Now She's Back (Smoky Mountains, Tennessee 1)

by Anna Adams

  He stepped back. “It didn’t.”

  She wanted to ask why he hadn’t told her when it happened. Telling might have eased his shame.

  “Nan always said we could be whomever we wanted to be. Every day, we can choose to be a better version of ourselves.”

  “I’m not sure Nan ever needed to be a better version of the woman she always was.”

  Emma stepped back. This time she needed the distance because she wanted too much to be in his arms, to be held as if he could care for her. For always. And that was the most dangerous dream.

  She pushed dreams away and locked her hands together, grasping the sweetness that was real between them. “Thank you. That was the best thing you could have said about Nan. She always loved you.”

  He took her hands, working them apart from each other. He held just one. Loosely. And looked down at her with deep intensity that still had the power to delude her.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “You know how you worry, but there’s nothing wrong anymore. My father lives in Kentucky, and he never goes near my mother. He hasn’t seen any of us in three years, but I’ve promised Chad I’d take him up to talk to Dad.”

  Alarm bells beat at her skull. “Why on earth?”

  Impossibly, the thin line of Noah’s normally generous mouth tightened. “Don’t, Emma. This is my family’s problem.”

  “Why would you take Chad to see that man? Especially when Chad’s having problems with...”

  “Violence?”

  “The last thing he needs is a lesson from your dad.”

  “I want Chad to see our father so that he can hear from the source that being like Odell would mean a hard life. Odell claims he can convince him.”

  “I don’t want you to go. What if he’s just waiting for a chance to get revenge for your last good day up here?”

  Noah didn’t want her to read his expression. He kept it blank. “He would have fought me when I made him leave town. My father cannot touch me.”

  “I remember what he did to all of you. I saw the bruises and the stitches. The reason I ran up those stairs was to keep him from hurting Nan or my mother or you. Don’t pretend he won’t hurt you if he has the chance, because he hurt you all, again and again.”

  “You’re overreacting.” He tightened his hand on hers and then let her go. “I don’t think you understood the story I just told you.”

  “I understand you backed him down, but look how he behaved after that. He never tried to pretend he was a decent man. He hurt you by hurting your mother and your brothers and sister. I’d like to be sure a man who’s assaulted you in the past can’t do it again.”

  Noah went back to the table, reaching for the closest shopping bag. “This isn’t your problem. I’ll handle my family.”

  Same old, same old. She followed him and picked up one of the canvas sacks. The handles stretched in her tense grip. She was terrible at friendship with Noah.

  “Can I ask you one favor?”

  He tilted his head back tiredly, as if at a blow he’d expected. “What?”

  “Will you text me, or have Chad do it, after you leave your father’s house? So I know you’re both all right?”

  “I’ll promise anything if it means we can eat.”

  She dropped the bag on the table and returned to the fence, keeping her back to him because she couldn’t stop herself from feeling too much. “I’d really like it if you just agree you’ll let me know you’ve seen Odell, and you’re okay.” She gripped the rough fence rail again. “How many times did I clean your injuries and wipe off the blood? I know almost as well as you and your family what your father might do to you. He’s had four years to stew.”

  “I can’t make you empty promises. My brother needs to see who he could become, and my dad said he’d tell Chad about the kind of future he’s building with behavior like his—Odell’s. Chad needs a chance to decide for himself that he didn’t lose anything when Mom and Dad divorced.”

  Emma tried to settle for just that much, without begging for more. She was trudging onto dangerous ground, and she reached inward.

  She rubbed the back of her head, where she’d had a slight bump since the day she’d landed at the bottom of Nan’s stairs. Arguing wouldn’t change his mind, and she’d rather not go home angry again. She might be overreacting because Odell Gage was the only man who’d ever abused her.

  “I’m not in the least concerned, Emma. This is about your fear, and I’d never let you near my father. But to me, he’s an old man with no more will or strength to hurt any of us again.”

  “Okay,” she said with a dry throat and retired to her place in Noah’s life—out of his business. “I’m starving, Let’s devour our picnic because the cool air makes us ravenous, and then we can go back to the real world.”

  She leaned out again, lifting her face to the cool, moist air that swirled off the stream. “Feel the droplets of water?”

  “Let’s eat before you throw yourself off the cliff.”

  “It’s really more an embankment, and I’d roll.”

  “And I’d fix your broken body,” he said, his voice husky.

  Her hands slipped on the fence rail and she moved away, inspecting her palms for splinters.

  He came back to her and took one of her hands, tracing his fingertips over the palm. He could not have missed her shudder.

  “You don’t have to protect me,” he said.

  “You keep saying that.” She walked back to the table and took out a box of salad they’d made at the bar in the grocery store. “People who let down their guards get hurt.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  NOAH SAW HIS mother and Emma in the coffee shop’s bay window when he crossed the street in front of the courthouse to meet Chad.

  “What’s with those two?” Chad pointed a thumb over his shoulder. “I feel as if I’m walking in front of a firing squad.”

  “Mom and Emma think this is a mistake.” Noah decided to give his brother the option. “We don’t have to go.”

