Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Love, Jo, all your days, if you choose, but don’t let it spoil you, for it is wicked to throw away so many good gifts because you can’t have the one you want.” ~Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
W ith each flip in the bed and punch of the pillow, Nat tossed and turned between her attraction to Noah and the allure of reuniting with Duncan. Even though she was the only one in the bed, it was filled with reminders of both men. Noah’s forlorn blue eyes staring at her from the stone path. The softness of his words as he told her she was beautiful. The way Duncan’s scent of spicy enticement had wrapped around her. The primal possessiveness in his voice as he bent close, promising to obliterate all past kisses with his future one. The seductive glint that swam in his eyes should erase any thought of Noah, but it didn’t.
Kicking her blankets off, she shot up. “Fuck it!”
No use trying to sleep in a bed full of phantom men. One a promise of the future and the other a specter of what would never be. The dull ache in her chest sparked from the pain of unrequited affection. It was called a crush because to care and not be cared for had the power to destroy.
“I’ll only ever be Clayton’s little sister to him.”
Then, why did he say you were beautiful?
“To be nice!” she gritted, answering herself.
Plucking her phone from the bedstand to check the time, she decided to exercise this angst away with a jog. It was almost six a.m. The gray light of breaking day slinked into the sleeping loft through the partially opened blinds. Tugging on hot pink running shorts and a black sports bra and tank, she plopped onto the bed to put on her socks and sneakers.
Walking to her car, her gaze drifted to the farmhouse. Clayton’s red pickup was gone. Most mornings, he and Elle jogged at the Greenway before work. Since they’d be at the Greenway, she decided to go to the village park to get a run in before coming back to get ready to head to the clinic for the day. Neither of the Owens siblings jogged the country roads of Perry.
Not anymore.
This early in the morning, the village was quiet. The row of gravel parking spaces along the front of the park was empty. She parked her Jeep and hopped out. Inhaling the coolness of dying night and the warmth of waking day, she cut through the playground toward the paved road that encircled the park’s baseball fields.
Down the street and around the corner stood the yellow Victorian she’d called home for the first eighteen years of her life. Growing up near the park, she spent plenty of time here and scenes of her childhood were fond memories. The safety of Dad’s arms catching her as she shot down the slide, arms up and squealing. Her mom’s musical laughter as she pushed Nat on the swings. Clayton and Evan playing basketball on the court while she cheered in between whines for them to let her play. Clayton, the eldest, always succumbed to her tantrums. Evan, the middle child, shook his head before he relented and handed her the ball.
“Evan,” she croaked at the remembrance. Increasing her speed, she ran as if trying to outrun the memories.
Despite being seven years older, Evan was more best friend than big brother. While Clayton was the quintessential big brother, doting and overprotective, Evan straddled the line between protective and “I got your back.” He’d tease her but also listen. From the time she was thirteen, they’d go on long runs together and talk the entire time about anything and everything. There had been few secrets between them.
Evan was the favorite of all her favorite people. He’d been a bright light that flickered for just a moment, leaving her cold in the darkness of facing a life without him.
“Oh, Evan. I miss you,” she whimpered.
Hot tears rolled down her face, accompanying the painful widening pit in her stomach. The rapid pace of her run slowed with each teardrop. Salty tears and sweat blurred her vision. She stopped, pitching over with her hands on her knees, and gulped for air.
“I got you,” a soft baritone soothed, and a palm rubbed calming strokes down her back.
Lifting her head, she murmured, “Noah.”
“I’ve got you,” he repeated, placing his strong hands on her arms. With firm gentleness, he raised her to a standing position.
“Noah.” His name said everything and nothing all at the same time. She pressed her face into his chest, allowing his arms to tuck her in close and his embrace to ease her sadness.
They stood there for what may have been hours or only minutes.
Noah’s arms clenched around her. “I’ve got you. Let it out.”
Not once did he say, “It’s alright,” or “Don’t cry.” In that moment, he just let her be sad.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Her voice was muffled by his chest.
“Nothing to be sorry about.”
“But I’m using your T-shirt as a tissue,” she sniffled.
“What else are T-shirts good for?”
She tipped her head up. “How are you here? The park was empty when I got here.”
He grinned. “I live three doors down from the park. I got up early for a run and I saw your Jeep.”
Nat’s gaze fell to the yellow Jeep parked on the other side of the playground. “I guess it’s a conspicuous vehicle.”
“It stands out, but so does the driver.”
“Especially when she’s having a crying fit in the middle of the park,” she muttered, wiping away excess tears from her face.
“Hey, I bawled like a baby while having lunch at Cassie’s Corner Café the other day when Todd showed me a video of a soldier reunited with their dog. So, no judgment about public crying.”
“You are such a sucker for those videos.” Her laugh was watery.
“Yep.” His hands skimmed down to her waist.
Her body hummed from his touch. Every nerve screamed, melt into him.
“They get me every time.”
“I’m surprised you don’t have a gaggle of dogs, considering how much you love them. It blows my mind that you don’t even have one.” Her breath hitched at the warmth that pulsated across her body from his palms resting on her hips.
As if where his hands were had just dawned on him, he dropped them. Raising his right hand, he tugged his short dark hair.
