Nora's Guy Next Door

by Jo McNally

  No more kisses with Hot Produce Guy. Things are messy enough.

  It took so long for Bree to reply that Nora wondered if she’d fallen asleep. But finally the words appeared.

  Hmmm. Messy can be fun. Don’t be afraid of messy.

  That was ridiculous. Messy couldn’t be controlled. She needed to get Michael and Asher back together and bring Asher into the family unit being created by this grandson of theirs. That was her plan, and she was done taking messy detours. Before she could type her reply, another text came in.

  Ugh. Gotta go. Feel sick. Call you later.

  Nora pictured Bree running for the bathroom. Should she tell her to pick up a pregnancy test the next time she went to the store? Nah—Bree and Cole would figure it out sooner or later.

  Four hours into a busy Saturday morning, Nora, Cathy and Becky finally had a chance to catch a breath. It was a raw, windy day, with the sun ducking in and out of dark clouds, playing tag with the showers that swept through every half hour or so.

  Business had been brisk, and three tables were still occupied with customers chatting quietly, or in the case of the two older gentlemen in the corner, playing checkers. Becky was cleaning up the kitchen. Cathy took a smoke break. Nora hoped her employee wasn’t smoking a sample of her clandestine harvest. Was she growing pot at home now, or had she given up the hobby, as she’d said she would?

  The sound of boxes being dragged across the floor of the storage room made her smile. Becky had said something to Michael about how challenging the oddly shaped room was to work in. He’d come in this morning to take a look, and he’d been restacking boxes and sliding shelf units around for a couple of hours now, whistling the entire time.

  The bell tinkled over the front door, and Nora turned. Asher stood in the doorway, looking at her with brooding, hooded eyes. His flannel shirt was open to reveal a dark rugby shirt underneath. He looked as exhausted as she felt and just as troubled. She knew why she thought last night was a mistake: too messy and too far off plan. But why did he seem so full of regret?

  A customer walked in behind him, propelling Asher toward the counter. He nodded at Nora.

  “I’ll have a...”

  “Large black coffee in a to-go cup with a shot of espresso and two raw sugars?” she said, finishing his order for him. His right brow arched, and a smile teased the corner of his mouth.

  “You know me too well.”

  She shrugged. “Or maybe not well enough.”

  “You know more than most.”

  “But not more than all?”

  He gave her a crooked grin, finally letting down his guard. They were flirting with each other. Not only were they flirting, but there was an extra level of heat behind their words after last night. Someone cleared their throat firmly, and Nora flushed when she realized she’d been so busy staring at Asher that she’d ignored the people who came in behind him. She prepared his coffee, then assisted the other customers. He stood off to the side, waiting for her to be free. Was he looking to flirt some more? Was it crazy for her to hope he was?

  The customers took their coffees to the sofa by the window. This time it was Asher clearing his throat. His voice was low, meant just for her ears.

  “Look, if I was out of line kissing you last night, I’m sorry.”

  She studied him, knowing the smart thing would be to say they’d both been out of line and it should never happen again. But she was having too much fun with the flirting thing.

  “If I remember correctly, I’m the one who kissed you, so...”

  “You kissed my dad?”

  It wasn’t the first time Nora had cursed the acoustics in the shop that made conversations so easy to overhear. Michael was scowling at them both, and there was more than just anger in his eyes. He was hurt and confused.

  “Who kissed your dad?” Becky stepped up behind Michael, laughing. Her laughter died a violent death when she saw Nora and Asher standing there.

  This was worse than bad. Unimaginably worse.

  “Mom?”

  The word was said with all the horrified censure a teenager could muster. Nora’s cheeks burned as if she’d been caught kissing Asher right there at the counter.

  “What, are you two living here now?” Asher’s angry words distracted Nora, and that was a relief. She’d rather deal with his grumpiness than the mortification on her daughter’s face. Michael bristled, forgetting the kissing comment for the moment. Hopefully Becky would do the same.

  “And what if we are living here, Dad? Maybe I’m getting more attention and parenting from Nora than from you.”

  Okay, maybe they’d be better off talking about the kissing.

  “And now you’re making a move on her? Are you just looking for ways to turn everything in my life to shit? What kind of father does that?”

  Michael’s challenge hung in the air as a hush fell over the café.

  “Mom, did you really kiss him? For months you’ve been on your high-and-mighty judge’s seat about me and Michael, and now you’re hooking up with Michael’s father?” Her face screwed up in disgust. “That is so...gross! How could you?”

  The two men continued their own conversation over the women’s heads.

  “Here’s a news flash for you, son. It takes more than warm and fuzzy greeting-card sentiments to be a parent. Making you feel good is not my job.”

  Nora winced. Was that a dig at her?

  “Calm down,” she hissed at Becky. “There are customers listening to every word.”

  “Oh, sure, Mom. Now you care what people think, but what about when you were kissing him?” Becky gestured toward Asher, and the movement pulled her apron tight across the baby bump. Asher’s eyes dropped, and he paled. This wasn’t the first time Nora had seen him react with fear when he saw evidence of the baby. He’d jumped back from Becky last night as if he’d been stung.

