“No?” She put her hand back on his chest. His heart was pumping faster than usual.
“Sabrina.” His voice rolled over her, delightful even when deepened in irritation. “Stop it.”
She took off her hat and ran her hands through her hair. She knew how much he loved touching the strands, letting them slip slowly through his fingers while she rested her head on his shoulders. How he liked to wrap it around his palm when he kissed her. How he sighed with deep pleasure when she drew the ends across his naked body.
Noah’s hands clenched at his sides, but he resisted the urge to touch. Clearly, he had superhuman willpower.
She twirled a lock around her fingers. “I just want to talk.”
“I don’t.”
She untwisted her finger, letting her hair bounce back into place and lifted a hand to his face. His cheek was warm and a little rough. She loved the feel of that stubble. She let her thumb run over the tight seam of his mouth. She couldn’t get enough of the feel of him. He felt it, too, she knew. He was just too stubborn to admit it.
“Sabrina.” Noah didn’t raise his voice, but the command was all the stronger for the lack of volume. “Enough.”
She ignored the warning. “See how nice it is to talk?”
He caught her wrist, pulled her hand away, the movement sharp and short. When she looked into his eyes there was no hint of play there. No sign that he was hiding some deeper feeling or desire. There was just pain before he shuttered it with a cold blink.
Fear lanced through Sabrina’s belly in a cold arc that made her evening outdoors seem like she’d been tanning on a Hawaiian beach.
“We’re not talking.”
“Why?” She tested his grip. Loose, but firm.
“Because you didn’t want to stay. You don’t want to be here and I do. There’s nothing else to talk about.”
A low heat crept up the front of her chest, but did nothing to warm her inside. “I came back.”
“For now,” he said and dropped her arm. Like an exclamation point.
“I’m staying this time.” She started to reach for him and then paused when he shook his head at her. Heat crept up her neck to her face. Noah didn’t believe her. He thought she was lying.
“That’s what you say, but what if you get an offer from another paper?”
“I won’t, Noah. I’m staying.” She’d never lied to him and she wasn’t planning to start now. They’d talked about her job in the city and she’d been very clear about her intention of going back. She realized she should have talked to him about the offer before taking it, but she hadn’t lied. Not about anything. So when she told him she was staying, he should realize she was sincere.
“Really? What if L.A. calls? Toronto? New York? You’re telling me you wouldn’t even consider them?”
Even as Sabrina told herself these were impossibilities—newspapers were laying off reporters, not hiring them, as their audience was carved away by bloggers and other online sources—excitement lit within her. She’d been satisfied in Vancouver, but she wouldn’t have been averse to more. Bigger cities, more readers, better pay. She shook off the thoughts. Dreams. Fantasies that had no basis in reality. She was here in Wheaton. For good.
“You’d consider them.” A dullness crept into his voice, scarier than any aspect of his cold demeanor. She wouldn’t let him go down that rabbit hole. She wouldn’t lose him to something so ridiculous.
“Of course I’d consider them.” Sabrina put her hands on her hips. “That would be a perfectly reasonable reaction.” Push and push and nudge and nudge.
“You’d leave.” His tone was a like a gray fog, sucking the life out of everything in the room.
She blinked and felt everything slow. “Noah.”
“You wouldn’t stay.” Her eyes met his.
She opened her mouth, wanting to deny it, her brain screaming at her to deny it, but she couldn’t. She would consider them and she wasn’t going to lie to him. “I didn’t say I’d leave. I said I’d consider them. The two have nothing to do with each other.”
Noah closed his eyes, as though he’d been steeling himself to hear her words and now that he had, all his energy was gone. “I understand.”
“No.” She was desperate to explain. “You don’t. I wouldn’t just leave. I’d think about it. Talk to the people who were important in my life and then make a decision.”
“The way you talked to us last time?” His gaze was calm now. Mr. Mayor was back in the house.
Her arguments faded on her tongue. He was right. It was exactly what she’d done. Why wouldn’t he assume she’d do the same thing? It was her pattern. But she was breaking it. Slashing through the pastel stripes with some flashy red snakeskin. Only she didn’t get a chance to tell him.
“Sabrina. It’s fine.” His tone was gentle, understanding. He had it all under control, while she felt like she was spiraling downward with nothing to grab on to, no one to hold. “I understand your career is important to you and has to come first.”
She watched as his Mr. Mayor persona slipped into place. A smooth, unflappable mask. She wanted to tear it off and rail about the injustice of arguing with someone who wouldn’t argue back. But she felt frozen.
“I encourage you to pursue any opportunity that might come your way.” He smiled, like she was some supporter clamoring for his attention and he was too polite to pawn her off. “We had a good run.”
A good run? Fear and anger surged through her. No, she wasn’t going down. Not without a fight. She’d see how long he could keep up under her onslaught, even as she locked her knees to keep them from trembling. “You can’t shake me, Noah.”
“I’m not trying to.”
Sabrina stepped toward him, not stopping until their bodies bumped. She saw the emotion flare in his gaze before he blinked it away. “Then stop talking like we’re over.”
