Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“How’s the hand?” Noah nodded in the direction of her bandage.
Oh, boy. They were diving right in.
She looked down at it. She had meant to change it before coming over. He probably thought she was a complete fool. “Feeling a lot better today. Thanks, uh, for everything.”
He nodded and turned to look over his shoulder at the tiger enclosure.
“Huck looks good today,” she said, already incapable of standing in silence. Where were all the patrons? Did she need to whip out a cotton candy machine? Oh, actually not a bad idea. She made a mental note to bring food trucks up to Gloria again.
“He’s really starting to put weight on,” she added when Noah said nothing.
Noah grunted. But not an unfriendly sounding grunt. She was starting to learn how to decode his nonverbal communication.
Shit. She’d already burned through all her small talk.
The rejected kiss stood between them like a gaping hole, sucking every other topic of conversation into it. Did she bring it up? Or did she take Lyra’s advice and pretend it never happened?
It was safer to thank him for the work he did in the office.
“Thank you so much for unboxing those exam tables in the office, by the way. And the whiteboard paint looks awesome. You didn’t have to do that.”
He shrugged. “I had some time.”
“Did you?”
He graced her with a small smile, then stared down the gravel road. Footsteps approached, and a family of four appeared.
“Evening, folks,” Noah said. “Good to see you back again.”
Oh, thank god. Patrons. Was that the politest he’d ever been to anyone?
“Hey, Noah,” the dad of the group called.
Two kids ran—and toddled—ahead of their tired-looking parents. They went straight up to the fence and peered through the chain-link enclosure wall.
“Boys are getting big,” Noah said to the adults.
“I know. James is on a personal mission to outgrow all of his new clothes before kindergarten starts. And Jayden got his head stuck in a chair yesterday.”
“Again?”
The mother nodded. “The fire department said they’ll have to start charging us.”
“Where’s the new tiger?” the older of the two boys, who must have been James, interrupted.
“Oh, Huck? He’s laying right back there. See him?” Noah pointed toward the back of the enclosure.
James craned his neck. “I can’t see him. The grass is too high.”
“It’s hard to see because of their stripes. They act as camouflage. Mind if I…?” Noah gestured to the kids.
“Please,” the dad said. “I blew out my back just standing in an elevator at work yesterday.”
Noah hoisted both boys, one in each arm. “See?”
A tingle ran through Cassie’s body.
James gasped. Jayden, who was barely walking, slapped Noah in the chest. “Raa,” he said.
“That’s right,” Noah said in a voice that was way gentler than anything Cassie had witnessed before. “Tiger says ‘rawr.’”
The rumble of his deep voice shot her straight in the ovaries. Focus. Platonic.
“What does he eat?” James asked.
“You should ask Dr. Cassie here,” Noah said. “She makes his meal plan.”
The boys turned to look at her with wide eyes.
“Well,” she began, “it’s a little different for tigers in captivity. That’s what we call it when they live in a zoo.”
Jayden peered around Noah, staring intently at Cassie as she talked.
“In the wild, they eat about one big prey a week and take a break for a few days,” she said. “But here at the sanctuary, they eat five times a week, and at least fifty pounds a week. That’s like two hundred cheeseburgers.”
“Whoa,” James said. “Mom, can we have two hundred cheeseburgers for dinner? I want to eat like a tiger.”
“Sure, buddy,” the mom said.
Jayden grunted. Probably imitating Noah. He held his arms out and stretched toward Cassie.
She almost instinctively reached for him but stopped herself.
“Oh, honey. Your parents probably don’t want some strange tiger lady holding you.”
“Hold him. Take him home,” the mom said. “Just don’t let him near any chairs.”
Noah passed the toddler off to Cassie. He was warm and solid, with a big head and beautiful blue eyes. He smelled like sunshine and Play-Doh.
Her heart broke a little.
Jayden pointed at the tiger. “Raa.”
“Raa,” Cassie confirmed.
James turned back to the enclosure. “Why does Huck have to live in a cage?”
Noah paused. “Tigers like Huck grew up in zoos. That means they don’t know how to hunt, and they wouldn’t be able to eat if they were returned to the wild.
So we give them a place to live, and they give us an opportunity to teach everyone about them.
And how important it is to never own an exotic animal as a pet. ”
James squinted. “Our doggie door definitely isn’t big enough.”
The dad clapped his hands. “All right, boys. Let’s go visit Thor before we head home. If we’re late for dinner, Daisy will shatter the butter dish again.”
Cassie handed Jayden back to his mother, who shot her a smile.
“Thank you. I’m Mallory, by the way.”
