Lights shone behind the shades of the second-story windows. Abby closed the car door quietly and went to the outside staircase leading to the second-floor veranda. Breathing a little too hard, she walked straight up to the door and, without giving herself time to think, knocked hard.
The door opened almost immediately. Noah glared out at her, his dark eyes narrowed, his mouth set hard. Then, as he recognized her, his expression changed to pure surprise.
“Abby? What the… What are you doing here?”
The roughness in his voice was all the reason she needed. She swept past him into the room.
“You and I,” she said, “have to talk.”
CHAPTER SIX
NOAH SHUT THE DOOR and backed up against it as Abby stalked to the counter separating the living room from the kitchen. She looked as if she was prepared to do battle—eyes flashing, cheeks flushed, fists clenched.
“What are you doing here?” he asked again. “Does your dad know where you are?”
“I’m not sixteen. I don’t have to tell my dad where I go every time I step out the front door.”
“Oh, sure. He doesn’t mind when you walk out at ten o’clock at night to visit a man who just got out of prison. I believe that.”
“You didn’t complete the thought.” He lifted a brow in question and she went on. “You should say ‘a man who just got out of prison where he served a sentence for manslaughter.’”
“You’re right.” Amazing, how ugly the word sounded coming from her. “That still doesn’t explain why you showed up at my door.”
She glanced into the kitchen. “Do you have anything to drink?”
“Tap water. The glasses are in the cabinet to the right of the sink.”
Abby threw him an annoyed glance and disappeared into the kitchen. A good host would have offered her a drink and filled the glass himself. But Noah was keeping a firm hold on the doorknob behind him. That way, they might both get out of this unscathed.
The water ran and then shut off. The seal on the refrigerator released, caught again. He counted the clack of six cabinet doors being opened and closed, plus the slide of three drawers going out and in. “Find what you’re looking for?”
She came back around the counter. “Dixon and Kate have done a great job with this place, haven’t they? I love the soft orange on the walls with the dark green carpet.” Abby toasted him with her mug. “Cheers.”
Noah had spent the last couple of hours in awe of the comfort and convenience he’d dropped into this afternoon. “Yeah, this is definitely a step up from a two-man cell on block C.”
The mug clanked onto the countertop. “Good point. Now I’d like an explanation. I’m assuming you were wrongly convicted?”
“Oh, I did it.” He nodded when Abby’s eyes widened. “That’s right. I killed a man.”
“Accidentally?” Her voice wavered on the word.
“No. I’m glad he’s dead. And if he wasn’t…” He shrugged. “I’d be happy to try again.”
She was quiet for a long time. “Why?”
Stupid. He’d been prepared for her to walk out, but not for another question. The smart answer he wanted to give wouldn’t materialize.
“Come on, Noah.” Abby pulled out one of the bar stools and sat down, her heels propped on a rung and her elbows on her knees. “I want to know why you killed the guy. Money? Drugs? Self-defense?”
“He was…dangerous. A threat to anybody who went near him.”
“He attacked you?”
“No…I pulled him off somebody else, and he turned on me.”
“Who were you protecting?”
“A friend.” When she nodded in satisfaction, he knew he had to change her attitude, and fast. “Don’t shine some kind of heroic spotlight on this situation. It was a brawl, pure and simple. I got a lucky break and the other guy ended up dead. Things could just as easily have gone the other way.”
She held up a hand. “Okay, okay, I get it. You’re a bad man. Why didn’t you tell your mother the truth right away?”
“I did. Just not all of it.”
“What did you say?”
“I said I’d been in Atlanta for the past few years, working different jobs. And I decided to come back because I wanted to be sure she was taken care of.”
“Would you be here if you hadn’t gone to prison and then been paroled?”
Noah slapped his hands against the panel of the door. “What difference does it make? I’m here and I’ll be staying for a while. What else does anybody need to know?”
“I haven’t even asked you yet why you stole a hundred dollars from the register at the diner.”
“Today?”
“In high school.”
He hadn’t thought about that episode for fifteen years. There were other sins to remember, so many of them so much worse. “I guess I wanted something for my bike. I think I had my eye on mirrors that spring.”
“And thought my dad should pay for it?”
“Why not?” This kind of indifference was a lot harder to project than when he’d been a kid and hadn’t really cared what people thought of him.
Except for Abby Brannon. Unfortunately, he’d cared about what she thought pretty much since the first day they met.
“My dad offered you a job. And instead of taking it, you took the money.”
He hated the look of betrayal on her face, but he intended to use it. “You shouldn’t be so surprised. It’s who I am, Abigail—a liar, a thief, an arsonist…a killer.”
“I don’t believe any of that.”
“Then you’re a fool.”
She nodded. “Maybe. Why are you so determined to make me hate you?”
“Because you’re so damned determined to redeem me.”
“Somebody has to.”
“Well, I don’t want redemption.”
“What do you want?”
That stopped him for a second, because he had never put the idea into words. “I want to stop making mistakes.” He passed a hand across his face. “I appreciate you trying to help out. But I am not somebody you have to worry about. Just go home and—”
“Be a good girl?” She slipped off the stool and walked toward him. “Mind my own business? Don’t bother you anymore?”
