That got her brain churning. “Oh, really?”
“Yes. Particularly the widows and orphan charities.” A grimace twisted his features, and he looked away.
Her radar pinged. He wasn’t a widow and didn’t have kids. So, why single out that charity and not others. “Where were you last week?” she had no right to ask yet did because she needed to know.
Noah sighed, scrubbed a hand down his face, and turned away.
Well, that’s that. She reached for the door handle.
“In rehab with a friend.”
Her head snapped around. That was the last thing she expected out of his mouth. “You were in rehab?” How did she miss the signs? Easy, there weren’t any.
Noah shook his head. “Not me. Jim Brusco’s wife, Yvette.”
“Who?” Puzzled, she stared at him.
“Fresno’s wife,” he clarified.
“Oh.” That Jim. The Jim that died in the same battle with Kevin. “Sh-she’s in rehab?”
He nodded once. “She’s not doing well. Alcohol,” he supplied before she asked. “I told her I’d be there for her. Anytime. Anywhere. I keep my promises. I gave my word, and I meant it.”
What could she say after such a heartfelt statement? Nothing. That’s what. However, one thing became crystal clear. Yvette and Kensley, they were in the same boat, each holding an oar. He made a promise, not just to Jim, but to Kevin also. How did she know this? Noah was just that kind of guy. No way would he promise one and not the other.
Kensley was a promise kept. Nothing more than a penance. Pretty sure Kevin didn’t ask Noah to fuck his sister, but hey, she didn’t beat him off with a bat, did she? That would be a big fat nope.
She opened the car and slid out, her feet dangling for a good minute before they touched the ground. She found her footing and carefully tip-toed her way across her icy driveway. Uh Oh! She slipped one way and then the other in a see-saw kind of motion as her balance teetered back and forth.
Next thing she knew, she was back in his arms. The thin blanket didn’t protect her from his brawny muscles, caging her, causing the protest to die on his lips when he pulled her closer. Her arms circled his neck. His head lowered until his chin brushed her cheek. Why did this feel right?
Her father’s Mercedes-Benz G Class SUV rolled to a stopped in front of her house. The cost of the car could’ve paid for an ivy league education.
Whatever moment they almost had evaporated. “Put me down,” she hissed and wiggled in Noah’s arms, ignoring all his muscles warming her.
He tightened his hold. “No. You’re either gonna break an ankle or your neck in those ridiculous heels.”
She didn’t mind breaking both if it kept her father from seeing her like this: Noah carrying her like a bride over the threshold while she was wrapped in a prison blanket and dressed like a hooker. This had to be the worst walk of shame ever. And on top of that, she hadn’t spoken to him since Kevin’s funeral, a funeral he skipped. The bastard.
They had never been close. He didn’t fight for her after her mother’s death. He chose to move on and let her maternal grandmother raise her while he played the field. It wasn’t long before he had a new wife. No new kids, but the grapevine whispered of reproductive issues.
He sued for custody when he decided to run for city council. By then, she wanted nothing to do with him. The family court judge listened to her wishes but reaffirmed his rights, rights he had for years but ignored. Rights he used to plaster her image on campaign ads. Young and happy for the attention, Kensley didn’t know any better until she saw the hurt on her brother’s face from being excluded.
“Down now,” she ordered.
Finally, Noah allowed her to stand. Hand fisting the blanket, she balanced on the heels, secretly glad Noah hadn’t gone anywhere. He was right next to her, his solid form giving her much needed stability, emotionally and physically.
“Can I help you with something?” she asked when her father was in shouting distance.
Leave it to her father to march right up to her in his Ferragamo boots and cashmere coat and not take the hint she wanted nothing to do with him. His gaze darted between Kensley and Noah and settled on the latter. “Noah Kirby, right?”
Noah extended his hand. “Yes, sir.” He snapped out a reply sounding like a marine.
Her father shook Noah’s hand and turned into The Mayor. All traces of the furious father replaced with the politician greeting a semi-famous constituent. “How are you doing, son?”
“Fine, sir.”
“You seemed to have settled back into Sessory Corners.”
