Chapter 27
I watch Katie rush through her dinner, answer texts as they come in, and take notes on her phone as she talks about the event and keeps making new plans.
As soon as dinner is over, she pays the bill and stands.
“Thanks for meeting me,” she says as we walk from the restaurant. “I’m so excited about all of this. I’ll come by the store tomorrow morning and I’ll talk to Mrs. Packer as well.”
Then she pulls me in for a hug and hurries toward the elevator, leaving me to catch my breath because the entire evening has been a whirlwind watching Katie process plans, and her excitement about the event that will transform the town.
She loves her job. She’s amazing at planning and organizing timelines.
And though I was there, I’m not sure I participated.
I just watched and admired this fireball of a woman.
I shrug on my coat and head through the lobby.
“Emma,” the voice comes from behind me.
It’s Noah’s voice.
I turn to find him in one of the oversized chairs, his legs crossed, and a beer bottle poised between his fingers. He stands and moves to me.
“Hi,” I say on a breath, not sure how he’s going to react at me.
“You got cornered for one of Katie’s business dinners, huh?”
I look toward the elevators where she disappeared. “Yeah, she had some plans to go over.”
Noah looks down at his beer and then sets it on the table next to the chair he’d been seated in. “Listen, I wanted to apologize. I had no right?—”
I lift my finger to his lips to stop him from talking, and then realize just how intimate it is.
I lower my hand. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I never should have lashed out like that.”
“I invaded your privacy,” he says.
“I invited you in.”
He narrows his gaze on me as if he doesn’t understand my about-face. And, why would he? We’ve known one another a week.
“I’m just saying, I shouldn’t have acted that way,” I say, easing closer to him to see what happens.
His hand comes to my waist and settles there, then he leans in and presses his forehead to mine. “We’re okay?”
“We’re okay,” I say. “Your notes were helpful.”
His mouth curls up into a smile. “You actually looked at them?”
“I did. The manuscript’s worthless. I’ll never finish the book or do anything with it but?—”
“Why not?” he asks easing back. “It’s a good book.”
“It’s a pipe dream.”
“It’s a perfectly good dream.”
“You don’t understand,” I say and his brows lift. “Okay, well, you probably do understand, but I’m fifty-two.”
“And?”
“And …” I trail off. And what?
“What are you doing now?” he asks running his hand down my arm until he grasps my hand in his.
“Heading home.”
“You still like me after having dinner with Katie?”
Again, I look toward the elevators where she’d disappeared after dinner. “Why wouldn’t I?” I ask, looking back at him.
He shrugs. “I’m short with her when she demands my time. I just figure she?—"
I touch his arm. “She only knows one part of you.”
“And you know more than that?”
I ease in even closer. “I know more than that.”
“Come up to my room,” he says, his voice low.
“I really should be?—”
“No you shouldn’t,” he cuts me off. “Stay with me tonight.”
I swallow hard. “You still want to spend time with me? I showed you all of my crazy, and you still want me to come up to your room?”
“I welcome your crazy,” he says running his other hand down my arm, but when he gets to my elbow, I jump back as if he’d hit me. “What happened?”
I grip my arm, but a laugh escapes me. “I had an accident. No big deal.”
“An accident? Let me look,” he says, his voice filled with concern.
I shake my head. “You’ll see it,” I say, reaching for his hand, starting toward the elevator with him in tow.
I push the button and the door to one of the elevators opens.
Two others file into the elevator with us, so we stand next to one another, our hands clasped.
When the elevator stops, we step out and I let Noah lead me to his room.
“I’ve never been upstairs in this hotel,” I say. “Never had a reason,” I confirm without him questioning it.
“It’s a lovely view of the town. I can see your store. I know when you’re parked out back.”
We stop in front of his room and he shoots me a smile as he unlocks the door with his card.
“So you spy on me?” I tease.
“I think about you,” he says as he pushes open the door and I step inside. “But, if you don’t mind me asking, why didn’t you go home last night?”
