He managed to drag Marsh off the stoop and back to their rental car without either of them losing life or limb. Marsh was swearing a blue streak and both were sweating profusely.
Strangely, Sam wasn’t in his car when they got there. They looked all around, but there was no sign of him. They decided to wait inside the car just in case they needed to make a quick getaway.
Sam returned a few minutes later, in worse shape than Marsh. Blood trickled down the side of his cheek and there were bits of leaves and grass on the seat of his pants and in his hair.
Sam Lafferty was in his late thirties. He stood six-four and weighed over two hundred pounds. He worked out every day and it showed. With a groan, he climbed into the backseat.
“What happened to you?” Noah asked.
Sam ran his finger along the screen of a small phone that looked as if it had the capability to launch missiles from outer space while making him a sandwich. Holding the gadget out to Marsh, he said, “I got that picture of her from the front you wanted.”
It was actually a video and starred the woman they’d seen in the photographs on Reed’s computer back in Orchard Hill over four hours earlier. Sam had caught her slipping out her back door. Noah could tell that she wasn’t pleased he was there. There was no sound, but those lips were easy to read.
The last they saw of her in the video, she was performing a high kick that would have made Bruce Lee proud. After that there was nothing but blue sky.
Marsh handed the phone back to the private investigator. Cradling his hand again, he said, “That’s not her.”
“You’re sure?” Sam asked.
“Positive. She’s not the woman I knew. She’s not even close.”
That was that.
It was discouraging, but the beatings Marsh and Sam had taken hadn’t been for nothing. One Julia Monroe down, several more to go. Sam was going to continue looking. He would broaden his search for Julia to the Deep South. He was also going to Texas where Reed had spent a night with a stacked blond waitress named Cookie.
Noah had driven back to the airport in Charleston. They’d turned in the rental car and now they were almost home.
Other than a little air turbulence and cabin noise, the trip back had been uneventful. The Gulfstream Commander was Tom Bender’s oldest and fastest plane. It was a thrill to fly her. There wasn’t anything about flying that wasn’t thrilling. Noah liked holding the control loosely in his hands, and was always invigorated by the sensation of gliding a thousand feet above the ground. And yet today, he could hardly wait to land.
“Look!” Marsh said loud enough to be heard over the engine noise and air leaks in the cabin. “There’s the orchard. I’d forgotten what it looks like from the air.”
There it was, rows of apple trees with bright green leaves, two-track trails running between them. The metal roof on the cider house glowed like melted copper in the bright sunshine. The sprawling house with its peaks and gables and three chimneys sat away from the other buildings. Noah buzzed it the way he always did when he was coming home.
Reed and Lacey rushed outside. He saw Lacey turn Joey around as she pointed at the airplane.
If Noah could have landed in the clearing they used as a parking lot every autumn, he would have. That was how impatient he was to introduce Lacey to the second step in his master plan. He made do with tipping his wing hello.
He didn’t know how long step two would last. Part of him hoped to high heaven it didn’t take long. It would take as long as it needed to take. He’d rushed her ten years ago. This time, he was going to take it nice and slow.
He was almost sure she was going to give him this chance to begin anew. Only a fool would waste it.
Lacey and Reed both lifted a hand in greeting. Marsh waved back. “Noah?” he called over the cabin noise.
“Yeah?”
“In case I forget later. Thanks.”
“Anytime, buddy,” Noah said, his chest expanding. “Anytime.”
Marsh was going home to the apple trees he’d nurtured, many of them patiently grafted with his own two hands, and the baby he hoped was his son. Noah was flying home to one very special woman.
He banked hard and turned the plane around. The instant they were headed in the right direction, he poured it on. After all, it wasn’t every day a man realized that soaring through the wild blue yonder was nothing compared to the thrill of landing in the arms of the woman waiting for him on the ground.
