Chapter 24 - Rainy Day Attraction
Chapter 24
Rainy Day Attraction
Noah watched his surprise guests leave the bookshop one by one.
The sheriff and Bear came down first. They were not talking as they went out the back and borrowed Noah’s car without asking. Noah always left the keys over the visor. Bear sometimes needed to move Noah’s car when he had to park a delivery truck.
Noah heard the sheriff say he needed to set some things in motion. It was going to be a long night. Noah guessed the sheriff would be assigning his men to log every car that drove down County Road 45 and also the dirt road heading to Rusty and Zach’s place.
Bear mentioned that the sheriff could drop him at Eliza’s place. He said it might take him all night to talk her into letting strangers on her land.
Everyone coming down seemed to have a job to do but Noah. The deputy was staying upstairs in Bear’s junk room with Andi.
Noah stared outside at the town. The morning was cloudy and not even the Over the Hill ladies were out walking the square yet. His Cora had started her day early at the grade school and knew nothing that was going on. His kiss had been fast at the door. Too fast, he thought. He’d make up for it when she got home.
He wanted to tell her all that was going on this morning, but he’d have to wait. Strange how someone who was barely a friend could turn into a lover so fast.
Lightning flashed just outside and he realized that he wanted to talk about everything with her for the rest of his life.
Noah climbed to the third floor with a broom and a trash bag. He might as well start cleaning. If he could clear a path to the desk he’d found maybe he could get Dan, the sheriff, and Rusty to help him get the desk downstairs when all this settled. He’d fix up a corner office. It was time things changed. Noah wasn’t drifting through life anymore; he was planting roots, and he was planting them right here.
The danger this morning sparked an idea for a story. He wanted to write all that had happened, or what he imagined could have happened. The story forming in his mind might go any direction.
His creativity was growing inside him. Freedom was bouncing around without boundary. He’d start with a short story of how each player slipped into the bookstore and what they had to plan, and later he’d read his story to Cora tonight.
All at once Noah’s world was in color, not black and white. He didn’t need to be in a big city, or travel or have adventures. He could live, really live, right here.
Two floors up Andi and Dan were looking out at the town square. All was quiet, but everyone seemed to be waiting. Each had a role in Andi’s escape.
As soon as Andi’s brothers called to tell her to come to their house, and Noah’s car, which the sheriff had stolen to take Bear home, was back behind the building, Noah decided he’d lock the bookshop. He was going to call his parents to tell them that he was going to ask a woman to marry him.
He’d guess he wouldn’t get the whole sentence out before they started yelling, demanding he come home and a hundred other things.
It didn’t matter. He’d slept beside her last night and every time he’d woken up and seen her in the moonlight, she was more beautiful than the last. If they slept together for eighty years, Cora would always be beautiful.
His parents wouldn’t be happy. He knew exactly what they’d say.
This isn’t the right time of year to travel.
You are moving too fast.
You haven’t known her long enough.
You don’t have the money to afford any kids.
They’d say he had been down in Texas too long and it was time for him to come home and get a real job. He’d be a poor writer and he’d never make enough money to live.
Noah would listen, be polite, not say a word. Then he would tell them he loved them. He’d try to get home for Christmas, then for the second time in his life he would do exactly what he wanted to do.
Half an hour later Noah swept the third-floor storage room, and he made his list. Ask Cora to marry him. But don’t tell Bear for a few days. The man seemed to have his hands full trying to help the deputy’s girl vanish.
A thud sounded from below, on the second floor. Danny and Andi were waiting for Rusty to call and give the okay to come out.
Noah thought it was safe up there, but they shouldn’t be making noise.
Another thud.
Noah smiled. Probably foreplay again.
He closed his eyes, imagining he was already sitting in the corner desk downstairs writing. Noah could create while he watched the snow in winter and the people sitting on the benches feeding the squirrels in summer. On cold days he’d put out his store sign that said BE BACK IN 5 up and drive over to get Cora, but on nice days he’d walk over to the grade school and walk with her. They’d cook dinner after he closed up, then he’d read her what he wrote that day when the store wasn’t busy, which was pretty much all the time.
Then they’d take a bottle of wine upstairs to the roof. They would watch the stars, as he held her. Of course, once his writing began to pay, they’d travel, but Honey Creek would always be home.
Reality interrupted. A third thud sounded and then laughter.
Maybe I’ll add a little romance to the novel, Noah thought. After all, he was thinking of romance, and obviously the deputy and Andi were practicing it. Or fighting. With those two it could go either way.