Safe in Noah's Arms

by Mary Sullivan

  She changed into dark jeans, a white cotton shirt and a pair of red flip-flops, then went looking for Noah. She didn’t find him so she sat with a bunch of kids while she ate sliders and excellent coleslaw.

  * * *

  NOAH DEPOSITED THE bag of cash into a drawer in an office that the company president had designated for his use. He hadn’t counted it, but knew it had to be thousands and thousands of dollars.

  His earlier anxiety had calmed, eased by the success of the event.

  He left the empty building, waving to the security guard on the way out. They’d made arrangements with the man earlier that only Noah and Monica were allowed in that office.

  The money was safe.

  Noah needed to eat. Starving, he grabbed a couple of sliders. His belly was about to kiss his backbone. Now that it was all over and everything had gone off without a hitch, he could relax. His stress had fallen away. Monica had pulled it off.

  She was, in short, magnificent.

  He needed her in his life permanently. He couldn’t imagine life without her. He planned to tell her so tonight.

  While he ate, he cruised around among all of the helpers, thanking them. In all, close to a hundred Accord residents had turned out today to help. While Noah had offered to pay them all from tonight’s receipts, knowing that many of them could use the money, most had turned it down and were here as volunteers, including the Keils.

  He talked to them for a long time. Since Monica had gotten Kayla the two jobs, the young mother had blossomed and had come out of her shell. Both Robert and Kayla were more relaxed and easy with Noah. Monica had been right when she’d made her first visit to the Keil ranch. They hadn’t been on an equal footing, but they were now.

  He needed to see Monica. He needed to tell her how smart she was.

  He checked for her at the gazebo, but he was far too late. He’d missed her when he’d been loading equipment into the vehicles going back to town, and filling a van headed for the food kitchen with leftover food.

  After he finished eating he helped to load the last of the stuff going back to Accord and took care of some final details.

  At last, with the few remaining buses and cars leaving, he was about to head inside to pick up the money and then find Monica, when he saw her sidle along the building too far away for him to call to her.

  What he saw in her hand froze his blood. She moved with stealth, checking to make sure she wasn’t being followed, sneaking along the side of the building with the canvas bag of money in her hand.

  There was no mistaking the bag and no mistaking the way she moved. Memories he’d thought long buried assailed him...of Deirdre and New Orleans and betrayal.

  Not again. God, no, not again. Not Monica. Not when he’d convinced himself she was real and honest and the best woman on earth.

  But his eyes hadn’t deceived him. He knew what he’d seen was real.

  Why? Why, Monica?

  He ran along the building to catch her, but by the time he got to the front she was gone. Had she had a partner in crime, someone she’d driven off with?

  This wasn’t supposed to happen again.

  He’d given her everything, after years of distrusting women and himself, he had given over all he was, all he had, including his naive heart, to Monica Accord and she had stomped it into the dust.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  MONICA FINALLY FINISHED loading her car with a couple of items the Colantonios couldn’t fit into their vehicle.

  Boy, was she tired. She’d had to park far away from the event, on the far side of the school buses Marcie had hired.

  She trudged back, sublimely happy. Everything had gone better than she could have ever hoped. She couldn’t wait to find out how much money they’d made for Noah.

  Back in the office where she’d stored her bag of clothes, she looked high and low, but there was no trace of it. Someone must have picked it up by mistake.

  Giving a mental shrug, she left the building, waving good-night to a security guard on the far side of the foyer. The bag had probably made it into someone else’s car. It would turn up in Accord sometime tomorrow, she was certain.

  Where was Noah? He wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye. Or at least without arranging to meet back at the farm to celebrate.

  She bumped into him just as he was coming around the corner of the building, thunder on his face.

  “There you are,” he said. “What did you do with it?”

  “With what?”

  “With the money. I’m surprised you had the nerve to stick around. Did you think that just because you’d changed your clothes, I wouldn’t suspect you? Did you think no one had seen you? I did, Monica.”

  Something was wrong—very wrong. The way Noah looked at her. The way he spoke to her. He was breaking her heart.

  “What’s going on, Noah? What’s happened?”

  Noah stared at her, wide-eyed. “You’re going to pretend you didn’t do it? I saw you, Monica. I saw you take the money and sneak away.”

  Sneak away? “I didn’t take the money. Why are you doing this, Noah? I thought you trusted me. I thought you were good and honorable.”

  “I am!” he shouted. “You’re the one who isn’t.” He scrubbed his hands over his face, a face that had become dear to her, but that she didn’t recognize at the moment, as twisted as it was now with fury. And betrayal. “I knew this was all too good to be true. I should have known I couldn’t trust you.”

  Couldn’t trust her?