“We are—”
“No.” She clamped her hand over his lips to keep him quiet. His lips were warm under her palm. She rose onto her tiptoes so she could look him directly in the eye. “I’m. Not. Leaving.” She said each word slowly, distinctly, just in case he’d misunderstood her earlier. “Get that through your skull.”
Noah raised an eyebrow at her, but that was the only indication he’d heard her at all. She waited until she started to feel foolish and slowly lowered her hand.
“Done?”
No, she wasn’t done. She was barely getting started. “You’re being very passive aggressive.”
“I’m not being anything. You just don’t want to hear what I have to say.”
“Because you keep saying the wrong things.” Sabrina scowled up at him. “Stop acting like what we had is finished.”
“Sabrina.” She wavered under that cool, collected authority, but remained in place. “You left, remember? I just got on with life.”
But a life without her? No, she couldn’t imagine it. Her lungs tightened. “I made a mistake. I’m trying to fix it.”
Noah’s smile was gentle, like the one he gave Daisy when she was getting overwrought and needed to be calmed down. “There’s nothing to fix, Sabrina. It’s fine.”
He could speak for himself because she was not fine. Not even a little. “But, Noah.” Her breath caught and the edges of her visions grayed out. She blinked as her pulse thundered through her ears. It felt so final, like he was really saying goodbye. Forever. “I love you.”
She had to say it. She couldn’t hold back any longer. What was the point anyway? She did love him and he needed to know everything before making a decision that could affect the rest of his life. Affect the rest of both of their lives.
Sabrina held her breath and watched as Noah absorbed her information. The veil he protected himself with lifted. Only for a moment, but she saw it. The warming of his gaze, the tilt of j
oy on his lips and the way his hands automatically reached out to clasp her elbows and pull her even tighter into him.
Then he let go and stepped back, cleared his throat and tried to blink the hope away, but she saw it. Hiding beneath the surface, wanting desperately to appear but afraid. “If you really loved me, you would have stayed.”
“People make mistakes, Noah. You have to forgive me for being human.”
But he just shook his head. “I can’t do this right now, Sabrina. The election...” He trailed off.
“I love you,” she repeated.
“No.” And this time there was nothing lurking below the surface, he just looked sad. “You only think you do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
NOAH FELT LIKE AN ASS watching Sabrina slowly blink and then turn and walk out of his apartment. Out of his life. But things would be better this way. The two of them would go on leading their separate lives. She would figure out what she wanted and go out and do it. He would survive. Because he’d be a fool to think that this time she really was staying.
She wasn’t a small-town girl. Wasn’t that what she’d told him? He rubbed the heel of his hand against his chest. Better that he lock down all those feelings and hide them away where they couldn’t get him into trouble again.
His chest continued to ache even when he rubbed hard enough to leave a bruise. Nothing left to do but get on with things.
Noah forced himself into motion, closing his door once he saw Sabrina was safely in her own apartment, then putting one foot ahead of the other until they led him to the kitchen table. He thumped down in the chair, looking at the bits and pieces of his campaign scattered across the table and told himself that this was enough. The town would remain and he a part of it.
He slept poorly. If what he did that night—namely, looking at the ceiling, counting to one thousand, practicing his talking points—could be called sleeping. The last time he’d looked at his alarm clock it had read five in the morning, which he already knew from the slow lightening of the sky. The next time he opened his eyes was when the clock started wailing at him. He stumbled to the shower, hoping that the spray would do something to refresh him.
It didn’t. Even after a vigorous toweling, his brain remained groggy, his body lethargic. He needed coffee, but he’d forgotten to set the timer on his machine last night. Now he didn’t have time to make any. He was going to have to stop by the coffee shop, go caffeine-free or drink the swill that passed for coffee at the dealership. He suspected the staff of making bad coffee on purpose so that he’d continue to bring them the good stuff on Mondays. He should probably tell them that they’d get the good stuff regardless.
There was no choice. Noah needed the caffeine to function and he wasn’t drinking swill. He hoped Sabrina wasn’t working this morning. Or, at least, wouldn’t be making his coffee. She’d burned it the last time. On purpose. Not that he’d said anything.
Resigned that he was going to have to run the risk of seeing her, he ran a comb through his hair, threw on a suit jacket and headed for the door. Briefly, he thought about leaving by way of the French doors, but that would be like running scared. And he wasn’t scared. He just wasn’t looking for any contact.
So, of course, Sabrina was standing in the entryway, leaning against her door, one leg crossed in front of the other, waiting for him. She straightened, smiling as he stepped out. “Good morning.”
Noah didn’t know what was so good about it. He grunted. And tried not to notice her red boots. Those things were like Kryptonite. He never should have told her about that fantasy of her wearing them with a smile and nothing else. She was shamelessly using them against him now.
Sabrina fell into step beside him as he headed for the front door. “Coffee?” And there in her hand, like nectar from the gods was a steaming cup of what smelled like the most delicious, strong, unburned coffee.
He’d declined last time, able to lift the travel mug he’d made himself, but his hands were empty now. It would be petty not to take it. Also, he was desperate. “Thanks,” he said and drank half the cup in one swallow. He shouldered the door open and held it open for her to exit behind him. He wasn’t a total ass.
