Okay, now she was making herself depressed.
She let herself inside, to find a humming Charley reloading cabinets in the newly finished kitchen, now a symphony in tans and creams and blacks. Pretty. If they’d had a kitchen table she would have definitely sat at it, since, between the flight and unwinding and the kissing and the wine she wasn’t entirely sure how long she had until her knees gave out. Not to mention her brain. Which finally caught up to Charley’s humming.
Ah.
“Let me guess. You and Eden are back together.”
A stack of bread plates in his hands, Charley grinned over at her. “We are. At least we’re going to give this thing between us a real shot, see where it goes.” Then the grin melted into a frown. “You okay with that?”
“Of course,” Roxie said gamely. “If she really makes you happy—”
“When we’re not arguing?” The plates clattered onto the shelf. “Yeah. She does.”
Okay, then. Charley had charged ahead with his life. Good for him. And God willing, the woman wouldn’t drive him insane, or break his heart, or take him for every penny he had. But, hey—life was all about taking risks, right?
“And this way,” he added, clunking another stack of plates on the shelf, “you don’t have to worry about me being alone once you leave.”
“Not an issue,” she said on a sigh. Yep, Charley was striking out for distant shores, and here she was, treading water. “Not yet, anyway.”
Brows drawn, Charley met her gaze again. “You didn’t get the job?”
“No.” She made do with the old step stool, now looking woefully out of place amidst all the Gleaming and New. “It’s okay,” she said with a wave of her hand, even though, now that the wine and the endorphins were wearing off, it wasn’t. Drat. “The Atlanta traffic sucks anyway.”
“I’m sorry, kiddo—”
“I said, it’s okay. Any mail come while I was gone?”
“Over there, on the counter. Which looks great, by the way. It all does. Now that it’s done, I’m glad you forced me into it.”
“You’re not just saying that?” she said, spotting the Priority Mail envelope with Jeff’s return address.
“When have you ever known me to blow air up anybody’s skirt? No. The old kitchen looked like Mae. This looks like me.”
Never mind that he hadn’t chosen so much as the paint color, Roxie thought with a half smile as she slit open the envelope, letting a half dozen CDs she had no interest in listening to, ever again, clatter onto the new laminate. To her consternation, her eyes burned, even though she knew beyond a doubt she’d been over Jeff for months. This wasn’t the numbness of denial, either, but the relief of simply no longer caring.
The emotional betrayal, though, combined with lingering self-condemnation for thinking she could simply transfer all her hopes and dreams from Mac to Jeff, like switching out a bank account—that she wasn’t over nearly as much as she might have thought. Or wished.
And her reaction to Noah’s kisses tonight only reinforced that.
Because let’s be clear, boys and girls—girlfriend was needy as hell. Emotionally, physically, the lot. But tumbling into bed with Noah—and she had no doubt the option was on the table, should she be inclined to exercise it—would solve nothing. Not for her, anyway. And right now? It was all about doing—or, in this case, not doing—what was best for her. And what was best for her was sticking to what was safe. What made sense.
And Noah didn’t fit either of those criteria. At all.
Moving on. Great idea in theory, not so easy in practice.
Although Noah had worked some at Charley’s that Saturday to keep the momentum going, he’d only seen Roxie briefly as he was leaving and she was getting home from the clinic. They exchanged pleasantries, he caught her up on the progress, she caught him up on Charley and Eden, they said good-night and that was that. It hadn’t seemed prudent to mention he’d slept for crap the night before, having no idea at the time he wouldn’t sleep for crap that night or the one following, either.
So here he was on Monday, sleep-deprived as all hell, albeit conscious enough—barely—to realize he’d never lost sleep over a woman before. Granted, he thought as he watched her turn the dining table into her own branch of Ship ’n’ Check, there was an outside chance he could chalk it all up to plain old sexual frustration. Meaning there was also an outside chance if they’d just get it on, already, he’d be able to sleep again. And yes, if Roxie could read minds he’d be dead right now.