  “He’s not going to shoot us or anything. That’s what Mom’s worried about.”

  “What do you remember about those days, Chad?”

  His brother had perfected the adolescent male’s frustrated throat-clearing. “I was thirteen, not three.” He glanced toward their mom. “I remember everything.”

  Unfortunately, their mother seemed to take his glance as an invitation to come say her piece. The bell on the glass door tinkled as she came out.

  At least Emma stayed put. With a worried expression she didn’t bother to conceal.

  “Chad, you don’t have to go. Call your father.” The words spilled from Suzannah’s mouth. “Talk to him on the phone. Ask him everything you need to, but you don’t have to see him.”

  “Yeah, Mom,” Chad said, “I do. If he’s a boogeyman to you, imagine what he looks like in my memory.”

  With that, he touched the roof of Noah’s car, and Noah shrugged for his mother. Chad was old enough to know what he needed.

  Noah couldn’t reassure Suzannah that he wouldn’t let anything happen to his brother. No high school senior appreciated being babied, but she knew him well enough. She ought to know he’d take care of Chad.

  He nodded and then backed out of the space. Without thinking, he glanced from his mother to Emma. She tried to smile, but her eyes were wide and wary.

  He sighed and gave a small laugh, on a day when he’d thought it more likely he might spend the day shouting.

  “What’s so funny?” Chad asked in a surly voice.

  “My friend, Emma. She’s subtle.”

  “She’s pretty,” Chad said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you around her.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “I’m better with girls than you are.”

 
“No doubt.” If the kid wasn’t careful, he’d get another mature version of “the talk.” Noah hadn’t given it to him yet this year.

  Might be a little overkill on the same day they paid a visit to Dad.

  “Do you know what you want to say when we get there?” Noah asked.

  “Am I going in by myself?”

  “Not a chance.” Noah made it clear they weren’t discussing that possibility.

  “Good, because I don’t think he’s going to take it well when I ask him why he beat the crap out of us until you scared him into stopping.”

  Shame slammed into Noah. “I wish you could forget that day.” Maybe that was the moment that had turned Chad into a fighter.

  “I’ve never forgotten it. You were the example I needed. We’re all survivors. Except Mom.”

  “She survived.”

  “She used you as a human shield.”

  “Have you talked to her?”

  “She just cries and I feel guilty.”

  “You need to work it out, Chad. I don’t know if you’re anticipating Dad will want to be a good parent after today, but the only thing he’s ever stuck to is a bottle of booze.”

  “Why are we like that? Owen. Celia—she’s partying so much she may flunk out of college.”

  “I don’t think so. She’s working to turn her freshman year around.”

  “Family history suggests the opposite.”

  Oh, to be a smart aleck high school kid again. Noah had been a lot more certain back then, too.

  “I’m choosing to believe in her. She needs belief.”

  “You’re not blind. I see the way you live. You don’t let anyone close enough to hit you. Mentally or physically.”

  * * *

  EMOTIONALLY, HE MEANT. Immediately, Emma’s face flashed in front of Noah’s eyes. “You’re wrong.”

  “That Emma again? I remember when she used to come over and make us waffles. And she’d give Celia and me a ride in her car.”

  She’d told him about those rides. She’d walked in to check on his family, even though he’d never asked her to while he was at college, and when she’d find his mother and father going at the latest battle in their world war, she’d fish Celia and Chad out of the line of fire. Chad must not remember that part of his story.

  “She’s nice. I don’t even think she’s too old for me if you’re gonna let her go.”

  They reached the interstate, and Noah pressed on the gas pedal. Irritation made him consider stomping, but he stopped himself.

  He always stopped himself.

  * * *

  THEIR FATHER WAS waiting on the front porch of his small house on a small street in a small town. The house was so like its neighbors that Noah wouldn’t have found it if Odell hadn’t been sitting on the porch waiting for them. He stood up as soon as Noah parked in the driveway.

  Chad didn’t open his door.

  “We can go back without talking to him,” Noah said. “Maybe you already know what you needed to find out?”

  “I’m not weak like Celia and Owen and Mom. You don’t have to take care of me.”

  “They’re not weak either. They’re getting by, just like you and me.”

  With a snort of exasperation, Chad opened the door and got out. Noah followed from his side. Odell came to the top of the concrete steps.

  “Boys.” He was no longer a figure of terror. Just an older guy in jeans and a white T-shirt and a thick gray sweater, with long sleeves that he tucked around the ends of his hands, as if he were cold. “Chad, I can’t believe how you’ve grown.”

  “This isn’t a family reunion,” Noah said. “Chad, let’s get this over with.”

  “Come in the house. I’ll make you two sandwiches.”

  “No.” Chad’s voice was tight. His eyes swept Noah. Chad needed answers, but he wasn’t willing to give himself over to their father without a fight. He needed backup.

  “We’re not going in your house,” Noah said.

  “Why don’t we all sit on these chairs on the porch?”