“That’s right.” Without his brain’s cooperation, his hands wrapped themselves over her shoulders. She didn’t feel as sturdy as she looked.
“I don’t want to. How’s that for an answer?”
He echoed her question. “What do you want?”
Abby shrugged. “A walk on the wild side.”
Noah started to pull back. “What the hell are you talking about?”
She gripped his wrists, kept his hands on her. “I’ve been everybody’s good girl all my life. I want a chance to make my own mistakes. To be dangerous.”
If she only knew. “The wild side isn’t a safe part of town.”
“So everybody says. I want to find out for myself.”
“Using me as your playground?”
“Sure.” She took a step, closing the small distance between their bodies. “Sounds like fun to me.”
With a curse, Noah pushed her away from him for the second time. “I am not going to help you ruin your life. I don’t want the responsibility.”
Abby recovered her balance and straightened up under Noah’s hot glare. “I wasn’t asking you to take responsibility. This planet doesn’t depend on you to keep it moving around the sun, and neither do I. Kiss off, Noah Blake. I’m not wasting any more time waiting for you.”
She stomped past him, stepped outside and slammed the door as hard as she could. Never, never had she been this angry. Rage boiled up inside of her, a pressure on her bones, against her skin, that she didn’t know how to release. Throwing rocks at Noah’s windows appealed to her, but they were actually Dixon’s windows, and she didn’t want to hurt Dixon. Driving downtown, she visualized the owners of the shops and businesses and knew she couldn’t damage their property out of spleen.
Even Kate’s ex-husband didn’t deserve vandalism, though she was terribly tempted after what he’d put her friend through.
In the end she went home and was relieved to find her dad sound asleep. She changed into her favorite nightgown, a bright red flannel granny gown softened by years of washing, and went to the kitchen for a cup of cocoa. When she turned on the light, she heard Noah’s dog scratching at the door to the sunporch.
“You’re still awake? Come inside,” she told him. As he did every time he came in, he checked out the kitchen, sniffing at the baseboards, the oven and the refrigerator, before settling with a sigh on the braided rug in front of the sink. When her drink was ready, Abby sat at the table and stretched out a foot to rub the dog’s shoulder.
“You really do need a name,” she told him. “I appear to be the only one who cares, so I suppose it’s up to me.” She considered the scruffy animal for a minute. “How does Elvis strike you? You’re nothin’ but a hound dog, after all. Are you lonesome tonight? We can listen to ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ together.”
He wagged his tail a couple of times and then rested his head on his front paws and dozed off.
Abby sat there for a long, long time, wishing she could do the same.
NOAH FELL ASLEEP as the Sunday sun rose. He woke up much later with the sound of voices underneath the window. A quick peek outside revealed Dixon and family returning from church, to judge by their clothes. Sunday dinner after services…a custom he hadn’t grown up with or believed in, until now.
He had just turned away from the window when someone knocked on the door. The wrinkled clothes he’d slept in didn’t seem to matter, until he peered out to see Kate standing on the porch.
“Good morning.” She looked like a princess, wrapped up in a thick, soft, dark brown coat. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“No, not at all. Something wrong?”
“Dixon and I hoped you would join us for lunch. We should have asked earlier, but the kids didn’t want to get up for church, and by the time we could leave, we were running late. I’m sorry there’s not a phone up here yet. We’ll have to get one installed this week.”
She made it seem like everything was her fault. Noah shook his head, wondering where to start. “Don’t worry about that. I don’t really need a phone. But I shouldn’t barge in on your family dinner.”
“You won’t be barging. Miss Daisy usually cooks enough for at least another family of five. We’ll all be glad to have you, if you’ll come.”
He might be a killer, but he couldn’t be rude to Kate Bowdrey Bell. “Sure. Have I got time to get cleaned up?”
“Of course. Why don’t we plan to eat about one o’clock?”
They shared a smile, and Noah watched as she went down the steps again and across to the house. He’d been at the bottom of their high school class when Kate had been valedictorian—the distance between them had been like that between the Queen of England and the next peasant scheduled to be tarred and feathered. Not much had changed.
Dixon belonged to the same New Skye aristocracy but hadn’t been quite so unapproachable.
“I remember you used to sit around at school with a guitar,” Noah said, when he arrived for lunch, noticing Dixon’s instrument leaning in a corner of the parlor. “You always had some tune going, with your eyes closed and your fingers flying.”
“Yeah, I was a real space cadet. Sometimes I wonder how I managed to graduate at all.” Dixon froze for a second, then muttered a curse. “Sorry, man. That was about as tactless as it gets.”
Noah held up a hand. “No problem. I earned my diploma eventually, even took some college courses on the Internet.”
Dixon toasted him with a glass of iced tea. “You probably worked a lot harder for your certificate than I did. My senior year was pretty much a write-off, and it took me a good ten years to get my head straightened out. Then another three to get up the guts to come back home.”
“You left town?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I thought I belonged in Nashville. Nashville had different ideas at the time, however, so I drifted on to Texas, Colorado, Europe and then back to Colorado. By then I’d actually done some living to write songs about.”
