Safe in Noah's Arms

by Mary Sullivan

  Struggling to make amends, she said, “I’m sorry I’m late, Olivia.”

  “How did it go in court yesterday?” Olivia asked, her tone too cold for Monica’s liking. “Everything okay?”

  “I have to perform two hundred hours of community service.”

  Monica straightened a painting. She genuinely loved the shop and the art they sold. A little more challenge in her job wouldn’t hurt, but at least this brought in a paycheck. “My lawyer plea-bargained down from a driving with ability impaired to a wet reckless.”

  Olivia’s mouth thinned. She didn’t like the break Monica’s lawyer had managed to negotiate any better than Noah had, but then she was a mother bear concerned for her cub. Monica just wished Mama Bear wasn’t also her boss.

  “Community service?” Olivia asked. “There’s nothing like that available in Accord. Where do you have to go? Denver?”

  “Noah’s farm. I have to grow plants.”

  A mean little smile tugged at the corners of Olivia’s mouth. “You have to farm?”

  Oh, dear. It looked like Olivia was going to enjoy Monica’s discomfort just as much as Noah. “I don’t know a thing about farming and now I have to help Noah grow his vegetables. Yes. I have to farm.”

  Olivia’s glance took in the sleeveless sage linen dress and the rose pumps Monica had donned in a hurry a few minutes ago.

  “Good luck.” The hard edge of Olivia’s voice saddened Monica even while she tried to cut Olivia some slack.

  “I was already there this morning pulling up plants instead of weeds. They all look the same to me. Noah was angry.” Monica crossed her arms and grasped her elbows. She knew she sounded unhappy, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. What had the judge been thinking? She needed to talk to Daddy, to find out why he’d groaned when Judge Easton had entered the courtroom yesterday morning. Unless Monica had it wrong, there was history between the two of them—and now she was paying the price.

  Olivia’s glance skimmed Monica again. “Do you even own a pair of jeans?”

  “Of course,” she said, but relented and told the truth. “I bought a pair yesterday after I left the courtroom.”

  “You’ll still need to keep your full-time hours.”

  “I’ll put in all of my hours. No problem, Olivia.” She didn’t ask her dad for help these days. She was trying really hard to get by on her own. It had taken her years to learn that self-sufficiency provided rewards far greater than material goods.

  She’d stopped shopping as a hobby a couple of years ago. The dress and shoes she wore today were a few years old. Fortunately, her style was classic and she took care of her clothes.

  Olivia led her to the office in the back. “Noah works on his farm for four hours every morning before he comes into town to open the army surplus store.”

  That ugly old thing. The town should demolish it. Force it to shut down. All of the other shops on Main Street had spruced up their storefronts to bring in tourists. Why shouldn’t he have to, as well?

  Her mind went back to what Olivia had said. So Noah had already been out weeding for a couple of hours before Monica had arrived this morning? Insane. “Four hours? Before he opens the store? What time does he get up?”

  “As far as I know about five.”

  “As in a.m.?”

  Compelled, she did the math. Two hundred hours. If she went to the farm for two hours in the morning before coming to work—no way was she getting up at five—it would take her one hundred days to complete her service, if she worked there every day. More than three months, and she would have to work longer hours on her days off to make up the time faster. A little faint, she leaned against the wall.

  Olivia grasped Monica’s arm. “You try real hard to make it work, to make up for how much you hurt him.” She picked up her purse. “I’m running across the street for a coffee.”

  The slamming front door put an exclamation point to her exit.

  She’d left without offering to bring back something for Monica, unheard of in their relationship to date.

  As Monica had already done a dozen times this morning, she rubbed a hand over her roiling tummy.

  Making amends was a heck of a lot harder than it looked.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “CAN YOU BELIEVE this whole cockeyed situation?” Noah asked Audrey and Laura when he arrived at Laura’s café for lunch. They were crowded into Laura’s office in the back behind the kitchen. “I’m stuck with Monica Accord on the farm.”

  He and his best friend, Audrey Stone, ate together most days, either at her flower shop or at Noah’s Army Surplus, and took turns bringing food. He’d chosen the bakery today so he could vent to both his best friend and his sister.

  “She broke your arm,” Laura said, patting her brother’s cast. “It was the best solution. She can be of use to you on the farm.”

  “Ha! She threw a bunch of weeds onto the compost heap even after I’d told her they belong in the garbage. How is that useful?”

  “She might become better at it than you think.” Laura pushed her long hair back over her shoulder. She’d inherited a more subdued version of their father’s red hair than Noah had.

  “Are you kidding? She overwatered the turnips so I can’t water them tomorrow. She didn’t water the radishes enough, so I have to water them again this evening. I need less work, not more.” He banged his fist on Laura’s desk, rattling a bunch of papers, a soup ladle and a bag of cloth diapers delivered by her service. “The woman’s too stupid to know a rake from a curling iron.”

  Laura stood abruptly and picked up the diapers. “I have to go. It’s feeding time and I’m ready to burst.”

  Noah perked up. “How’s Pearl doing?” Flat-out chuffed to be a brand-new uncle, his curiosity about and fascination with his niece grew with each passing day.