  “You stole, Monica. Not from me. This is not about me. You stole from people who desperately need help. If this hadn’t happened to me before, I would have thought it was impossible, but I know. Oh, do I ever know how dishonest women can be. You’re no better than those people who steal charity boxes off the counters in donut shops or convenience stores.”

  He might as well have slapped her. How could he say these things to her? After all they had been through? After she had opened herself up to him in so many ways?

  Trust that had been hard-won was now gone, broken like an old set of toys in a long-forgotten toy box.

  Crazy ideas chased one another through her mind. Was he trying to extort money from her? From her father?

  And yet... Noah wasn’t a dishonest man. She knew in her heart that he was a good man. She knew he wouldn’t blackmail her or her father for money. His anger, his sense of betrayal, was real.

  She was beginning to understand. A terrible suspicion formed. “You’re certain that it was me you saw with the money?”

  The hurt on his face opened a wound inside of her. Not only was he angry with her, but he was also disappointed. She had done nothing to deserve this, but she was pretty sure she knew who had. God, it was so obvious. Noah should have figured it out right away.

  “You’re sure it was me?”

  “Yes.” He sounded tired. Then something changed. She saw the doubt. “Oh, shit. Marcie. But, the clothes...”

  “What was I wearing?”

  “The blue dress you’d been wearing all evening and the sandals and the big floppy hat.”

  “What time was that?”

  “About fifteen minutes ago. I was going to get the money and then look for you.”

  “Noah, I changed out of that dress close to an hour ago. I just went back now to get the bag with my clothes that I’d left inside. It’s gone. Marcie took it.”

  “Why would she...?” He trailed off, because he had obviously come to the same conclusion Monica had. “Why would Marcie steal the money?”

  “And in my clothes? To make me look bad, of course. To destroy what we have. I don’t know why she would do it like this, though, by taking all of that hard-earned money destined for good people.”

  “I know why.” Noah looked more lost than she
’d ever seen him. He’d been shaken badly. “Oh, my God, Monica. I should’ve trusted you. I should have known it was her.”

  “Yes, you should have. Right away. Why didn’t you?” She stepped away from him, angry and hurt, underestimated by him yet again. “What did you mean you know why? Why would she steal this money?”

  When he looked culpable, her spider sense kicked in. “What’s going on here?”

  He told Monica a story about his old girlfriend and the work they did when he was in his early twenties, raising money for rebuilding New Orleans.

  “I was fired up with zeal. I wanted to save the world.”

  Deirdre had skipped out on him, with all of the money, with thousands and thousands of dollars. Then he told her how hard it had been to trust again. About how he’d finally done that with her only for her to betray him in exactly the same way. Or so he’d thought.

  “Did you tell that story to Marcie?”

  He nodded.

  “When?”

  “When we were washing the dishes at your dad’s house the morning after the blackout.”

  It hurt that he had shared this with Marcie instead of with Monica. That ugly green-eyed monster stirred inside of her.

  “You two sure managed to cover a lot of ground in that one conversation.”

  “Yeah, I guess we did. She just seemed really interested in me.”

  “And you didn’t think it was awfully coincidental that the same thing was happening to you again? I don’t believe in coincidences, Noah.”

  “I guess I wasn’t thinking straight.” He kicked at a stone. “This evening brought up memories of that time. I didn’t realize I was still affected so much by it. I thought I’d put it all behind me.”

  “Marcie couldn’t have found a better way to discredit me in your eyes than to have you think I was stealing from you. That your history was repeating itself.”

  “I’m such a sucker.” He smacked his hand against the wall. “I can’t believe I fell for it, but I did, hook, line and sinker.”

  “You sure did. It was an incredibly knee-jerk response, too. I’m disappointed, Noah. You should have trusted me.”

  He looked miserable. “But she must have known you and I would work this out. She can’t go back to Accord now. She’s lost her family and the chance for a good home and security in her future. She’s lost everything. What the hell was she thinking?”

  “I can’t begin to guess, Noah. But what I do know is that you need that money. How on earth can we prove that she has it? I mean, even you thought I was the thief. How can we prove it was Marcie?”

  “I’ll handle this. Leave it to me.”

  “We need to go to the police.”

  “Let’s hold off on that.”

  “Why, Noah? Compassion?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you’re a better person than me.”

  “Let me find her and talk to her first, then we’ll see how compassionate I am.”

  Against her better judgment, Monica nodded.

  Noah grasped her shoulders, leaning in for a kiss that rivaled anything he’d ever given her before. It was heartfelt and earnest, but she couldn’t let it in. She still hurt beyond belief that he’d thought she would steal from him. History be damned, he should have trusted her.

  When she didn’t respond, he pulled back to stare at her. If he’d looked betrayed a few minutes ago, now he looked heartbroken and she guessed he’d just realized how much he’d lost, and it was a heck of a lot more than just money.

