Noah And The Stork

Janey brushed the hair from her daughter’s brow, carefully so as not to wake her, and covered her with an old knitted blanket. Better she have as many hours of peace as she could, Janey figured, easing out of the room and down the creaky staircase. Noah would have to come back tomorrow.

But when she got downstairs, he was already gone.

Chapter Two

Janey had been upstairs longer than she intended, but she’d expected Noah to hang around. Of course, he’d never had much staying power….

“I’m in here,” he called out.

And she’d become way too cynical, she realized as she followed his voice into the parlor. So he’d romanced her out of her virginity after their senior prom and then left town. All on the same night. So he’d ignored her attempts to tell him he had a child, then got angry with her when he found out by accident. Water under the bridge, all of it. She’d gotten herself through college, with the help of her parents, and even after she’d lost them, within months of each other, she’d made a life for herself and her daughter. There were times—okay, there were lots of times—when she’d wished there was a man around, not just to deal with a broken-down car or paint the porch, but because it would’ve been nice to share the emotional load once in a while. But she had friends, a whole town full of them, and she had Jessie.And if, every now and then, she woke in the night, unbelievably lonely, that was her choice, too.

There’d been opportunities over the years, but no one who’d…Hell, she might as well admit she compared every man she met to Noah. Or not to him, exactly, but to the way he’d made her feel all those years ago. Nothing since had even come close.

Until now. Noah was sitting in her father’s favorite armchair, suit jacket unbuttoned, tie loosened, his head back and his eyes closed. She’d seen her father sit just like that, countless evenings after countless days at his law office. A strong sense of rightness washed through her—which she had no trouble shaking off when their history flashed through her brain. Even if she still loved him, she’d be a fool to trust him again. And Janey Walters was nobody’s fool.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” she said.

He opened his eyes and stared at her long enough to make her antsy before he lifted a brow in inquiry.

“She’s sleeping.”

Noah felt every muscle in his body relax—well, not every muscle. He should be taking this unexpected reprieve as an opportunity to get his thoughts in order, but how could he with Janey prowling the room like that? He could understand the nerves that kept her on her feet, but when she reached up to straighten a picture, all he could think about was how incredible she was. Beautiful. Her face was more angular than he remembered, pared down by time and maturity so that her inner strength showed through. He’d always been a sucker for strong, self-sufficient women, and there was something about Janey, taking charge of her life in that ratty old bandanna and T-shirt. And the jeans…

He closed his eyes, hoping that if the denim was gone from his sight, he’d forget how it hugged her bottom and skimmed the swell of her hips. It didn’t work. Closing his eyes was like giving his imagination a blank canvas, and Janey Walters was a model who would’ve done any of the old masters proud. One look at her and he felt as if a freight train had slammed into his chest.

Or maybe that had more to do with finding out he had a daughter.

He opened his eyes again, caught her watching him, and nodded toward the chair across from his.

“I have paint all over me,” Janey said.

“It’s probably dry.”

She said a word under her breath that sounded suspiciously like damn, which, in light of what followed, made perfect sense. She started for the door, saying, “I left the paint open and the paintbrush is probably rock-hard by now.”

“It’s just a paintbrush, Janey.”

“It’s not just a paintbrush when—” She broke off, shook her head.

That hesitation was unlike Janey, at least the Janey he used to know. She’d always been so in-your-face, so unafraid to put her opinions and feelings out there and dare anybody to take issue with them. In Erskine that went beyond courage.

But she had someone else to think of now. What she said and did would reflect directly on Jessie, and if he knew Janey, she’d go well out of her way to avoid causing her daughter any unhappiness. Not that the old Janey wasn’t still in there somewhere. She might be more tightly controlled now, more guarded, but one look into his daughter’s eyes, and there was no question where she’d gotten that straightforward approach to life. Janey had raised her alone—and done a hell of a job. But then, Noah had never doubted Janey would be a great mom. She’d always known what she wanted. And he’d always been afraid he couldn’t give it to her. In the end, he hadn’t. He’d let her down just like everyone had expected him to—worse than they’d expected.

But she’d hadn’t exactly given him a chance to redeem himself.