I turn to him as the door closes. “You know my car was there all night?”
“Yeah.”
I move to him, wrapping my arms around his waist. “I slept at Lily’s.”
“Why?” he asks, lifting his hand into my hair.
I shrug. “I followed you out to your car,” I say.
“I never saw you.”
“No. You were faster to get away.”
“I’m sor—” This time I silence him with my lips pressed to his, then I step back.
“I followed you. Then found out I locked myself out of the store and then I fell on my ass,” I say, shrugging off my coat, letting it fall to the floor, and then reaching for the hem of my sweater to pull it up and over my head.
Noah’s eyes widen at first, but when I turn so that he can see the back of my arm, he lets out a groan.
“What the hell happened to you?” he asks, moving to me and touching the sensitive skin.
“I told you,” I say wincing at his touch. “I fell on my ass.”
“I’ve seen your ass. This isn’t it,” he teases. “Seriously, is this because of me?” he asks, studying the scrapes and bruises surrounding my elbow.
I turn so that I’m facing him again. “No, this is because of me. This is all because of the fit I threw.”
“Emma—”
“I’m serious. I acted like a child.”
“And again, I crossed a line.”
I worry my lip as I study him. I know every line around his eyes, and his beard is fuller than it was even yesterday. Lifting my hand up into his hair, I comb my fingers through the salt and pepper strands.
If you’d asked me when my husband left me if I thought I’d find a man I’d like to couple with again, I’d have said no. And, once I passed fifty, I was damn sure it would never happen.
But here stands Noah Carter, only a week ago he was just a name on a book jacket and a signature on curt emails. Now, well, now he feels like my whole world.
“When I came back to the store, I yanked on the door, but since the door was locked, I stumbled back and fell over a piece of the sidewalk,” I say.
Noah presses a kiss to my bare shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“Lily fixed me all up and made me sleep on her couch.”
He nods slowly, moving his kiss from my shoulder to my throat. “So I’m going to owe Lily an apology too?”
“Why—why would you do that?” I ask as my eyes grow heavy and close.
“Because I’m sure you were still mad and had a lot of not great things to say about me.”
“No, no …” It’s becoming harder to make sense of my words. “She was fully on your side,” I assure him.
Noah eases back and I open my eyes to look at him.
“Seriously?” he asks.
“Seriously. She thinks you could offer me a lot when it comes to my book, and that I shouldn’t have acted like I did.”
“Your attitude was fair,” he says. “But I would like to help you with it. It has potential, and it would give me something to do.”
I lick my lips which have gone dry. “You have something to do. Katie says you owe your editor pages.”
Now he fully takes a step back and tunnels his fingers through his hair leaving deeper grooves than I had. I’m sure he could never play a fair game of poker. His tells are too strong.
“I’m stuck, Em. The words aren’t coming. I thought being here would help, but the first words I even got written were last night after I left you.”
“So me yelling at you helps?”
He snorts out a laugh. “No, me helping you seems to have helped. I don’t want to help you for my own selfish reasons, but I want to see you succeed. It just so happens that reading your story, which is so different than mine, opened a closed door.”
“So you were missing romance in your book?”
He blinks hard and smiles. “I was missing romance in every aspect of my life.”
I pull my lips in to keep them from quivering. He found romance in me? Is that what he’s saying?
“I’ve been missing romance in every aspect of my life too. Maybe that’s why I can’t finish the damn book the way I want it.”
Noah reaches out his hand and I take it. He pulls me toward him until we are flush. Lifting his hand up into my hair, he rests his other hand on my hip.
“Let’s work on it together. It’ll be our project while I’m here.”
“We have a project for while you’re here,” I remind him.
“Let me work on this with you. I have lots of connections. I mean, I can’t just walk you in and get you a contract, but maybe I can help you bypass the slush pile.”
“Why do you want to do this?”
His hand moves to my cheek. “Because you mean something to me, Emma.”