Chapter Seven
At the end of Lacey’s first day as Joey’s nanny, she left him in Reed’s care and, with her library books under one arm and her purse over her shoulder, walked out the back door. She was surprised to see Marsh walking toward her. She’d known that he and Noah were back when they’d buzzed the house, but she hadn’t heard anyone drive in.
“I’ll see you on Monday,” Marsh said gruffly as he walked past. Lacey and Reed had discussed her work schedule, and since the brothers apparently had been in contact and agreed that they would handle Joey’s care over the weekend, Lacey saw no reason to detain Marsh now. Cradling his right hand, he went inside without saying another word.
Noah was waiting for her in the driveway. Unlike Marsh, he looked relaxed and at ease. “Hey, Lace,” he said. “Got a minute?” His voice had taken on a sleepy velvet smoothness that didn’t necessarily mean he was sleepy.
Shading her eyes with one hand, she was pretty sure she was about to hear about step two. They seemed to have the same idea at the same time and, in unison, cut across the driveway to the shade of an enormous maple tree. An old-fashioned swing hung from a high branch. After giving the ropes a tug, Noah said, “Care for a push?”
She hadn’t expected that, but she set her things out of the way and tested the ropes, too. “Maybe a small one.”
He slipped silently behind her, and then she felt herself being drawn backward. With a whoosh, she was soaring through the balmy evening air. A little giggle bubbled out of her.
“Want another?” he asked.
“No.” She laughed out loud. “This was easier on my stomach when I was a kid.”
“Do you remember the first time we went out, Lacey?”
“Out?”
“You know, on our first date.”
She glanced over her shoulder at him to see if he was serious. His eyes, those deep brown eyes, were trained on hers. His lips were parted slightly, the edges tilted up just enough to tell her it was an honest question.
She straightened her arms and leaned back. Her hair nearly brushing the grass every time she passed the middle, she looked up at the branches disappearing in the lacy green leaves and considered Noah’s question.
Back in school, he was one of those guys all the girls noticed. Two grades ahead of her, he’d driven an old white Charger, a sweet car if there ever was one, until he wrapped it around a tree his senior year. How he made it out alive was anybody’s guess. He’d been popular with everybody, even the teachers who shook their heads and threw their hands up in surrender for all the times he pushed his limits and theirs.
Lacey’s path didn’t cross his until a few years later. He’d grown up a little by then. He hadn’t settled down, but he’d found something he loved more than driving too fast and raising hell.
Late one night after he’d returned from a vigorous year-long Airfield Operations Specialist training program down in Florida, she stepped onto the landing hoping to catch a little relief from the sweltering August heat. What she’d caught was Noah Sullivan’s attention as he was cutting through the alley. To this day she remembered the butterflies that had fluttered inside her rib cage when he’d looked up at her and said, “Hey.”
She’d stared down at him from the top of those steps. She might have smiled but she didn’t say a word.
“Are you coming down here?” he’d asked.
Raised over the local bar, she’d learned how to take care of herself. She’d taken plenty of risks, but she didn’t take chances with guys in dark alleys, no matter ho
w cute they were. “I’m not planning to.”
He’d laughed. And she was smitten.
“Mind if I sit down here, then?” he asked.
“Suit yourself.”
He made himself comfortable on the third step from the bottom. After a while she’d settled on the top step. They’d talked for two hours, him looking up, and her looking down, cigarette smoke and noise wafting into the alley every time one of her dad’s customers opened the tavern’s back door. When Noah returned the next night, he moved up a few steps, and she moved down. Before long, they sat in the middle, side by side.
A few weeks later he took a job flying wealthy businessmen from one corner of Texas to the other. The next time she saw him she was nineteen and he was twenty-one. He came into The Hill where she’d worked as a waitress. Her shift was just ending, so she’d taken off her apron and he’d walked her home. Again, they’d wound up talking for hours. He flew off into the wild blue yonder often during the next few years, but he always came back to her.
