Penny McCusker - Noah And The Stork

Janey brushed the hair from her daughter’s brow, carefully so as not to wake her, and covered her with an old knitted blanket. Better she have as many hours of peace as she could, Janey figured, easing out of the room and down the creaky staircase. Noah would have to come back tomorrow.

But when she got downstairs, he was already gone.

Janey had been upstairs longer than she intended, but she’d expected Noah to hang around. Of course, he’d never had much staying power….

“I’m in here,” he called out.

And she’d become way too cynical, she realized as she followed his voice into the parlor. So he’d romanced her out of her virginity after their senior prom and then left town. All on the same night. So he’d ignored her attempts to tell him he had a child, then got angry with her when he found out by accident. Water under the bridge, all of it. She’d gotten herself through college, with the help of her parents, and even after she’d lost them, within months of each other, she’d made a life for herself and her daughter. There were times—okay, there were lots of times—when she’d wished there was a man around, not just to deal with a broken-down car or paint the porch, but because it would’ve been nice to share the emotional load once in a while. But she had friends, a whole town full of them, and she had Jessie.And if, every now and then, she woke in the night, unbelievably lonely, that was her choice, too.

There’d been opportunities over the years, but no one who’d…Hell, she might as well admit she compared every man she met to Noah. Or not to him, exactly, but to the way he’d made her feel all those years ago. Nothing since had even come close.

Until now. Noah was sitting in her father’s favorite armchair, suit jacket unbuttoned, tie loosened, his head back and his eyes closed. She’d seen her father sit just like that, countless evenings after countless days at his law office. A strong sense of rightness washed through her—which she had no trouble shaking off when their history flashed through her brain. Even if she still loved him, she’d be a fool to trust him again. And Janey Walters was nobody’s fool.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” she said.

He opened his eyes and stared at her long enough to make her antsy before he lifted a brow in inquiry.

“She’s sleeping.”

Noah felt every muscle in his body relax—well, not every muscle. He should be taking this unexpected reprieve as an opportunity to get his thoughts in order, but how could he with Janey prowling the room like that? He could understand the nerves that kept her on her feet, but when she reached up to straighten a picture, all he could think about was how incredible she was. Beautiful. Her face was more angular than he remembered, pared down by time and maturity so that her inner strength showed through. He’d always been a sucker for strong, self-sufficient women, and there was something about Janey, taking charge of her life in that ratty old bandanna and T-shirt. And the jeans…

He closed his eyes, hoping that if the denim was gone from his sight, he’d forget how it hugged her bottom and skimmed the swell of her hips. It didn’t work. Closing his eyes was like giving his imagination a blank canvas, and Janey Walters was a model who would’ve done any of the old masters proud. One look at her and he felt as if a freight train had slammed into his chest.

Or maybe that had more to do with finding out he had a daughter.

He opened his eyes again, caught her watching him, and nodded toward the chair across from his.

“I have paint all over me,” Janey said.

“It’s probably dry.”

She said a word under her breath that sounded suspiciously like damn, which, in light of what followed, made perfect sense. She started for the door, saying, “I left the paint open and the paintbrush is probably rock-hard by now.”

“It’s just a paintbrush, Janey.”

“It’s not just a paintbrush when—” She broke off, shook her head.

That hesitation was unlike Janey, at least the Janey he used to know. She’d always been so in-your-face, so unafraid to put her opinions and feelings out there and dare anybody to take issue with them. In Erskine that went beyond courage.

But she had someone else to think of now. What she said and did would reflect directly on Jessie, and if he knew Janey, she’d go well out of her way to avoid causing her daughter any unhappiness. Not that the old Janey wasn’t still in there somewhere. She might be more tightly controlled now, more guarded, but one look into his daughter’s eyes, and there was no question where she’d gotten that straightforward approach to life. Janey had raised her alone—and done a hell of a job. But then, Noah had never doubted Janey would be a great mom. She’d always known what she wanted. And he’d always been afraid he couldn’t give it to her. In the end, he hadn’t. He’d let her down just like everyone had expected him to—worse than they’d expected.

But she’d hadn’t exactly given him a chance to redeem himself.

“So, how much does Jessie know about me?” he asked.

“Not much.” Janey sank into a chair after all. “If anyone in this town heard from you in the last ten years, they didn’t mention it to me, and they wouldn’t bring it up to Jessie.”

“It’s no surprise that everyone rallied around you, Janey. This was always more your place than mine.”

“You cut the ties, Noah.”

“Dad was still alive and living here, then.”

“And you didn’t want anything to do with him, either. I get that. So do us both a favor and don’t try to make this whole thing my fault. Maybe I could’ve found a way to tell you sooner. If you’d bothered to call me ten years ago.”

