Chapter 30
CHAPTER
T he air feels even thicker out here.
I park along the edge of the brush, walk the path I somehow still remember to get down to the beat-up old dock.
Damp soil and decaying leaves yield an earthy scent unique to the bayou.
The spongy ground squelches with each step as I push Spanish moss hanging from gnarled cypress trees out of my way.
Thick roots snake out to make the short trek in heels even more daunting than it needs to be, while cicadas and mosquitos buzz all around, creating a low hum.
It’s interrupted by the occasional croak of a frog or chirp of a bird, but it’s otherwise eerily quiet.
Yet there’s still something beautiful about this place—the way the late-afternoon light filters in through a canopy of bending trees and their damp trunks seem to glow.
Though none of it holds a candle to the sight of the man wearing a white T-shirt and backward baseball cap holding a fishing pole while sitting at the end of the pier.
Noah must sense he’s being watched. He sits up a little straighter, turns, and glances over his shoulder.
His slow, confident smile curves up when he sees me, and what is otherwise an awful day feels a little brighter.
There’s a glimmer of hope, a promise of something .
I’m not sure what, but something besides thinking about my mother.
I walk down the long pier to the end and take the seat next to him—without hesitating, without asking.
“Hey.” He doesn’t hide the surprise in his voice, though according to Lucas, it’s public knowledge that I’m in town. “You’re here.”
“I am.”
I wait for him to say something—to ask why I’m back or say what everyone says when someone important to you dies: I’m sorry. It’s a pressure building under my skin, and I just want to get it over with.
But Noah just sips his beer and extends the half-full bottle to me to take a swig. “Been boring around here without you,” he says. There’s a hint of a smile, his dimples making their presence known. “Glad you’re back.”
All I can do is stare at him. Stare into his father’s eyes.
Oddly, it doesn’t make me want to turn and run, even knowing it was me , that I am Jocelyn .
Instead, as I accept the beer from his hand, Noah’s eyes zone in on my lips.
I take a long pull, and the hungry look on his face makes me feel something very different from the way I’ve felt the last twenty-odd hours.
I’m probably deranged for feeling it, knowing what I now know I’ve done—I swallow—with his father . But I don’t care.
My hand clenches the beer bottle, and I imagine gripping Noah’s hair in my hands, pulling tight enough to make him hiss in pain, in pleasure.
I envision my nails scraping down his skin, the palm of my hand covering his mouth, being in control, on top this time.
I salivate, practically able to hear the loud crack of my hand connecting with his skin.
Hard. Fantasy lets me escape the world that is reality, the reason I’m here.
For a few precious seconds, I pretend Noah is the reason I’m here. He may as well be.
“How did you know where to find me?” he asks.
“When we were at the bar before, you told me where you go to clear your head. Mine needs some clearing today, too. Hope you don’t mind I crashed your party.”
Noah takes the beer back, takes another long swallow, and we both stare out at the murky water.
I can understand why this is a place that can clear his mind.
There’s a unique stillness out here that you can’t find anywhere else— especially not in New York City.
After a long bout of silence, I look over and catch Noah’s eyes once again.
“What was it like to lose a parent?”
He blinks at me, seeming startled by the question.
For a second, I think he’s going to refuse to answer it, maybe reel in his line and head back to his truck.
But instead he chugs what’s left in the bottle, then reaches for another and cracks it open, staring into space for a while before sighing.
“Shitty. Even if you don’t always get along, it’s like you’ve lost something you’ll never get back. ”
“You didn’t get along with your parents?”
He shrugs. “Not my father. I was only a kid, but we butted heads. He . . .” Noah hesitates, shakes his head.
There’s something there, the way he’s unsure about continuing. It makes my heart rate pick up, anxiety pulse in my head. My mouth goes dry, even in this peaceful place. “What?” I ask, prodding him. “He what?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing. Everyone adored him here in town. But people are complicated, you know?”
Boy, do I ever.