Naturally she picked that moment to look up, frowning, and damned if his face didn’t get hot. She picked up a packing tape dispenser, slapping it against a box. “You need me for anything?”
She should only know. With the morning light teasing her dark hair, her neck where she’d pulled it up save for a bunch of little corkscrew curls around her temples, she looked nearly edible. “Just wondering what you’re doing.”
Roxie jerked the tape across the package. “Packing up Mae’s stuff that sold on eBay so Charley won’t have to worry about it. If necessary, I’ll come back in the spring, hold a sale for whatever’s left over.”
Noah’s stomach dropped. “You found a job?”
Her mouth twisted. “I wish. But you know me, ever the optimist. Obviously, if I’m still here…” He saw her chest rise with her breath. “Anyway.” She rubbed her hands down the sides of her sweatshirt. “So you guys are almost finished?”
“Hope to be done and gone by Wednesday, yep.”
“Charley’s really pleased,” she said, wrapping tissue, then bubble wrap, around a figurine of some kind. “But then he’s floating on cloud nine these days, anyway. Did I tell you? He and I are going to Eden’s for Thanksgiving.”
“No. That should be…interesting.”
“There’s one word for it,” she said with a low, just-Roxbeing-Rox laugh, and Noah thought, It’s not gonna be the same when you’re gone—
“Noah? I know you’re here, son, your truck’s outside.”
Roxie’s head jerked up. “Your dad?”
“Yep. Said he might stop by sometime today, see how things were going.”
“Checking up on you, you mean?” she whispered. “Man, that is so bogus.”
Noah blinked at her, not sure whether to be more amused by her skateboard-dude-speak or flummoxed by her immediate defense. Flummoxed, and oddly…pleased. Gratified. Turned on. “It’s okay,” he mouthed, leaving the room to meet his father in the foyer.
And even more oddly, it was. Because at some point he’d concluded that, actually, he didn’t need to prove a blamed thing to his father. Or anybody else. He was hardworking, reliable and good at what he did. If his dad couldn’t see that, it was his problem. Not Noah’s.
Gene was already in the kitchen inspecting the cabinets, eyeballing the countertop levels, squinting at the tile floors. Arms crossed, Noah leaned against the doorjamb, watching, catching Roxie’s scent as she came up behind him. His fierce little wingman, he thought with a funny twist to his midsection.
“Looks okay,” Gene said, high praise for him. Only before Noah could get out his thanks, Roxie squirmed past him.
“It’s a lot more than okay, Mr. Garrett,” she said, a smile in her voice.
“Rox—”
“Hey.” She wheeled on Noah, puffed up like a little bantam hen. And although she was smiling, she definitely had a fear-me glint in her eyes. “Am I the customer, or what? So you just hush and let me say my piece.” Then she spun back to his dad. “‘Okay,’ my butt. It’s fantastic. And he’s ahead of schedule and coming in under budget.”
Startled, Gene looked from Roxie to Noah—who, not about to take offense at her defense, simply shrugged—then back to Roxie. “You don’t say?” his dad said, his eyes twinkling. “Well, if you’re satisfied—”
“Try thrilled.”
“Then so am I,” his father said with a slight bow. “Although I take it you don’t mind if I check up on some of the technical things?”
Despite choking back a laugh, Noah was sorely tempted to pick the gal up by the back of her sweatshirt and remove her from the room before things got any more embarrassing. Especially when his father said, “Maybe you should let me be the judge of that?”
“Sure, do what you gotta do,” she said with a flick of her hand, and marched out of the room, leaving Noah alone with his father. And a whole boatload of speculation, he’d wager.
“Sounds like you’ve got a real fan there,” Gene said casually, after they’d toured the rest of the house, checking the repairs to the windows and floors before moving outside to the porch, which, under Noah’s supervision, his brothers had repaired and repainted.
“Completely unsolicited, I swear.”
