by Loree Lough
Dara moved in for a closer look, saw first a five-byseven picture of Angie, bundled in a bunting, snuggled in her mother’s arms. Noah’s wife had been a beauty, just as Dara had suspected. Long, dark hair spilled over one shoulder, and wide, brown eyes gleamed with maternal pride as she smiled at her infant daughter. Another picture, taken a year later, showed her in a similar pose, this time with Bobby on her lap.
Beside that photograph hung an eight-by-ten fullcolor portrait of Noah and Francine on their wedding day. Her shimmering hair had been gathered in a loose topknot and secured by a wreath of tiny red roses and baby’s breath. The off-the-shoulder gown skimmed her trim waist and hips, rippled out behind her like a white satin river. And Noah, outfitted like royalty in a white tuxedo, stood straight backed and beaming beside his beautiful new wife.
Like the stage manager of a one-act play, the photographer had set the scene, positioning the bride and groom face-to-face on the altar’s red-carpeted steps, arranging her gauzy veil to float around her face like a translucent cloud. He’d placed vases of flowers at their feet, linked their hands around the stems of her redrose bouquet. Talent and artistry aside, he could not have fabricated the love that blazed in their eyes.
Dara had dreamed all her life of loving—of being loved—like that. What would it be like to have found and lost it, as Noah so obviously had? Devastating, she thought. And for the first time since their meeting, Dara believed she understood why Noah sometimes seemed so standoffish, indifferent, almost harsh with his children: he was holding life at arm’s length to protect himself from experiencing such pain ever again.
But if that was the case, why had he come so close to kissing her…not once but twice!
Sighing, Dara returned to the kitchen, where the water was at a full boil in the kettle. How would Noah take his tea? she asked herself, stirring half a teaspoon of sugar into her own mug. With honey and lemon? Cream and sugar? Or just plain? If she had to guess, she’d choose the latter. Everything else about him was no-frills, from the neatly trimmed mustache above his upper lip to the gleam of his razor-cut hair.
And whatever it was that he wanted to say to her, she had a feeling he’d get straight to the point.
Francine had always been the one who’d listened to their prayers, but once she accepted the fact that her illness was terminal, she had said, “It’s important that you be there for them, morning and night. How else will they learn that talking to God can be as easy and as natural as breathing?”
It had been just one of the many things he’d promised in her last hours. So far, he hadn’t let her down. With the help of a cleaning service, he kept the house shipshape and saw to it Angie and Bobby ate three squares a day. He made sure they continued with their piano lessons and took her place in helping them with their homework. And most important of all, he’d made a point of attending Sunday services with them after their Bible class ended. “Children learn by example,” Francine had said.
More times than he cared to admit, Noah wished he’d been more observant of all the little things she’d done to make his life pleasant and peaceful. Things like pretty flower arrangements that brightened dark corners. His bathrobe, belted and hanging neatly in their closet. Socks, freshly laundered and paired, then rolled into a ball and tucked into his top dresser drawer.
She’d known without his saying so that he didn’t like his feet cramped into a tightly sheeted bed. And so, in addition to covers that were pulled back and smoothed, Francine had, without fail, untucked the sheets and blankets every night.
Raised in St. Vincent’s Orphanage with nothing but a change of clothes to call his own, the closest he’d come to loving and being loved was when old Brother Constantine invited the lonely boy to join him for his daily walks around the academy grounds.
He’d been dumped on the headmaster’s doorstep at the tender age of two, and by the time Noah turned fourteen, he’d given up hope that one of the smiling couples who came “visiting” would take him home. The starry-eyed ladies and their stoic husbands were looking for babies, after all, and he’d grown too tall, too gangly, for their tastes. Besides, if his own mother hadn’t wanted him, why should anyone else?
But years of the brother’s quiet and steadfast acceptance opened the boy’s heart to the possibility, at least, that one day he might find the kind of warmth that can be generated only by a loving family. And when he was twenty-two, four full years after he’d left St. Vincent’s and Brother Constantine behind, Noah found it in the arms of Francine Brewster.
Her motherly ministrations were like soothing salve, healing the raw wounds of desperation inflicted by years of believing love was an emotion intended for everyone, anyone but him.
He had accepted her gift of unconditional love, and, believing it was far better to show her that he appreciated it, Noah took to doing little things for his wife. Things like surprising her with bouquets of wildflowers, plucked from the roadside; building a potting shed out back, complete with heat and electricity, where she could tend her green-leafed “pets.” He added a room to the back of their Pennsylvania farmhouse so she’d have a place to read when the mood struck.
Oh, how she’d brightened his life! Noah often said he would have tried to reel in the sun if she thought it might warm her, would have gathered up the stars to add sparkle to her life. She’d laugh softly and wave his wishes away, saying, “You’re plenty warm and sparkly for me!”
Still, he’d have done anything she’d asked of him, because Noah believed that nothing he did or built or said could ever balance the scales once she’d given him those precious treasures called Angela Marie and Robert Edward.
