“I wish I’d been there,” he declared. “I would’ve showed him what happens to people who steal from me and threaten my little girl.”
She shuddered, imagining that scenario. If the diner had to be robbed, she was glad it had happened this way. Noah had handled the situation with a cool head and quick thinking.
And then he’d run away.
So she’d let him run a little, like a fish on the line. He wouldn’t get far, wouldn’t escape for long. A man didn’t comfort a woman like Noah had comforted her unless there were real, strong feelings involved. Abby was sure of her own feelings. And she thought she understood Noah’s.
All she had to do was reveal them to the man himself.
The Diary of Abby Brannon
March 15, 1987
Dear Diary,
Today is the best day of my life. I don’t believe I’ll ever be happier.
Noah kissed me.
It was totally unexpected. I hadn’t seen him since homeroom that morning. I stayed after school for an Honor Society meeting, then went to my locker before I walked to the diner.
I heard footsteps coming down the hall, which scared me a little, because everybody else had left. But when I peeked around my locker door, I saw Noah and relaxed.
I even got up the courage to say hello first. “What are you doing here?” I called while he was still halfway down the hall.
“Detention,” he said. “What else?”
He came closer, walked behind me, and I thought he would just go on. But then he leaned his shoulder against the locker beside mine. I was caught, kinda, between my locker door and him. I didn’t even consider trying to get away.
“What did you do?” I wasn’t even nervous anymore. It was like somebody else—somebody experienced and sophisticated and pretty—had taken over my body.
Noah shrugged. “According to Floyd, I’m the source of all evil. If something goes wrong, he pins it on me and gives me detention. In this case, I believe there’s some graffiti on the parking lot he associates with me.”
“I saw that. Did you do it?”
“Let’s just say I didn’t stop the people who did.”
“What’s the point of graffiti?”
“What’s the point of anything? Why do you work so hard for good grades when you know you’re going to be waiting tables across the street for the rest of your life?”
I stared up at him, then had to look away because I thought I was going to cry.
“Abby, I’m sorry.” His voice was gentle. He put a hand on my shoulder. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
“No,” I said. “It’s okay. I know that’s the truth…but I keep hoping something will change.” I looked up at him again. “You know?”
He looked at me for a while without saying anything. “I know,” he said at last. “I do know.”
And then he kissed me.
I can’t describe it. Like velvet and fire all at the same time. My heart pounded and I couldn’t breathe. He moved his mouth against mine, which surprised me, but, oh, it felt so wonderful. No gross stuff with his tongue or anything. Just the sweetest, nicest, most exciting minute I’ve ever known.
Then he straightened up. “You make me think of sunshine and wildflowers,” he said. “Stay just the way you are.”
Before I could say a word, he turned and walked away.
If I died tonight in an earthquake, I know I would die content.
MARIAN WOKE UP SATURDAY morning from a dream that included the sound of a hammer. When she tried to straighten up, the crick in her neck from sleeping in the chair sent her falling back with a groan.
Why get up, anyway? The quilt had kept her toasty warm all night, the TV was showing a morning cooking show, and she wasn’t hungry. She had nowhere to be, nothing to do, nobody to care for. Or to care.
Then she heard the hammer again, only this time it was no dream. At seven-thirty on a Saturday morning, some idiot neighbor of hers had decided to start pounding nails, showing no consideration for folks who might still be asleep.
Gathering the quilt around her, she stomped to the front door, turned the lock and stormed out onto the porch. “Hey, jerk—”
The sound, she realized at that moment, wasn’t across the street, or even next door. Noah—her son, Noah—sat on a ladder just outside her front porch, nailing the crooked shutter into place.
She couldn’t believe her eyes. “What the hell are you doing?”
He looked over and grinned. “’Morning, Ma. I’m nailing this shutter back.”
She hadn’t thought he would show up and didn’t know what to say. A strange truck sat out by the curb, the back piled with rolls of wire and screening and who knew what else. “Whose truck is that?”
“Dixon Bell traded with me for the day, so I could haul supplies.” He tapped a few more times at the top corners of the shutter, then climbed off the ladder. “He’s coming by later this morning to help me put new wire on the fence.” Setting a nail in place at the bottom of the shutter, Noah drove it home.
“I guess you expect breakfast,” she said. She wasn’t sure she had anything in the house besides bran cereal.
“No, thanks. I ate before I left my place.”
“Your rich friends are really taking care of you.”
He stepped back from the shutter and turned to face her. “They are helping me out, the rich ones and the not-so-rich ones. I’ve got a job with Rob Warren, working on security systems. I’m trying to make this work, Ma.”
Marian grunted and went back into the house, slamming the door behind her. She changed out of the clothes she’d slept in and made coffee, all the while hearing the sounds of work going on outside the house. He’d been a stubborn little boy, too. If he wanted something—like that motorcycle he’d reconstructed from a bushel basket of parts when he was fourteen—he worked until he got it. A year of late nights had gone into rebuilding that bike, fixing what he could, finding the money to buy a new part when he had to.