  “Growing by leaps and bounds.” Laura tucked the diapers under her arm and picked up the soup ladle to return it to the kitchen. “Who left this here?”

  “Probably you.” Noah laughed. Laura left a trail of cooking utensils wherever she went. The woman was as passionate about preparing food as he was about growing it.

  “You two stay here and finish your lunch.” Resting her hand on Noah’s shoulder, Laura said, “Give Monica a chance. I almost lost Nick by judging on appearances and past behavior. People grow, Noah. They change.”

  After Laura left the room, Noah finished his quinoa salad and felt Audrey watching him the whole time. He knew why. Monica used to be married to Audrey’s brother, Billy Stone, until he died in Afghanistan. She probably felt some kind of loyalty to Monica.

  “I’d rather do anything this summer than teach spoiled Monica to farm,” he said, disgust coloring his tone far more than the situation warranted. “It’s distasteful to me.”

  “I understand, Noah, but be careful you don’t make assumptions that are unfounded,” she said. “Or based on clichés about rich women and Monica’s blond good looks. You’ve had a bad string of luck with women.”

  When he opened his mouth to object, she raised her hand. “Don’t worry. I won’t bring up the elephant in the room.”

  The elephant in the room was that Noah had always chosen women who had an uncanny resemblance to Monica, and who were just as wealthy.

  It confounded him that he would choose women like her. “That’s all been nothing more than coincidence.”

  “Really? Deirdre? New Orleans? A dead ringer for Monica.”

  Noah was angry instantly. He’d put a lot of energy into forgetting Deirdre and her betrayal. He didn’t need Audrey bringing it up now.

  “Don’t go there, Audrey.”

  “Deirdre might have looked like Monica, but Monica is nothing like that woman.”

  “Okay, so I showed poor judgment. I won’t again. Okay?”


  Unfazed by his anger, Audrey urged, “Everybody underestimates Monica. Just don’t let your bias have you judging her wrongly.”

  Both Audrey and Noah had been on the receiving end of the false assumptions that people made based on flimsy evidence—Audrey because of the way she chose to dress in retro forties and fifties clothing, and Noah because of the same thing—the way he chose to dress—and also because of the green, organic lifestyle he lived. He would probably fit in better in a big city than in rural Colorado.

  But in Colorado, he got to grow things, to plant seeds and produce something out of nothing that could feed those in need...and it was the best feeling on earth.

  In high school, he and Audrey had bonded as the misfits who didn’t dress like others. They’d been best buds ever since.

  “Noah, you weren’t too hard on her, were you?”

  With one hand, he wrestled his empty Mason jar into his cooler bag, avoiding her gaze. “I wasn’t patient with her,” he admitted, but, compelled to defend himself continued, “For Pete’s sake, Audrey, every time I look at her I still get tongue-tied. When she showed up at the farm this morning, I actually stuttered!”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “That bad? Still?”

  “Yeah. It’s still that bad. When’s the last time you heard me stutter? It’s like I’m thirteen years old again! And for what? For a spoiled, ditzy blonde.” So, yeah, he’d been harsh, but that was a whole lot better than stuttering.

  “Noah, don’t call her names. You forget that Monica is family,” Audrey admonished.

  Chastened, he calmed himself and said, “I do. I often forget. I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve never understood how you two could be so different and yet get along so well.”

  “First, it’s because she’s not quite who you think she is, and second, because we both lost our mothers when we were so young. Mine when I was five, but poor Monica in childbirth. She never even knew hers.”

  “And this helped how?”

  When Audrey hesitated to share, Noah bumped her shoulder with his. “I’m just trying to understand this space alien who’s tearing up my radishes.”

  Audrey huffed out a laugh and then grew serious. “Okay. Here goes. Losing a parent so early leaves a hollow spot in your life along with a low-grade sadness. It doesn’t matter how deeply you bury the sadness, it’s still there. Often, you feel like you don’t have anyone to talk to about it, even your other parent. My dad was grieving, too, but didn’t know how to express it.”

  “What about Billy?”

  “I think he dealt with it by ignoring it, by surrounding himself with friends. By becoming the class clown and making sure that everyone, including himself, was always laughing. Plus, when it happened, he was older and less dependent on Mom than I was.”

  “That makes sense.” Noah picked at his egg sandwich. “Monica felt that way, too?”

  “Yes. She also understood that it makes you different from your classmates and friends who still have both parents. Mother’s Day is particularly hard.”

  Finished with her salad, Audrey passed him her empty jar. “Knowing that someone else in the world understood how I felt gave me a measure of comfort, even though I was already a teenager by then.”

  “Okay,” Noah conceded. “She might have more depth than I’ve given her credit for, but she pulled up eight of my baby radishes before I caught her. It frustrates me, Audrey. That’s food that won’t make it onto some hungry person’s plate.”

  Audrey sobered. He knew she admired his passion for feeding the needy. Of all of the people in his life, she truly understood him.

  “She said she thought they were weeds,” he continued. “They were the only plants in a row I’d already weeded.”

  “Sounds like a problem with communication.”

