He was silent for so long that she started to wonder whether he was actually going to answer, but finally, he blew out a pained breath.
“Piper, I’ve got one year left on my contract. Twelve months. If I promised to come back after that year is over … is there any chance we might have a future together?”
She put up her hands like he just wasn’t getting it. “Would you also promise not to die?”
He sighed. “I’d give it my best shot.”
“I’m sorry.” Her throat closed, and it was hard to speak. “That’s not good enough, Noah. I can’t live my life scared that you’re not coming home. Even for a year.”
“I could work at a hardware store and get hit by a bus on the way home, you know.”
“I know. But you wouldn’t be choosing to put yourself in danger. There’s a difference. You’re not wrong to do what you do. It’s what you love, and it’s what you need. Obviously. We’re just … different people … and that’s … okay.”
She turned toward her window so he wouldn’t see the tears that were threatening. Dammit, she wished he would start the truck. Sitting here in the cold, having the coldest kind of conversation, was a nightmare she felt like she’d already lived through once.
He reached for her hand again. “You won’t even think about it?”
She took a deep breath, closed her eyes. “All I’ve done for seven years is think about it, Noah. I’ve questioned every move I made so many times that I’ve made myself crazy. I’ve read your articles, I’ve checked out your website, I’ve cried a hundred gallons of tears. I have, okay? Is that what you want to hear?”
“No. Yes. No. God, I don’t know.”
“I wish I was the girl who could go home right now, pack up a bag, and head off to Belize with you. I really, really wish I was, because dammit, I’ve never stopped loving you. That much is exceedingly, painfully clear right now.”
She felt the tears let go, saw him close his eyes in reaction. “But I’m not that girl. I’m never going to be that girl. I want a house by the lake, a whole bunch of kids … a husband who’ll be home every night for dinner. And I know that sounds boring. It probably sounds completely hellish to you. But it’s … me. It’s who I am, and it’s what I want, and I could pretend differently and go off with you next week … or I could say I’ll wait … but in the end, we’d both be miserable.”
“How can you really know that?”
“You know it, too, Noah. And if you came back—if you stayed—you’d be miserable in Echo Lake, too. You’d be bored out of your skull, and maybe it’d be fine at first, but eventually you’d resent me for forcing you to make that choice. I can’t do that. I won’t do that.”
“I’d never blame you, Piper. It’d be my choice.”
“You say that, and I know you mean it right now. But it wouldn’t last. You need to be moving, be seeing new things, meeting new people. Echo Lake gets in about three new residents on a bumper year. You’d go completely nuts looking at the same people, the same scenery, the same … everything. You have a right to be happy, Noah. So do I. And as much as I—love you—I’d never be happy, thinking I’d made you stay.”
He reached for her hands. “Can’t we just think about it? This is all sudden, and neither of us has had time to even process it all. Please, Piper. Don’t close the door, just when we’ve found each other again. Just promise you’ll think about it, okay?”
“No.” She shook her head miserably. “We—we’re just different. We want different things. I think we need to face it and let—” A tiny sob found its way out of her throat. “We need to let each other go. Once and for all.”
Noah put his hand through his hair, closing his eyes. “I feel like we’ve had this conversation before.”
“We have. That’s my whole point. And we can’t be delusional enough to think we wouldn’t keep having it.” She squeezed his hand. “I’ve been waiting for you for seven years, Noah. I didn’t even know it, but it’s true. And I’m really, really sorry, but … I can’t wait anymore.”
Chapter 8
Two days later, Piper sat on a couch littered with Milky Way wrappers, empty Cheetos bags, and a cliché-perfect mound of balled-up tissues. She’d called in sick on Monday morning, making up highly contagious flu symptoms in order to keep Molly and Mama B away, and she’d given herself the gift of forty-eight hours of mourning.
It was now hour number forty-seven and she was out of tears and tissues. She found her purse under a pile of T-shirts, hoping to dig out one last packet. Instead, she pulled out a folded-up place mat from the diner, covered with squiggles and words she’d jotted down in the truck on the way back while she was trying not to talk to Noah.
The story he’d told her the other night in the diner was still knocking around her brain, the images he’d created vivid and full-color. And now, reading the words she’d written as she’d tried to capture the story on the way home, she felt an itch she hadn’t felt in … forever.
She grabbed a fresh sheet of paper from the coffee table, then fished in her purse for a pencil, but all she had were three ballpoint pens. When had she stopped carrying pencils?
Uncapping the pens, she let her fingers take over, sketching a picture that had just flown into her head. Ten minutes later, she grabbed another piece of paper and sketched some more. Her fingers seemed almost detached from her brain as they made the pens skate over the paper, and she watched in awe as an adorable forest scene replaced the vast blank space.
When she’d finished the second sketch, she put down her pens and clasped her hands together, feeling like bubbles were trying to burst from her limbs.
She knew this feeling. She remembered it, but hadn’t felt it for so, so long.
She leaped up from the couch and headed to the bedroom closet. She had to get Noah’s stories.
She had to paint.
* * *
“Open up, Piper.”
Three days later, Molly knocked on Piper’s apartment door with a ferocity that almost made her obey.
