The woman who ran the store, Lillian, splayed her hands helplessly. “I’m sorry, Mr. Walker. I warned you it wouldn’t last long. A young woman stopped by this morning. She caught one glimpse in the window and came rushing in to get it. She didn’t even let me wrap it up—just held it to her chest like it was her baby.”
“Really?” Even though Noah felt like kicking himself for putting the jewelry box up for sale, he couldn’t help the pride that moved through him. He’d put a hell of a lot of himself in that box. It was comforting to know that the hell of a lot of himself was worth something to someone—even if it was a virtual stranger. “Who was she?”
“I don’t know her name, though I’ve seen her around town. You might be able to buy it back, but I bet you’ll have to up the price something fierce. Can’t you make another one instead?”
He shook his head. Duplicating that box was impossible. Even though he could go through the same motions, fit the pieces in the exact same way, the results would never be the same. He’d hand-selected each piece of wood for the perfect way the grain curved. He’d put hope into that box. Longing. Love.
“It’s impossible. I’ll have to track her down the hard way—it just so happens I have a friend who specializes in that sort of thing, so it might not be too hard. What did she look like?”
“That’s easy. Dark hair, nose ring, possibly Indian.”
Could it be? His equilibrium took a dramatic turn for the worse, but he forced himself to remain standing and lift a shaky hand just below his shoulder. “About this tall? Or, I guess if she was on her way to work, she’d have heels on.” He moved his hand up a good six inches. “So maybe this tall?”
“Oh, she didn’t have heels. She was riding her bike by when she saw the window display. Zipped right out of here when she was done.”
Disappointment hit him so keenly it took on a life all its own. The general description might match, but there was no way Kendra would have been joyriding at eight in the morning. He wasn’t even sure she knew how to ride a bike.
He was probably being foolish about the whole thing anyway. He’d been so certain yesterday that he was doing the right thing. Sell the jewelry box as an important first step—to not only prove that he could make money from his work, but that Kendra was behind him for good. Then he could put a few more pieces up for sale, possibly even set up a shop. Find his way back to the land of the living at his own admittedly sloth-like pace.
But when he’d gotten home, he couldn’t smell her anymore. He’d wandered around his house like an idiot, sniffing at pillows, clinging to blankets, hoping for one tiny sign that Kendra had been there.
There wasn’t one. The Mason jar coffeemaker had been broken in his rage weeks ago. The jewelry box was banished to a shop window. Nothing of her remained—and there was no one to blame but himself. He’d waited too long, clung stubbornly to the past, was so afraid of moving forward that he’d been unable to recognize the best thing that had ever happened to him.
Some of his dejection must have shown, because Lillian patted him on the arm. “If you don’t mind my asking, why did you put it up for sale if it meant so much to you?”
He couldn’t help a wry smile from lifting his lips. “Because I’m a vain, materialistic bastard, and I place way too much meaning on things, that’s why.”
Lillian laughed. “I know how that story ends. What you need a strong, grounded woman to teach you to look past the surface.”
He sucked in a sharp breath. That was exactly what he needed. That was exactly what he’d had and let go, tossed aside rather than face the fact that he’d given up on life.
How could he have been so stupid? Clinging to a jewelry box wouldn’t change his situation in the slightest. A few pieces of wood dovetailed together didn’t mean anything.
But Kendra meant it all.
* * *
“You’ve got a new client coming in at four.” Tanya, their receptionist, poked her head in the door. “I know you don’t love having anyone booked that late in the afternoon, but the guy really wanted to get in to see you today.”
“It’s fine.” Kendra looked up from the stack of paperwork that had multiplied during her lunch break. “I’ve been chained to this desk all day, so I’ll appreciate the change of pace. What’s the procedure?”
“Laser hair removal.”
“Jockey area?” Not her favorite place to spend the afternoon, but she’d spent worse.
“Beard.”
She frowned. “Now why would a man go and do something like that? I hate to see good facial hair go to waste. I’ll probably just end up talking the poor guy out of it.”
Tina laughed. “Maybe he likes the manscaped look.”
Kendra shuddered. She’d like to personally end the individual who’d coined that term. That and vajazzle.
Four o’clock came sooner than she expected, helped along by a surprise visit from the state medical licensing board. It was a routine check-in, and New Leaf passed with flying colors, but Kendra was frazzled all the same. By the time she was finally alone, she was hungry, she was anxious, and drinks with Whitney had never sounded so good. But her four o’clock was waiting.
Damn her work ethic.
She grabbed the paperwork from the door without glancing at it and knocked lightly before entering the room. And stopped. And dropped the file. And almost dropped herself along with it.
“Noah? What are you doing here?”
“Hey, Kendra.” He stooped to gather the fluttering papers, not quite meeting her eye but not avoiding it either. She had to brace herself on the wall as her breathing eventually resumed a more normal pattern.
It wasn’t fair, surprising her like this—and looking so incredible while he did it. Oversized in the small room, his jeans worn in all the right places, the same scuffed shoes he wore the night they’d had dinner in town. It was Noah at his finest.
