His other urges were no safer. He had no framework for this type of thing, for comforting Kendra in a way that wasn’t strictly forbidden. Instead of giving in to the urge to kiss and stroke, to hold her until the sun rose and they could face a new day together, he had to content himself with a chaste peck on her hairline, a slow separation made slower by his determination to ensure she’d stopped trembling before he let go.
“Come on,” he said softly, one arm wrapped firmly around her shoulders as he led her toward the Adirondack chair. “Let’s get you off your feet. Do you want me to grab you something to drink?”
Kendra sighed as she lowered herself in the chair, feeling considerably less foolish than she had five minutes ago. There was something about Noah’s cautious severity that both confirmed her worst suspicions and made her feel a thousand times better. She wasn’t an idiot for thinking she’d been followed. She was even less of an idiot for giving in to the impulse to throw herself at his strong, capable mercy. Noah was the sort of man who’d unquestionably carry her burdens, whatever they may be.
Or rather he would if he was allowed to. She almost started shaking again—though this time it was anger rather than fear that fueled her. It was so freaking unfair. She liked this man, liked him so much she didn’t even care that he captured rainwater in a barrel and drank from it.
“Unless you have a secret stash of moonshine out back, I doubt you have anything strong enough to make me feel better,” she said, and she meant it. There wasn’t enough rainwater in the world to wash away these woes.
His smile was warm and pleasant. “Now you’re starting to sound like Lincoln. He thinks I should open a distillery.”
Her own smile felt wobbly and forced. There. Lincoln was back in the conversation again, a reminder that nothing between them would ever go further than this. “It’s not the worst idea he’s ever had.”
“Are you ready to tell me what happened?” he asked gently.
The foolish feeling came back as she outlined her drive home. Under the twinkling night sky and with Noah in arm’s reach, it was easy to imagine the Escalade away, to cast her fears into the light and call them what they were—her nerves, strung to the limit, the foolish fantasies of a woman who barely recognized herself anymore.
But when she looked up, Noah was frowning. That wasn’t his non-expression. That was a real frown, angry and stern. “Thank God you thought to come back here. I can’t imagine what would have happened if they’d followed you all the way to your house.”
Her heart picked up. “So you don’t think I’m crazy?”
“I wouldn’t go that far. You do willingly strip hair from strangers’ pubic regions.”
She released a shaky laugh and pulled her knees to her chest, hugging them tightly. It would have been all too easy for this situation to become weird—especially since there was no bottle of wine or moonshine to take the edge off—but she found the balm of Noah’s quiet companionship soothing. “That’s not the only thing I do. You’ve clearly been talking to Lincoln about me.”
He looked away. “Maybe a little.”
Liar. That was clearly Noah-speak for a lot. “Well, don’t believe everything he tells you. Don’t forget—his knowledge comes from a combination of weaseling information out of Matt and the porn industry. He probably thinks I only wax gorgeous young women with great bodies and perfect tans. Ones who stick around afterwards to giggle and sip champagne.”
Noah chuckled. “That’s eerily close to what he suggested.” As there was nowhere for him to sit, he settled comfortably in the dirt and rested his back against the woodshop door. “It does seem pretty gruesome, though. Skin peels and back hair and all that. Do you enjoy it?”
She loved it, and didn’t hesitate to tell him so. “I’d probably get bored if that was all I did, but the beauty work is only half of it. The other half of my day is spent behind a desk or on the phone.”
“In charge.”
She sat up straighter, sensing a challenge. “I don’t always have to be in control, you know. It just so happens I have phenomenally lazy friends.”
“I wonder.” She could hear him as he shifted to find a more comfortable on-ground position. “Until you let go a little, you never really know how they’ll react. You never know how you’ll react.”
“Oh, yeah? You know a lot about people management?”
He released a soft huff that could have been a disagreement—or it could have been assent. “I just wonder when was the last time you did something because you wanted to, not because it was expected or required or part of some image you’re trying to maintain.”
“Why do I get the feeling you’re trying to pick a fight with me?”
This time, his huff was clearly laughter. “It’s surprisingly difficult to do. Do your parents approve of your work?”
“Is that your way of asking me why I didn’t do what was expected and become a doctor like a good Indian daughter?”
“No,” he said, taken aback. He rubbed a hand on the back of his neck and offered her a sheepish grin. “Okay, maybe a little. In my defense, you’re clearly driven enough to have become anything you wanted. It seems to me you shot a bit short of the moon.”
The statement didn’t affect her the way it might have coming from anyone else. From Noah, the gentle challenge didn’t feel like a judgment on her choices so much as a desire to know her better. And she wanted him to know her. Inside and out.