“So, how much does Jessie know about me?” he asked.

“Not much.” Janey sank into a chair after all. “If anyone in this town heard from you in the last ten years, they didn’t mention it to me, and they wouldn’t bring it up to Jessie.”

“It’s no surprise that everyone rallied around you, Janey. This was always more your place than mine.”

“You cut the ties, Noah.”

“Dad was still alive and living here, then.”

“And you didn’t want anything to do with him, either. I get that. So do us both a favor and don’t try to make this whole thing my fault. Maybe I could’ve found a way to tell you sooner. If you’d bothered to call me ten years ago.”

He rested his head against the chair again and reminded himself that she was right: holding on to his anger over the past would only make the present situation more difficult. He’d learned that the hard way, not coming back for his father’s funeral because the man had never made room in his life for anyone but himself. Funny, Noah thought, how petty that kind of retribution felt after a decade had passed. Funny how you didn’t want it to happen again. “So tell me about her.”

“Her name is Jessica Marie Walters.”

That brought his attention back to Janey. “Walters?”

“Walters.”

It took him a minute, but he swallowed that, too. “What else?”

“If you call her Jessica, she won’t answer you. The rest I think you should find out on your own.”

“Come on, Janey, give me a break.”

“If I tell you everything, the two of you won’t have anything to talk about, and you were concerned about that.”

“Okay.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “Okay.”

“You should go.”

“Yeah.” Noah stood and rolled his shoulders, looking around the room as if the walls were hiding the answer to the strange way he was feeling. He tucked a hand in his pocket and jingled his car keys.

“I’ll call you tomorrow night. Where are you staying?”

“The Erskine Hotel, I guess.”

“The hotel is being fumigated. Termites.”

Not surprising for a town built almost entirely of wood that hadn’t seen the inside of a tree for a couple centuries. What surprised him was that any of the decrepit old buildings were still standing. But that wasn’t really the point.

The Tambour clock on the mantel chimed once for eight-thirty. Past closing time for a community that started its day before 6:00 a.m. The hotel was the only place in town that stayed open pretty much around the clock, and even then the dining room shut down by ten. “I’ll have to drive to Plains City before I can find a place to stay. That’s fifty miles.”

“Then maybe you’d better get started.”

“Can’t. I was almost out of gas when I saw you and decided to stop. I probably won’t make it twenty miles.”

“At least that would be twenty miles away from here,” Janey muttered. She refused to feel guilty. It wasn’t her fault he’d run his car nearly out of gas when he knew all too well that the streets of Erskine were rolled up promptly at 8:00 p.m. It was one of the reasons he’d been in such a rush to get out of town. She was the other reason.

“Is Max Devlin still around? Maybe I can impose on him for the night.”

“Yes. No! I mean, Max is still here. He came back after college, but you can’t bother him. He just got married.” To her best friend, who would insist on hearing the whole story and then dissecting it as if it were a science experiment. Janey loved Sara Devlin like a sister, but she had no intention of reliving the past. She’d done enough of that for one night, she thought, glancing over at Noah.

He was smiling. At her. That couldn’t be good.

“Then I guess I’ll have to stay here.”

“Uhhh…she said, waiting for her brain to come up with another objection. Eventually she had to close her mouth. She already felt stupid; she didn’t have to look it, too.

“What are you worried about?” he asked, easing back a step, his hands spread out, just as she’d seen every cop on every crime show do with every cornered criminal. Look at me, he was saying, I’m harmless.

Harmless, hah. The man was a walking weapon, from his to-die-for face to the tall, solid body that made her heart pound so hard she could imagine it jumping out of her chest and throwing itself at his feet, leaving behind a flat-haired corpse in paint-spattered clothes. The way he walked was enough to stall the air in her lungs so she could barely breathe, which was probably for the best since not breathing meant not smelling. She’d always been far too susceptible to a man who smelled really good, and Noah Bryant appeared to be a man who’d learned how to balance his cologne with just the right amount of, well, himself.

“You don’t worry me,” she said. No, she was worried about herself. “But you still have to leave.”

“C’mon, Janey, it doesn’t make sense—”

“You can’t stay here.”