  Rusty metal seats. How did the man live out here, away from the mountains that had always been his home, the mist that nourished, the fresh, cold air that smelled of pine and the only life Noah had ever wanted? Somehow, during the course of Chad’s questions, he had to find an answer for himself, too.

  “Tell me what you need, son.” Odell took the farthest gray seat.

  “I need you not to call me that.” Chad perched on the dirty brick porch wall. “Just tell me why, Dad. Why you hit us, why you drank all the time, why you hated us.”

  “I never hated you.” Odell looked mystified. “Why do all of you keep saying that?” He barely nodded his head toward Noah. “He won’t talk to me. Owen likes to tell people I’m dead. Your mother acts as if I forced her to be a lousy mom for nearly twenty years. I couldn’t take the way she was, so scared and lifeless.”

  “Don’t say another word about Mom.” Chad looked as lethal as Noah had felt that day in Nan’s house, when he’d looked down and seen Emma, unnaturally still at the bottom of the stairs.

  Noah moved closer to his brother, supporting him with his body. “How do you suppose you discovered Mom was lifeless and afraid?” he asked. “Was she either of those things before you raised your fists to her?”

  “I see she has you convinced she got out from under my thumb and turned into a real mom.” Odell huddled into his sweater. “That’s fine, that is.”

  “Chad,” Noah said, “let’s get back on track.”

  “Let me help you,” Odell said. “You have two choices, son. Chad,” he said, correcting himself as the boy lifted his head sharply. “I am your bad example. Noah, here, is the good example. You can continue to bash the daylights out of anyone who annoys you, because yeah, I hear what you’re up to, even here in faraway Kentucky.”

  “I don’t hit everyone who annoys me.”

  “That’s good news because look at me. You’re the most like me, and you’re going to end up with gnarled bones, no education, and a past that haunts you when you see your children really don’t want to be near you.” He took a labored breath. “Or, you can go like Noah. Get good grades, make a high score on that college entrance test, and have your choice of schools. Be a doctor, forget you were ever connected to me, and live a good life without making your family hate you.”

  “I can’t believe you,” Chad said. “Mom warned me you’d try to make me feel sorry for you.”

  “After four years with your mother pouring only her side of the story into your impressionable little ears, I’m not surprised to hear you’d agree with her.”

  “Dad,” Noah said. Odell’s idea of handling bitterness was to lash out at the nearest vulnerable target.

  “What is your side?” Chad asked.

  “I’ll tell you what. I’m giving you a real piece of treasure. Advice. Let me tell you what you really need to avoid in high school.”

  Odell tugged his sleeves tighter. Noah couldn’t feel the cold. He glanced at Chad, who was barely holding himself together. No fear of hypothermia there, either.

  “What should I avoid?” Chad asked.

  “The girls. I was like you. Good at football. Great, in fact. My grades weren’t anything to brag about, but I worked magic on the football field. The paper said I was an artist at the QB position. I was popular with everyone, but the girls really liked me.”

  Noah listened a little more closely. A sense of dread began to rise in his gut.

  “One girl, in particular, caught me.” He glanced at Noah. “So I married her, and she resented me for not living up to my magical QB promise off the football field, and I just resented her for getting pregnant.”

  Great. Noah closed his eyes, breathing in, taking stock of his position as the reason his paren
ts loathed each other by the time they’d had three more children.

  “Sheesh, Dad. Way to talk about Mom and Noah.” Chad pushed away from the wall. “I guess that’s enough, brother. Let’s go.”

  Noah didn’t argue. He let Chad exit ahead of him, and he stopped at the top of the steps. “Dad, do you have enough to eat?”

  Odell widened his eyes. Sad eyes, like Noah’s own and Chad’s, Owen’s and Celia’s. “I’m fine, Noah. Thank you for asking.”

  “You don’t have to be proud.” Noah put his hand on his back pocket, where his wallet waited for the Odell touch.

  “I am proud. I’ve stopped drinking. Thirteen months sober,” he said. “I don’t know why people are so hot for being a teetotaler. I’ve been freezing since the day I took my last drink. I miss the fire within.”

  “You put out a good story without the usual fuel.” Noah pulled out his wallet. “I don’t mind giving you a little help.”

  “No.” Odell pushed the brown leather square away. “Take your brother out for lunch. I’ll bet feeding him is like filling up a hollow leg.”

  “Thanks for talking to him.”

  “I was honest.”

  “Blunt, too.”

  “I found the blunt stories in AA were the ones that worked best for me. Maybe you could tell Owen and Celia I’m doing better.”

  “I will, but I won’t push them to see you.” And he’d find someone who could tell him if Odell really had been sober for over a year before he let them come near him. “You have my phone number?”

  “I’ll use it if I need to.”

  They both doubted that, but Noah couldn’t do more than offer.

  Chad was already in the car. Noah joined him, and they reversed into the street, Odell and Chad staring at each other like enemies across a dangerous field.

  “A couple of fights at school, and everyone assumes I’ll turn into that,” Chad said.

  Apparently, an unwanted child and a shotgun wedding assisted the transformation. “How do you feel about what he said?”