Noah

by Cristin Harber

  Contents

  NOAH

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  FORD by Samantha Chase

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  COPYRIGHT

  NOAH

  7 Brides for 7 Brothers, #6

  New York Times Bestselling Author

  Cristin Harber

  PROLOGUE

  February, Washington, DC

  The sun cracked through the open slats of Noah Coleman’s blinds in the bedroom of his sparsely furnished Eastern market apartment. His Navy SEAL team had landed in Baltimore a little after one o’clock in the morning, and with the time change and travel, coupled with the exhaustion of the intense job, he crashed face-first into his pillow.

  But it wasn’t the sun keeping him awake. His roommate, FBI Special Agent Kenneth Murphy, banged on the wall. “Kenny, go away.”

  The noise didn’t stop. Maybe Kenny was banging again, from what Noah’s foggy and exhausted mind could tell.

  “Stop,” Noah muttered and turned over with his pillow, burying himself under the cool sheets. Two days without sleeping—Kenny could give him the morning.

  “I hate to do this to you” came through the wall. “But you have to wake up.”

  Noah rolled onto his back again. He’d gone longer with less sleep. Kenny wouldn’t bother him if it weren’t important. “Hang on.”

  He pulled on a pair of sweatpants and grabbed his personal cell phone that had been on its charger since he’d left for the special forces op days ago. The screen awakened as he lumbered out of bed.

  Twenty-seven notifications.

  More than two notifications were unusual, and a dull sense of dread rolled through Noah as he opened his bedroom door and paced down the hallway, glancing at who had reached out. His folks. Lainey. And now Kenny who had banged on his wall when—Noah glanced at the time—his roommate should have been at work, and now faced him in their apartment. “What’s wrong with my family?”

  Kenny’s clean-shaven face didn’t have the answers. “All I know is your father called me.”

  Noah looked back at his notifications then scrolled through the text messages, finding generic but strongly worded “call as soon as you get this” requests.

  Dad might’ve called Kenny, but it was Noah’s cousin Lainey who would tell Noah the unfiltered truth.

  He pulled up her name and pressed Send, holding the ringing phone to his ear. “Voicemail.” He did the time-difference math and figured Lainey was either dropping her daughter off at preschool or walking into work.

  “Really?” Kenny asked. “Your dad tracked me down at work then didn’t pick up the phone?”

  “I called my cousin first. She’ll tell me what my parents will skirt around.” With that many messages, texts, and a call to Kenny, his family back in Eagle’s Ridge was competing to get to him first—or they wanted to make sure they heard from him between special ops. Either way, that type of call was easier when it wasn’t sugarcoated. “I’ll make a cup of coffee and try Lainey again. If she doesn’t answer after that, then I’ll call my dad.”

  Kenny nodded as he tossed his keys into the air. “I’m headed back in. If you need anything, let me know.”

  A cup of coffee later, Noah decided to call Lainey at work instead of on her cell phone.

  “Eagle’s Ridge Pediatrics,” the receptionist answered from the Coleman Center. “Can I help you?”

  “Is Lainey Force in?”

  “She is, but she’s with a patient. If you have a question, I can send you to the nurse’s voicemail and someone will get back to you—”

  “This is Noah Coleman. I’ll hold.”

  “Oh,” the receptionist said, in a way that put him on alert. The hairs at the back of his neck stood on end as she hurried off the phone, and a recording of child health safety tips began to play. By the time he heard the first tip twice, his patience was running low.

  “You’re home.” Lainey’s sweet voice interrupted a useless-to-him tip about testing bathwater before putting a baby in it. Heaven help the woman who he had children with. Except, never mind. A family wasn’t in his future. He was a SEAL, through and through. The military was his life. Not that he was wild or didn’t want to settle down, but he wasn’t the type to leave the service.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Noah, I’m so sorry.”

  Her voice stopped him cold, and tension pulsed at his temples. “For what? What the hell is going on in Eagle’s Ridge?”

  “You didn’t talk to your dad?”

  “No, dammit. I called you first. I always call you first.”

  “I’m sick, Noah,” she whispered.

  Exasperated, his forehead furrowed. “So, you get sick. You’re a nurse. You’re around kids all the time. They’re little germ magnets. You’re bound to get—”

  “No, I really am, and I should have known better. Because I am a nurse. Because I ignored signs and symptoms—”

  “Lainey, stop.” The tension in his temples froze, and his tired muscles stiffened. “What are you talking about?”

  “I have cancer, Noah. Late-stage cancer.”

  A knot formed in his throat. Breathing through the pain seemed harder to survive than his op covert op in Serbia just forty-eight hours ago under the worst of circumstances. That job had been nearly mission impossible but deemed critical. He’d attacked the problem and won. “You fight it. Right? There’s medicines, right? Like chemo and radiation. Surgery.” He didn’t even know what kind of cancer, but it sounded as though she’d already given up. “This isn’t a death sentence.”