“—for me to leave—”

“You can’t stay here.”

“—when I’ll just have to come back to talk to Jessie. Besides, where am I going to go?”

“You didn’t seem to have a problem figuring that out ten years ago.”

“I’m beat, Janey,” he said. “I promise it’ll only be for one night.”

She folded her arms and glared at him, trying to find it in herself to send him packing. But he really did seem to be exhausted, and if she kicked him out she’d only be up half the night worrying about him stranded in the middle of nowhere, sleeping in his car. If he didn’t fall asleep at the wheel and end up in a ditch filled with water, upside down with both his doors jammed shut and his seat belt stuck….

“One night.” She left the parlor and started up the stairs, adding over her shoulder, “Tomorrow you find somewhere else to stay.”

Noah took his time getting to the top, smiling benignly.

“I mean it.”

He pressed his lips together. His eyes were still sparkling at her, but without the grin she could pretend he was taking the whole thing seriously.

She opened the door to the first bedroom she came to and said, “You can sleep in here.”

“Do you mind if I have a shower?” he asked.

“Bathroom’s right next door.” Janey held her hand out, palm up.

He stared at it, clearly puzzled.

“Unless you plan to borrow my clothes, too, you’ll need your suitcase.”

“I’ll get it.”

“No way. Mrs. Halliwell is home by now. I don’t want her to see you walking into my house carrying a suitcase.”

“Won’t she wonder about my car?”

“I can explain that away. You, on the other hand…” She shook her head. “There’s no explaining you.”

“Does that mean she’s not used to seeing men come into your house at night and leave the next morning?”

“Men? That’s not a revolving door down there, you know.”

“Okay, man, singular. You don’t have a boyfriend who does sleepovers?”

“None of your business.”

“It is if he’s going to come storming in here to punch my lights out.”

Now there was a mental picture worth smiling about. “Maybe you should reconsider staying here.”

“I’ll chance it,” Noah said, “but I don’t want some dumb-as-a-post cowboy taking out his anger on my car.”

“Dumb because he’s a cowboy or dumb because he’s dating me?”

He gave her a once-over, a slow grin starting at his mouth and moving all the way to his eyes. “Okay, I take back the dumb part, but only if you’ll let me put my car in your garage.”

Janey would’ve let him do anything—just about—as long he stopped looking at her as if he wanted to repeat history. “Nobody will beat up your car.”

“I didn’t really think so,” he said, “but it’s supposed to rain tonight, so I’d still like to put it inside.”

“Why?”

“You’re kidding, right? Did you see it?”

“Yeah, it has four wheels, a couple of doors. I think it was red,” she added hopefully, but he just kept staring at her as though she’d let down the team. “What’s the big deal?”

“It’s a Porsche.”

“So? It’s not made of gold, is it?”

“It ought to be, considering what I paid for it.”

“Well. Your fancy ride will be bunking with a Beetle.”

Noah thought about it for a minute. “What year is it?”

“I’m not sure. Seventy-something, I think.”

He nodded in approval. “Vintage.”

Janey knew he was half kidding, but it was the half-truthful part that had her so bemused. She looked him up and down, shaking her head. “Expensive suit, expensive car and you probably have a prestigious address and a trophy blonde to go with it all.You got everything you wanted, didn’t you, Noah?”

He shrugged. Sure, he had all the status symbols, along with a nice fat bank account to support his fast-paced, exciting lifestyle. But it was funny how the simplest pleasures still mattered the most. “What I really want is a shower and a meal, both preferably hot,” he said. “And a bed. Any kind, but I like soft.”

“There’s hot water and a soft bed, but if you want to eat you’re getting leftovers,” Janey said, accepting his car keys when he held them out.

She was true to her word, too. Noah had just stepped out of the shower when he heard a knock. He cracked open the door and peeked out, but he could’ve saved himself the trouble of slinging a towel across his hips. His suitcase was sitting there; and the rest of the hallway was empty, but his disappointment lasted about as long as it took the cloud of shampoo-scented steam to evaporate. He threw his clothes on and let his nose lead him down the stairs and through the house, as if he were a cartoon character following a tantalizing aroma. “It looks like a kitchen but it smells like heaven.”