“So what brought you home?”
“The lady, here.” Dixon held out a hand to Kate as she came in from the dining room. “Seemed like we were finally at a place where we could be together, so I came home to work things out. Not to mention Miss Daisy.”
“I should think so,” his grandmother said, joining them. “Lunch is ready. Call the children, please.”
Noah sat down at the lace-covered dining room table and swallowed down a big gulp of nerves. He’d rarely seen this much silver and china and crystal all in one place, outside department stores. Two forks rested beside his plate, and an extra spoon lay at twelve o’clock. He wouldn’t go thirsty, for sure—he’d been given a water glass and another for iced tea, both with stems. Could he manage to eat without breaking something?
Two teenagers sat across the table from him—Trace, the basketball player, and his sister Kelsey, a cute blonde with a pout on her pretty mouth. Noah wasn’t sure whether to hope he’d get to witness the explosion she was brewing, or to be smart and escape before the fireworks display.
For a few minutes after Dixon said grace, they were all occupied with passing around platters and bowls of heavenly food—roast chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, several bowls of vegetables and salads, plus the best biscuits he’d ever put in his mouth. It was all he could do to keep from grabbing the silver bread basket and running out with it.
“This is delicious, Miss Daisy,” he said instead. “I haven’t had anything so good in years.”
“I’m glad you’re enjoying your meal, Noah. We’ll fix up some boxes for you to take back to your refrigerator. I do have to say, Kate made the biscuits. She has the lightest hand I’ve ever known.”
Noah looked at Kate, on his left. “Is there anything you can’t do?”
She blushed and laughed. “Ride a horse, for one thing. Dixon’s been working with me for a long time, but I still can’t feel comfortable in the saddle.”
“You have horses?”
Dixon nodded. “I brought my cow ponies with me from Colorado. They stay at Phoebe DeVries’s farm.”
“Wait—wasn’t Jacquie Lennon the one who was all about horses?”
“She still is,” Kate said. “She’s a farrier and trainer in the area. Her husband, Rhys Lewellyn, is an Olympic rider. I imagine their children will be, as well.”
“Children.” Noah shook his head. “Hard to imagine having kids.” He looked across at Trace and Kelsey. “But it looks to me like it turns out okay.”
Trace grinned at him, eating as steadily as a sixteen-year-old guy could. Kelsey clinked her fork onto her plate. “Well, I’m not so sure it’s turned out okay. Some parents are just too…too primitive to be believed.”
Noah hid a smile. So he would get to see the fireworks.
Kate looked at her daughter. “We don’t have to talk about this at lunch, Kelsey.”
“Why not? We’re all here, right? We don’t have to wait for somebody to come home.”
“Noah doesn’t want to get involved in this argument.”
Kelsey turned her big brown eyes in his direction, giving him an innocent stare. “He doesn’t mind, do you?” Before Noah could answer, she hurried on. “See, I plan to go to Vanderbilt University in Nashville for college. I even applied for early decision, ’cause I really do want to go there. And my boyfriend, Sal, wants to come with me. He’s an automotive technician,” she clarified. “He’s really good with engines, and he races, too. Stock cars. So anyway, he can get a job in Nashville, and I can go to school and it will all be cool. I’ll live in the dorm,” she emphasized, with a glance at her mother. “And Sal will have his own place, like he does here. Doesn’t that sound great?”
“Well—” Noah started.
“Don’t feel obligated,” Dixon said. “Kelsey, this isn�
�t the right time.”
“So why do you get to decide when’s the right time? I want to talk now. I want to know why you don’t trust me enough to believe I’ll do what’s right, whether I’m here or in Nashville. Sal and I are together all the time—”
“And I’m not always happy about that,” Kate said.
Kelsey rolled her eyes. “We’re good kids. We don’t get into trouble.”
“College is very different.” Dixon sat back in his chair. “You’ve got more responsibilities to manage on your own. A boyfriend will be a real distraction.”
“Or maybe a real help. He could fix my car.”
“What car?”
“The one I’m getting for graduation, duh, because I can’t go to college without a car.”
“I’m the one who needs a car,” Trace broke in. “I have ball practice every day and it’s a pain always getting a ride with Kate or somebody else.”
Kelsey whipped her head around to look at her brother. “If I didn’t have a car in high school, you certainly won’t.”
Dixon held up a hand. “That’s beside the point. Your mother and I don’t think it’s a good idea for you and Sal to move away together. Not your first year, Kelsey. Maybe when you’ve settled into college life—”
She jumped to her feet. “You want me to leave him for a whole year? You think he won’t find some other girlfriend?”
“If you don’t trust him…”
“Of course I trust him. But…you’re not even my real parents. I don’t have to listen to anything either of you have to say.” With a sob, she left the table. Her footsteps pounded up the stairs and along the hallway floor above, then a door slammed hard enough to rattle the pictures on the walls.
After a minute, Dixon took a swallow of tea. “Sorry about that,” he said, with a wry look at Noah. “We’re under a little stress these days.”
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