His father let out a low chuckle. “Gal reminds me a lot of your mother when we were first dating.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Nope. Her passion, her honesty. Her fearlessness…” Looking over at his own house, Gene shrugged. “I remember thinking, when we first met, we’d probably knock heads at least once a day, but I’d never be bored. And I was right.” He grinned. “On both counts. I never know what’s gonna come out of that woman’s mouth. Probably why we’ve never run out of things to talk about.” He paused, then said, “She also told me I needed to stop being an old stick in the mud and trust you more. With the business, I mean. And on the surface, I agree with her.”
“Finally,” Noah muttered, but his father’s hand shot up.
“Not so fast.” Leaning his backside against the porch railing, he folded his arm over his heavy plaid jacket. “I’m still not exactly on board with some of your lifestyle choices.”
Noah’s eyes met his father’s. “And I can’t seriously believe you’re going down this road again.”
Gene’s shoulders hitched. “Don’t get me wrong, the house looks good. Real good. I’ve got no complaints about your work. But image counts for a lot more than we sometimes want to believe, whether we like it or not. How a person conducts himself carries every bit as much weight as how well he does his job. I know I can’t make you into somebody you’re not. That I’ve got no right to ask you to change, but—”
“Then stop trying,” Noah said softly, his gaze swinging across the street.
“I can’t help it. Just like I can’t help that people naturally trust family men more. That’s simply human nature, I didn’t make it up—”
“Dad. For crying out loud…” On a strained half laugh, Noah faced Gene again. “You say that like being married is some sort of vaccination against never doing anything wrong again. Have you listened to the news lately? Plenty of married men screw up—”
“Not Garretts,” his father said, as if it was an indisputable fact, then walked over to clap Noah’s shoulder. “And sometimes a parent feels obligated, for his kid’s own good, to point out things he knows the kid doesn’t want to hear. Believe me, it would be much easier to keep my mouth shut. Except when you want that kid to be the best he can be? You don’t.” Gene squeezed his arm again, then started down the steps, leaving Noah to gag on the stench of his father’s continued disapproval.
Despite his determination not to let the old man get to him, his stomach churned like a disturbed riverbed as he watched Gene walk out to his truck. Several deep breaths later he walked back inside to find Roxie in the living room, another box of Mae’s stuff clamped in her hands and her eyes so full of sympathy he wanted to barf.
“You were eavesdropping?”
“You bet,” she said mildly, setting the box on top of several others by the front door.
Anger exploded in his gut. “Coming to my defense earlier was one thing, even if it was totally unnecessary. But to blatantly listen in on a conversation that has nothing to do with you—”
“Was wrong and rotten and bad. I know.” She straightened, facing him. And not the least bit repentant. “But at least it saves you the trouble of filling me in when you get over yourself enough to properly bitch about it.”
“And what makes you think I need to do that?”
“Maybe because you look like you could snap nails in two with your teeth right now?”
“I’m fine.”
“Bull.”
Noah looked at her for a long moment, then wheeled and strode out of the room, hoping she’d get the message, that he wanted to be left alone, dammit. But no, she had to trail him like a hound dog through the house and outside to the backyard, where he slammed the palm of his hand against the trunk of an enormous, bare-limbed ash. He heard the dry grass crunch as she approached, stopping a good six or so feet away.
“For what it’s worth?” she said. “You handled that with a helluva lot more restraint than I would have. That was seriously impressive.”
“You’re not going away, are you?”
“Nope. Just like you didn’t go away the night of the pizza party. So deal. And by the way? Not sure I appreciate being made a substitute target, either.”
A reluctant smile pushing at his mouth, Noah dropped his hand. Faced her. “I’d honestly thought I didn’t care anymore. What he thought.”
“I know,” Rox said gently, and the irritation twisted into something far worse, something he had no idea how to handle. “And I swear I didn’t mean to make you more angry. But I was so angry for you I couldn’t help it.” She shrugged. “Like I said. No restraint.”
Right. This from the woman who had consciously chosen not to be bitter about the hand—hands—fate had dealt her. Then it registered what she’d said. “You don’t agree with Dad?”