Janey swung around, startled. Her gaze dropped to his bare feet, skimmed the jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt and ended up on his wet, slicked-back hair. She turned away from him. “It’s chicken stew.”

“Like your mom used to make?” Noah sat down at the end of the table, where she’d laid out cutlery and bread and butter. In answer, she set a steaming bowl in front of him. He spooned some up and stuck it in his mouth, sucking in air to keep from burning his tongue. It tasted so good his eyes practically crossed in ecstasy. “God, that’s incredible,” he said. “Where is your mom, anyway? She move to Florida or something?”

Janey didn’t say anything for a minute, and Noah realized she was still standing behind him, so close he swore he felt the warmth of her breath on the nape of his neck. He would have smiled, if not for her response.

“Mom passed away not long after Dad,” she finally said, moving to sit at the other end of the table.

“I’m sorry, Janey. I didn’t know. I heard about your dad, of course. The obituary of a state representative, especially one who was so well-known and well-liked, makes the front page of all the papers.” Noah picked up his spoon again, stifling a pang of envy over how close Janey and her dad had been. “I’ll bet you miss him.”

“Every day. He was the best.” Janey propped her chin on her hand and watched him eat. “So, what kind of job pays for that fancy car?”

Noah froze with the spoon halfway to his mouth. “I’m, uh…sort of a scout,” he said, taking his time with the next bite of food. It was impolite to talk with your mouth full.

“If you came for the state championships, you’re too late.”

“Yeah, that’s what I heard. Is there any more?” he asked, handing her his empty bowl.

“Sure.” Janey got up, but when she turned around Noah was on his feet, as well.

“On second thought,” he said, “I’m really tired. If you don’t mind, I’ll just go to bed.”

He was gone so fast she’d just refilled his bowl when she heard the faint sound of his bedroom door closing.

She emptied the bowl back into the pan, shaking her head at her own stupidity. The man walked out of her life with no explanation and no goodbye, leaving her brokenhearted and pregnant, and here she was, giving him a place to stay, parking his car—making him a meal, for crying out loud. And he hadn’t even offered to do the dishes.

Yep, men were definitely pains in the neck, she thought, looking up at the ceiling in the general vicinity of his room. Except the ones who were a pain in the heart.

Chapter Three

Noah rolled over, ramming his big toe into the footboard for the…Well, it had happened so many times he’d lost count. It barely even hurt anymore. The bed was too short and too hard, but he wasn’t really sleeping, anyway.

He was reflecting—not something he normally indulged in. It was as if Erskine had a magnetic barrier at the edge of town that repelled common sense and logic and coherent thought of every kind. One minute he’d been innocently driving along, then wham! he’d crossed the city limits, and before he knew it he was standing in front of Janey’s house. He had no idea how he got from point A to point B—except that his brain didn’t have anything to do with it. And what insanity propelled him to get out of the car and walk up to her gate, just because he felt…

He felt. Seeing Janey again had brought back so many memories and emotions—more than he was prepared for—and he didn’t like it. This trip wasn’t about facing his past, surprising as that had turned out to be. It wasn’t about his future, either, at least not the future that might include getting to know a nine-year-old daughter. It was about the next move in his career. Forgetting that would be like dancing on a sea of ice. The first step might be okay, but sooner or later he’d wind up on his ass.

He could see exactly how it would go bad, too. First he’d get sidetracked by the fact that he had a daughter, and then Janey would start to look good—hell, who was he kidding, she’d looked good from the moment he’d laid eyes on her again. He’d already conned her into letting him spend the night. Next, he’d be taking deep, appreciative breaths of the fresh country air, snapping photos of the beautiful scenery and thinking this place wasn’t as bad as he remembered, that maybe he should think twice about why he’d come back here.

He thought, all right. He thought about the city where he belonged. At 11:00 p.m. his night was only beginning. Even after a long day of wheeling and dealing, he’d have gone out on the town, fuelled by caffeine and restlessness, and air polluted with enough chemicals to keep him on his feet two days after he was dead. And there’d be people, crowds of people to lose himself in, and loud music and the bottom of a scotch bottle to get to. No high-school sweetheart, no long-lost daughter, no sea of ice daring him to see how long he could keep his feet under him.