Question? Statement? Which one was it? Kensley couldn’t tell, and judging by Noah’s confused, “Um, yes, sir,” reply, neither could he.
“I’m glad I ran into you. Saves me the trouble of driving all the way out to your property on the lake. Glad someone finally bought the house. All the notoriety wasn’t good for the town,” he tacked on quite randomly, a well-practiced fake as lipstick on a pig’s ass, chuckle.
“I bought the guest house, not the mansion. It was a little out of my price range,” Noah clarified.
“Yes, yes. I remember when they split the property, hoping it would be easier to sell. It worked.” The mayor plastered his patented politician smile on his face.
Enough with the schmoozing. “What do you want, Mayor?” she refused to call him dad whenever the Mayor showed up. Dad was the person who read her a story every night until the divorce, then every other weekend. Dad was the one who came to her recitals until mom started dating again.
Once she had Kevin, Dad stopped showing up altogether. Then he became councilman Jacobs and eighteen years later, the mayor. With no term limits, it was the job he held for the past eleven years. But an election was coming up, and change scented the wind. He did not have her vote.
“Founder’s day is next week, and I’m honoring all the soldiers in town—”
“As you do every year.” To gain the military vote.
“And there is none better to start with than the latest returning hero.” The mayor continued, completely ignoring her. “I’m thinking you can be part of the parade, have a place on the town float, and give a small speech on the steps of city hall where you get the key to the city.”
What about Kevin and all the soldiers who didn’t make it home? No. Fuck that. WHAT ABOUT KEVIN!
“I know this seems a bit last moment, but my office did try to contact you.” The mayor grinned.
Gaze bouncing between both of them, Noah cleared his throat. “I appreciate that, sir, but…you didn’t come all the way here to talk to me.”
Finally, the mayor’s gaze dropped several inches to his daughter. She waved instead of giving him the finger. Remember me. The wide, plenty of teeth, politician smile, vanished from his face. “Arrested in a brawl, in a bar. That’s what greets me on the morning news. The daughter I raised is arrested.”
“You didn’t rai—” she started only to have Noah interrupt.
“She was protecting me. Don’t blame her. It’s my fault, and I’ve already owned up to it. I’ll make sure the charges are dropped.”
To hell with this. Kensley made a three-point turn in her damn heels and twisted her ankle. Good thing Noah was there to scoop her back into his arms before she tumbled into a snowdrift. How freaking embarrassing. The time for arguing and pride was over. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hung on without further complaint. She even opened the front door for him and ignored the bride carried over the threshold feeling in the pit of her stomach. She was no one’s bride.
Only when they reached the living room did he let her slide down his hard body. Her breath caught as all of her, thighs, hips, breasts, made contact as he set her on her feet.
“Thanks,” she murmured, wishing they were alone.
“This place is still a dump.” Lip curled in disgust, the mayor stood in the middle of the room, glaring at his surroundings.
It wasn’t anything she hadn’t heard before,
or herself thought, yet it still hurt. Her father thought the place she resided in for the majority of her life was a dump, and he did nothing about it. Kensley kicked off her heels and said, “Get out. I don’t want you here.”
The mayor folded his arms. He didn’t want to be here either. “Your reputation is ruined.”
“Does that mean I can’t go to the prom, Daddy?” she snorted, pissed at herself for the slip. “My reputation is my business. Not yours. Now leave.”
The mayor threw up his arms in frustration. “I’m concerned about you, Kensley, as any father would be.”
Puh-leeze! “You’re concerned about your election. I’m an afterthought you trot out every time you run for office.” The first time she was there, right by his side, wearing a campaign hat. Mending fences and building bridges, fixing their relationship was how she conned herself into forgiving the neglect. To hell with doing that shit ever again. “Well, not this time.”
“That is not true!” he snapped, his face florid as his finger punctuated each word.
“It damn well is, and everyone knows it. Even you. Too late for father of the year, Mayor Jacobs.”
He shook his head, all pained and full of concern. All bullshit. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Kensley. I’ve done nothing but try to be a good, respectable father to you.”