“It’s good to see you,” he said, and held out the papers for her to take.
Good to see me? Her heart was in her throat, choking her, and he wanted to chitchat? “You can’t be in here. I have a client coming in.”
He pointed at the name across the top of the file. Noah Walker. “They said I should expect this first evaluation to take half an hour. So I figure you have thirty minutes of absolutely nowhere else to be.”
She glared, but the action dissolved when she saw the look in his eyes. Sex lasers. Two months since they’d split up, and she’d somehow forgotten about the sex lasers.
Since there seemed a good chance she’d fly across the room and into his arms if he kept looking at her like that, she cleared her throat and focused on the task at hand. “I have plenty of other places to be. I refuse your treatment.”
“You can’t do that. It’s discrimination.” He ran a hand over his beard. It was trim and neat as it always was, but scratchy-looking in all the best ways. She wished it was her hand tracing that path, moving down his neck, feeling the leap of his pulse come to life under her fingertips. “I want it removed. Permanently.”
“No.” The word was out before she could stop it. “Absolutely not.”
His lips curved in a smile. “This beard has too many painful memories for me, so it has to go. I’m not sure if you know this about me, but I have this thing about excising painful memories in the most dramatic, extreme way possible.”
Oh, she’d noticed. She held the file up like a shield, as if trying to ward off the attraction that was practically radiating off him.
“I was talking to the woman out front, and she seems to think it will take a few appointments to get it all. Hours upon hours of invasive appointments with just you and me.”
“Expensive ones too,” she said, unable to help herself. “You probably can’t afford my fees. I’m not sure if you know this about me, but I have a very expensive lifestyle to m
aintain.”
He dropped the smile and his arms, the pretense of his visit falling away with it. “Oh, Kendra. I’m so sorry.”
She wasn’t sure how to respond to the raw grief that rasped his voice. Was he mourning the loss of her? Of his own self-restraint? Or something else, some other unknown obstacle that existed in his mind alone?
She and Noah remained like statues, content, for the moment, to let things stand at an impasse. Kendra had learned to appreciate things like silence and immobility lately. Maybe not crickets-in-the-wilderness silence—it was more like sun-rising-over-her-back-porch silence. With coffee. And light traffic in the distance. But she was learning the value of doing nothing at all.
“I saw a bike parked out front.” Noah broke the silence. “A girly one. The receptionist said it was yours.”
“Yes, well.” She felt flustered, silly at having been found out. “I’ve been trying to do little things to simplify my life lately.”
“You got rid of your car?”
She laughed and ran a shaky hand over the surface of the exam table. She wished he’d go back to talking about being sorry. “Of course not. But I found that if I ride to work and for small errands, I can skip the morning workout. Better for the environment, better for me. It’s win-win.”
The way Noah stared at her—not sex lasers now so much as molten fire—had her reaching for a chair and falling into it. He moved closer in two predatory steps, settling himself on the edge of the table, so close she could reach out and touch him.
If she dared.
“I see,” he said slowly, and she felt that maybe he was seeing her—really seeing her—for the first time.
“And I’m moving,” she blurted out.
He stood up, startled. “Away from Pleasant Park?”
“No.” She also shot to her feet, aware that in doing so, a mere inch separated their bodies. The heat coming off Noah felt as though it was cooking her through, searing her insides and sealing them to his.
“I’m only moving a few miles out of town,” she said. “There’s this new development of cottages being put up.”
“The River Path.” He nodded. “I’ve seen them. They’re nice.”
“It’s not quite Miller Pond, but I like it there. It’s peaceful.”
“Kendra, I—” Before she knew what was happening, she was in his arms, his mouth over hers in a crushing embrace. So much could have changed since she saw him last—so much had changed—but it didn’t seem to matter one bit to their bodies. His lips were hungry, his hands greedy. She looped her arms around his neck and tugged on his hair until the distance between them became negative space.
“Shit. You don’t have a new boyfriend or anything, do you?” he asked, stopping just long enough to let the question escape.
She shook her head, getting only two passes in before he was on top of her again. The kiss this time became much more in a matter of only seconds. His hand fisted in her hair and held her tight. She popped one of the buttons on his shirt in her haste to feel his chest. She even lost a shoe when he hoisted her from the ground to crush her against him.
“Noah, stop.” She put a hand on his chest and pushed. He obliged, but she could tell the action came at a price. He retreated behind his beard and the stony expression that lived too often in her memory.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and shoved his hands deep in his pockets. “I got carried away, seeing you again like this.”
“I’m not upset.” Her breath came short and fast. “At least not about the kissing. Kissing was never our problem.”
A corner of his mouth lifted. “We were always very good at that.”
“But we weren’t so great at the rest of it, were we?” She laughed shakily and tucked a strand of hair back. Noah’s hand came up and repeated the gesture, lingering over the curve of her ear, where her customary oversized jewelry remained in place. “When I say I’ve been making little changes in my life, I mean just that. Little changes. I try not to spend as much time getting ready in the morning. I’m spending a few more quiet evenings in with friends instead of hitting the bars. I got rid of a few appliances. But I’m still me. All those things you hated—the materialistic tendencies, the vanity, the investment portfolio—they’re all there. And they always will be.”