Now he was asking if she remembered their first date. She hopped off the swing and faced him. Slipping her hands into the front pockets of her jeans, she said, “Did we go to the movies?”
“The first movie we saw was about a group of World War II fighter pilots. We walked to the Division Street Theater and you paid your own way. Not a date in my book.”
“Did we go for a drive or grab a burger somewhere?”
“That doesn’t count as a date, either.”
“I guess I don’t remember our first date,” she said.
He smiled, and her heart turned over. “That’s because we never went on a first date.” He came closer, the swing still rocking gently between them. “All those years we did just about everything else. How could I have missed that?”
She didn’t have anything to say to that.
A warm breeze ruffled his shaggy hair and fluttered the hem of her gray shirt. A car drove by, loud music blasting from its open windows. When only the vibration of the bass remained, Noah said, “Would you have dinner with me, Lacey?”
“Dinner?” Okay, she really needed to stop repeating everything he said.
His throat convulsed on a swallow. She realized this was important to him. “Yes,” he said, “dinner. You and me in a restaurant that uses cloth napkins. If you say yes, it’ll be our first date.”
“When were you thinking we would go on this first date?”
“How about right now?” His voice had deepened again, stirring her in a way no other man ever had.
Glancing down at her clothes, she said, “I’m not dressed for dinner at a restaurant that uses cloth napkins.”
“How long would it take you to get ready? An hour?” He must have interpreted the look she shot him, because he slanted her a smile he didn’t overuse. “An hour and a half, then?”
There were a dozen reasons—all of them good—why she should ignore the way her heart rose up like a ballerina on tiptoe, ready to start twirling. There was only one reason she didn’t, and it had everything to do with the promise in Noah’s smile.
“An hour and a half, it is,” she said, surprised at how cool, calm and collected she sounded. She picked up her purse and camera and books and started across the grass.
She felt his eyes on her as she opened her car door and got in. Finding her keys in the bottom of her bag, she stuck them in the ignition. Oh-my-gosh-oh-my-gosh-oh-my-gosh. As she drove out of sight, excitement erupted in a screech of laughter. She cranked the radio up and crested a hill, once again leaving her stomach behind.
She kept to the speed limit, but it wasn’t easy. She made a left turn on Elm and then made a beeline for Baldwin Street. She had April on the phone when she pulled into her driveway.
“I need your help,” she said, getting out of the car.
April met her at the door. “What’s wrong?” she asked, her curly hair in wild disarray.
“I need to borrow a dress.”
“A dress?”
Face-to-face but still on the phone, they both burst out laughing. Lacey put her phone away and went in. Being careful not to step on the coloring books and matching pink boas on the living-room floor, she said, “I have a date. A first date.”
“Who’s here, Mommy?” a little girl called from the next room.
“It’s Aunt Lacey,” April answered over her shoulder. To Lacey she said, “A date with who?”
Aunt Lacey. She took a moment to savor the sound of it. Her hand settled momentarily on her abdomen. See, she thought, recalling the serious conversation she’d had with her doctor following her second surgery in Chicago. A woman didn’t have to have children to have children in her life. With a watery smile, she said, “With Noah.”
“Follow me.” April spun around and led the way across the living room without stepping on a thing.
Jay and April had purchased the house on Baldwin Street shortly after they got married. Built seventy years ago when houses were small and lots were large, it consisted of a living room, an eat-in kitchen and one bathroom with a bedroom on either side. The upstairs had sloping ceilings and walls that were unfinished. It was the first thing Jay was going to do when he came back from Afghanistan. Well, Lacey thought as she followed her petite friend to her bedroom, maybe not the first thing. First, they would begin anew.
There was a lot of that going around.
April didn’t ask Lacey if she’d lost her mind. She didn’t suggest that going on a first date with Noah now was impossible. She was Lacey’s friend, and if Lacey said she needed her help April was going to help her.