“Well,” she said, perching awkwardly on the arm of an old, peeling Adirondack chair planted in the middle of the yard, “the part about people’s skewed perceptions?” She let out an aggravated sigh. “Unfortunately, that’s pretty much true.” Snorting, Noah looked away. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t understand your frustration. Your crew obviously respects you. Hell, from what I can tell, they flat out worship you. Why your father can’t see that, can’t accept…you…”
He turned back to find her gripping the arm of the chair so tightly her hands looked like claws. “Ohmigod, it makes me so mad I could spit! To…to follow tradition simply because that’s the way it’s always been done? Especially about something as monumental as getting married? Having kids? Who gets to decide this stuff?”
Okay, color him slightly confused. “But…you’re totally down with the whole marriage and kids thing.”
“For me, yeah,” Rox said, nearly toppling over when she pressed one hand to her chest. “Not for everybody. And to use marriage as some sort of yardstick to measure somebody’s integrity…I can’t even wrap my head around that, sorry. You have a right to live your own life, Noah, the way you want to live it. Not the way your father wants you to. So there.”
Wow. Then, realizing she was shivering because she was probably freezing, Noah slipped out of his jacket and handed it to her, feeling another one of those funny gut twists when she practically disappeared inside it. “Thanks,” she said.
Noah nodded, then smiled slightly. “Looks like there’s no reason for me to bitch. Seeing as you already did it for me.”
A stray, still-yellow leaf rappelled through the mostly bare branches to land in Roxie’s lap. Idly, she picked it up, talking almost more to it than to him.
“Yeah, well, it hit home. See, apparently my parents had plans for me. Plans that didn’t include me making a career out of telling people how much Great-Aunt Edna’s eighteenth-century armoire was worth. Especially since my father had done the struggling artist thing most of their married life. Meaning Charley and Mae weren’t exactly encouraging, either. We fought,” she said to his questioning gaze. “A lot. Hence the Goth phase. And why I put myself through college. Out of state. That’s also why I didn’t come back very often to see them, because we’d get into the same argument every time I did. And it hurt, because I loved them. But it seem
ed the only way to ensure their happiness was to sacrifice my own.”
Huh. Maybe they had more in common than he’d thought. “What did your parents want you to do?”
She smirked. “Anything that was ‘stable.’ As if such a thing exists in today’s economy, anyway. Except maybe working for the IRS or going into undertaking,” she said dryly. “They all meant well. I even knew it at the time. But we can’t be who other people want us to be. Not successfully anyway.” The fire flared again in her eyes. “God knows, your dad’s a good man. But so are you. And it chaps my hide that he can’t see that because his definition doesn’t jibe with yours.”
And again, her defense warmed him. However…“Rox—my reputation…that’s not rumor, you know.”
“Being a chick magnet doesn’t automatically make you a dirtwad.”
At that, he laughed out loud. “Oh, honey…if I was ever in a back alley fight? I’d definitely want you on my side.”
Her eyes locked in his, she huddled more deeply into his jacket. “Same here,” she said.
Then Noah said, “You’re treading on real thin ice, you know that?” and her brows lifted.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That you have no idea how badly I want to kiss you again.”
“Never mind that two minutes ago you were mad at me.”
“Which would be two minutes before you blew my mind.”
Then it seemed as if another two minutes passed before, on a rush of air, she said, “Okay, here’s the thing—you have no idea how much I’d like to kiss you again, too—no, stay where you are, I’m not finished—but the problem is, kissing has a way of leading to other things. Which in theory is very nice. In fact, I’m a real big fan of ‘other things,’ but, see…I learned the hard way that I’m not one of those women who can fool around and then go about my merry way. I…bond. Big time.”
“As in…?”
“As in, my hormones turn to Super Glue and you’ll never get rid of me. Well, not without the words ‘twenty-to-life’ being in there somewhere. And I’m thinking that’s not what you have in mind.”
“Going to prison?”
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