When one thinks about their parents, respectable doesn’t come to mind. They were loving, caring, supportive. Did they nurture your dreams, your mind, your soul? Did they do the best they could and then go the extra ten miles because they loved you? All that and more comes to mind when thinking about a parent, and none of it applied to her father.
He was laying it on thick, probably for Noah’s benefit. Why? She had no idea and didn’t care. She had to get to the clinic and save her job. Maybe, she’d get lucky, and Dr. Fitzroy hadn’t seen the news.
“Kensley!” The mayor didn’t like being ignored. So, she continued to ignore him.
He scrubbed a tired hand down his face. Exasperation and defeat had his shoulders slumped and new gray hair sprouting on his thinning head. “I can talk to the sheriff about dropping charges, but he’ll use it against me in the election. He’s supporting the challenger even though no one has thrown their hat into the ring.”
Once again, it was all about him. So much for his fatherly concern, not that she wanted it. She got into this mess and she’d get out of it…somehow. “Leave. I don’t want you in my home.”
“Kensley,” said full of exasperation.
“Don’t make me dial 911. Hard to explain to the constituents why you were handcuffed and dragged out of your daughter’s crappy home. Imagine the headline: father and daughter arrested. Details at six.”
The mayor threw up his hands and headed for the front door leaving her and Noah. She waited for the door to close then turned to Noah. She had to know. “Interested in his Founder’s Day offer?”
Noah shrugged. “Gotta think about it, hear his proposal, then decide.”
It was a logical answer. One she would’ve given if she were in his position. She wasn’t in Noah’s position, and right now, Kensley was anything but logical.
“Unfortunately, Founder’s Day is also my birthday and Kevin’s. Weird coincidence, we shared the same birthday, six years apart. So, while the town is celebrating, I’ll be at the cemetery.”
Pain flooded his eyes. “Damn. I’m sorry, Kensley.” His voice gruff.
She didn’t want his damn apology. “Do you understand what’s really going on here?”
He opened his mouth to give some stupid answer, and she cut him off.
“No! You don’t understand though you’ve got to have a clue. You were raised in this town just like me. Just like Kevin.”
Expression grim. “What are you talking about?”
It wasn’t a secret, so how could he not know when the entire town knew. That didn’t make it easy to share her family drama. She pointed at her chest. “Kensley Jacobs.” She pointed at Kevin’s picture. “Kevin Nevell. Two different last names. Two different fathers. My mother broke my father’s heart. She left him, got pregnant with Kevin, got on drugs,” a swell of emotions clogged her throat. So many memories, good and bad. “and died of an overdose in the garage.” She hooked a thumb behind her toward the garage door. “I was sixteen. Kevin ten.” The shock on his face satisfied her on so many levels.
“I didn’t know. Hadn’t heard. I mean… I never paid attention to any of that shit.”
That wasn’t hard to imagine. “This town is good at keeping secrets when it chooses too.” She came home, and her mother was gone. Just gone. That wasn’t the hard part. That came when she had to tell Kevin.
I’m not gonna cry. I’m not! She gritted her teeth and willed the tears away.
“Kensley, I—”
She silenced him with a shake of her hand and a slash to her throat. Save it. “You expect me to ignore my brother’s day, on the day of our shared birthday, while you celebrate Founder’s Day. Is that what you’re really asking me to do? I’m supposed to celebrate everyone else—the town, the people, the vets—and ignore my dead brother who made the ultimate sacrifice for his country? All because of my sperm donor’s ego?” Her fists clenched, desperate to pummel something.
Instead, she spun, stalked to her front door, and yanked it open. Focused on a distant point over his left shoulder, she refused to meet his eyes as he approached. His steps slowed, and he paused in front of her. It took everything she had not to look at him. Everything she had.
“I’m not the enemy, Kensley.”
“You’re not a friend either.” Don’t look at him. If she did, all her resolve might crumble.
“Okay,” he sighed. “You know where to find me when you realize I am a friend.”
But he wasn’t. Not if he let her father use him. She slammed the door closed the second his ass cleared the threshold.
