He smiled. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
She sighed, looked around at the small mountain of shoe boxes and laughed. “Well, we’re a little crazed at the moment.”
“Yeah, we are.” He wove his way past piles of boxes to get to her side, then reached down, took her hands and drew her to her feet.
“I haven’t gotten to your correspondence yet,” she confessed, and glanced at her desk, also covered with shoe boxes. “It probably won’t go out until tomorrow.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said.
She tipped her head to one side, gave him a smile and asked, “Is this the same Noah Fielding I came to work for?”
“No,” he said solemnly. “I’m not that Noah Fielding anymore. Thanks to you. And Kara.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked, apparently picking up on his seriousness.
“I’m good, Annie.” He turned and waved a hand, indicating the boxes filling the room. “But I’ve realized that this is just the beginning. There are still kids out there who need shoes. And doesn’t Shoes That Fit also provide things like backpacks with school supplies, too?”
“Yes, but—”
“No buts,” he said, smiling down into her eyes and sensing his whole world settle around him. As it had been meant to, he acknowledged, from the moment he’d first laid eyes on Annie Moore. A part of him had known all along what she was. Who she was. Which was probably why he’d done his best to ignore her and what she made him feel.
Well, those days were gone. And he was grateful.
“We’ve started something here, Annie,” he told her. “Something that’s going to grow far beyond just us and our community.”
“I hope so, Noah,” she said.
“We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.” Noah shot a look at Kara, who gave him a wide, gap-toothed grin as she walked to join them. “All three of us. And that’s what I want to talk to you about.”
Annie nodded and chewed at her bottom lip as if she was nervous. Well, he wasn’t. He’d spent years avoiding commitments of any kind. Now he thought nothing was more important than belonging with this woman and her daughter. Noah had never been so sure of anything in his life. He knew exactly what he wanted, and he would do anything necessary to get it.
“Before the truck driver comes back for the next load, I wanted to tell you something. Both of you.”
“Me, too?” Kara asked, leaning against him as she turned her face up to his.
“Yes,” he said, bending to lift Kara up and hold her in the crook of one arm. With his free hand he reached for Annie’s hand and, holding it tightly, he looked into her blue eyes and said, “My life is full now because of you and Kara. The two of you have given me more than I ever thought possible.”
“Oh, Noah...” Annie gulped in a breath and Kara wrapped one arm around his neck.
“What’d we give you, Noah?” Kara asked.
He laughed and said, “I’ll tell you someday, sweetie.”
Noah felt better than he ever had and knew that now was the time to ask the question that would settle their futures forever.
“Standing here,” he said, “in the middle of something we created together, I want to ask you to marry me, Annie. I want us, the three of us, to be a family. And to help each other. To start more chapters of Shoes That Fit in other communities to help them, too.”
“Oh, my.” She was smiling and crying at the same time. His heart gave a hard lurch.
“Don’t cry, Mommy,” Kara said softly.
“It’s happy crying, baby,” she whispered.
He laughed aloud. “Marry me, Annie,” he said again. “With my two best girls by my side, I know the three of us can do anything.”
“Noah...” She lifted one hand to her mouth and shook her head. “I don’t even know what to say.”
“Say yes. Just say yes, Annie.”
“I do love you,” she told him, “but this isn’t just about me, Noah. Kara and I are a team. We both have to be happy with this decision. So it’s not just me who owes you an answer.”
Nodding, he looked into the eyes of the little girl who’d first reminded him he had a heart, then had stolen it completely. “What do you say, Kara? Would you like to be my little girl? Will you let me be your dad?”
Kara looked from Noah to her mother and back again. Finally she smiled, cupped his cheeks in her small hands and said, “Well, you do need a little girl and I need a daddy—and maybe a sister.”
Annie laughed and Noah grinned at the girl in his arms. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Nodding thoughtfully, Kara said simply, “Then I think we should get married.” Smiling, she added, “Can I get some blue tennies before we go home?”
* * * * *
Dear Reader,
I was very honored when Marsha Zinberg called and invited me to participate in the More Than Words collection. Harlequin’s dedication to showcasing women who do all they can to make the world a better place is a wonderful thing. In supporting these women and the organizations they represent, Harlequin highlights the best of all of us.
Like many other people, I get so involved in my own life—family, writing, the business of running a home—I sometimes forget to look up and around. To see what is happening not only in my community, but in my country. Researching Shoes That Fit changed all of that for me.
Can you imagine being a child whose only school shoes belonged to an older sibling? The shoes don’t fit. They fall off. The other children laugh at your personal humiliation. How is a child supposed to concentrate on learning when they’re too embarrassed to lift their heads up?
Shoes That Fit was founded in California in 1992 by Elodie McGuirk with the express purpose of providing all children with the simple yet priceless gift of new shoes. Since then, the organization has grown to sweep across our nation. Local chapters are run by volunteers, and now Shoes That Fit not only provides shoes for children in need, but new clothing, as well.
When I spoke with Roni Lomeli, the executive director of Shoes That Fit, I was impressed with her passion for what she does. Roni and her staff provide amazing help for the most deserving and the sometimes most overlooked segment of our citizens—our children.
I’d like to personally thank Roni for all she’s done for our nation’s children. And thank you, too, to Harlequin, for acknowledging her with this honor. Last, a big thank-you to you, the reader, for buying this book and doing your part to support these wonderful people.
I’m proud to be associated with this collection and I invite all of you readers to visit the website www.shoesthatfit.org to see how you can make a difference in a child’s life.
All my best,
Maureen Child
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ISBN-13: 9781460327197
MORE THAN WORDS: ACTS OF KINDNESS
Copyright © 2014 by Harlequin Books S.A.
Brenda Jackson is acknowledged as the author of Whispers of the Heart.
Stephanie Bond is acknowledged as the author of It’s Not About the Dress.
Maureen Child is acknowledged as the author of The Princess Shoes.
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
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