“On the contrary, I landed exactly where I wanted to. Or very near it. I majored in economics as an undergrad—and before you ask, yes, that was me being a good Indian daughter—and went the whole graduate school route. The medical spa stuff was always a sort of pipe dream, something my friends and I talked about but never really thought would come to pass. So I did all the things I was supposed to. Worked for an investment firm, packed my resume with impressive titles. And then a few years ago, I decided it was time to start doing things differently, to slow down and take some time for me—and not because of expectation or for my image, like you’re probably thinking.”
“Then why?”
An easy question, but one that didn’t have an easy answer. “No reason you’re thinking of. I didn’t have a bad breakup or lose my heart to the wrong man. I didn’t climb to the top of a mountain and have a breakthrough. And my parents aren’t the type to disown me for making my own choices.”
“But?”
“But it was time.” That was pretty much all there was to it, and the simplicity of it was sometimes overwhelming. “It’s not easy being a woman in this world, all evidence to the contrary. There’s a constant pressure to be all these things at once—pretty and nice and independent but not so self-sufficient it scares people away. Attractive to men but not slutty. Strong but not bitchy. It’s exhausting.”
“I bet,” he murmured.
“It wasn’t until I hit my thirties that I decided I was fed up with it,” she said. “I looked in the mirror one morning and saw all these disparate parts, none of them quite fitting together the way they should. And for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why I kept trying to force them in place. That was the day I decided to rebuild myself my way, piece by piece. Body, hair, wardrobe, car, career, social life. I handpicked each one. And here I am.”
“Here you are,” Noah echoed. He could hear the pride in Kendra’s voice as she spoke, even if he couldn’t quite understand it. It would have been fascinating to have met her back then, to meet the woman who didn’t have eve
rything together yet. He wondered if he would have liked her more or less than the woman who sat next to him today. “You did a good job, by the way. Assembling the parts.”
Her laughter rose up between them, the anxieties of the night all but forgotten in that sound. “I like to think so.” Shifting her focus so that her eyes didn’t waver from his, she asked, “But you can see why I’m so hesitant to toss it all aside because some people think I’m too controlling. I made myself the way I am. Why shouldn’t I enjoy it?”
In that moment, filled with the easy joy of her proximity, he couldn’t think of a single reason.
“What about you?” she persisted. “You’re hardly living in a lunar colony out here either. It looks like you shot straight for the earth.”
He automatically stiffened at her intrusive question, but realized how unfair it was to ask about her life and provide nothing of his own in return. One thing about living in an economy based almost entirely on his neighbors and the furniture he made by hand—he knew the importance of fair trade.
“I’m also exactly where I want to be,” he said. “Almost everything I need to survive can be found on these twenty acres, taken from the earth, planted for the future. And if it’s not, then I can sell a piece of my woodwork and buy it. Every transaction I make is fair and free of greed. Every night I go to bed with the same amount of money in my pocket, yet I’m all the richer for it.”
“Except you go to bed alone. You might be self-sufficient and rich in spirit, but you don’t have anyone to share it with. So why bother?”
His stomach gave a reflexive twist. “I might ask the same thing of you.”
The silence that settled over them was filled with the things that would remain unsaid. Kendra had built up her worldly goods until she became the woman she wanted to be. Noah had gotten rid of his with the same end goal in sight.
But without the kind of love that made all that work worthwhile, what was the point?
There didn’t seem to be anything more to say after that. Rising to his feet, Noah extended a hand to help Kendra from the chair. “Come on. You’re staying here tonight. You can have the lumpy futon.”
She blinked up at him as she unfolded her legs. Her hand was soft and warm in his, a natural fit, but he let go before she was stable where she stood. “Where will you sleep?”
He pointed down a familiar path. “I don’t have my Batman sleeping bag anymore, but I’m sure I can make do. I told you—everything I need is right here.”
This time, it wasn’t a lie. For tonight, with Kendra under his roof, he would have everything he needed, even if she wasn’t in his arms.
It was only all the rest of the nights to come that would find him right back where he started.
* * *
Kendra awoke to Lincoln’s furious face staring down at her, more red than orange, swelling up with things to come. Almost like a sunrise.
She’d woken up underneath him only once before, the result of a full-tilt celebration the first night she and Whitney had moved to Pleasant Park. If she’d have known then what she did now—that his eager interest would blossom into this unending cycle of need, that he was incapable of allowing their one night of sex to dwindle into friendship—she would have gone to bed alone that night.
Unfortunately, the hands of time weren’t so easy to turn back. No one knew that better than an esthetician at a medical spa.
“Geez, Lincoln. Could you be a little bit creepier right now?” She struggled to sit up, aware as she did that she would also love to get back her twenty-year-old ability to sleep anywhere and not feel like a sack of potatoes the next morning. Does this futon even have springs? “How long have you been standing there watching me sleep?”
“Where’s Noah?”
