“Well, don’t work too late. Your school work is important.” Abby gave her a smile and headed off to her room. She lay in bed with waves of conflicting emotions rolling through her stomach. It felt like her dinner was doing somersaults in her abdomen and it was a long time before she could fall asleep.
Abby didn’t see Noah again for two full days. Her texts to him went unanswered for the first day but he finally replied late the second night to say he’d been on a callout to pick up an injured hiker. He joined the group for breakfast the next day at Abby’s request. She greeted him with a genuine ear to ear grin. She found she’d missed his cheerful face around the canteen, even with Jed’s company. Jed could be just a bit much sometimes. Noah was much more relaxing to be around.
“So what do you do?” Jed asked Noah over his plate of scrambled eggs.
“I fly a rescue chopper,” Noah replied shortly.
“Is that in your spare time?” Jed asked. “Surely that’s not a full-time job.”
Noah looked pained as he answered. “I guess you would call it part-time. I’m on call a lot. But I get a lot of time off which I enjoy.”
“I always felt that time off work was wasted time, myself,” Jed replied, buttering his toast. “I feel a calling for my work, and if I’m not working, I feel that my potential is being wasted.”
“The chopper flying helps with the girls,” Noah replied coolly. At his side Myra elbowed him in the ribs but he kept going. “Ladies love the chopper.”
“I’ve always found that women I meet are impressed with the depth of my conversation and my qualifications,” Jed responded. “Of course, we probably would be interested in a different caliber of woman.”
Noah looked pissed. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, just the women I tend to attract are university educated and have a certain amount of class. You don’t strike me as the academic type.” He eyed Noah’s tattoos and long hair pointedly. “I imagine the women you take up in your chopper would not be ones with whom I would be interested in conversing.”
“University-educated women have been known to beg me for a chopper ride,” Noah replied, his voice challenging.
Abby felt her shoulders tense. They weren’t going to do this surely. She knew that Noah had gone to college for one semester and left to learn to fly helicopters. It wasn’t something he was embarrassed about with her, but coming from Jed, it seemed to strike a nerve. She suddenly felt a wave of horror that Noah might blurt out to Jed their night spent together. She didn’t want Jed thinking she was one of those women who was impressed by the wild hair and tattoos and the helicopter.
Even if she really did love those tats...
Myra swooped in to save the day, hurriedly picking up everyone’s dishes and taking them up to the kitchen with a call that it was time to get to work. Mia was back again in the kitchen, as she was covering for one of the kitchen hands. She gave Abby a little wave as Abby hurried off after Noah, who had stalked out of the room as soon as Myra had picked up his plate.
“Noah,” she called after him. “Noah. Noah!”
He finally turned around, his face black.
“What was that all about? Back there in the canteen?”
“What?”
“You and Jed and your stupid dick-swinging competition, that’s what. I don’t know what you are playing at, but you need to pull your head in. You can’t talk to Jed like that. He’s my boss, for God’s sake.”
Noah shrugged his shoulders defensively. “He was behaving like a dick. He just gets to me.”
“Well then, don’t let him. He’s an okay guy most of the time. I don’t know what your problem is.”
“My problem?” His voice rose the slightest notch. “What your problem is, you mean. I’ve seen you fawning all over him.”
Abby spluttered. “I don’t fawn over him. Or anyone.”
“Yes, you do. You hang on his every word, and I have no idea why because he’s a complete douchebag.”
“He is not. In fact, he is one of my friends, and he’s looked after me all through college.”
“I bet he has. How many other students does he look after like you?”
Julia. The name ran through her head, but she pushed it out. “And, for your information, I need to get on with him because I need a good reference after college from him. My career depends on him.”
“You’d lower yourself to fall all over someone like Jed,” he practically spat his name, “for your career?”
“It’s none of your business who I am friends with,” she replied coldly.
“No, you’re right. I had thought for a while that it was a little bit of my business, but I was wrong obviously. My mistake.” And with that he spun on his heel and was gone.
The sadness she felt at arguing with Noah was only slightly made better by working with Jed. The next few days passed with a different pace than when she was spending time with Noah. Late nights and sleep-ins were replaced with early nights and early mornings, a breakfast on the run before returning to the lab, and working all day.
She was beginning to miss the outdoors after a few days of not venturing outside much at all. But constant reminders from her parents and from Jed kept her focused on her task. Jed seemed pleased to see her so focused on her research and commented often on how good it was that Noah wasn’t around to distract her. Abby would quietly nod, not a full agreement really but more to keep the peace with Jed.
A few days into her studious life she realized she had hardly seen Myra at all the past few days. She’d be just leaving the breakfast hall when Abby and Jed would enter, or just entering when they were leaving, and always seemed to have dinner before or after them. Abby was beginning to think Myra was avoiding her, so she made the effort to track her down one morning when she hadn’t been seen at breakfast.
“Myra, I haven’t seen you in days. How are you?” she chirped, her voice full of only slightly fake enthusiasm.
Myra looked her up and down and replied with a tight-lipped smile. “I’ve been quite busy. How are things going with you and Jed?”
