Chapter Twenty #2
“Yeah, your voice drips with remorse,” her father drawled.
“You know, twenty-five years ago, my daughter came home with a clump of kid hair, a half a stick of gum, and told me she had a husband. Under normal circumstances, I’d stay out of married folks’ business, but you two have never been the least bit ordinary with each other.
Since you both seem right as rain with each other and your common-law kitten, I suggest we get started so you two can go on an actual date. Eat. Talk.”
Rachel couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled forth. Noah’s angular exterior crumbled, and he grabbed her hand.
“Great idea, Matt. I’ll make it happen after we get the arch built.”
“Let’s walk and talk, Noah, not run.” With his long strides, Rachel had to double-time it.
Bethany exited the house, her smile wide as the Appalachian range. “Oh, wonderful! Noah’s here with the wood. I saw Tobias driving up. He’s parking out by the barn.”
Rachel’s nose twitched at the euphemisms. She opened her mouth to point it out, but a chorus of cheerful voices approaching from the direction of the barn cut her off.
The wedding planner, Mrs. Kline, followed by her tuxedoed feline, Adele, and four white-haired women from the faith center.
The kids in Sunday school used to call them the Q-tip Clan.
If memory served, they were all deaconesses, with close to four hundred years of “Shhh” experience among them.
They bustled across the yard, carrying glass pitchers of fresh-squeezed orange juice, milk from the nearby dairy farm, and—Rachel raised her chin and inhaled through her nose—yep, one of them carried Mrs. Calvary’s breakfast biscuits topped with sharp cheddar and bacon.
Noah blew kisses and dished up a smile for each woman. “You know you can count on me.”
The ladies clustered around the two of them, eyes shining like news reporters on the beat, eager for fresh details on an exclusive story.
“Pastor Harris hinted you two were still lovebirds. Where are you sneaking off to this time of the morning?” the shortest woman with ruby cheeks asked.
As if what they were being accused of only happened under the cover of night. “Not sneaking. Working,” Rachel corrected.
One of them looked at Rachel and Noah’s joined hands with a raised brow. “Which requires him to hold your hand?”
She tugged at her hand, still in his grasp. Nope, she wasn’t prepared for the whispers and winks aimed at her, never had been. When Noah refused to release her, she charged in, mouth first, brain lagging. “Why are you leading, when I’m the one in charge?”
Noah chuckled, running one hand through his chocolate waves. Even after all these years, the simple gesture made her heart skip a beat. Every hair on his head was precious.
“You’re the boss.”
“Thanks for that,” she said, inserting sarcastic wit.
Noah gave a wry grin. “Always loved when you took charge, Six. And to prove I’m a man willing to follow, I’ll do everything you ask.”
And why did that make her think about his lips on hers?
“I appreciate that, Noah.”
“Good. ’Cause I’m an excellent student. I’ll do everything… as long as I want to do it.”
Rachel’s smile slipped. “Really. You couldn’t stop yourself. Noah… can you be less Noah, just for today?”
“Be someone other than who I am? No can do, beautiful.”
She muttered under her breath. “I swear I will build this thing in record time and disappear.” That pulled him up short.
“And I swear,” he said, looking her square in the eyes, “next time you disappear, I’m coming after you with a glue gun.”
Rachel pushed his shoulder with two fingers, like a battering ram. Her fingers protested the ill-planned jab and rewarded her with a brief but definitive ache. He didn’t budge. “Don’t start imitating Pete’s masculine chest-beating,” she accused.
“Pete? He’s just a friend. You’re more.”
“A friend who loves playing master and commander, especially if a woman is in charge.”
Noah tightened his hand on hers. “That’s Pete’s thing. Not mine.”
“Birds. Feathers.” That was all she said.
“I’m a man with my own mind.”
His words rang true, but… There’d always been an unspoken tension between her and Noah when Pete entered the equation.
Like Noah, Pete thrived on competition. Rachel couldn’t go there.
She wouldn’t. Noah would have to show, not tell, that he valued her over his other relationships, or he didn’t.
His job was to figure it out for himself.
It had taken her years away to realize the choice lay with him.
“Except when buckle bunnies are fluffed and frisky, right?”
“Six, you know good and well, Leah Calvary raised me better than that. Just because I dated a lot, that doesn’t not mean I have random high heels in my closet or under my mama’s table every week.”
“How many times have you tried?”
“None, woman. That’s what I’ve been trying to show you.”
That sucked the wind from her hot balloon. “What if you’re wrong about us?”