“How should I know?” She groaned and got all the way to a sitting position, her back protesting every movement. “He said he was going to sleep outside last night. He’s probably been picked apart by vultures or crows or the Children of the Corn by now.”
Lincoln’s face didn’t pull away or resume its more normal hue. “Last night?”
“Yes, Lincoln. Last night.” She refused to give him any more than that. She was not going to justify her relationship with Noah to this man right now—not when he was the primary reason she was in such desperate need of a massage and a hot water bottle. “I had to hightail it back here when a big, dark, scary car was following me through town.”
“What are you talking about?” He pushed her aside and lowered himself to the futon. He made a move as if to put an arm around her, but she scooted away. “What big, dark, scary car?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.”
He appeared genuinely puzzled as she outlined the night’s events—at least the night’s events up until she fell, shaking, into Noah’s arms. That part was hers. And Noah’s. It wasn’t like they had much else to give one another.
“There’s no way that was my guys from the bar,” Lincoln protested when she finished. “That was just a friendly scuffle.”
“There’s nothing friendly about a knife wound.”
He shook his head. “We clearly don’t have the same kind of friends.”
“Lincoln, I swear to you, if you don’t take this seriously...”
“You’ll what? Stab me?”
“The thought has crossed my mind.”
“Go ahead. It’s not like you haven’t already stabbed me metaphorically.” He paused only long enough to take a breath. “You know. In my ba—”
She held up a hand, cutting him off before he could make the mistake of elaborating further. “When you have to resort to explaining your metaphors, you rob them of all their power. You know that, right?”
“I leave you alone for a few hours, and this is what I come back to?” Noah’s voice broke through their argument—his timing the very standard of impeccable. Kendra glanced up to find him leaning against the doorframe, looking amused and delicious all at once. He’d obviously come from some hard manual labor, his hair tousled, sleeves pushed up over his arms, mud caked in all the creases of his jeans. He looked like the great outdoors. Smelled like it. Promised to reveal its untold delights.
Gah. Who knew dirt could be such an aphrodisiac?
As if caught in a guilty embrace, she and Lincoln rose to their feet; as if children of no more than ten years of age, they pointed at each other and began talking at once.
“She’s accusing me of siccing bad guys on her.”
“He thinks this whole thing is some big joke.”
“Well, it is hilarious that she thinks this is my fault, just like everything else in the world.”
“Will you please talk some sense into your friend?”
Noah came farther into the room. He didn’t, as she expected, take any interest in the conversation, instead opting to take his time filling a glass with water and guzzling it in long, Adam’s-apple-dropping gulps. She was pretty sure time came to a standstill and the world stopped turning until he was done.
“You’re staring at him like you haven’t had a drop of water in days,” Lincoln said dully.
She didn’t bother to deny it. She was practically dying of thirst over here.
Noah turned around and braced his hands on the sink, wondering where to start. There were so very many options. He wanted to strangle Lincoln. Kiss Kendra. Promise them both that everything would be okay.
Since none of those options were viable ones, he poi
nted at the kitchen chairs. “Sit.”
“I don’t see why you get to order me around,” Lincoln began, but then he caught sight of Noah’s face and sat. The effort of weeding the garden that morning after a night of virtually no sleep had gone a long way in establishing his mood for the unpleasant conversation to come. Noah was one foul word away from losing it altogether.
“I get to order you around because I’m done.”
“You want me to go? Fine. I’ll leave right now.”
Noah pinched the bridge of his nose. He should have known Lincoln would fight this every step of the way. That man missed his calling. He should have been a lawyer. “No. I’m not done with you, Lincoln. I’m done with tiptoeing around your suspension like it’s a dirty word. I know you take it as a personal insult for anyone to question your not-so-secret police activities, but if there’s a one percent chance your car is being followed by someone who means Kendra harm, then we owe it to her to figure this out.”
Lincoln opened his mouth and closed it again. Noah took that as a sign his decree had been accepted, so he turned to Kendra for her turn. “And you,” he said, taking her in. She looked as if she’d spent the night wrestling with a mattress...and lost. Disheveled clothes and smudged makeup signaled yet another of her layers wiped clean away. She was sleepy and soft and grouchy, and it was killing him to simply let the opportunity go.
So he settled on, “You doing okay this morning?”
She pressed her lips into a firm line and nodded. “I’m convinced you have bones made of rubber to be able to sleep on that futon with any regularity, but I’m good.”
“Okay, then.” He took a deep breath and fell to the chair. “I think maybe it’s time you tell us what this thing is all about, Lincoln. What happened at that bar?”
“Nope. Nuh-uh.” Kendra put her hands over her ears and began humming a show tune. “I don’t care what the answer is. I want to be able to claim plausible deniability.”
The Party Girl Page 13