Chapter 9 Emma
Emma
A year later . . .
Don’t be mad!” I called from just inside the front door.
“I’m furious!” Noah responded from the kitchen.
I grinned, borderline obsessed with his sense of humor. I’d laughed more in the past year than I had the entire rest of my life, and it was one of the countless things I’d come to love about Noah.
He stood at the stove, his wide back to me as he stirred the pot on the burner.
I stilled, momentarily distracted by the sight of his muscles straining against his white T-shirt.
Damn, the man looked good. Always. All the time.
It was a minor miracle we ever got out of bed, because even after nearly a year of dating, I was still ravenous for him.
The air stirred as I shut the door behind me, and I caught a whiff of what he was cooking, my eyes flashing wide. “Is that beef stew?”
He turned, his smile devilish. “Maaaybe.”
I shook my head. “Please tell me you’re not planning to put it through a blender again like last year.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” His eyes sparked when he noticed my hands were hidden behind my back, and suspicion crept into his expression. “What am I mad about, exactly?”
“I got you a Valentine’s Day present,” I said, walking toward him.
His gaze turned molten. “I thought you gave me my present this morning.”
My cheeks heated, thinking of what we’d done earlier, the way I’d woken him up by trailing kisses down his body, sliding his boxers off, taking that big dick in my mouth while it was still soft and manageable, feeling it harden.
The way he’d held my hair, gently thrusting into my mouth while my hand fell between my legs and I—
Don’t get distracted, I told myself. But it was difficult to stay focused when your partner was as attractive as Noah. Every time I so much as looked at the man, I got all hot and bothered.
He must have noticed my mental gutter dive because his grin was pure masculine smugness as he leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. “Emma. What did you do?”
I sent him an imploring look. “Gina Shaw found them on the side of the road and was having trouble finding homes for them, so I told her I would help her out.”
A pathetic little mewl cut through the air, and I took that as my cue to bring my hands forward, revealing the cat carrier I held and the little faces staring out of it. “In my defense, we have been talking about adopting a pet.”
“One,” Noah said. “How many are in there?”
I winced. “Two.”
He sighed and pushed off the counter, heading toward the stairs.
“Where are you going?” I called.
“One second!” he yelled back.
Oh no. I hoped he wasn’t too mad.
I pulled the carrier up, eyeing the adorable little fuzz balls inside. “I promise I’ll get him to say yes to you.”
Noah, I’d learned, had trouble denying me anything I wanted.
Most of the time, I never took advantage of that kindness, because after what I’d been through with Beau (not just him trying to kill me, but our entire disastrous, toxic marriage), I recognized how rare and special it was.
But this was the one time I’d do everything in my power to get my way if I had to.
Not that I thought I’d have to do much. Noah was a big softy deep down, and I was willing to bet it would only take five minutes before he was as deeply in love with the kittens as I was.
I heard him coming back down the stairs and glanced up. And froze. Because he was carrying two more kittens in his hands.
“Oh my god,” I gasped. “When did you get them?”
“Three days ago,” he said, his lips curling in a rueful grin. “Mom picked them up for me and was keeping them at my parents’ place so I could surprise you for Valentine’s Day. She dropped them off while you were ‘out running errands,’” he said, a note of accusation in his tone.
I grinned, unrepentant, and glanced back and forth between his hands and mine. “Four kittens is too many kittens, right?”
“I’m not taking mine back, but by all means, please feel free to be heartless and return yours.”
“Noah!”
“Kidding, obviously,” he said, stooping to set the wriggly little babies down.
I set the carrier on the floor beside them and opened it, and soon all four siblings were reunited, tumbling and jumping over each other in their excitement. Noah and I met each other’s eyes over their heads, and I could tell from the look on his face that we were keeping them.
“This is going to be chaos,” I said.
He arched a brow toward me. “And that’s different from the past year we’ve spent together, how?”
I chuckled. “Fair enough.” My gaze fell back to the kittens, one of which had taken issue with Noah’s left foot and was now engaged in a fight to the death with his toes. “Why didn’t Gina tell me you’d already picked two up?”
“If I’m being nice, it’s because I told her it was a surprise,” Noah said. “If I’m being real, it’s because she was being Gina.”
