“No problem.”
“Of course it’s a problem.” Kate’s face was white. “She ought to know better than to behave like that with a guest at the table.”
“It’s hard to think about manners when your life is falling apart,” Noah remarked.
Dixon chuckled. “If you understand that, you’ve definitely got the material to be a dad. Sal’s a nice kid, but you just hate to see them tie themselves up so early.”
Noah nodded. “People change a lot after high school.” The understatement of the decade.
Kate sighed. “They do. And Nashville is far enough away that we couldn’t get there quickly if she was in trouble.” She blinked her eyes. “I’m not coping too well with the idea of my daughter—even if only my ‘adopted’ daughter—going off to college.”
“Plus, Kate might be going back to school herself. She’s applied to law school,” Dixon explained. “So we’re waiting to get two acceptance letters.”
“I hope the news is good,” Noah said. “You were planning on law school back before high school graduation, right?”
“Right. I took a detour when I married Trace and Kelsey’s dad. I’ve loved every minute of being their mom.” She took a deep breath. “But now that they’re getting older, I need to find something new to do.”
Starting over was something Noah understood. “You’ll get it all straightened out.”
“I hope so,” she said, with a worried look at her husband. “I do hope so.”
The rest of the meal passed comfortably enough. Noah allowed them to persuade him to have two helpings of Miss Daisy’s devil’s food cake and to carry a stack of plastic containers filled with leftovers when he left.
“You should keep some of this,” he insisted as he stood at the door. “I feel bad taking all this great food.”
“Enjoy,” Dixon said. “Miss Daisy will cook again tomorrow.” He patted his stomach. “I’d be the laughingstock of the roundup, if those guys could see how many pounds I’ve put on in the last couple of years.”
“You were too thin when you came home,” Kate said, putting her arm around him. “You needed every ounce. Will we see you later this afternoon?” she asked Noah, as Dixon opened the door.
“What’s going on?”
“The Christmas reunion dance committee, remember? We’ve got a meeting at four o’clock. At the Carolina Diner.”
Great. Another dose of Abby. “I wasn’t planning on going. I’m not—”
“Of course you are. We’ve only got two weeks and there’s so much to do—we need everybody’s help.” She backed into the house and started to close the door. “So we’ll see you at four. Right?”
The panel shut before he could protest, and Noah was left staring at the bright green wreath with its gold velvet bow. Who wanted a convicted felon on their dance committee?
Kate Bell, that’s who. And he couldn’t be rude to Kate.
WHEN NOAH WALKED INTO the diner Sunday afternoon, Abby almost dropped the coffeepot. She hadn’t reminded him about the meeting and hadn’t expected him to attend if he remembered.
But if he thought she’d go back to being good old Abby, everybody’s favorite waitress, he could think again. She turned to Pete Mitchell. “Hey, Pete. More coffee?”
“Sounds good.” The state trooper pushed his mug closer. “Joey was up last night, teething, and I’m walking around in a fog today.”
Abby clucked her tongue. “Poor little guy.”
“He’s with his grandmother this afternoon just so we can have some peace. She’s good with fussy babies. And Joey can be a hellion.”
“Kind of dampens your enthusiasm for having another one, I guess.”
“Not really. Kids are great.” Pete looked at his wife, who stood at the other end of the table talking to Kate. “But Mary Rose isn’t thinking about more kids right now.”
“She wants to go back to work?”
“We’re still working through the fallout from this last ‘work accident’ of mine.” He sighed and shifted his injured arm with his good hand. “The job is great most of the time. But every so often…”
“You get hurt. Or somebody else does.” Sometimes, state troopers got killed on the job. But then, other people died, too….
She glanced at Noah, and quickly away again.
Pete shrugged and winced at the same time. “Right. We’re working things out. But until we do, Joey’ll have the nursery to himself.”
“Hey, I was an only child. I liked it just fine. I got all the Christmas presents and all the Easter candy.”