Seventeen
“I’m disappointed in you.”
Four words. Her grandmother had said them only once to Kensley when she caught her smoking weed behind the church. That was enough to cure her budding rebellious streak. Until last night. The bail was bad enough. Plus, the threat to her livelihood with the possible loss of her RN license. Standing in front of Dr. Fitzroy explaining how she missed opening the clinic because she ended up in jail, well, that was extra sauce on her shit of a day.
“I understand, sir, and I am sorry. It was a crazy night.” She thought about the bar, the fight, and Noah. Regardless of how hard she tried not to, she kept thinking about Noah. “And I really was defending someone innocent.”
He nodded and patted her hand. “I know you’re a good person, Kensley. Judge not lest ye be judged, yet here I am doing exactly that.” He shook his head and came around from behind his desk. “Whatever happened in The Watering Hole, I’m sure you had a good reason for your actions. I’ll speak to the sheriff. He did ask me for an endorsement. Maybe there’s something I can do. Don’t worry. Everything will work out, and you’ll put this behind you.
“Now, since Louann is here, working your shift, I need you to check on a few patients. Mrs. Hammon hasn’t come in since she injured her foot. She’s a diabetic. So, I want to make sure she’s healing properly. Ms. Brill has the flu with a broken leg. She’s single, no kids. I prescribed her some Tamiflu, but she can’t get out to pick it up. I’ll speak to Edward at the pharmacy, so he’ll be expecting you. Also, take Mr. Williams’ his meds. It’ll save me the journey tonight.” He pointed to the bag of meds on the shelf next to his desk. “I’d do all of this myself, but the school board is expecting me. I’ve been asked to review their emergency medical procedures.”
“Yes, sir. It would be my pleasure.” She took the bag, grabbed the medical to-go bag the clinic kept stocked, grabbed her coat, hat, and scarf, and waved at Louann as she exited. It didn’t take her long with the morning rush hour traffic ebbing to make it to her first stop. Mrs. Hammon, a long-time diabetic, who wasn’t very particular about taking her me
ds. She sprained her ankle on the ice. For a non-diabetic, other than the discomfort, a sprain wouldn’t be a problem. With Mrs. Hammon’s condition, her obesity, and lack of mobility, a simple injury could turn into an amputation.
Kensley spent an hour treating and chatting with her, and then popped into the pharmacy for the Tamiflu. Ms. Brill was dangerously dehydrated. Kensley called an ambulance for her and rode to the hospital where they met Dr. Fitzroy. He stayed, Kensley returned to the clinic to help Louann and didn’t get to Mr. Williams until late afternoon.
She parked on the street, in front of his little cottage just off the marina. It was a cute little two-bedroom classic lakeside cottage. It needed more than a paint job but was salvageable. She walked up to the porch devoid of any plants or decoration except for one empty hanging planter and rang the bell.
And waited. A few more rings, a couple of hard knocks to the front door, and she realized he wasn’t there. Where could a wheelchair-bound double amputee go in a small town, in the winter? Not many places. The bingo hall. The VFW was a popular spot with veterans, Fill ‘Em Up was a coffee shop allowed to stay open because it didn’t serve liquor and was down the block from the police station. Free Wi-Fi made it extremely popular. Then, there were the bars. Searching for the man could take hours, but she’d do it to stay in Dr. Fitzroy’s good graces.
Voices drifted from the marina, unusual for this time of year. She headed that way, down the gangplank and through the unlocked gate.
The lake didn’t freeze, but who wanted to be on it in January. It was beautiful in the summer when filled with skiers and swimmers, the water indigo. The picnic area was on the left bank with a rocky beach only the locals liked with hiking trails into the hills. A great place in the summer.
Not so much in the winter.
That’s why she was amazed to find Mr. Williams’ empty wheelchair tucked to the side of the marina and the old man sitting pretty on the deck of an inboard motorboat. A nice one at that.
With Noah at the helm.
Not surprising since they’d seen each other only eighteen hours ago. How hard could it be to avoid one man?
If I Love You Page 13
