Sandra Steffen – A Bride Before Dawn (страница 8)
Noah eased onto the stool next to her. Looking at her in the mirror, he said, “Our breakup two-and-a-half years ago came as a shock to me. Hell, it blew me out of the sky. Looking back, I realize it shouldn’t have.”
She wanted to tell him to stop, because this was dangerous territory, more dangerous than he knew. She took a deep breath and willed herself to hear him out.
“I don’t know how I could have missed the clues,” he said. “But I did. If there was a little kid within a hundred feet, your eyes were on him. Just like now.”
She dragged her gaze from Joey and stared at Noah’s reflection. He had the tall, rangy build of a barroom brawler. One of these days he would probably get around to shaving, but it wouldn’t change that moody set of his lips or the depth in his brown eyes. He rarely talked about himself. On the surface, he was all bluster and swagger. If a woman was patient and paid attention, every once in a while she caught a glimpse of the part of him he kept hidden most of the time.
One day after she’d been seeing him for about a year, he’d taken her flying. It was during that flight that she’d learned how he felt about becoming a father. He was wonderful with kids—she’d seen that for herself—but his feelings about parenthood had nothing to do with how children responded to him and vice versa. That May morning, two thousand feet above the ground, he told her about the day his parents died in an icy pileup on the interstate.
Every now and then someone in Orchard Hill recalled a memory of Neil and Mary Beth Sullivan. Noah’s mother and father had been well liked and were sadly missed. It was common knowledge that Marsh had stepped directly out of college and into the role of head of the family after they’d died, and that Reed came home two years later to help. The youngest, Madeline, had been everyone’s darling, and Noah was the hell-raiser everybody worried about.
Until that day, Lacey hadn’t known he’d been in the car when it crashed. With his eyes on the vast blue sky outside the cockpit and the control held loosely in his able hands, he’d described the discordant screech of tires and the deafening crunch of metal. Trapped in the back, he hadn’t been able to see his parents. But he’d heard the utter stillness. The silence. Fifteen-year-old Noah had walked away with a broken arm and minor cuts and bruises—an orphan. He didn’t remember much about the days immediately following the accident. During the burial, the fog in his brain had lifted and he’d solemnly vowed that he was never going to put a kid of his through that. He wasn’t going to have children. Period.
Over the years she’d tried to find the words to tell him that lightning didn’t strike twice and that their children wouldn’t be orphaned. But who was she to make that promise?
She’d loved him, and for a long time she’d told herself what they shared was enough. He was right, though. She never had been able to keep her eyes off little ones. After April and Jay had their twins three years ago, yearning to have a baby of her own became an ache she couldn’t pretend didn’t exist.
“Until you spelled it out for me,” he said, drawing her back to the present, “I didn’t know you even
Lacey remembered the day she’d ended things with Noah. They used to fight sometimes. When it happened, their arguments were messy and noisy. That final night neither had raised their voices. It made their breakup unforgettable on every level.
“Then we wound up in bed last year,” Noah said. “And Joey is about the right age to have been a product of that night. That’s no excuse for barging into your apartment last night and accusing you of deserting him. I hadn’t seen you in a while, but I should have known. People don’t change. You knew how it felt to lose your mother.
Nothing else could have made her smile just then.
Their gazes met, and this time it wasn’t in the mirror. Emotion swirled inside her, welling in her eyes. Her doctor in Chicago had told her that sudden tears were part of her healing process. She had a feeling it was too much to hope that Noah didn’t notice.
She knew how she looked. Her fine dark hair skimmed her shoulders and turned wavy in the summer humidity. Her shorts were threadbare, her T-shirt was thin and her breasts were sensitive. No doubt he noticed that, too.
She found herself looking into his eyes again. It was easy to get lost in that dark brown gaze. There was a time when she wouldn’t have been able to drag her eyes away. Last night, for example, and a hundred other nights, too.
Today she flattened her hands on the worn surface of the bar and slid off the far side of her stool. “Okay. I forgive you for scaring the daylights out of me and for accusing me of leaving Joey on your doorstep.”
He stood, too. Cocking his head slightly, he said, “Can I get that in writing?”
She rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t help smiling, too. Feeling lighter—perhaps there was something to this forgiveness business—she spied her favorite 35 mm camera. The instant it was in her hands, she felt back in her element. She aimed it at Joey, adjusted the focus and snapped a picture.
The poor baby jerked. His little hands flew up and his eyes popped open. Surprisingly, he didn’t cry. Instead, he found her with his unwavering gaze.
His eyes were blue and his cheeks were adorably chubby. Fleetingly, she wondered how his mother could stand to be away from him for even a day.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured quietly. “I didn’t mean to startle you. The next time I’ll ask for permission before I take your picture. Deal?”
The change in his expression began in his eyes. Like the wick of an oil lamp at the first touch of a lighted match, delight spread across his little features, tugging the corners of his lips up until his entire face shone.
“May I take another one?” she asked him.
He smiled again, this time for the camera. He was a Sullivan all right. Marsh and Reed didn’t need a DNA test to determine that much.
“I can’t believe it,” Noah said.
She glanced up and snapped his picture, too. “What can’t you believe?”
“It’s the first time I’ve seen him smile. He obviously has good taste in women.”
She wished she didn’t feel so complimented.
“Would you like to hold him?” he asked.
She ached to. “Maybe some other time.”
There was a moment of awkwardness between them. They weren’t a couple anymore, and neither knew what to say. After a few more seconds of uncomfortable silence, Noah picked the baby carrier up by the handle, an effortless shifting of muscles and ease, and said, “I guess I should get this little guy home.” He slipped the strap of the diaper bag over one shoulder then started toward the back door where he’d entered ten minutes earlier.
Lacey slid her hand inside her pocket. Reassured that her nest egg was still safe and sound, she glanced into the shadowy corners around the room. Goose bumps popped out up and down her arms all over again.
With her camera suspended from the strap around her neck, her key in one hand and the bowl of spaghetti in the other, she hurried after Noah, locking the door behind her as she left. While he wrestled to secure the car seat properly in the seat of his truck, she started up the stairs.
“Lacey?” he called when she was halfway to the top.
She glanced down at him. “Yes?”
He was looking up at her, his eyes hidden behind dark glasses. “I’m glad you’re back. Orchard Hill hasn’t been the same without you.”
She didn’t have a reply to that because she wasn’t sure how she felt about being back. She climbed the remaining stairs and let herself into the apartment. After putting her camera and the spaghetti away, she stood for a moment catching her breath and willing her heart rate to settle into its rightful rhythm.
When Noah was gone, she went out again, locking that door, too. She cut through the alley and emerged onto Division Street.
Orchard Hill was a college town of nearly 25,000 residents. Three seasons of the year, the downtown was teeming with activity. Now that most of the students had gone home for the summer, Division Street had turned into a sleepy hometown main street. That didn’t keep her from looking over her shoulder this afternoon.
Her first visit was to the electronics store three blocks away where she studied the wide assortment of cell phones before choosing one she could afford. Her first call an hour later on her prepaid, bare-bones cell phone was to the Orchard Hill Police Department. After all, it was one thing to be unafraid of things that went bump in the night and another thing to ignore evidence that somebody had gotten into a locked tavern and slipped out again with barely a trace.
Lacey knew how a shadow felt.
She’d waited an hour for the police cruiser to arrive. Now she wasn’t letting the man in blue out of her sight.
She’d shown Officer Pratt the sleeping bag and cue stick, and explained the situation as best she could. She answered his questions then remained an unwavering six feet behind him as he checked the perimeter of the tavern inside and out.