  “For heaven’s sake, Rebecca, I didn’t kiss him out here in public!”

  “Oh, great. Where did you kiss him?”

  She opened her mouth to answer, stuttering over whether to tell the truth or not, but Michael talked right over her to his father.

  “Yeah? Well, don’t worry, Dad. There’s no chance of you leaving your own self-pity party long enough to ever try to make me feel good again.”

  She saw in his eyes the moment his son’s words made a direct hit. Becky was still complaining loudly about double standards, but Nora couldn’t take her eyes off Asher.

  His shadows have shadows.

  She turned to face Michael. “That’s enough! What’s done is done. Hurting him is not going to make things any better.”

  Becky snorted behind her. “But kissing him will, right, Mom?”

  At that point, Cathy walked in and stopped short.

  “Whoa! What did I miss?”

  Michael and Becky both started talking at once, while Asher just stared at Becky’s rounded stomach. A muscle twitched in his cheek. Their children were getting louder and louder with Cathy.

  Even the most proper of Southern ladies has their breaking point, and Nora reached hers.

  “That’s it!” Her don’t-mess-with-me voice rang out and her hand slammed down so hard on the counter the glass display panel rattled. Becky jumped back when Nora pointed a finger at her.

  “You keep telling me you want to be treated like an adult who’s living her own life. Well, guess what? I’m also an adult who wants to live my own life. Frankly, who I do and do not choose to kiss is none of your business.”

  Becky’s mouth dropped open, but Nora spun to Michael before she could speak. He didn’t jump back, but he definitely leaned away, looking down at her with a mix of surprise and resentment.

  “And you! You say you’re ready to become a husband and a father, and then you resort to playing stupid, childish ga
mes with your own father, who’s doing the best he can with all of this. And let me tell you from experience, this...” She gestured wildly at the two of them. “This is not easy for a parent to handle, okay? So why don’t you both grow up and cut Asher and me a damned break?”

  She turned to confront the last of the troublemakers, but Asher was gone. All she saw were the faces of her customers, staring at her, wide-eyed and uncomfortable. Cathy came to the rescue, clapping her hands together loudly.

  “Okay, folks. That concludes today’s melodrama.” One of the old guys playing checkers started to laugh. “Refills are on the house, and I’ll be serving free samples of our new white chocolate chip cookies.”

  She leaned over to speak in Nora’s ear.

  “I’ll handle things here, including these idiot kids of yours. You might still catch him if you run.”

  And that was what Nora did.

  She ran.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  SATURDAY WAS USUALLY his best day for walk-in business, but Asher didn’t give a damn. He flipped the window sign over to the Closed side and turned the deadbolt so hard it sounded like a gunshot going off.

  He thought of how Becky’s hand had rested so protectively over the baby during the argument, as if shielding him from all the anger in the room. It wasn’t Michael’s words that had made him leave. They’d stung, yeah, but not enough to chase him off. It wasn’t Nora’s temper tantrum that had propelled him out the door. That was kind of cute, actually.

  No. It was the realization that Becky was shielding the baby from him that made him run. She’d done the same thing last night when she walked past him to the stairs. Her hand had been raised like a barrier between him and his grandson.

  His grandson...

  All the twisted emotions that had been assailing him since last night burned like acid in his chest. And they scared the hell out of him. He had to get away from here before...before something happened. He didn’t know what. He just knew he might not survive it. He was opening the truck door when he heard Nora calling his name, but he didn’t turn around. Right now, his feelings were so close to the surface that just seeing her might destroy the dam holding everything tightly in place. He yanked the door open and got in, pushing the key into the ignition.

  “Asher! Wait!” Her feet were splashing across the wet parking lot. “Don’t you dare drive away from me, Asher Peyton! I wasn’t done with you!”

  A surprising warmth hit him. He liked Nora’s angry voice. A lot. But he couldn’t stay. He started to pull away but hit the brakes when he saw her in the rearview mirror, running around the back of the truck and falling so fast it was as if she’d vanished into thin air.

  “Shit.” He jumped out of the truck. She was just getting up, brushing dirt off her hands onto her bright green apron. Little circles of mud dotted her jeans at the knees. Her hair had been knocked free of its barrettes, and she pushed it behind her ears impatiently. He put his hands on her shoulders, and she looked up in surprise, out of breath.

  “Damn it, Nora, are you alright?”

  She nodded quickly. “Fine. I’m fine. Stupid black ice. When does spring arrive in this godforsaken place?”

  Panic was still clawing at him, but he had to smile. “Officially? In about ten days. In reality? Don’t be surprised to see snow flurries for the next month, so pay attention when you’re out here. Especially wearing those shoes.” She was wearing silly little ballet flats. It was too cold for her to be out here in nothing but jeans and a little knit top.

  “Go back inside, Nora.”

  “Not without you.”

  He shook his head. “What did I tell you about trying to fix me? Just let me go. I’ll be fine.” That lie always fell so easily from his lips. He’d been telling it to himself for years now.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Away.”

  “Away sounds great. Take me with you.”

  “No. Seriously, stay here.”

  “With my horrified daughter and your furious son? No, thanks. Either you come back in so we can face them together, or you take me with you. No way are you sticking me with those two alone.”