Abby set the coffeepot on the counter and perched on a stool as Kate called the meeting to order. “Cass Baker, who’s doing the catering, couldn’t be here this afternoon, and she asked me to report on the food. She’s got the menu set up to meet our budget—dips and cheeses for appetizers, roast beef and chicken for the main course, cookies and chocolate mousse for dessert, which sounds kind of ordinary except you know it’ll arrive with that special touch Sugar and Spice always delivers. Attendance looks really good—I’ve got acceptance cards from about sixty percent of the people we invited. How are the decorations coming?”
Phoebe DeVries sat forward in her chair. “We sent flyers about painting a Christmas panel to everybody who got an invitation, and we’ve received ten replies. If we put five scenes on each side, that’s forty feet of space.” She shrugged. “I’d hoped for more, but time is getting short. Folks have lots of stuff to do in the last three weeks before Christmas.”
Adam put up a hand. “What if the committee members painted panels, too?”
“Because we aren’t busy in the weeks before Christmas?” Dixon’s grin took the sting out of his words.
“Well, as mayor, I’m willing to do my part. Phoebe and I will do one.”
“I’ll get Andrew and Erin to help Rhys and me,” Jacquie said. “Between the four of us, we can produce something decent. Horses and a sleigh, maybe, though I guess there’s never been enough snow down here for that.”
“We can always hope,” Abby told her. “I’ll make a panel.”
“By yourself?” Kate shook her head. “That’s a lot of work. Noah, you can give Abby some help, can’t you? I hate to see her do it all by herself.”
He hesitated long enough that Abby’s cheeks started heating up. “Don’t worry about it,” she said to the room in general. She couldn’t look at Noah. “Dad will have some spare time.”
“I’ll be glad to work with you, Abby.” Noah cleared his throat. “As long as Rob doesn’t keep me at the job all hours of the day and night.”
Rob rolled his eyes. “Hasn’t shown up for the first day yet and already he’s asking for time off. Valerie and I will work on a backdrop, too. In our spare time,” he said, with a pretended glare at Noah.
“The section with the murals will make a great dance area,” Kate said, nodding, “with the stage at one end and the food at the other. Cass has small tables she’ll donate, and Mr. Floyd said we could borrow chairs from the classrooms.”
There was more discussion concerning the budget, the band and the souvenirs to be passed out, but Abby let the talk flow over her head. She didn’t like having Noah shoehorned into spending time with her. Kate had evidently made a project out of getting them together. But Abby preferred to do her own manipulating. She’d had years of practice.
And anyway, she’d decided last night that Noah Blake was a lost cause.
As the meeting broke up, she found the chance to get him alone by the window. “I want to talk to you.”
“What have I done now?”
“I just want you to know that you’re not required to spend time on this backdrop panel with me. I can get it done by myself.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the side of a booth. “I’m sure you can.”
“So just keep quiet and don’t mention it to Kate, and she’ll never know we didn’t work on it together.”
“So either I do a panel by myself o
r don’t do one at all?”
“Right.” She nodded, and pivoted on her toe to walk away.
“What if I want help?”
Abby stopped but didn’t turn back. “Ask somebody else.”
“Who? Wade Hayes? Couldn’t you help me out, as a friend?”
Now she did look at him. “We are not friends.”
“We were once. Remember that project in fifth grade?”
“It got broken.”
“Yeah, but it looked good before then. And the paper you wrote was excellent. We make a good team.”
When he gave her that smile, fighting him was beyond her strength. “Okay.” Abby held out her hand for a shake. “I’ll be able to work in the evenings, after the diner closes.”
Noah’s palm closed over hers, and that’s when she remembered that there was nothing simple or friendly about the way she felt. The contact of skin against skin sent a flash of pure energy racing across her nerves.
A flicker in his dark eyes told her he’d experienced the same connection. His grin faded, and he took a quick breath.
The next second, he was backing away. “I’ll call you tomorrow night,” he said, looking over his shoulder to avoid running into the tables and chairs, or maybe to avoid her eyes. “And we’ll set up a time to get started.”