She reached to the back of the closet and started flipping through hangers. “This won’t do. Neither will this. Or this. What about this?” She held up something only to put it back. “Never mind.” Reaching the end, she popped her head out. “A dress, you say.”
“Yes.”
April looked askance at Lacey for the first time since she’d arrived. “Honey, I don’t know how to break this to you, but your chest isn’t going to fit into anything I own.”
Lacey glanced down at the front of her shirt. Oh, dear. “Noah is picking me up in less than an hour and a half. I don’t have time to go to the mall.”
The twins came scampering into the room. One had curls like April, the other straight hair like Jay. Both climbed onto their mother’s bed.
“No jumping,” April warned.
Thwarted, the first plopped down in the middle of the bed and her sister climbed off.
“Wait. I have an idea.” April bounded from the room very much the way her daughters had just bounded in. When she returned, she was carrying a garment bag.
Lowering the zipper to reveal the edge of an aqua-colored dress, she said, “I only wore this once. I was still nursing the girls, so I actually had cleavage. Jay couldn’t take his eyes off me. Wear it at your own risk.”
Lacey drew the dress from the bag. As light as a feather, it was sleeveless. Since she and April were both a hair under five-five, the length was perfect. The bodice overlapped, forming a V that didn’t look too low. The skirt wrapped around, held together with a tie at the side of the waist. Holding the confection in front of her at the mirror, she said, “Are you sure you don’t mind loaning it to me?”
“As I said. I wore it when I was nursing, and I’m not planning a repeat performance.”
Lacey could feel April watching for her reaction to her inadvertent mention of pregnancy. She’d broken it off with Noah because of her desire to have babies of her own. April knew about Lacey’s ruptured appendix and the complications that had followed. But Lacey was starting anew, and that meant growth. It was spontaneous and exciting, the outcome unknown. And this dress was going to be perfect for taking a leap of faith.
“Well, girls?” Lacey said, smiling at April’s adorable children. “Do you think Aunt Lacey will look good in this dress?”
The three-year-olds clapped. And April smiled again. Lacey beamed at all three. Aunt Lacey had a certain ring to it.
“Trust me, Noah isn’t going to be looking at your feet. How much time did you say you have?”
Oh, my. The clock was ticking. Lacey started in one direction, stopped and started again.
“Leave the dress,” April commanded. “I’ll bring it with me along with everything else we’ll need. Go take your shower. Make it a quick one. I’ll be a few minutes behind you. Girls, go finish your chicken nuggets. We’re going to Aunt Lacey’s to help her get ready for her date.”
“What’s a date?” one of them asked.
At the door Lacey listened for April’s reply. “It’s like Cinderella’s Ball.”
“Is Aunt Lacey a princess?”
“Yes, Gracie, she is. And her prince isn’t going to know what hit him.”
April Avery was helping her twins down the stairs when Noah pulled into the parking space in the alley. He tossed his sunglasses onto the dash of his pickup and got out. Somewhere, the marching band was practicing for the upcoming Fourth of July parade, the drums and occasional trumpet blast carrying on the warm air. Dog walkers were out on Division Street, and two boys were being reprimanded for skateboarding on the sidewalk.
“Whoa. You don’t clean up too bad, Noah,” April said on her way by.
Noah liked April, and was about to tell her she wasn’t so bad herself, but he happened to catch a glimpse of Lacey at the top of the stairs by her door. Whatever he’d been about to say was wiped from his mind.
That glimpse of Lacey had been fleeting, and yet he started up the stairs like a moth drawn to a flame. At the top, he found her door ajar. “Lacey?”
Her muffled voice carried from a distant room. “Come in, Noah. I’ll be right out. I just have to change purses.”
The boxes that had filled the living room several nights ago were gone. There was a slipcover on the sofa and a small glass that held two dandelions on a table beside it. Propped behind the makeshift vase was a photograph of Joey. There was a similar one in a frame in the living room at home.
A Bride Before Dawn Page 10