  To Asher’s surprise, a laugh bubbled up in his chest. He laughed out loud, staring first up at the mountains, where a patch of sunlight was glancing along the trees, then back to her. He was a goner with this woman.

  “Get in.” Nora wasted no time getting inside the vehicle.

  They were halfway up the mountain before she said a word.

  “You’re not secretly some crazed mountain man kidnapping me and taking me to your remote cabin in the woods, are you?”

  “Not exactly.”

  She gave a short laugh. “Oh, that’s reassuring.” Her head dropped back against the seat and she closed her eyes with a sigh. “Six months ago I was a respectable single mother who’d managed to get her daughter through high school and into college. I scraped and saved and planned, and everything was working so perfectly. And then...poof! All my plans went up in a cloud of baby powder. My little girl is pregnant.” Nora’s eyes opened, but she wasn’t looking at him. Her fingers tapped nervously on her thigh, and her words came faster and faster. She was having this conversation with herself, so he stayed out of it.

  “And I can’t even hate the guy who got her pregnant, because he’s so damned nice! And the two of them together are so sweet it makes my teeth hurt. And now I’m living here in the frozen North, and Becky thinks I came here because of the baby, but I didn’t and I can’t tell her the real reason. I didn’t plan on any of this. Not one bit of it. And I don’t like the unexpected. I like to have plans. It makes me happy when things go according to those plans. No surprises. And then there’s you.”

  He could see her glaring at his profile, but he needed to keep his eyes on the twisting mountain road. “The father of the guy who got my daughter pregnant. A surly, hot bundle of manliness who lives right next door. And I should hate you, too, but I can’t.”

  Hot bundle of manliness? He tried to keep a straight face but failed.

  “Because I’m so damned sweet?”

  “What?”

  “The reason you can’t hate me. Is it because I’m so damned sweet, like Michael?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself. You make my teeth hurt, but it’s from grinding them together in frustration, not from sweetness. But speaking of Michael...”

  She was suddenly distracted, from what he knew would be a lecture on his parenting skills, when he abruptly turned onto a dirt road even steeper than the pavement had been.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “To my secret secluded cabin in the woods.”

  She gripped the door as the truck rocked back and forth. As soon as the weather broke, he would have to haul more stone up here to level this out. A branch swished along her side of the truck and she flinched.

  “Uh...just so you know, Becky didn’t get her love of hiking and skiing from me, okay? I don’t do wilderness well.”

  So, the girl Michael had fallen for loved hiking and skiing just as much as he did. Asher had been looking at the two of them as if the pregnancy was the only thing holding them together, probably because it was the only thing he could see.

  “You’re the one who insisted on coming along. So sit back and enjoy the ride.”

  Bringing Nora here was a mistake. And it was probably a big one. He should have just taken her for a drive. But it was too late now. She was still busy complaining about the wilderness when he drove around the final corner and brought his truck to a stop.

  The sudden silence was almost funny as he turned off the truck and turned to watch her. She was staring out the windshield at the log house, all three thousand square feet of it, nestled into the forest on the side of the mountain. He’d enlarged the small clearing into about an acre of l
evel, grassy land in front of the house. Beyond that, Gallant Lake sprawled beneath them, with blue-gray mountains receding into the distance. The rain had stopped for the moment, and the sun was trying to break through.

  She got out of the truck without saying a word and walked across the lawn to the fieldstone wall along the drop-off. Then she turned to look back at the house, with its faded and weathered logs. A wooden deck stretched the length of the house on the first floor, with a balcony above it that could only be accessed through the master suite. It was all topped by a dark green metal roof that matched the pines behind it.

  Hands in his pockets, he followed her, trying to see the place through her eyes and feeling oddly anxious about what she thought of it all. Amy never wanted to live up here, but Michael and...

  He took a quiet breath to steady himself. Both of his boys loved this piece of land, and he couldn’t part with it.

  “This is yours?” She sounded in awe.

  He nodded, his eyes never leaving her face, trying to read her thoughts.

  “You built it yourself?” He nodded again. “Designed it yourself?” Another nod. “So you own all this—” she gestured from the view to the house itself “—and you live in that apartment above your shop? Why?”

  He paused for a moment before answering. “It’s not ready.”

  She tilted her head to the side and arched her brow. “It’s not ready, or you’re not ready? How long ago did you start?”

  “I laid the foundation seven years ago.”

  “Seven years?”

  This was starting to feel an awful lot like an interrogation, and he was about to tell her just that when a gust of wind came up the side of the mountain, bringing another sweep of rain with it. Nora shivered and stepped toward him for shelter, her apron fluttering around her hips. He took his flannel shirt off and wrapped it around her shoulders.

  “Come on. Let’s get inside.”

  Once in the house, he gave her a quick tour of the main floor, and by the time they reached the upstairs master suite, her silence was wearing on him. She’d taken everything in: the almost-finished kitchen, the half-finished great room and the unfinished bedrooms downstairs. At least the master suite had primed drywall and a vaulted ceiling lined with cedar. The attached bath was nearly complete, with all the fixtures and a heated slate floor installed. But no paint yet.