“Sure,” she told the back of his head. “Sounds great.”
Then he left, along with the rest of the committee, and a few Sunday night diners straggled in. Her dad went home about eight o’clock. Abby was thinking she might get to go home early herself when Wade Hayes strolled in and sat down at the counter.
She hid an impatient sigh. “Good evening, Officer. What will you have?”
“I passed up my grandmama’s apple pie just so I could come have coffee and a big piece of your spice cake, Miss Abby. With ice cream.” He was a good-looking guy, if you liked them linebacker-size with blond hair and a tendency to sunburn.
“Coming up,” she said, aiming a smile in his general direction. “I’m getting ready to close, so just yell if you need something.”
“I got this invitation to the Christmas reunion dance,” he said as she put his cake in front of him. “Sounds like fun. I wondered if you would be my date.”
“Oh…” Thank goodness she had her back to him as she wiped down the service area. She had a moment to prepare. “Oh, Wade, that’s nice of you. But I’m on the committee.” With her expression under control, she turned to look at him. “I imagine I’ll be busy all night long. I wasn’t planning to go with a date.”
He frowned. “Doesn’t sound like much fun for you.”
“Sure, it does. I’ll get to talk to everybody, just to make sure they’re having a good time.”
“Well, you gotta promise me a couple of dances. Slow ones.” The grin he gave her missed being a leer, but not by much.
“I promise.” She crossed her heart, then wished she hadn’t when his gaze lingered on her shirtfront.
Wade dawdled over his dessert, but finally she was able to lock the door behind him. Sweeping and mopping the dining room floor were so second nature to her that she didn’t even think about the tasks anymore, and soon enough she was pulling on her coat, ready to leave.
At the back door, she realized she hadn’t called Marian Blake to report what she knew about Noah’s new residence. Since it was good news, there wasn’t any reason to conceal the facts, right? Even though she felt like a…a quisling. Or just a sneak.
But the fact that Mrs. Blake wanted to know meant that she still cared about her son, and helping her might somehow heal the breach between them. Abby dialed the number from the office phone. “Hi, Miss Marian. It’s Abby.”
“I wondered if you had decided to ignore what I asked you to do.”
“No, no, I just…needed time to find out, is all. Noah’s staying in an apartment over Dixon Bell’s garage.”
“Those Crawfords, always showing off how much money they have.”
“And he’ll be working for Rob Warren, in his new security service.”
“Hah! What does Noah know about security? Who’d let him work on their house, anyway, with his record?”
“I would,” Abby said quietly.
“The more fool you. He’s never been anything but trouble and never will be.” Mrs. Blake hung up.
Abby set down her own receiver, then put her head in her hand. Okay, so Noah had stolen money from her dad, and probably other people, as well. Maybe he did set that fire in the school. He’d served time in prison for killing a man. And those were only the crimes she knew about. He could have done more of the same and worse during the last fifteen years.
But what chance had he ever had to avoid trouble, when his own mother was so dead set against him?
More important, how would he become whole if Marian Blake’s bitterness never healed?
CHAPTER SEVEN
NOAH DOZED OFF ON the couch in front of the TV Sunday night—a luxury all by itself—and slept like a rock. His eyes popped open at 5:00 a.m., though, with the thought that he would be starting to work for Rob Warren this morning. There was no going back to sleep.
He went for a run, instead, through the dark lanes in the countryside around Magnolia Cottage. What had once been the Crawford family plantation had been sold off in pieces for business and highway development, leaving just the grand house and a few acres of estate as a remnant of glory. Boundary Street wasn’t far from Dixon’s “cottage,” and Noah jogged by his mother’s house, noting again the dilapidated condition of the building and the fence. Maybe she’d let him do some repairs on the place, even if she didn’t want him living there. He’d worked several different construction jobs in Atlanta, and knew what to do with a hammer and saw.