“She was totally being Gina,” I said. “Did you name yours yet?”
“No, I was waiting for you.”
I fell quiet.
Noah tipped my chin up, looking amused. “What did you name yours?”
“Shadow and Patches.” One was black and the other a calico.
“Good choices,” he said. His were orange and gray. “How about Cheddar and Ash?”
I leaned forward to plant a quick kiss on his cheek. “Perfect.”
“Lunch is just about ready,” he said. “I have everything for the kittens upstairs in the bathroom if you want to bring it down here for them while I add the last few ingredients?”
I shook my head. “I have a trunkful of supplies, too.”
“Of course you do. How many toys did you buy?”
I wrinkled my nose. “Probably too many.”
“Same. They’re going to be so spoiled, aren’t they?”
“Oh, yeah.”
We parted, him retreating into the kitchen while I dashed back into the cold. Last year, it had been warm for Valentine’s Day, but this year, it was freezing, a polar blast howling down from Canada. The forecast called for snow tonight, and Noah and I planned to stay up late to watch it fall.
Once I was back inside, I got the cats set up with a litter box and food, and joined Noah in the kitchen. He already had my meds lined up for me on the island, and I opened the bottles and took them one by one with a glass of water.
I might have thought I was fine after crawling out of the grave, but that was only in comparison to how awful I’d felt before.
My hair samples proved that Beau had indeed been poisoning me.
With arsenic, that motherfucker. Further tests showed I had damage to my intestinal tract, liver, and lungs that would take time to heal.
Noah watched me pop the last pill, and I could tell from the dark look on his face that his mind had gone to the same place mine had.
“I pissed on his grave today,” he said.
I nearly choked. “Noah!”
“What? I checked first to make sure no one was looking.”
“Don’t give the Broadturns an excuse to come after you. It’s not worth it for a little pee.”
He shot me a defiant look. “I’ll have you know it was a lot of pee. And I do think it might be worth it if I defaced his headstone. Better yet, dug him up and set his corpse on fire. His death was too easy after what he did.”
He looked like he was serious. Like he’d really considered doing what he said, and my love for him swelled.
He was so protective of me, yet so gentle and caring.
Except for in the bedroom, where he turned downright despotic, which I also loved.
He was my perfect partner. My dream man.
Sometimes, while I lay awake late at night, I wondered if I really had died a year ago, and this was heaven. It sure felt like it might be.
“Ben Broadturn drove by earlier,” Noah said, dragging me right back down to earth.
“Ew, why does he keep doing that?”
“Trying to catch me doing something illegal, probably.”
“My lawyer might have a point about filing a harassment complaint against him.”
Noah turned, plating up our stew. “Might be a good idea. I wouldn’t put it past that bastard to try and frame me for something otherwise. He’s almost as bad as his brother was.”
I nodded in agreement. I’d spent enough time around Beau’s family that I could attest to the fact that they were all awful, just to varying degrees.
They’d more than proven that after Beau’s death, pushing to have me and Noah arrested even though there was no indication that we’d committed a crime.
We’d both had so many defensive wounds after the fight, and our stories matched.
Plus, the state police had found enough evidence during their investigation that the Broadturns were lucky they weren’t all under arrest for aiding and abetting attempted murder.
“I just hope it doesn’t make the paper if we do file a complaint,” I said. “Especially since the rumors just died down.”
Noah turned, sliding a heaping bowl of stew toward me across the island. “One little complaint is far less salacious than everything else that came out.”
He had a point there. Sergeant Wade filed his official report six months ago, and the whole town got to read about what Thibodeaux’s golden boy had really been like.
The cheating rumors were all confirmed. So was the astronomical debt.
The life insurance policy that Beau had forged my signature on.
The fact that he submitted a claim for it before pulling the plug on me.
The arsenic in my tissue samples. The pentobarbital Beau used to induce my coma.
His list of crimes went on and on, impossible to ignore or excuse.
I sighed and slid onto a barstool. “What if it makes national news again?”
Noah came around to my side with his bowl and sat next to me. “If it does, I doubt it’ll lead to the media circus we faced this summer.”