  “Yeah, there was definitely a problem. I communicated. She didn’t listen.”

  He stared at Audrey, begging her to understand how screwed he was.

  “What am I going to do about her, Audrey? I’m thirty-seven years old, a sane and reasonable grown man, but I’ll be seeing her nearly every day this summer and I might as well be back in high school.” He added miserably, “Déjà vu all over again.”

  * * *

  AT LUNCHTIME, MONICA headed to the bar at the end of Main Street, knowing her father had his midday meal there every day. She wanted to question him about his relationship with the judge.

  She’d tried to contact him last night, but he’d been out and hadn’t been answering his cell, leaving her with the strange suspicion he was avoiding her.

  In the courtroom yesterday, she’d been upset by the judge’s lack of professionalism. His sly looks, the pleasure he seemed to take in convicting her, had irked her and yet, he had agreed to the plea bargain that got her sentence reduced. So confusing. She meant to get to the bottom of it.

  The scents of fried food made her mouth water, but Monica was watching her figure.

  When she slid into the booth across from her dad, he didn’t seem surprised to see her.

  She ordered a cup of coffee with skim milk and a toasted bagel with light cream cheese. Her father picked up his glass of Scotch to drain its contents, looking everywhere but at her. Curious.

  “What was that all about?” Monica asked.

  “What?” He stared at a point behind her left shoulder.

  “You know what, Daddy. I heard the noise you made when Judge Easton entered the courtroom and sat on the bench. When he passed down my sentence, he actually smirked.”

  Milton Ian Accord rattled the ice cubes in his glass. He hated his first name. Everyone in town knew him as Ian. Why on earth the Accord family used such old-fashioned names was beyond Monica. Monica. Case in point. An old-fashioned name.

  They used names of ancestors that had been handed down from generation to generation. She supposed it was simply tradition.

  Ian carried his age well, but signs of unhappiness, of discontentment, hovered around a sullen mouth. Whatever was bothering him had come on lately, but he wouldn’t share it with her.

  She stared at him hard. She wasn’t going away. He finally gave in. “Gord Easton and I went to high school together.”

  “High school?” That old man and her dad?

  He nodded.

  “Same grade?”

  Another nod.

  “That’s hard to believe. He looks a lot older than you.”

  “Gord likes sun, whiskey and cigars, and has the money to indulge as much as he wants.” Tone derisive, he glanced around as though checking to make sure the man wasn’t sitting nearby. Was the drink making him paranoid? Lately, there’d been a lot of this furtive checking-his-surroundings behavior. He wouldn’t respond to direct questions about it, though, and Monica had run out of ideas to get out of him what was going on.

  “He pampers himself with regular visits to the spa,” Ian continued, “but with his lifestyle, it’s like throwing a coat of paint on a house that’s about to keel over. He owns a boat in Florida and spends all of his spare time on it.”

  “That explains his too-tanned skin—the alcohol and cigars explain how dull it is. The guy needs a good diet and exercise regimen.”

  Her dad laughed. “That isn’t going to happen.”

  “So you went to school together. That doesn’t explain his animosity toward you.”

  Dad raised his glass and signaled the waitress for another. He ran his finger around wet rings of condensation on the table then said quietly, “It started in high school, but got worse over the years. We’re both competitive. I seem to have a golden touch where investments are concerned, a real knack that Gord lacks. He envies my skill.”

  “But how would that have started in high school? You were already investing back then?”

  “No. It wasn’t that. In school, we were both in l
ove with the same girl.”

  “Mom?” On a dime, Monica’s mood became wistful. She wished she’d known her. Mom had died giving birth to her, and didn’t that just leave her feeling bad, even all of these years later. Monica figured that was the thing that continually felt missing from her life—her mom.

  With a philosophical shrug, her dad said, “I won the fair maiden’s hand in marriage. And that’s where the competition started. Gord was angry for years afterward. But how could we know the joke would be on the two of us?”

  When Monica realized her dad was slurring his words, her already low spirits plummeted further. How could he be drunk at only one in the afternoon? This was so recent, she didn’t know what to make of it.

  “Mom’s death was a joke?” she asked, her voice a sharp knife cutting the air.

  Ian reared back. “God, no. Of course not.”

  He didn’t elaborate. He’d been making a lot of cryptic remarks lately, but whenever she asked for clarification, he would change the subject.

  “Well, what do you mean?” she queried. “What joke?”

  His gaze had become unfocused. “Huh?”

  “What joke was on you and Judge Easton?”

  He shook his head and shuttered his expression. “Nothing.”

  She knew that closed look. No trespassing. This part of the discussion was over. She knew her dad well enough to understand she wouldn’t get any more out of him. Okay, then she would change her tack.

  “So he was getting revenge on losing Mom by sending your daughter farming? How does that make sense?”

  “You never knew...your mother’s parents died when you were still a toddler. Do you remember them?”

  She shook her head.

  “Your mother grew up on a farm. She and her family were the products of generations of farmers.” When the waitress brought Monica’s food, she also brought her dad another drink. Monica frowned, but he ignored it. “Gord thinks it’s funny for my pampered daughter to now have to work on the land.”