By six-thirty, he was showered, shaved and dressed in the new jeans and shirt he’d bought last week. He had on new socks, too, and he’d cleaned up his boots. Rob wanted to see him at eight-thirty this morning. What would he do until then?
He fought a strong urge to head to the Carolina Diner for breakfast. He had plenty of food in the kitchen—besides Miss Daisy’s leftovers, he’d stocked the refrigerator with eggs, bacon, bread, butter, orange juice and milk. He’d stored cereal in the cupboards, plus hot chocolate mix.
What he didn’t have here was Abby. Talking to her would be dangerous, but he could watch her from a distance, see her smile and feel like everything would work out. She had that kind of power, though he didn’t think she realized it. He wasn’t sure what was wrong with the men in New Skye that she was still single, still living with her dad. A woman like Abby should have been somebody’s prize.
Finally, he refused to give in to an impulse that would only cause trouble and cooked for himself, then cleaned up the kitchen, made the bed from yesterday and straightened the small mess he’d left in the bathroom. He hadn’t lived somewhere this nice more than a couple of times in his life. The least he could do was take care of it.
He was wheeling the Harley out to the drive when Kate, Trace and Kelsey came out of the house.
“Something wrong with your bike?” Trace called, heading in Noah’s direction with Kate following. Kelsey rolled her eyes and got into the Volvo parked nearby.
Noah shook his head in answer to the boy’s question. “I didn’t want to make a huge racket and wake everybody up. ’Morning, Kate.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Kate said. “We’re all early risers, except for Dixon. He’s a night owl, but if we wake him up in the morning, he goes right back to sleep. The kids and I have to be up and out before seven-thirty. And Miss Daisy beats us to the coffeepot every morning.”
“Can I start the bike?” Trace prowled around the Harley, studying every angle. “Please?”
Noah glanced at Kate, who winced and then took a deep breath. “I suppose that’s okay. Not that we’re buying one, you understand.”
“I know, I know.” Trace looked at Noah. “What do I do?”
“First thing, get on.” He thought Trace would pass
out from joy. “Here’s the key, the gas, the brakes…”
After a three-minute lesson, Noah stepped back. Trace followed directions flawlessly, and the roar of the Harley’s engine shattered the quiet morning.
“Awesome!” Trace mouthed. Noah grinned. He remembered the first feel of all that power underneath his butt.
The door of the Volvo slammed, catching Kate’s attention. Kelsey stood there with her hands on her hips. “Come on, let’s go.”
Kate made a T with her hands, and Trace cut the engine. “Time to go,” she said.
“Man.” He looked as if he wanted to stomp his feet and throw a temper tantrum. “I wish I could…” He heaved a sigh. “Thanks, though. It’s a cool bike.”
Noah looked at Kate. “I could take him to school.” Beside him, Trace gasped.
Refusal was the first expression to appear on Kate’s beautiful face. “I don’t think…”
“Please. Oh, please,” Trace whispered. “I’ll bring home all A’s for the semester, I promise, if you let me ride with Noah.”
She laughed, a lovely, ringing sound. “That’s quite a promise.”
“And…and no detentions at school, either. I’ll be a perfect student.”
This time, Noah chuckled. “You’re a better man than I am if you can keep that promise.”
“Do you have an extra helmet?” Kate asked.
“Damn. No, I don’t.” What a stupid mistake. The boy looked like he’d been run over by a semi-truck. “I’m sorry, Trace.”
“He can use mine.” The three of them turned to see Dixon coming across the grass, holding out a helmet. “I heard the engine,” he said in response to Kate’s stare, “looked out the window and figured the next issue would be a helmet.” He handed the headgear to Trace. “You’d better get your butt on the bike and get to school.” He grinned at the boy, then put an arm around Kate’s waist and pulled her close enough for a kiss on the cheek. “’Morning, gorgeous.”
“I’m sorry we woke you.”
“No problem. Just means I’ll be awake when you come home again.” He gave her a wink Noah had no trouble interpreting. “Have a good day, Noah.”
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