“Really good, I’m getting so much more work done than I had been when I first arrived. I feel like I’m being very productive.”
“Mmm-hmm,” came the reply. “And are you making time for yourself? We’d only just convinced you to start having some fun with your life before that man swoops back in and takes all the fun out of your day again.” Her voice raked with disapproval.
“No Myra, it’s not like that at all,” Abby said. “Jed is very—focused—but I am still having fun. I have fun working.”
“Have you seen Noah recently?”
“Uh, no, we kinda had an argument.” Abby’s faced dropped. “A few days ago. He hasn’t been back since then.”
Myra patted her arm. “Maybe you should reach out to him. Abby. He was always the one making the effort to come and get you.”
He had been. Abby thought back to all the times she had spent with Noah. He had been the one to suggest activities every time, the one who turned up at every meal to see her. She hadn’t thought of this before now.
Myra must have seen the realization dawn on her face. “It’s none of my business which men you spend time with of course, but I think Noah has been good for you and I’ll be sad to not see him around as much if you decide that having fun isn’t going to be allowed in your life.”
And with that Myra strode off.
Abby returned to her lab with Jed to spend another day with her head over a microscope.
One afternoon, a few days later, she walked into the lab to see Jed on the phone, facing the small window and with his back to her. She thought she heard the words “You too, baby,” before Jed heard her footsteps and swung around, saying a hasty goodbye. He made a face at her afterwards. “Sorry about that. She’s been calling at all hours of the day. She wants me to come back. She doesn’t understand that I have so much work to do here.”
“There’s not that much left to go, and I can manage
fine by myself now. You could head back anytime.” Abby turned to her work, the loving words that he had directed at Julia still stinging. She had long ago decided that she wouldn’t be one to break up a marriage and had moved on. He wanted to do right by Julia, and even if her heart felt a little bruised at times, she wouldn’t ever want to be responsible for Julia ending up alone with a baby.
It was a hard choice to make as all she wanted to do was pour her anger out to Jed and demand to know why he had waited until it was too late before telling her she was special to him. But she kept quiet, and stoically worked with him and pretended that she wasn’t upset whenever the subject of marriage, babies or Julia came up.
Since she had made this resolve though, she had noticed she missed Noah even more. She wanted to bump into him to have the chance to say she was sorry, but he seemed to avoid her. She had seen him occasionally hurrying to and fro from the hospital. She assumed he had been working a lot and that’s why he hadn’t been around much until one morning Myra, John, Aaron and Adam woke up more bleary-eyed than usual and let slip over breakfast they had gone to a concert with Noah the night before. Noah and a young female tourist. Adam had even missed his morning run, stating he had been too hungover. Aaron had lost his cell phone somewhere in the tipsy excitement of the night out. Abby felt a stab of something in her stomach.
“Good thing you didn’t go,” Jed remarked jovially. He patted her thigh. She felt like a dog that was being rewarded for sitting still for its owner. “They don’t look as though they’ll be very productive today.”
“Yeah, good thing, sure,” she replied glumly, pushing her toast away, suddenly not hungry. She shifted her legs slightly further from Jed. His touch, which used to send tingles up her spine, made her skin crawl today. She didn’t want to be sitting next to him at breakfast today. She wanted to be sitting next to Noah.
Myra noticed Abby’s off mood and whispered to her as they cleared the table, “She was just a friend of Noah’s, that’s all. And you’re much prettier anyway.”
It was silly, but that comment lifted her spirits slightly and she gave Myra a thankful smile, before trailing behind Jed back to the labs.
At lunch she walked into the canteen with her shoulders slumped. She didn’t feel like company and would have preferred to stay in the labs until later to minimize any interaction with others today. But as she walked through the canteen doors, she came face-to-face with none other than Noah. Well, face-to-chest more like. She had nearly walked into him. She lifted her gaze up to his face. He had bags under his eyes.
“Hi,” he muttered, stepping to the side to let her pass. He smelled like sweat and booze and was obviously aware of this, not holding her eyes for long and instead looking down at the ground sheepishly.
“Late night was it?” she snarled. She couldn’t help herself. She wanted him to feel bad for not asking her to come with the group. For not asking her to come with him.
“Yeah, barely slept. It was great, haven’t been out partying like that in far too long. Just came to drop Adam’s phone off.”
The dig hurt. Abby wasn’t much of a party-goer—never had been—and even with Noah’s recent pushes into more socializing she never would be one of those people who could stay out all night drinking and socializing. It just wasn’t her. But it was Noah. And she had known this when she first met him. She wasn’t surprised to know that he was partying with tourists again. After all, she had just been another female visitor to this town that he had taken an interest in. “I’m so glad you are back into picking up tourists and staying out all night.”
“Yeah, well, so am I. It’s fun. More fun than sitting in a lab all day with some asshole professor.” He emphasized with word professor.
“Hanging with Jed is fun.”
They stood glaring at each other for a few minutes.
“Don’t let me hold you up from your beloved Jed,” Noah finally said, starting to walk away.
“And don’t let me hold you up from picking up more gullible tourists and partying all night. Have fun avoiding responsibilities and real life,” she called after him.