He missed her. Missed the companionship and the camaraderie. And being with Dara tonight had reminded him that a rock-solid marriage could be as comfortable as a feather bed.
He hadn’t met a person who didn’t love Dara—and he’d spoken to dozens in trying to find out if she might be involved in the embezzlement scheme. Why, he’d need a calculator to count up all the people who said she’d done them a favor or a kindness over the years!
She certainly had a way with children, his own in particular. She had an incredible sense of humor. And from all he’d seen, she enjoyed hard work. He sensed that the sweetness in her started in her heart, reverberated to every other part of her. And she’s certainly pretty enough, he thought, picturing her dark doe eyes, her bouncy curls, her heart-stopping smile.
More importantly, Dara was a devout follower. That was essential. Francine had specifically told him if love ever came knocking again, he should open the door—provided a Christian woman stood on the other side. “A believer will see to it Angie and Bobby are raised in the faith. She’ll teach them through her own example, not just by words alone.”
He’d prayed himself hoarse over it; if he had to rehitch his wagon—and according to the counselor, that’s exactly what his kids needed most right now—why not yoke himself to someone he sincerely respected, a woman he genuinely liked?
Noah shrugged. Because who knows? You might just find yourself feeling more than friendship for Dara…one day.
If he was honest with himself, he’d have to admit he felt more than that for her now. How else was he to explain the way his heart had thundered when he’d almost held her in his arms…when he’d almost kissed her lovely pink lips.…
“Father?” Angela Marie was saying now.
She’d caught him daydreaming, and she knew it. Noah returned her mischievous smile.
“Good thing you listened to my prayers last,” she said, grinning.
He tucked the covers up under her chin. “And why is that?”
“Because Bobby gets his feelings hurt if you don’t pay attention to his prayers, remember?”
Nodding, Noah chuckled. “What makes you think I wasn’t paying attention to your prayers?”
“Because,” she said matter-of-factly, “you didn’t say ‘Amen’ when I finished.”
“Good night, sweet girl,” he said, bendi
ng to kiss her forehead.
He turned out the light, and as he stepped into the hall, he heard her whisper, “I love you, Father.”
“I love you, too.”
Heart knocking against his ribs, he descended the stairs and headed for the kitchen, where Dara was waiting for him. What he was about to say wouldn’t be easy, but it would be right.
Dara had finished one cup of tea and was halfway through a second before she decided to wait for him in the family room, where it was warmer. According to the carriage clock on top of the TV, he’d been gone twenty minutes.
It seemed like an hour.
Dara worried about staying the night. What would his neighbors say when the little red car that had been parked in his driveway before the snow started was still there in the morning? What would Angie and Bobby think when they woke up and found their Sunday-school teacher asleep on the sofa in their family room? And speaking of Sunday school, how would the parents of her other students feel when they found out she’d spent the night in a widower’s house?
You’re a grown-up, they’d scold, why didn’t you check the weather before it got too hazardous to drive? To which she’d reply, Well, if they don’t think any better of me than that…
Still, others might say that she’d subconsciously allowed herself to get waylaid at Noah’s house. Some would no doubt think it hadn’t been unconscious at all, that she’d deliberately gotten stranded, miles from home, on one of the worst weather nights of the year.
Dara sighed. Because, in all honesty she didn’t know which scenario was true.
She was standing at the stove when she heard him coming down the hall. “How do you take your tea?” she asked when he came in from the small home office adjacent to the kitchen.
He carried a thick accordion file under his arm. “No hot chocolate?”
“I figured you’d suggested it only on my behalf.”
Grinning, he said, “You figured right.”
“So…?” She pointed to the mug
He hesitated a moment before saying, “Strong and black.”
She wondered about the tick in time that had passed before he answered. But his response had been what she’d expected: no frills, just like Noah himself.
“Sorry it took so long up there. The kids get a little wordy sometimes.”
It isn’t like I was going anywhere, she wanted to say, not with a foot and a half of snow on the ground. “I didn’t mind,” she said, instead. “I made myself comfortable in the family room. It’s very warm and cozy in there.”
“Then what say we bring the—” He frowned at the file. “How about if we drink our tea in the family room?”
The way he’d stopped midsentence Dara knew he hadn’t said what he’d intended. His serious expression told her it wouldn’t be long until he did.
She carried their mugs into the family room. While she’d waited for him to tuck the children in, Dara had decided the big overstuffed recliner in the corner was Noah’s. Her father had had a favorite chair, and it, too, had that certain comfortably worn quality. She put one mug on the table beside it, placed the other on the coffee table and nodded at the file. “What’s that?” she asked, sitting on the end of the couch nearest his chair.
“Something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about,” he said, sliding a manila folder from the file. “But before I show you what’s in here, I want you to know I feel terrible about this.”
Why did his tone of voice, his choice of words, remind her of when her father used to begin her childhood scoldings with “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you”?
“I gave a lot of thought to what you’d said the other day in your father’s office, that he wasn’t the kind of man who could steal.”
Dara’s heart hammered; her palms grew moist. This was going to be much more serious than any reprimand her dad had ever doled out.