“I’m still sick, Mols. Contagious.” Piper grimaced as she looked around her living room, now scattered with drop cloths and paintings leaning against the walls. She still hadn’t picked up the candy wrappers, or her clothes, and it looked like her entire apartment had been sacked.
“You are not. You were spotted buying milk last night.”
“What?” Crap. “By whom?”
“Mrs. Nebbits. She came into Bellinis for lunch, and was oh, so glad you were feeling better. She even used the words positively glowing.”
Piper wrinkled her nose, but didn’t get up from her stool. Why, again, did she love this town?
Molly knocked again. “Listen, either you open this door, or I’m going to dial 911 and tell them I smell a dead body in here.”
“Fine! Okay! Hold on!” Piper set down her palette and wiped her fingers on her jeans, then headed for the door. “But it’s the avian bovine flu, so don’t hold it against me when you get it.”
She opened the door, and Molly stepped back, her eyes widening. “Omigod, what happened to you?” She peered around Piper into the apartment. “And what happened in there?”
Piper motioned her inside, then closed the door behind her. She tried to find the words to explain the explosion of paint and canvas, but before she could, Molly started walking around the edge of the room, looking down at the paintings.
When she’d completed a circuit, she looked up at Piper, her eyebrows practically as high as her hairline. “Piper?”
Piper shrugged her shoulders carefully, wincing. “I’ve been painting.”
“I can see that. You’ve been painting a—lot.” She walked toward the window, pointing at one of Piper’s favorites—one she’d completed sometime around three this morning. “These are—awesome. I haven’t seen you paint like this in forever!”
“I know.”
“Did Noah—is he—omigod, is this because of Noah?”
Piper blew out a breath. She wis
hed she knew. After she’d completed her fourth canvas in twenty-four hours, she’d started asking that same question. When she’d picked up her brush on Tuesday, it had felt just right in her hand—like she’d never really put it down. And what came out of that brush had shocked her. The colors, the swirls, the magic … It was like the paintings she’d done years ago, when she’d been crazy in love with Noah.
It didn’t make sense, though. The weekend had showed her that she was still in love with the damn man, but she’d done the most painful possible thing when she’d said good-bye to him once and for all. She would have expected to gravitate toward a huge tube of black paint. She would have expected to use broad, angry brushstrokes as she covered the canvas from top to bottom.
Instead, the first painting she’d done had been bright, light, happy. She’d used her tiniest brushes, she’d used whimsical strokes and silly shapes, and long before she’d finished, she’d known it was her best work ever.
It didn’t make sense.
Molly grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the kitchen end of the room. “All right. I am making us coffee, and then you are spilling your guts. I can’t believe you pretended to have the flu all freaking week, and you’ve been holed up in here painting!”
“I’m sorry. I just had to. I know I left you in a lurch, but I just—had to.”
Molly scooped coffee grounds into Piper’s tiny coffee maker, then filled the carafe with water and dumped it in the top. Once it started gurgling, she sat on a barstool at the counter next to Piper.
“I’m not leaving this apartment until you tell me exactly how last weekend went. I’ve been torn between thinking you’re in here crying your eyes out over coulda-beens … or thinking you’ve got Noah tied to the bed.”
She leaned over to look toward the bedroom. “You don’t, do you?”
“He went back to Boston on Sunday night.”
“For … good?” Molly tipped her head, eyebrows furrowed.
Piper sighed. “Until he leaves for Belize on the twenty-sixth, yes.”
“And after that?”
“I don’t know.” Piper sat down next to her. “South Africa, I think. Alaska, maybe. I can’t remember.”
“So he left.” Molly’s tone was dead.
“Yeah … he did. But in his defense, he offered to come back in a year.”
Molly’s eyebrows went up. “And? What did you say?”
“What could I say, Mols?” Piper stood back up and paced toward the windows. “He doesn’t belong here anymore than I belong anywhere else. I don’t want someone who’s bored and resentful and wishing he’d chosen a different life. And that’s what I’d have, if he came back here to be with me.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do know that. More than anything, I know that.”
“People change, Piper. Maybe his adventurer thing will get old eventually.”
It was Piper’s turn to raise her eyebrows. “I don’t have time to wait for eventually.”
“Okay. Fine. I get that. Your withering eggs and all. But let me ask you this—can you really see yourself marrying anyone else after being with Noah this weekend?”
* * *
“Couple of signatures on this one, and then I’ve got your life insurance forms to update, and you can be on your way.” Noah’s manager pushed yet another piece of paper across the desk, and Noah slashed his signature on the bottom. He was back in Boston, trying to get his paperwork in order for the New Year before he left for Belize.
“So how’s your head?” Patrick’s eyes scanned his face. “We don’t mess around with concussions anymore—you know that. You really cleared to go?”
“Yeah. I’m good.”
“You wouldn’t lie to me?”
Noah sighed. “Listen, I’ve never wanted to get on a plane as badly as I do right now. I’d lie right to your face if I knew it would shut you up so I could go. But no. I’m not lying.”
Patrick shook his head, laughing. “Tough trip north?”
“The worst.”
The best.
“Want to talk about it?”