She’d known back then that he didn’t always acquire the cash by legal means. He probably stole some of those parts he needed. As long as he didn’t get caught, she looked the other way. Those years right after Jonah left had been her real bad spell. By the time she’d pulled herself back together, Noah was a lost cause.
And now he was a murderer.
Would he be different if she’d…what? What else could she have done? She’d worked her job at the tool plant to support the two of them as best she could. She hadn’t run around like other women, had had no boyfriends coming in and out.
Well, except for Chet—Sheriff Chester Hayes—who’d insisted on keeping their relationship a secret even from their sons. Noah realized, of course—somehow he always knew what was going on. And when Chet discovered Noah had found them out, he’d dropped her like a dead bug. Shortly afterward came the fire. And Noah vanished.
Carrying a second cup of coffee, Marian went to the living room window. Noah was taking the bent and rusted wire down from the fence frame. She could tell he was being extra careful not to step on the plants in her garden. They’d worked out there in the afternoons, the two of them, happy enough until Jonah came home and chased them into the house. Jonah, Chet, Noah…deserters, all of them.
What had she done to deserve that?
Beside her, the TV weatherman announced the current temperature—thirty-five degrees. She could take out some coffee, warm Noah up a little.
Had she asked him to get out there? Had she wanted him to fix up the house? He thought he could come in without even a word of notice and straighten out her life…after messing up his own so bad?
Marian sat down in the same chair she’d slept in, picked up the remote and found herself a movie.
As far as she was concerned, her son was still gone.
ABBY STAYED HOME on Saturday, curled up on the couch with Elvis on the floor at her feet. They’d been lucky, she and Charlie—no major illnesses had kept them from opening the diner three-hundred-fi
fty mornings a year, more or less. They’d shut down for a week when her mom died. And the occasional hurricane or ice storm cut off the electricity for several days at a time, making cooking impossible. Otherwise, three meals a day were always available.
But today, the Carolina Diner was officially closed for business. Where would Dixon and the guys eat breakfast after the basketball game? Would they settle for fast-food biscuits at the local burger place?
Would Noah be playing with them?
When the telephone rang, she thought it might be him. Wrong.
“Hey, Abby, it’s Samantha.”
Abby stifled a sigh. “How are you and baby Crawford doing?”
“Great, just great. I heard you had some trouble last night. I wish I’d been called to the scene. I would have liked to be in on the first article.”
“I’ll put you at the top of my ‘names to be called in case of a crime’ list.”
Sam laughed. “Sounds good. You know reporters are ghouls at heart. Listen, I’ve been a little out of the loop on Noah Blake. Tommy hasn’t mentioned him all that much. But the article states that he’s on parole from the Georgia prison system after a manslaughter conviction.”
“That’s right.”
“And he’s working for Rob Warren’s security business.”
“Yes.”
“Well, I may be wrong, but my reporter’s instincts have gone on full alert. There’s something about the whole situation that strikes my funny bone. Only instead of getting that weird pain, I’m getting the urge to snoop around.”
“I don’t think Noah would be interested in being snooped around.”
“Is anybody? But since he’s a public figure now, coming in to rescue you with a little kid on his hip, he’s fair game. I want to do a follow-up on what’s going on in his life.”
Warning bells sounded in Abby’s head. “Sam, that’s really not fair. Leave Noah alone.”
As if she hadn’t heard, the reporter said, “I was hoping you’d give me some help.”
“No, I can’t.”
“From what I gather, you’ve seen Noah Blake more than just about anybody in town. You probably know him best. I know for a fact there are people with really negative reactions to Noah,” Samantha went on when Abby didn’t answer. “I thought the article needed some balance, and you seemed like a good person to present his positive side.”
Abby had no doubt she was the best person to speak in Noah’s favor. She was the woman in love with him. So it was her responsibility to say, “He’d hate being in the paper.”
“If I turn up information that would make things worse for him in any way, I’ll ditch the whole concept. I promise.”
Veto power. That seemed safe enough. “What do you want to know?”
NOAH WORKED LIKE A DEMON all Saturday morning and afternoon, including the three hours Dixon joined him in stringing up the new chain-link fence and gate. By dark, the house looked less like a tenement and more like the home of a woman somebody cared about.
With his tools and supplies loaded into Dixon’s truck, Noah stepped onto the porch and knocked on the new screen door he’d installed barely an hour ago.
His mother answered after a couple of minutes. “Well?”
“I wanted to let you know I’m finished for the day.”
She looked beyond him at the fence, glanced at the shutter he’d hung straight and the porch rails he’d fixed. “Okay.” The door closed almost all the way. As he started to turn, though, it opened again.
“Thanks,” his mother said.
Noah turned back. “Sure.” He gave her a smile, then left the porch as fast as he could without running. He wasn’t trying to create a debt.
He was just trying to pay the ones he owed.
When he drove by the Carolina Diner, he found it closed. Dread gripped him for a second, until he forced himself to remember his encounter with Charlie at the hospital last night. Later, he’d talked to Ian Baker, too, who agreed to share the general news about Abby’s injuries. No broken bones, he’d reported, just scrapes, bruises and the one deep cut. She would be fine in a couple of days, completely healed in two to three weeks.