“I’d be a wreck if I had a dog. I’d be a puddle each time they waited for me at my door. I almost cry when Fitz and Lizzie greet me at your brother and Elle’s place.” A self-deprecating smirk washed over his features.
“Why do you get so emotional about dogs greeting people?”
“I think it’s both the reunion of loved ones and the thought of what that image would look like if they hadn’t come back.”
A single tear, late for the party, tumbled from her left eye.
“Hey,” he whispered as he swiped away her errant tear. “Evan?”
“How did you know?”
“I’ve only seen you cry like this one other time.”
Nat clamped her eyes shut. The memory drowned her. When Evan died, she’d not cried—not right away. While everyone else fell apart in their own ways, she’d smiled. Not the “Nat smile” that Noah mentioned the other night, but a helpful soother of the storm of tears that had gripped Mom, somber stoicism that had engulfed Dad, and grieving loud-quiet that had held Clayton captive.
It wasn’t until Noah arrived that she’d cried. He found her alone in the gazebo in the backyard. With his arms around her, he pulled her into his embrace and murmured, “That’s my girl. Let it out.”
“Sorry.” She took a step back from Noah and the memory of that day. “I don’t know why I’m so emotional. I was jogging and started thinking about Evan and just… ugh…now I’m a baby.” She covered her face.
“Hey.” He raised his hands to hers, shepherding them down from her face. “It’s not baby-like to miss someone…to grieve them.”
Nat coughed, pushing down the lump in her throat. “I miss him and…”
The words clustered in her throat, so many of her emotions over losing Evan locked inside. Grief. Anger. Guilt. Resentment. They all colluded in a sad bitter stew within her belly.
“It makes sense that you’d feel raw coming home. This is the longest you’ve been home since he died. You left for that Boston College summer program three months after he’d passed. Besides a few weeks over breaks, you’ve been in Boston since you were eighteen.”
“I can’t believe you remember that. You were in San Diego for most of that.”
Noah turned, placed his hand on her shoulder, and led her in a slow walk toward the playground. “Well, I noticed when one of my favorite people wasn’t here when I visited.”
“Also, your mom.”
“Also, my mom.”
They looked at each other with knowing grins. Mom and Maura, Noah’s mom, were the definition of BFFs. Since they were fifteen, they’d been inseparable. What one knew, the other soon would know.
A warm chuckle rolled through him. “I didn’t even need to talk to Clayton or read the letters you sent when I was in the service to know what was happening.”
“Oh, my goddess, those letters and care packages I’d send. I was such a dork,” she cringed.
Twice a month from the age of ten until she was seventeen, she used different colored gel pens on rainbow-themed paper to write letters to Noah wherever he was stationed. Once a month, she filled a shoebox full of Twix, his favorite candy, Austen Cheddar and Peanut Butter crackers, and a homemade crafting project.
“If you were a dork for sending, then what does that make me? I lived for those letters and care packages. Well, ’til I got in trouble with my commanding officer when some of the loose glitter from an Origami star you’d put in a package got all over my uniform.” He nudged her shoulder with his as they walked across the dew dampened grass toward the teeter-totters.
“I was doing my patriotic duty with that excess glitter. Military uniforms are far too drab.”
“I should have given my CO that defense before he made me do all those pushups for penance.” He stopped at the long plank supported in the middle by a metal fulcrum. Mischief lifted the corners of his lips. “Care to have a go?”
When was the last time she’d teeter-tottered? Besides the metaphorical one that she was on now, between her crush on Noah and rekindling a relationship with Duncan. The one between being Dr. Owens or Dr. Owens’ daughter.
Part of her knew she shouldn’t. She should tell him goodbye and head to her Jeep. That would be the adult thing to do.
“Sure.” Even as she agreed as apprehension reared up in her torso.
He lowered the teeter-totter closest to them and held it waist-level. Tentatively, she grabbed the handle, wrapping her hands around the cool metal. Their gazes twined together as she straddled the seat.
The planes of his chest constricted and expanded with quickened breath. “You secure?” His eyes raked down her.
His sweeping gaze tiptoed down her body, from chest to hips, to her bare legs, and back up. Heat sparked on each part of her where his eyes lingered.
“Yup.” She bit her lip, stifling the sex phone operator quality of her voice.
“Okay.” Letting go, he pivoted and jogged to the other side and settled onto his seat. “Ready?”
“Yep!” she squealed as the teeter-totter blasted into the air.
“Still got it,” he said with laughing smugness.
“Got what?”
“The ability to make you smile.”
And he did. The smile spread on her face like hot syrup on pancakes. No corner of her face was untouched by its sweetness.
“Aren’t we Count Confident?” she teased.
“Yup.” He smirked, pushing off the ground and flying his side into the air.
“Noah!” She closed her eyes, bracing for the thudding impact. Just as the bottoms of her sneakers grazed the grass, she flew back into the air. “Noah!” she squeaked with glee.
“Still got it,” he rumbled with self-satisfaction.
Teetering between the exhilarating sensation of weightlessness and protected falling, happiness fizzed inside her. Each time her wooden seat hurtled toward the ground, she’d gasp but knew he’d never let her hit the bottom.