“Cassie. You guys come here often?”
“At least once a week. James loves the animals. And Jayden likes to try to eat the deer food.”
Cassie snorted. “Sorry. We’ll see you guys next week, then.”
James took his dad by the hand and dragged him down the road. The dad turned around. “Hey. Are you joining the intramural team in the fall?”
Noah shook his head. “I got banned from the league after I accidentally gave Chad a concussion.”
“Oh, man. I forgot about that. All right, see you later.” He waved, and the family disappeared around the corner.
“You gave someone a concussion?”
“His face got in the way of my volleyball. He should have better instincts.”
Before she could stop herself, her gaze dipped down to take Noah in. The thought of him in tight volleyball shorts was not helping her plan to keep things platonic.
Did he notice? She turned her body away from him, silently begging for another family to come by.
Holding Jayden had put a peculiar ache in her heart. She needed a distraction.
She perked up at noise on the gravel path, but the group took the path toward the bears instead. Damn it.
“I think I found a clue to my biological father’s identity,” she announced abruptly.
Nice. Subtle.
Noah looked at her. “I didn’t know you didn’t know who he was.”
“He wasn’t on my birth certificate. But I think I found his initials carved under my bio mom’s old desk. M.D.”
Noah frowned. “I don’t want to burst your bubble, but I think Andi and Lyra’s dad’s name was Matt. Matt Dunkle, maybe. My mom talked about him a few times.”
“Damn it.” She kicked a rock down the path. So much for that. “Why isn’t their last name Dunkle, then?”
“He never contacted them again after the divorce. I think they changed them in solidarity when they turned eighteen. Are you sure you don’t have the same father?” Noah asked.
Cassie shook her head. “Lyra said they met while our mom was living in Baltimore. It must have been post-me.”
The initials were a dead end. But maybe the journals held a clue.
“You should ask Tina. She’s basically the Lady Whistledown of Aster Hollow,” Noah said.
She looked at him in bewilderment. “You watched Bridgerton?”
“Read them. Izzy’s mom accidentally left the first book at my house. It was a long winter,” Noah said.
Huh. Another layer of the Noah onion.
He took a swig out of his water bottle.
Ah. Water. That would give her something to do with her hands. She bent over and struggled with the cooler lid. Why wouldn’t it open? Great, now she was being awkward.
Noah appeared next to her.
“Here. It sticks.” His forearm brushed against hers as he tugged the top off.
If only he would tug something else off. He smelled like cedar shavings and sunscreen. Why did that light a fire in her pants?
“Thanks.” Unnerved by his sudden proximity, she side-stepped a couple feet away under the guise of stretching and checking on Huck.
Minus some intermittent animal noises and the incessant droning of cicadas, silence settled between them.
A couple more families passed through, none so animated as the first. The questions were minimal and most centered around which tigers were the biggest in the world.
She glanced at her watch. Only twenty minutes till closing. She just had to not embarrass herself a little longer.
You don’t need to fill the silence, she instructed herself.
Noah caught her eye and raised an eyebrow as he took another drink of water. Was he doing this on purpose?
“All right,” she said in a rush. “Are we going to talk about it?”
“Talk about what? This heat is killing me.” He lifted the end of his shirt and flapped it, probably trying to stir a breeze.
The view of his abs was not helping her willpower.
“I need to apologize for what happened last night. I was super emotional and drunk and I was obviously misreading signals. The older I get, the more I’m learning I can’t trust my own judgment.”
The silence stretched for what felt like a millennium. Noah turned to look at the deer in the pen across the trail. He seemed at war with himself—his lips pressed together, and his arms were crossed tightly across his chest.
“You weren’t misreading anything,” he finally said. He didn’t make eye contact, but the weight of his words pressed against her.
What the hell did that mean?
“Oh. So you rejecting me was just a…test of willpower?”
“You were drunk. It wouldn’t have been right.”
“Oh,” she said again. Consent was sexy.
Where did this leave them?
“That’s good to know,” she said. “I appreciate the clarification. It’s probably a good thing nothing happened. It would have made things…complicated.”
She searched his face for an opinion, but he was as transparent as a hunk of granite.
“I’m gonna take a lap,” Noah announced, easing away from the fence. “Make sure nobody’s harassing the coyotes.”
“Okay,” she said, simultaneously relieved and annoyed when he walked away. That conversation had not provided much clarity.
“Stop it,” she muttered to herself, closing her hands into fists. There were a million reasons why she didn’t need to get involved with her neighbor/landlord. But how was she supposed to ignore this attraction? It was as obvious as someone screaming at the top of their lungs in a library.