The Brannons had taken time off just to recover. He hoped they’d take off the whole next week. Both of them needed some serious rest.
At home, once he’d showered and put on a clean T-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms, Noah fell asleep on the couch. He woke up slowly, aware that something had changed in the apartment. With his eyes still closed, he investigated the difference. Surely the smell of bacon and hot bread was imaginary.
“Wake up, sleepyhead. It’s breakfast time.”
Abby? He opened his eyes just as she sat down on the couch beside his hip.
“I brought you orange juice as a temptation,” she said. “Fresh squeezed, I might add, by my own little hands.”
Noah propped himself on an elbow and took the glass. “Then I wouldn’t dare refuse.”
“Smart man.” She took the glass back when he had drained it. “I’ve got eggs and bacon, toast, grits and more juice. Come and eat.”
When she started to rise, he put a hand on her knee. “Abby, what are you doing here?”
“Fixing you breakfast, for starters. I thought we might work on the panel later.”
“Your dad let you walk out—” he glanced down at her bandaged foot in an untied sneaker “—limp out to come here?”
Her cheeks flushed. “Well, actually, he’s gone to church. I…played sick.”
He sat up all the way, scrubbing his hands over his face. “Terrific. He’ll be here with a shotgun a few minutes after noon.”
She put a hand on his arm. “No, no, he won’t. He decided to take advantage of the unscheduled day off. He’s driving up to Raleigh to have lunch with a couple of his buddies from the marines. They’ll drink beer, go back to somebody’s place and fall asleep watching a football game. It’s his traditional vacation routine. I don’t expect him home until nine o’clock, if then.”
Twelve hours? Twelve unchaperoned hours?
Noah dropped his hands to stare at the woman right in front of him, only inches away. For the first time since he’d come back, she wore her hair loose—soft curls framing her face, covering her shoulders almost to her elbows. In place of the usual white shirt and khaki slacks were a pale gold sweater and a long, dark green skirt.
A soft whistle escaped him. “You look different.”
“So do you.” She pinched up a fold of his red-and-green-plaid flannel pajama bottoms. “Not what one pictures the BBD wearing to bed.”
“BBD?”
“Bad-boy drifter.”
“You’re saying I’m—”
She nodded. “A BBD. Definitely.”
Genuinely curious, he asked, “How did I qualify?”
“Leather jacket, biker boots and the Harley, not to mention leaving home and staying gone for fifteen years.”
He digested her assessment. “So, what do BBDs wear to bed?”
Her gaze wavered, but then she shrugged. “Nothing.”
After a second, he said, “Does that mean you’ve given extensive thought to the subject?”
Again, she blushed. “Um…”
“And just in general or…” He smiled, still teasing. “Did you get specific?”
He’d intended to turn the subject with a joke. But Abby opened her gold-green eyes wide. Then she put her palm squarely in the middle of his chest.
“I,” she said, touching the tip of her tongue to her top lip, then the bottom one, “have a very active—and specific—imagination.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ABBY COULDN’T BELIEVE she was doing this. But she had no intention of stopping.
“So, the answer is yes. I’ve thought about what a bad-boy drifter wears to bed. What this—” she tapped his chest with her finger “—bad-boy drifter wears to bed.”
Noah’s eyes had darkened. “Now you know.” His voice rumbled against her palm, resting over his breast-bone.
>
She moved her hand in a small circle. “Did I mention I’m a very curious kind of person?”
He settled back against the arm of the couch, which took him farther away. But then he cupped his hands over her shoulders. “Nice sweater. Feels good.” His palms stroked down her arms and up again.
“Nobody in town would believe it, but I do actually own something besides work clothes.”
“They all take you for granted.”
“I like being needed.” Bringing her other hand to his chest for balance, she leaned forward. Her hair fell over Noah’s arms.
He took a quick breath. “Your hair is…”
“Mmm?”
“Unbelievable. Like melted copper, but soft.” He lifted her curls with the back of his wrist. “Sexy as hell.”
“I like the sound of that. What shall we do about it?”
His smile disappeared. “You already said it. ‘Nothing.’” He let his hands drop from her shoulders, out from underneath her hair.
“How can I change your mind?”
“You can’t. I’ve told you before—this is a bad idea. You’ll be glad I had the good sense to stop before we made a big mistake.” He slid down the couch and shifted to put his feet on the floor.
Abby turned to face him. “I’m sorry, Noah. But I’m not playing by the rules anymore.” She slipped the bottom button on her sweater free of its hole. “I’m not going to take no for an answer.”
His gaze dropped to her fingers, working the next button, and came back to her face. “What are you doing?”
“Making you an offer you can’t refuse.” Or so she hoped. She didn’t really think she could force Noah into making love. But she could force him to break her heart.
“Abby—” He put out a hand to stop her. Quick as lightning, she placed his palm on her bare skin, underneath the sweater. His breath hissed between his teeth. His fingers trembled. “Please don’t.”
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