“Sure,” I say, “I get that.” The layers of feelings around my mother threaten to rush forward, but I grab the new bottle of beer from Noah’s hand and slug back a healthy amount even though hops taste like dirt to me. “How was he complicated?”
Noah looks at me. A muscle in his cheek feathers, like there are words on the tip of his tongue, and he’s not sure he wants to let them out. But he searches my face, and maybe he sees that I truly need to know. He nods. “He did some things to the family that weren’t right.”
I stay quiet, waiting for more, but Noah doesn’t elaborate. Though it’s not hard to believe Damon Sawyer could do wrong to his own family. An underage girl, a grimy motel room . . . If a man would do that, I can imagine he could hurt just about anyone. My blood pressure ticks up a notch.
“Mom would forgive him,” Noah says suddenly.
“She was an angel and forgave to a fault, but I—I didn’t find it so easy.
” He purses his lips, stares out at the bobber attached to the line on his fishing pole, and stays quiet for a long time before continuing.
“My sister died when I was three. She was four years older. It was an accident, but I blamed him.”
My eyes flare wide. “What happened?”
“She fell at the park, from the top of the jungle gym. Broke her neck. She died instantly. My dad was supposed to be watching her.”
My hand covers my heart. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.” He nods. “Anyway, there are other things, too. Like I said, it’s complicated. But first I lost my sister, and then a few years later I lost my mother and father on the same day.”
“What do you mean? I thought your mom died last year.”
“Technically. But the truth is, when my dad died, he took my mother with him. She was never the same. She fell into a deep depression, spent most days staring out the window or sleeping in bed. I lost a mother and a father all at once.”
“That’s terrible.”
Noah meets my eyes. “It is. Because my mother was an amazing woman. She didn’t deserve to spend the rest of her life so drugged up she couldn’t boil water herself.”
I stare at him, wanting to press, wanting to ask for more details. But there’s pain in Noah’s eyes, and I think maybe he’s never talked to anyone about this. Maybe, in his own way, he’s as affected by his father as I am.
“How did your dad die?”
I can’t believe I just asked that, just blurted out the insane question. But now that it’s out there, I hold my breath, waiting for the answer.
Noah looks up, meets my eyes with an intense stare. “He was killed.”
I don’t react. Don’t move. Don’t so much as breathe. I can’t sort out if that’s accusation in his gaze or if it’s pain. If it’s both .
“Robbery gone wrong,” he adds, and the pressure lets off. I can exhale.
The peaceful water and swaying cypress trees all around me suddenly feel very claustrophobic.
And my line of thinking is as erratic as my surroundings.
I’ve bounced from wanting to dominate this man to making him talk about his dead father and dead sister.
Something inside me twists, writhes, and in the moment, it feels utterly wrong to be here, talking about this with him.
“I have to go.” My announcement is abrupt, but I don’t care. I climb to my feet.
“Wait.” Noah scrambles to stand, too, reaches out, touches my arm. “Please don’t go. Or—or we can both go. We can go to my place. I want to . . .” He lowers his voice a notch. “Help make you forget.”
Forget what? For a heart-stopping moment, I think he means his father—that he wants to help me forget him . But then he says, “Your mom. I heard. I’m really sorry.”
Like simmering water coming to an angry boil, my insides clench, threatening to erupt with sudden rage.
He acted like he didn’t know. He sat here beside me, cool as a freaking cucumber, letting me ask him about his father, his family, letting me think he hadn’t heard the news, that he was pleased to see me back in town—but really, he knew. I yank away from him, turn to go.
“Elizabeth.” His voice is a bark, an order.
It makes me go still. Takes me back to a dim motel room, the rough carpet beneath my knees—
Noah’s arms wrap around me, crush me against him, holding me tight.
I should scream at him. Should knee him in the balls and stalk out of here.
Instead, I melt.
I breathe.
And I give in and let a man comfort me for the first time in twenty years.