  “There are a lot of things I wish I had done differently. But more than anything, I need to talk to you about Bella. Can you come home? I can’t do this over the phone, and not at work.”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose as his eyes seared, and he rolled his lips together. Lainey was his cousin, but they had been raised as though they were twins. His dad and her mom were fraternal twins, and Lainey and Noah were born so close together that with a family this close-knit, she seemed more like his sister than his cousin.

  “I’m not coming home to plan your death and how to help Bella.”

  Lainey sniffled. “Of course you are, Noah. You’re a Navy SEAL. You’re my protector. This is who you are.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  October

  Eagle’s Ridge, Washington State

  Noah hit the ground running that morning. As soon as he landed at Eagle’s Ridge Airport, he had a list of action items to complete within certain time frames.

  First, he swung by his parents’ house for all the necessary hugs and catching up, promising his Aunt Virginia, Bella’s grandma, that the last of her bags would be stowed safely in
her own home by lunchtime. Noah checked that off his list before eleven in the morning.

  He hit the grocery store, moving down the aisle as though he was on orders, grabbing essentials, even though Aunt Virginia had said she’d left plenty in the fridge and cupboards for him to cook. Noah was taking no chances. He had a plan, and that revolved around preparing recipes that were fast, reliable, and things he knew how to cook. As much as his aunt loved baked cinnamon apples as a side dish with dinner, if she left apples, they would eat them as apples were normally eaten—by biting into them.

  Now, everything had been checked off his list—homecoming with minimal fanfare, groceries purchased and put up where he thought they should go, and a quick pit stop at Westbrook Real Estate to pick up the keys to Nuts and Bolts Auto Garage.

  He was home an hour earlier than he’d expected. That was a good thing since Zane and Adam, the twins from high school, had stopped in to catch up since the last time he was in town. Noah needed the distraction. The closer his watch ticked to the time Bella would arrive home on the school bus, the more anxious he became.

  The guys caught him up on friends they had in common, and Noah gave them a tour of Lainey’s house. They all stared into Bella’s glittery pink bedroom as if it might sprout the same ghost and goblin heads that were starting to pop up throughout Eagle’s Ridge, announcing the start of the Halloween season.

  “Dude, are you sweating?” Zane chuckled as he leaned against a wall decorated with vinyl star stickers.

  “Of course he’s sweating,” Adam cracked. “What does he know about raising a kid?”

  “Enough.” But the tension knot at the back of his neck called BS.

  Zane walked to a bookshelf, picked up a reading primer, and held up the cover, which showed a giraffe wearing ballet shoes. “Noah looks like he’s been thrown into a war zone without training.”

  “I haven’t had training,” Noah mumbled. Nor could he explain why a giraffe would wear any shoes, much less pointy-toed ones.

  Dancing wildlife wasn’t his concern, though. Not when he hadn’t had enough time to wrap his head around life changers like Lainey’s death, departing the military, and starting a civilian life. It wasn’t just parenting that he had to adjust to. His brilliant decision to buy Nuts and Bolts had seemed smart. What a great idea, being his own boss. Plus, Eagle’s Ridge had missed the friendly, quirky auto shop.

  But now he’d added “running a business” to the list of things he had no clue how to do, and he was researching how-tos like a madman. His search history continually jumped among related topics. In between Googling how to be a successful small business owner and how to raise a gifted, orphaned five-year-old, Noah had nearly short-circuited his brain. “I missed this day at SERE school.”

  Survival. Evasion. Resistance. Escape. The truth was, Noah didn’t want to do the last three, and he would do a lot better than just surviving, but his start would no doubt be rocky.

  “There’s an upside.” Zane chuckled. “At least you don’t have to change diapers.”

  Adam raised his eyebrows as if in agreement. “What’s your plan?”

  “We know you have one,” Zane said.

  His plan? It was a work in progress and had been patchworked together from all over the world. Noah liked the minutia of solving problems and how to fix them—or wire them, which was one of the reasons he was highly successful in the field of explosives. It wasn’t all light a fuse and kaboom. He was known for his precise measurements after studying the circumstances, often under intense pressure, but also for MacGyvering it, and whatever was on hand for any purpose, in any condition, from diversion to survival.

  Maybe that was why his plan was based on more than internet research. Family and friends gave him polite advice but mostly reassurances that he would do a great job parenting. Reassurance wasn’t what he was looking for. Noah needed actionable intelligence, and he found the ones most likely to give their raw opinions and specific action items were the self-proclaimed mommy bloggers.

  The websites were a treasure trove of information—from ways to discipline children who swiped before they knew how to wipe to raising a gifted child in the era of information overload. And he had no time when sites contradicted one another. He simply picked the option that had the most agreeable comments then proceeded to outline his own crash course in Parenting 101.

  While the best how-to advice came from the mommy bloggers, the most thought-provoking advice came unexpectedly during a special project deployments. Kunar, in particular. Their team allies, led by female tribal leaders in the mostly rural province, saw the worry and pain in his eyes when he couldn’t sleep.