“I never had the pleasure of meeting him,” Noah continued, “but his reputation as an honest businessman was well-known…and well-deserved, from everything I’ve heard. That’s what prompted me to take another look into this matter of…of embezzlement.”
Embezzlement. The word echoed loudly, harshly, in her ears, like the deep, repeating grate of the school’s fire alarm.
“You sounded so sure of his innocence,” Noah said, “that it made me believe if I dug deep enough, looked long enough, I might just find the proof you were talking about, proof that would clear his name.”
“You’re not going to believe this, but…”
“But what?”
“I came here tonight hoping to discuss that very thing with you.”
His furrowed brow told her he still didn’t understand.
“I was hoping you’d go to work for me, looking for…looking for—”
“Proof that would clear your father’s name?” he repeated.
Dara nodded. “You didn’t find it, did you?”
His somber expression was her answer.
Noah took a deep breath, handed Dara the file. “I didn’t leave a stone unturned. I checked into everything. No one escaped my scrutiny, not the board of directors, not Kurt Turner, not the bookkeeper or even the secretary.” Noah paused, still frowning. “Only a handful of people had access to that money, and each one of them could account for every cent.” He met her eyes, his frown intensifying slightly. “The trail deadends at your father’s door.”
He had nothing to gain by lying to her, Dara realized. In fact, his stellar reputation could only improve if he managed to turn up documentation that cleared her father’s name. She opened the file, flipped nervously through the paperwork inside. But she couldn’t read what was printed on the pages, because Dara couldn’t see through her tears.
Right from the start, something had told her things might turn out this way. She’d hoped and prayed for a different ending, of course, an ending that would show the Kurt Turners of the world that, despite his unconventional behavior, Jake Mackenzie had been a good and decent man.
He’d always been eccentric, a bit offbeat. But that had been what set him apart from the crowd; his business successes had been a direct result of what some called “personality quirks” and “peculiarities.” Everyone said so, including her father!
It had never taken much to satisfy him. “Three square meals and a cot,” he’d often say, “and I’m a happy man.” Then, with no warning whatever, the simple life no longer seemed to satisfy him. He started jetting all over the country, “lunching” with big shots from Johns Hopkins and the National Institutes of Health, saying only that his meetings with the top docs would improve life for everybody.
His actions grew more and more unpredictable, especially those months before the first heart attack. And in the weeks before he’d left for England, Dara’s gregarious, easygoing, amiable father became elusive, secretive, overly sensitive to questions.
All right. So he had taken the money. But why, she wondered. “Why?”
Noah sat beside her on the sofa, slipped an arm around her shoulders. He handed her his handkerchief.
She sniffed. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be such a ba—”
“No need for tears or apologies.” He kissed her temple. “Because I have an idea that I think will right all the wrongs in both our lives.”
Dara dabbed at her eyes. “I don’t see how that’s possible,” she said, smiling, “but you’ve sure got my attention.”
He turned her to face him, rested his hands on her shoulders, his intense gaze stealing her breath away.
“Marry me.”
Chapter Four
Surely she hadn’t heard him correctly…he hadn’t really asked her to marry him.
Had he?
Dara blinked the last of her tears away. “I, ah, I’m sorry, Noah. My pity party must have affected my hearing.”
“You heard me right.”
She stiffened as he plunged on.
“See, it’s like this. Pinnacle hired me to find that money. They don’t care where I
find it, so if I find it in my own account—”
“Your account?” She pressed her fingertips against her temples and squinted. “I’m afraid I’m not following you,” she said, shaking her head. “This is a lot to absorb in just a few minutes. I mean…I just found out my father is a…a criminal, and then I get…I get proposed to by a man I barely know.” She shook her head again. “Wait a minute. You said they wouldn’t care if you found the missing money in your account. How did it get into your account, anyway?”
“I never said it was in my account. What I said was, I’d replace it with my own two hundred thousand. Of course, I’ll have to let that account go. It would be a conflict of interest to work on Pinnacle if we were married.”
She took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “So you’re saying…” Frowning, Dara met his eyes. He’d said it straight out: “Dara, will you marry me?” But why would he say such a thing? And what did it have to do with the missing money?
Dara was beginning to get a headache. “Exactly what are you saying?”
“Look, it’s simple. I happen to know that you’ll be out of a job in a few months, and I figure money’s gonna be scarce, so—”
Dad is guilty, she thought, barely hearing a word Noah was saying. She didn’t want to believe it, but she had a lapful of evidence that said otherwise. But wait—had she heard right? Had Noah said something about her losing her job? “How do you know I’ll soon be out of work? I only found out myse—”
Staring at the toes of his sneakers, he tucked in one corner of his mouth. “I just know, okay?” And before she had a chance to ask how, he met her eyes. “You know as well as I do that Angie and Bobby need a mother. And I know as well as you do that your father’s reputation is important to you. Very important.” He shrugged. “So, what I’m proposing is this. I’ll put the money back…if you’ll become my wife.”
Dara could only stare at him in silent disbelief. “You…you want to buy me?”
“Of course not,” he snapped.