He rested his head against the chair again and reminded himself that she was right: holding on to his anger over the past would only make the present situation more difficult. He’d learned that the hard way, not coming back for his father’s funeral because the man had never made room in his life for anyone but himself. Funny, Noah thought, how petty that kind of retribution felt after a decade had passed. Funny how you didn’t want it to happen again. “So tell me about her.”

“Her name is Jessica Marie Walters.”

That brought his attention back to Janey. “Walters?”

“Walters.”

It took him a minute, but he swallowed that, too. “What else?”

“If you call her Jessica, she won’t answer you. The rest I think you should find out on your own.”

“Come on, Janey, give me a break.”

“If I tell you everything, the two of you won’t have anything to talk about, and you were concerned about that.”

“Okay.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “Okay.”

“You should go.”

“Yeah.” Noah stood and rolled his shoulders, looking around the room as if the walls were hiding the answer to the strange way he was feeling. He tucked a hand in his pocket and jingled his car keys.

“I’ll call you tomorrow night. Where are you staying?”

“The Erskine Hotel, I guess.”

“The hotel is being fumigated. Termites.”

Not surprising for a town built almost entirely of wood that hadn’t seen the inside of a tree for a couple centuries. What surprised him was that any of the decrepit old buildings were still standing. But that wasn’t really the point.

The Tambour clock on the mantel chimed once for eight-thirty. Past closing time for a community that started its day before 6:00 a.m. The hotel was the only place in town that stayed open pretty much around the clock, and even then the dining room shut down by ten. “I’ll have to drive to Plains City before I can find a place to stay. That’s fifty miles.”

“Then maybe you’d better get started.”

“Can’t. I was almost out of gas when I saw you and decided to stop. I probably won’t make it twenty miles.”

“At least that would be twenty miles away from here,” Janey muttered. She refused to feel guilty. It wasn’t her fault he’d run his car nearly out of gas when he knew all too well that the streets of Erskine were rolled up promptly at 8:00 p.m. It was one of the reasons he’d been in such a rush to get out of town. She was the other reason.

“Is Max Devlin still around? Maybe I can impose on him for the night.”

“Yes. No! I mean, Max is still here. He came back after college, but you can’t bother him. He just got married.” To her best friend, who would insist on hearing the whole story and then dissecting it as if it were a science experiment. Janey loved Sara Devlin like a sister, but she had no intention of reliving the past. She’d done enough of that for one night, she thought, glancing over at Noah.

He was smiling. At her. That couldn’t be good.

“Then I guess I’ll have to stay here.”

“Uhhh…she said, waiting for her brain to come up with another objection. Eventually she had to close her mouth. She already felt stupid; she didn’t have to look it, too.

“What are you worried about?” he asked, easing back a step, his hands spread out, just as she’d seen every cop on every crime show do with every cornered criminal. Look at me, he was saying, I’m harmless.

Harmless, hah. The man was a walking weapon, from his to-die-for face to the tall, solid body that made her heart pound so hard she could imagine it jumping out of her chest and throwing itself at his feet, leaving behind a flat-haired corpse in paint-spattered clothes. The way he walked was enough to stall the air in her lungs so she could barely breathe, which was probably for the best since not breathing meant not smelling. She’d always been far too susceptible to a man who smelled really good, and Noah Bryant appeared to be a man who’d learned how to balance his cologne with just the right amount of, well, himself.

“You don’t worry me,” she said. No, she was worried about herself. “But you still have to leave.”

“C’mon, Janey, it doesn’t make sense—”

“You can’t stay here.”

“—for me to leave—”

“You can’t stay here.”

“—when I’ll just have to come back to talk to Jessie. Besides, where am I going to go?”

“You didn’t seem to have a problem figuring that out ten years ago.”

“I’m beat, Janey,” he said. “I promise it’ll only be for one night.”

She folded her arms and glared at him, trying to find it in herself to send him packing. But he really did seem to be exhausted, and if she kicked him out she’d only be up half the night worrying about him stranded in the middle of nowhere, sleeping in his car. If he didn’t fall asleep at the wheel and end up in a ditch filled with water, upside down with both his doors jammed shut and his seat belt stuck….

“One night.” She left the parlor and started up the stairs, adding over her shoulder, “Tomorrow you find somewhere else to stay.”

Noah took his time getting to the top, smiling benignly.

“I mean it.”

He pressed his lips together. His eyes were still sparkling at her, but without the grin she could pretend he was taking the whole thing seriously.

She opened the door to the first bedroom she came to and said, “You can sleep in here.”

“Do you mind if I have a shower?” he asked.

“Bathroom’s right next door.” Janey held her hand out, palm up.

He stared at it, clearly puzzled.

“Unless you plan to borrow my clothes, too, you’ll need your suitcase.”

“I’ll get it.”

“No way. Mrs. Halliwell is home by now. I don’t want her to see you walking into my house carrying a suitcase.”