  One tribal leader had explained to Noah that the day didn’t start and end with the sun. Except common sense told him it did, as did the twenty-four hours on the clock.

  It took him two days and one of his teammates calling home to ask his wife before Noah understood the concept of starting the day over. His teammate’s wife explained that their kids would push an imaginary reset button for a fresh start to the day if their behavior needed a reboot.

  Another tribal leader had taken Noah’s hand. Hers was cold and leatherlike, her fingernails thick and short. But her grip had been powerful when she advised Noah that he should always say, “Tell me more.”

  She didn’t let go until he held her eyes and promised he’d never let a child end a story without offering those three words. “Don’t forget to listen” were her parting words when his SEAL team left Kunar. Only he knew what she meant.

  But their advice wasn’t a strategy, more like broad-spectrum tactics, and for now, he would take one day at a time, just as recommended by every expert, blogger, and advice-giver on childhood bereavement and kindergarten success.

  “You do have a plan, right?” Zane’s words pulled Noah back to the present. Zane gave Adam a side-eye as he inspected the row of glitter nail polish bottles as though they were live exhibits at the zoo.

  “You know”—Noah backed them out of Bella’s room—“there’s a woefully inadequate amount of advice out there from the male and military perspective.”

  “There’s a lot of bling in Bella’s room.” Adam lifted a bottle of gold polish. “Do you know what to do with that?”

  Noah swatted it from his hand. “More than you do.”

  “Doesn’t sound convincing,” Adam teased. “I can’t believe Noah doesn’t have a plan. What’s the world coming to? Glitter nail polish and Noah’s planless—”

  “I have a plan.” But not one as detailed and long-range as Noah would’ve liked. “I figure tonight, we’ll order pizza.”

  “Pizza’s the big plan?” Adam led the way down the hall.

  “Sure, why not?” Noah lifted his shoulder. “It’s not like Bella needs a celebratory dinner for my return. Or her… situation. I just haven’t been around as much as I would like to have been.”

  “Situation. Good word.” Zane rolled his eyes.

  Noah ignored him.

  “Ryder called on the way here.” Zane dropped onto the couch in the living room, and Adam sat next to him.

  Noah leaned against the wall. “Ryder? How’s he doing?”

  “Good.” Zane stretched back. “Actually, great.”

  “Good.”

  “He and Bailey are together.”

  Noah smiled at news of the twins’ sister, laughing. “That’s great. One big happy family.”

  Adam chuckled also. “She’s sending over a casserole tonight.”

  “She is?” Noah cocked his eyebrow.

  “We guessed you’d do pizza too, and she said nope, that Bella should have a home-cooked meal tonight.”

  “What’s wrong with pizza?” Noah hadn’t thought about food other than to know they’d be hungry, and pizza sounded easy and good.

  Bailey had known he’d do pizza and that he shouldn’t. Noah didn’t even know why pizza was the wrong choice, yet his intuition would be screaming if an enemy was nearby.

  “No idea,” Adam sa
id. “All she said was nope.”

  “Nope? Huh.” Maybe he should revisit the idea of granola bars and the chocolate instant breakfast drink he’d picked out at the store, though he had made an effort to look at the label. The two items checked all the boxes that seemed important—protein, carbs, calcium, and vitamins. Nutrient-packed. “What do you think about instant shakes and power bars for breakfast?”

  They both shrugged, and Adam said, “Yeah, works for me. But don’t kids eat things like Cheerios and milk?”

  “Think about it, man.” Zane wrinkled his nose. “All those bars and shakes make your SEAL team fart like you hit up Beanee Weenee night at the All You Can Eat. What do you think that’s going to do to a kid?”

  Noah scrunched his nose, semi-missing the nausea-inducing rankness. “Yeah, I can see that being a problem.”

  Adam chuckled. “I’ll text Bailey. Maybe she can throw in a box of Cheerios on the casserole run.”

  “Appreciate it.” Noah checked his watch. “Wow, they’re almost here.”

  “Who else?”

  He shook his watch back into place. “Do you know Teagan Shaw?”

  “I do,” Zane said. “She knows Harper, the new librarian.”

  Adam waggled his eyebrows, letting it be known there was more to the story. “His new girlfriend.”

  Zane’s proud face lit up. “That too. Not so new, though.”

  Noah stretched, trying to shake his unease from his muscles. “A lot has changed since our days in detention, staring at the good-looking teacher.”

  Adam nodded.

  “Miss Woody.” Zane said her name reverently, and Noah repeated it, though that wasn’t really her name. Woods was.

  Still, the thought of the woman made him dopey, as if they were fifteen years old again. They had her so high on a pedestal, Noah was surprised they hadn’t broken their necks trying to flirt. “Our high school game must have been…” He made a face. “Underwhelming.”

  “Yup,” Zane deadpanned.

  “Ha. I don’t know about you, but my game was on point.” Adam tugged on the collar of his shirt, smirking like they were again teenagers who thought they were hot stuff.