“Nope.”
“Okay.” Patrick smiled, sliding one last folder toward him. “Here’s your life insurance update. Just need you to sign and initial the first three pages, then make sure your beneficiary stuff is up to date. Then we’ll crack a beer, toast to your next trip, and you can head out the day after Christmas.”
“Sounds good.” Noah pulled the folder toward him and opened it, scanning the pages before he initialed them. When he got to the beneficiary page, though, he stopped cold. He’d always listed his three sisters in the spot where most people would put a wife and children. It had never really bothered him before.
It bothered him now.
It bothered the hell out of him.
He took a deep breath, closing his eyes, thinking back to three weeks ago when he’d lost his grip on the raft and tumbled into the icy water. He’d done everything right—had all the right safety equipment, all the right training, all the right … everything. But through some intersection of weather and water and lost concentration, he’d messed up.
He hadn’t gotten really hurt, but he could have. And as he’d battled the water, waiting for a rescue, one voice had haunted him. One face had kept him from believing this was it for him.
Piper’s.
He could have died that day, and it was only through sheer luck that he hadn’t. And if he’d been lucky enough to have her waiting at home for him, she’d have gotten the call … or the visit … and it would have killed her, too.
He’d gone back to Echo Lake last weekend under the guise of talking to Luke about an investment, but in his heart, he knew he’d really gone back to see Piper. After two days with her, he’d known he was just as in love with her as he’d always been, but once again, he’d left without a fight.
He sat back, letting his head fall against the chair for a long moment. Then he nodded slowly, clarity breaking through.
He needed a fight, dammit.
He needed Piper.
He snapped upright. “This is going to sound crazy, but I think—I can’t go to Belize.” He laid the pen down, pushed the folder away from him.
“Wha—” Patrick’s eyebrows went sky high.
“I can’t. I won’t.” He nodded, his next move suddenly crystal clear. “I need to go.”
“Where?”
Noah stood up and pulled on his coat, a smile taking over his face. “Back to Echo Lake.”
Chapter 9
“Lookin’ good, Piper.” Ethan scanned the wall of the indoor carousel, where Piper had propped the paintings she’d done in her manic haze over the past week. Two years ago he’d asked her to do a mural on the carousel wall, and ever since, that round, blank wall had taunted her just like her blank canvases had. But as she’d painted Noah’s stories in her apartment, she’d started to see them bigger, bolder, more beautiful … and she’d known they’d be perfect for the carousel.
“It’s going to take a while.” She stood up, wiping her hands on the painting smock she’d started wearing after she’d ruined two pairs of jeans in the past week.
“Take all the time you need. It’s going to be stunning.”
“I’d have to agree with you.” Another voice came from the doorway to her left, and Piper just about dropped her brushes.
Noah.
Ethan looked from one to the other of them, then smiled. “Well, I’ve got some stuff to check on. Turn the lights off when you’re done, okay?”
“Sure. Yes. Right.” Piper nodded blankly, her eyes locked on Noah’s. Why was he here, one week after they’d finally said good-bye?
After Ethan closed the door behind him, Noah stepped forward, around a couple of brightly painted carousel ponies. He looked at the wall she was working on, then at the paintings propped around the circle. For a long moment, she watched his eyes scan one, then the next, then the next, and his head tipped as his eyebrows came together.
“Your stories?” She nodded slowly, suddenly unsure of how he’d feel about her turning them into paintings.
“How did you—I can’t believe—how did you remember them?”
“I wrote them down. Every night, you’d fall asleep, and I’d get up and write them down. I never wanted to forget them.”
“Wait.” He shook his head. “I told you those stories so you’d go to sleep.”
“I know.” She smiled. “But you always fell asleep first.”
“I’m … sorry?” He picked one up. “Is this the puffaloop tree?”
“Yes, or at least how I imagine them. I’m sure they’re not what you … were really thinking.” As he examined the artwork, she felt suddenly shy and unsure. What if he hated the paintings, after she’d spent the entire week falling back in love with them?
“They’re perfect. I love them.” He set down the painting and shoved his hands into his pockets, looking suddenly uncomfortable.
“Why are you here, Noah?” She crossed her arms defensively.
“Well”—he took a deep breath, bringing his eyes up to meet hers—“I think I mentioned at some point last weekend that you’re a hard woman to get over.”
She nodded slowly, not daring to speak.
“I think … maybe I’m destined to never get over you. I’m sorry.”
“What does that … mean?”
He looked around, then back at her. “Can we maybe go for a walk? These horses are kind of creeping me out. It’s like forty pairs of eyes are staring at us.”
“I don’t know. Look where the last walk got us.”
“I remember.” His face grew serious. “I can’t forget, dammit.”
Piper froze at his words, delivered in a tone filled with longing. “Okay,” she finally said. She put down her brushes and took off her smock, pulling her jacket from the pony she’d slung it across. “Let’s walk.”
When they left the carousel building, Noah reached for her hand like they’d never said good-bye one week ago. She let him, like she’d never promised herself not to fall under his spell again. They walked in silence for ten minutes through the park, following paths lit by Christmas lights, and Piper’s brain was like a marquee on warp speed.
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