But rather than detour toward her own car, she followed him to his. Her boots crunched across the pavement. He stopped short and turned to pin her with a gaze. “Is there something else we have to discuss?”
Her smile was wide and bright, no indication of the falling out they’d had last night. And why did she look as though she’d spent her night in full REM sleep, not even waking up to roll over? “I need a ride.” She raised an eyebrow when he didn’t nod or give any other indication that this would be fine. “You’re going past the coffee shop, right?” She took a step toward him. So close. Like last night.
Noah’s body hardened at the memory as her scent wafted over him. How tempted he’d been to kiss that gorgeous mouth and tangle his hands in her hair. It would be so easy to push the troubling thoughts aside and kiss her now.
Even better pick her up and carry her into his bedroom. But then what? He could fall again. So, so easily. And Sabrina could—no, she would—leave just as easily. He remembered why it was a bad idea. He couldn’t put his heart, his trust, in someone who wouldn’t stick around. He didn’t think he could handle the pain.
“You have a vehicle,” he pointed out, refusing to take one step closer or farther away. Either might give her an indication of the inner turmoil currently making the coffee into a whirlpool in his stomach.
“It’s out of gas.” She fluttered her lashes at him and laid a hand on his chest. Noah felt the touch like a brand, forced himself not to react.
“Really.” He didn’t believe her, even before that silly batting of the eyes routine. “Call Vic at the station. He’ll swing by with a jerrican for you.”
“I’ll be late.”
“You’re the boss’s daughter.”
Sabrina pouted at him. Damn, he loved that little jut of her lips. Made him want to run his tongue over them. “I try not to abuse nepotism,” she explained, seemingly unaware of the fact that he was holding on to his control by a thin thread. “You’d understand.”
“Me?” Why would he understand? His father had died long before Noah was ready to enter the workforce and Ellen had never been in a position to offer him or Kyle a free ride. Unless he wanted all the prune juice he could drink.
But Sabrina nodded as though this made perfect sense. “Yes, you. You’re the mayor, but you never use that to your advantage. Even when you should, you don’t trade on your position in this town to make your life easier.”
Her assessment stunned him into stillness. He could still hear the bird songs in the trees around them and still see the leaves fluttering under a gust of morning wind. But for one long moment he didn’t move.
“Don’t look so shocked.” She lifted her hand to pat his cheek. “You’re a good man, Mr. Mayor. The type of man who would give a stranded woman a ride to work.”
Her blatant attempt at manipulation made him smile. Not a large, open smile like hers, but he could feel the corners of his lips tilting up. Even when he told them to stay down. Bad lips. “Is your car really out of gas?”
Sabrina looked over her shoulder at the offending vehicle in question. “It could be.”
They both knew it wasn’t. “Let’s check.”
She put her hand back against his chest when he started to move. “Let’s not and say we did.”
“Sabrina.”
“Noah.” She mimicked his tone. The way she had of taking over a space, swamping it with her energy, washed over him.
Again, Noah wondered why he was putting up a fight. Whose battle was this? And then he thought about how it would feel if he let her back in and she left him again. The air in his lungs vanished. He inhaled slowly, cautiously. The way he’d always lived his life
until her. The way he should return to living it. “You don’t need a ride.” Very carefully, touching as little of her as possible, he removed her hand and placed it by her side.
“I could.”
“You don’t.” And he needed to get out of here, away from her. “I’ll follow you to make sure you don’t run out of gas.” Once she was safely parked, he’d leave.
And from now on, Kyle could be responsible for getting coffee.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
SABRINA KNOCKED ON Noah’s door causing her new friend to yip.
“Oh, God, Chester. Do not pee all over me,” she whispered to the puppy and was rewarded with a lick from neck to ear. Not quite as good as if it were Noah doing the licking, but there was comfort in the warmth of the wriggling body and the joyful look in the puppy’s eyes when she petted him.
She hugged the little guy, glad that her current landlord allowed pets. More glad that the current landlord was her.
She smiled. Yesterday, she and her parents had finalized the particulars of transferring the title of the apartment into her name. They’d wanted to gift it to her, told her to consider it an early inheritance, but Sabrina wanted to buy it herself.
The amount in her bank account was paltry—wouldn’t even afford her the likes of The Cave in Vancouver—but Wheaton wasn’t Vancouver and housing prices were far more reasonable. Especially when she factored in the daughter discount.
Sabrina had had a busy couple of weeks since the late-night conversation with Noah. Every morning, she waited for him with coffee. Every morning, he accepted. But he still declined her invitations for dinner or an indoor picnic since the weather had turned or just hanging out and watching a movie. Still, she felt like he was starting to believe her when she said she was staying.
He just needed a little more encouragement. She hoped today would provide enough.
Chester burrowed his cold nose into Sabrina’s neck. Good thing he was so cute. She’d adopted him from the animal shelter yesterday and already they were besties. His tags jingled as he wriggled in her arms and she fussed with the extra tag she’d added making sure the “Vote for Barnes” sticker was visible. It was election day and she wanted Noah to know she was fully behind him.
This Just In... (Harlequin Superromance) Page 24