eyes flashed to his. “No! I mean, that’s very sweet, but…” Shaking her head, she slapped a wet sponge against the next piece of wallpaper. “I have to do this by myself.”
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