He watched her carefully, as if looking for a foothold. As if searching for her cracks. “I’m glad.”
Noah wasn’t sure what to say—or do—next. In his head, he’d had everything planned. He’d get her attention by making an appointment. He’d tell her about all the ways he’d changed, the efforts he was making to re-enter the world he’d left behind. He’d tell her how desperately he loved her and wanted another chance.
But that bike outside had thrown him.
“Don’t you want to ask me what I’ve been doing all this time?” he asked. “The changes I’ve made?”
“No.”
Only through sheer force of will was he able to keep the cry from leaving his throat. He was too late. She’d changed. He’d taken too much away from her. “I’m going to tell you anyway.”
She glanced at a clock on the wall. “I guess I can’t stop you. You have fifteen minutes left.”
Fifteen minutes seemed like almost nothing at all. Fifteen minutes seemed like an eternity.
“First of all, I built Goat a barn. A real one, with red paint and a hayloft and everything.”
She didn’t blink. “You want to talk about the changes you made for Goat right now?”
“And I just finished laying the foundation for my new house.” He swallowed. “It’s not going to be big, and it’s still out in the middle of nowhere, but I’m having a proper septic system dug and an electrician out to hook me up to the main grid.”
“Now you’re talking about septic systems?”
“Look at me.” Since she seemed hesitant to do so, he took the liberty of reaching out and lifting her chin. He needed her to hear this—so much so that he’d undergo a thousand laser hair treatments if that was how long it took to get the words out. “I’ve regretted what I said to you every minute of every day. It’s the first thing I think of when I get up in the morning, the last thought tormenting me when I go to bed at night.”
Her muscles tensed under his touch, but she didn’t pull away. “Then why haven’t you done something about it?”
It was a good question, a fair one, one he couldn’t easily answer. But he had to try. “You scare the crap out of me, Kendra. But not for the reasons you’re thinking. I know you’re nothing like Danielle, and I was a complete ass for even suggesting it. You’re both scarily smart and driven, but the similarities stop there. You’re warm and generous and funny. Strong enough to fight for what you want, but kind enough not to hurt anyone else in the process. So beautiful it takes my breath away to be in the same room with you.”
“Noah, I can’t—”
But she had to. She has to. He couldn’t bear it otherwise.
He put a finger to her lips to stop her from saying the words that would end everything between them. “All along, I was supposed to be this simple man, this stripped-down version of myself, free from all the trappings of success. But all I really did out there was bury myself. I buried my heart.”
“And now?”
“I dug it back up. And, foolishly, put it inside a jewelry box for safekeeping.”
She jerked backward. “What did you just say?”
“I put my heart in a jewelry box I made.” He released an over-the-top sigh. “I decided to list it for sale yesterday and immediately regretted it. Turns out I can’t live for very long without that vital part of me.”
“Stop talking nonsense.”
Nonsense was all he had left. “But when I went back to the store this morning, the box was already gone. The storeowner said a woman fell in love
with it at first sight and bought it right then and there. Apparently she has my heart now, so I have nothing left to offer you.”
Kendra turned on her heel and marched out of the room. The way Noah figured it, he had a fifty-fifty chance that she’d either pedal away on her bicycle and refuse to speak to him again, or come back with the box in hand.
He didn’t breathe until she came back.
“Here.” She held it out, that familiar dark and light stained box, its surface so smooth it was almost reflective. “Now you have it back.”
He refused to touch it—or her. “I don’t want it. It’s yours, and has been since the moment I first saw you coming to Lincoln’s rescue, stunning and capable and covered in blood.”
Her face crumpled, though with sadness or joy, he couldn’t tell. “Noah.”
“Did you find the secret panel?” he asked gently.
She released a soft “No,” so he moved to her side, placing his hands over hers as they lifted the lid together. Her hands shook. Or maybe his did. Or maybe the entire room was spinning and they alone remained still.
He pointed out a small latch on the right side and told her to lift it. It wasn’t the most secret of secret panels, but he was still working out the logistics of this level of workmanship, so it had to do. And when she lifted the false bottom away, her gasp of surprise made up for any defects of design.
There, at the base of the box, were carved two sets of stark initials.
“You cut down our tree,” she wailed, running her finger over the letters. She looked up, eyes brimming, tears caught in her lashes. “How could you?”
He brushed the hair out of her face, his palm lingering on the curve of her cheek. He’d never get tired of the way she fit so naturally in his hands. “That tree is now creating the doorframe of my new house, and this carving can go anywhere the world takes you. Don’t you see? It doesn’t matter if we stay here with a Lakewood County sunset and a bottle of wine you have to open with a screwdriver, or if we move to Paris and dine every night at a restaurant with four forks. I realize now that I don’t care where I go or what I have, as long as you’re there to share it with me.”
The Party Girl Page 29