The problem was, he had to take that first step. Career destruction aside, he couldn’t just walk out the door now. And it amazed him.

Who’d have believed he could feel this instant and overwhelming…awe? He’d never even considered the possibility of marrying, or having children. There’d been any number of reasons—good reasons having to do with his dismal family history and his burning ambition. What hadn’t occurred to him was how it would feel, being a father. It wasn’t just a job; you didn’t go into it with a résumé or work experience, or anything, but complete and utter fear. And when you started out with a half-grown kid who was probably harboring resentment, on-the-job-training had a whole new meaning….

The long day and sleepless hours finally caught up with him, and when he opened his eyes again, they felt as if they were filled with about a pound of sand apiece, mixed with something roughly the consistency of school paste. He thought he saw Jessie. He blinked a couple of times, but the picture didn’t change. It was still Jessie, barely visible in the predawn light leaking in around the windowshades, wearing the same clothes as last night, jeans and T-shirt, both baggy on her spindly frame.

He’d avoided thinking of the conversation that was coming this morning. He wasn’t a man who worried and agonized, who rehearsed. He was a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants kind of guy. More often than not, he went with his gut. The problem was, his gut wasn’t up to this conversation at the moment, not without about a gallon of coffee in it.

He rolled over and closed his eyes.

She took it as an invitation.

“What are you doing here?”

Noah flopped onto his back, thought about pulling the pillow over his head, and settled for scrubbing his hands over his face. “The hotel is closed,” he said in a voice that probably should’ve scared her off. No such luck. “I didn’t have enough gas to get to Plains City.”

Silence. She stood there staring at him, unblinking. It would have been unnerving if he’d cared about anything but sleep.

“The gas station is open now,” she said the minute he closed his eyes again. “It opens at five, on account of the ranchers and farmers.”

He groaned and rolled over again, and then it hit him. He twisted around to squint at the clock on the nightstand. “Jeez, it’s not even six yet. Nobody in their right mind gets up this early—Oh, I forgot, this is Erskine. I’ve left normal behind.”

Jessie glowered in a way that reminded him of…himself.

“I wasn’t talking about you and your mom.”

“Why not? You left us behind, too.”

Noah let his eyes drift shut, but it had nothing to do with exhaustion this time. He still wanted to go back to sleep, badly, but it was impossible now.

He sat up, scooting back so he could lean against the head-board. “I haven’t seen a sunrise since Hell Farm,” he said, his private name for the hardscrabble farm his father had bought when Noah was ten and lost to the bank not long after he’d graduated from high school.

“You haven’t seen this one yet,” Jessie said. “What’s Hell Farm?”

“Forget I said that.”

“If you won’t explain it to me, I guess I shouldn’t bother asking you anything else.”

“Is that what you’re after? An explanation?”

She locked her hands behind her back and stared down at her toes, giving him a one-shoulder shrug.

Noah waited until she looked at him, then crossed his arms and let his eyebrows inch up.

Her cute little face was scrunched in a frown. “So, what’ve you got to say for yourself?”

He rubbed his jaw, mostly to hide the smile. He could just imagine Janey saying that whenever Jessie got into trouble—and if she was anything like her mother, she got into plenty of trouble. It was a sobering thought, considering the situation. “Well, first off, I didn’t know about you.”

“Mom said.”

“When I left town, it was just the two of us.”

“Didn’t you like her anymore? If you sleep with someone, you should like them. Or use a condom.”

If she’d wanted to shock him, she’d succeeded. His mouth was open, but nothing came out except a strangled sort of sigh.

“I learned that in school. In health class. Condoms prevent…some sort of diseases and unwanted pregnancies. That’s me, right?” She raised her chin and met his gaze head-on.

She was all but daring him to lie to her. Or maybe she was daring him to tell her the truth. “Um…Your mom—”

“Mom tells me all the time that she wouldn’t trade me for anything in the world, and I believe her. She never lies—or hardly ever, and then she always has a good reason.” Jessie frowned. “Even if she doesn’t say what it is.”