“I’m not.” His proclamation held such surety. Rachel’s untried heart flexed her atrophied muscle. Was she ready for a second chance at forever? What about her plans to work abroad? People, whole communities, needed her. She had never questioned her value to the people she helped.
“Noah…” She sighed. “We both have plans for our lives.”
“My plan has always been you. When we were six. When we were sixteen. Heck, when we were twenty-six, I still had hope for us. Can you say the same, Six?”
Every time he called her that name, whisking her back to their day by the falls, where he promised her a house, a ring, a cat. They’d made a deal.
They stood beside Noah’s truck, people moving around them, yet they were in their own bubble, visible yet invisible.
“Can I tell you later?”
“Okay,” he said, his tone totally not as… okay as he handsomely portrayed. “I know we can’t resurrect our old relationship. But I want to be the man to give you what you want. The few hours, with just us, felt right. More than right. So, I’m asking. What do you want?”
“To know you have my back. You love calling me Six. Be that for me. I don’t want to think you’re mine, and then the miles and months apart drag us back to those two teenagers, angry and heartbroken.
We lead very different lives, Noah. You love Service…
I do, too. But my life is in San Diego. How can I sacrifice myself…
” She bit back the “for you” part. And though her desire for him held like a stone tower, she knew the foundation could be a dangerous mix of quicksand.
“That won’t happen. Never doubt that there’s room in my life for us, together. Distance, dollars and cents, don’t matter. We can make it work.”
“You sure about that? I remember a time when you proposed marriage to keep me in this town.” When she’d first started college, she’d sketched their future a dozen times.
The cabin. The moonlit view of Landing Falls from their bedroom window.
The kids with his thick waves and her freckles.
“My job may never lead me back to Service, Noah.”
He winked. “Gives me an incentive to be that good-at-everything boyfriend when we’re together.”
The suggestive tone of his voice made the back of Rachel’s neck grow hot before she could snap back a witty rejection of his outlandish insinuation.
The sound of an approaching engine made them both turn as a cherry red pickup truck came bouncing down the dirt road, kicking up clouds of dust with its wheels.
It pulled up beside them. The person inside killed the engine.
The driver’s side door opened, and a beautiful woman stepped out, her wavy red hair gleaming in the sunlight.
She wore designer jeans and a snug red T-shirt that showed off adult film star boobs and alabaster, slender arms. She was the Barbie to Rachel’s Beyoncé.
Noah’s easy grin faded, and a knot formed in the bowels of Rachel’s belly.
“Cheyenne, what are you doing here?”
“I extended the invitation.” Pete chuckled low and long. “You did say she is the cutest little council member we got.”
Rachel stiffened at the cocky tone she knew all too well.
She braced for the Petey-isms parade. Obviously, Noah knew this woman, and Pete wanted Rachel to know it.
As he climbed out of the pickup truck, his lean and willowy frame peacocked in designer everything, a furrow formed between Noah’s brows.
Rachel noticed neither of them held bags for the donation delivery for the fire victims.
“Pete.” Noah shook his head. “Foul, bro. Just foul.”
Ricky, the cock-a-doodle-do ally Rachel never knew she needed, flew into action. “Paaa cawww.”
Everything happened fast. Cheyenne squawked in alarm. Ricky the Rooster, his new target acquired, charged forward. Pete failed to recognize the threat. Within seconds, Ricky gave chase. Pete darted around the little red pickup, but Ricky had stamina.
“What is up with this chicken?” Pete yelled, picking up the pace.
“Rooster,” Mrs. Kline clucked from her perch on the front porch. “You both like chasing tails. Seems to me Ricky’s better at it.”
“Pete, honey,” Cheyenne called, from a distance. “Git away from my truck with that thang. Don’t scratch my paint job.”
ClamClam, not one to be left out, came galloping across the clearing.
“MRAAAAAAAAAAAAOWWWWWW!”
“This place is freakin’ Jurassic Farm. What is wrong with you people?”
“MRAAAAAAAAAAAAOWWWWWW!” her kitty screamed in affirmation.
Rachel laughed, content to see Pete get a taste of the unwanted attention he gave. The fun didn’t last long. Noah, ever the hero, blocked Ricky’s path until he lost interest. With Ricky gone, ClamClam disappeared behind the house.
“Next time, just stay home,” Noah hissed while looking in Cheyenne’s direction. “I’m on Ricky’s team.”
“You’re a busy man,” Pete panted, catching his breath. He looked at Rachel as he spoke, a sly grin on his narrow face. “I’m keeping Cheyenne company after you broke her heart, bro.”
“Doubtful,” Noah muttered.