Noah paused and looked like he was about to say something back, before shrugging his shoulders and striding off down the hall.
Abby wanted to run after him. But her legs wouldn’t move and instead she blinked back hot, angry tears before turning away from the canteen and slowly heading back to the lab. She didn’t eat lunch at all that day.
Jed returned to the lab not long after. “Not hungry today?” he asked.
“No. I wanted to stay and work on this.” Abby didn’t look up. Her eyes were rimmed red from unshed tears.
Jed walked over to her and gently put his arm around her shoulders. “Are you okay?” he asked, his voice soft and wheedling.
“I’m fine.” She didn’t look up. She wanted him to move his arm, she wanted it to be Noah’s arm on her shoulders right now. Maybe it had taken this long to realize because she had been blinded by Jed and his long list of qualifications and his academic achievements and the way he could turn any conversation into a bragging session about himself.
His arm tightened on her shoulders and he turned her to face him. One of his hands stroked her arm. “I’m sorry I’ve hurt you Abby. You are so, so special to me and I hate to see you upset.”
It took Abby a second to realize what he meant. “No, it’s not you,” she said, looking up at him in surprise.
He smiled indulgently. “Of course it’s me. I know how besotted you are with me, my dear, dear Abby. Oh, I’ve known for a long time and it’s been the cutest thing to watch you blush every time I came close to you in the lab.” He stroked her arm again. “Things are complicated Abby, but I think I can make an exception for you.” And suddenly he was leaning in and kissing her forcefully on the mouth.
Abby froze for a second before pushing him away. She glared at him. “What the hell are you doing, Jed? You’re engaged, remember?”
He leaned in closer. “I know you want me, sweetheart. No one has to know. Think of it as our little secret.” He winked.
He leaned in again and Abby had to put up both of her hands to push him off. “Get off me,” she said, her voice high and louder than she had meant it to be.
“What’s the problem?” he said nastily. “I see the way you’ve been looking at me. Don’t act all high-and-mighty. You’ve been flirting with me for years. At least you would’ve been, if you had any idea how to.”
Abby flushed. “Maybe I was looking at you like that in the past. But not anymore. Things have changed.”
“Oh, don’t act all holier-than-thou just because I’m engaged. It’s just a stupid ring and we could have fun together while we are both here.” He stroked her arm with his index finger again. “Why did you think I came so far except to have a little fun when there is no one we know around to see?”
Abby’s skin crawled. How on earth had she been fantasizing about this moment for so long? She felt dirty. Dirty and cheap. And she felt an overwhelming sadness for Julia, for being tied to this man through her unborn child and that gloriously shiny ring.
“And is Julia aware that you kiss your graduate students? Is Julia okay for you to have fun with your students?”
Jed’s face darkened. “She doesn’t own me. And what she doesn’t know can’t hurt her.”
“So she doesn’t know.” Abby looked at him, seeing for the first time the coldness in his eyes that had always seemed so full of warmth to her before. She could see up close the first hint of grey hairs in his widow's peak and the pockmarked old acne scars on his cheeks.
“Might I remind you that your academic future depends on me, so I wouldn’t think about mentioning this to her.” His voice was cold and calculating. “Or to anyone else. I can ruin you if I choose to, you know.”
“I think I’m done for today,” Abby said, standing up. She was shaking, but she held herself upright through the sheer force of her anger. She was furious at Jed, furious that he would kiss her when he
was engaged with a child on the way, furious that he had known—he had known all along—about her feelings and he’d laughed at them, like she had been a silly little school girl with a crush on her teacher.
Which in some ways, she had been.
But not anymore.
She gathered up her notebook and stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
First, she went to her room and threw her notebook onto the floor, wishing it was Jed’s face that the notebook was slamming into with the dull thud. Then she threw on a sunhat and her sneakers and took herself out for a walk.
It was a stiflingly hot day, and she walked around the compound, skirting the building closely to hug the shade. Then she took off on the path that led towards the hospital and the small town just a few hundred yards away. She didn’t know where she was walking to, all she knew was that she had to get out of the smothering reach of Jed and the air-conditioned labs that had been holding her hostage for the past few days. She wished she had a car she could use to drive out of town, back to the beach where she and Noah had spent the night, away from people.
She wasn’t far from the front doors of the hospital, walking along the path that skirted the lot the squat building sat on, when she noticed the helicopter perched on the roof. Shit. Noah must be around here. Not wanting to run into him when her emotions where whirling through her, she turned on her heel and made to quickly walk away. A voice called out behind her before she could get too far.
“Abby?”
It was Noah’s voice. She turned to see him hurrying up to her. His long-sleeved shirt was loose and light, unbuttoned to show a glimpse of hard chest and rolled up at the sleeves to showcase his muscled arms and tattoos. He looked tired. She wondered if he’d been out the night before again. Probably with more backpackers.
“Is everything okay? Why are you at the hospital?”
“I’m fine. I was just out for a walk.” Beads of sweat were dripping down her back and she was grateful she had thought to put on a hat. Her shoulders were sunburned already, she could feel the heat radiating off them. She felt sweaty and gross.
Headlong (Quinn Brothers Book 2) Page 12
