Chapter 4 #2
“My grandfather was in the Marines,” Noah said, darkly.
As if it was some kind of secret, and Raemy had dragged it out of him, and he was only going along with it to be polite.
“He always said that if he’d wanted to sort my father out, he would have sent him off to the Marines too, but my dad wasn’t like that.
” He made a small sound that was a laugh.
A rusty sort of laugh, but a laugh. “Still isn’t. ”
“This is the grandfather who left you the diner and the house?” Raemy tried to keep her voice as casual as the rest of her, so she wouldn’t scare him off. So he would keep telling her…anything, really. She would be happy to hear anything at all.
It was probably best not to look too closely at that sentiment.
To her surprise—and delight—Noah kept going.
“His name was Seamus. It might surprise you to hear that he was very Irish. He was deeply fond of his only son, but could not relate to him. I guess that’s a family tradition, because my father certainly couldn’t relate to me.
Not sure he can now, either. He’s a quiet man. He likes quiet things.”
“Because you’re often mistaken for a one-man marching band?”
Noah ignored that, though his dark eyes gleamed.
“He’s a professor at U-Dub. He teaches poetry.
He likes to read a lot, and it’s not that I don’t like to read, but I was always very athletic.
They sent me down here every summer because it was clear to everyone involved that I was basically a chip off my grandfather’s block.
My parents used to laugh about it.” He looked down at his plate, and she thought there was a hint of a smile there.
“They probably still do. It’s just that Granddad isn’t around anymore to make it worse by attempting to understand my father’s various works on Elizabethan poems.”
“Your parents are still alive?”
Noah nodded. “Alive and well. They come down here in the summer, usually, because they’re born and bred Pacific Northwesterners and they don’t like it when it gets too sunny up there.
My mother has been a dental hygienist for the same dentist, who’s my godfather, for as long as I can remember. They have a very happy life.”
Raemy leaned forward. “So did the Marines make you this moody? Or did you come out this way?”
Something that she was convinced must be laughter gleamed brightly, then. “I grew up in Seattle, Raemy. It’s dark and moody and besides, I’ve always had a certain reserve.”
Raemy found herself thinking of classic grunge music. Flannel shirts. She found herself wondering if he had tattoos. If so, of what?
“Did you like the Marines?” she asked instead. Because she couldn’t think of a reasonable segue into tattoos that wouldn’t make it clear that she was daydreaming about his body.
“That’s a complicated question.” Noah let that sit there, and she thought that probably meant he wasn’t going to answer it.
He reached out and poked at the label on the beer he’d ordered, but hadn’t touched yet, and she was shocked when he kept going.
“I’m sure your brother could have told you this.
It’s easy to be eighteen and idealistic when you sign up.
Even knowing the state of the world, it’s hard to give up on love of country.
Or an idea, more realistically, of what that country could become.
Most guys I know thought they were doing a good thing. ”
Raemy nodded. She knew that William had believed that. And she had to bite her tongue again to keep from interrupting him, because he looked like he wanted to keep talking.
“But then you throw that together with war, or conflicts, or whatever you want to call them. You mix it up with the decisions that you have to make, particularly as you climb in rank.” Noah lifted his gaze to hers again, and Raemy found she was holding her breath.
“I don’t know how to answer the question you asked.
But I’m proud of my service in the Marine Corps.
I’m proud that I left before it could become the only thing I am.
And I very much regret the things I couldn’t change when I was in. Does that answer the question?”
“I don’t know if it answers the question,” Raemy said honestly, when she wasn’t feeling quite so winded. “But it does tell me more about you. Which was the point.”
“I don’t…” he began. But he shook his head. “I keep waiting for you to understand what I’m trying to tell you, but I don’t think you want to.”
Raemy smiled at him, and yes, she noticed that he looked a little dazed when she did. So she made sure it was nice and wide. “I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear. I do understand what you’re trying to tell me, Noah. I just think you’re wrong.”
His gaze narrowed, but their meal started coming out then, and it was so good that it didn’t seem that either one of them could really concentrate on anything else.
“Is all the food in Oregon like this?” she asked, some while later.
After moaning in delight for a solid five minutes because her steak was cooked to perfection and the vegetables on her plate were so fresh and good that she felt like singing songs about them. She refrained, mostly because there were other people in the restaurant, and it would be rude.
Also because she couldn’t sing.
Noah was still looking dazed, possibly because of those moans, now that she thought about it, and she watched him swallow hard.
“People tend to take eating local pretty seriously,” he said, gruffly. Extra gruffly. “In Wild Rose Point, most of the people who work in food are pretty dedicated to making sure they know where it comes from. It makes a difference.”
“The food you made for me was to die for,” she told him. “I thought you were special, but now I see it’s a town-wide thing. How will I ever leave?”
And it was when he looked at her with alarm all over his face that the little joke that she was making kind of wormed its way deeper into her.
It wasn’t as if she had to leave. It wasn’t as if anyone was expecting her anywhere.
She couldn’t travel around the world forever, of course.
She wasn’t retired like her parents. But she’d been saving and saving for years now, so she had that money.
That meant she had some time to figure out what she wanted to do next.
Why not Wild Rose Point?
But she kept that to herself.
After dinner, they walked back outside. The cold had rolled in, the air was thick and damp, and all the streetlights seemed to have halos.
“It’s beautiful here,” Raemy said, with a happy sigh. “You’re lucky that you got to come here while growing up. My grandparents lived in Hannibal, Missouri, which has its charms. I do love a riverboat and you can’t beat Mark Twain. But it’s not really the same.”
“I feel like you haven’t gotten what you wanted to know,” Noah said, stiffly, standing there in the dark.
“I’m still getting what I want.” She looked up at him, and wondered if it was even possible for him to ever look at ease. “I told you inside. I want to get to know you, Noah. I think that’s what William would have wanted.” She shrugged. “And even if he didn’t, I do.”
“There are only so many ways that I can apologize,” he said, in that dark voice of his. “And that doesn’t even come close to what I owe you, your family—”
She moved closer, following that instinct again, and grabbed the closest thing that she could. Which, in this case, were his wrists.
“You didn’t do it,” she said. Maybe a little too fiercely, but she didn’t take it back.
“I can’t tell you not to regret calls you made that had bad outcomes, but this isn’t your fault.
If it’s your fault, it’s everyone’s fault, and where do we begin?
My brother wanted to be a Marine, just like you did.
He signed the same documents that you did.
I don’t know you very well, but I feel pretty certain that you wouldn’t like it if you did exactly what you’d signed up to do and had someone else running around after you did it, trying to take it back. ”
“That’s—” He shook his head. “That’s not at all—”
“You’ve built something beautiful here,” she went on, warming to the topic.
“That’s clear to see. All of those men look up to you, and it makes sense.
You’ve made this safe space for them. You’ve made it okay.
But the only person you don’t appear to give grace to is yourself.
And I don’t know how you can keep doing this, if you’re so busy beating yourself up that—”
“Raemy,” he gritted out, and suddenly his hands were on her upper arms, and his face was right there in front of hers. “So help me God, but you have to shut up.”
He said it like it hurt him.
And before she could respond, he kissed her.