  “Go,” she said. “Do what you have to do to catch Marcie.”

  She walked away to her car. At some point, the school buses had all left for Accord. She hadn’t even heard them drive away.

  Just before getting into her car, she glanced back to where she’d left Noah and found him still watching her. He hadn’t moved a muscle.

  He might be miserable, and she might be angry, but the thread of love, the attachment between them, hummed with the high voltage of a power line.

  Could they get through this? She didn’t know.

  She drove to her father’s house, furious and determined to take control. Too many people were hurting her. It was time to take care of Monica.

  Her dad should have listened to her concerns about Marcie. He should have trusted Monica. Just like Noah should have trusted her.

  From now on, Monica was living by her rules and no one else’s. Even though she had come to it late, she finally knew what she wanted to do with the rest of her life and no one was going to stop her.

  The people in her life had underestimated her. No more. From now on, she was taking the world by storm, but first, she needed money.

  She was going to her father with her hand out. But, and this was a big but in her mind, she wouldn’t be taking the money for free. She would pay back every last cent.

  He had promised her money to start her business and then had taken that money away. Out of nowhere, he’d placed conditions on her. It wasn’t fair.

  Tonight, she was correcting that.

  Not bothering to temper her actions, she burst through the front door into the darkened house and marched upstairs. She had to keep the anger burning hot and bright, or she wouldn’t be able to control the terrible betrayal trying to shatter her heart.

  She wasn’t strong enough for that right now. Anger was easy, refreshing, burning away all of her doubts and fears. She had a course of action.

  When she thrust open her father’s bedroom door, it slammed against the wall.

  “Christ!” he shouted. “What—?”

  Two bodies writhed on the bed in strips of moonlight pouring through the window.

  Her dad sat up, pulling the covers to his chest. Someone tried to make herself small and invisible behind him. So. Dad still had a sex life. Whoop-dee-doo.

  “Cover up,” she said. “We need to talk.”

  “Can’t this wait until morning?” Monica heard the steel behind the question. Dad wanted her out of here. Too bad.

  A voice whispered, “I don’t like your daughter.”

  Monica rounded the bed. “Who is that hiding behind you like a sniveling coward?” Great phrase. Sniveling coward. She needed to use that on Noah one of these days. “I recognize that voice. Lee-Anne Clark. How nice to see you in bed with my father.”

  “You wouldn’t have to,” Dad said as he hitched a blanket more securely around Lee-Anne’s shoulders, “if you hadn’t barged in here. Do you have any concept of the word discretion?”

  He didn’t sound happy. Too bad. “Do you, Dad? Do you do anything honestly? Why not date Lee-Anne out in the open instead of skulking around in the darkness?”

  “She’s married.”

  “I know. Hence, my question. Do you do anything honestly? We both know the answer to that—no.”

  “Get out of here.”

  “Nope.”

  She saw him startle and why not? He must be shocked that his nice, perfect daughter was fighting back. As a child, she had never disobeyed him. As a teenager, she had toed every line. Maybe this was finally her teenage rebellion. As uncomfortable as she was in here, at this moment, she wasn’t leaving until she got what she came for, Dad and Lee-Anne’s sordid affair be damned.

  “We’ll talk tonight. Now.”

  “You should show a little respect for your father.” Lee-Anne sounded angry, too, and maybe a little fearful. Perhaps she thought Monica would betray her to her husband.

  She leaned close to Lee-Anne. “I don’t give a flying fig what you think I should do, you dishonest, lying sl—” She couldn’t say it, couldn’t call her such an ugly name, even if Monica was striking out left, right and center, hitting anyone who got in her way.

  Lee-Anne gasped. Her hand swung out. She snagged a hank of Monica’
s hair.

  “Ow! Let go!” Monica grabbed the woman’s hair in return and the entire thing came away in her hand.

  Lee-Anne gasped again, her hands flying to cover her wispy gray hair. “Give that back.”

  She started to laugh, and couldn’t stop. Was all of her life a delusion? Was everything false? Worse, was there no single person in her life who was honest, on whom she could depend?

  The simple answer stunned her. She no longer trusted her instincts.

  She stared down at Lee-Anne and her father. “Here.” She handed back the wig, but the damage had already been done. None of the luscious hair that made the woman so attractive was her own.

  “Is your body at least real? For Dad’s sake, I hope so.”

  “That’s enough.” Dad tried to exert his fatherly authority. He didn’t know that ship had already sailed, never to return. Where before he had been angry, now he was cold. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “I’m me, Dad. I’m finally me. No more nice girl. I’ve lived my life the way you wanted me to. I’ve been the good girl. I was no intellectual genius, but I busted my butt in school for top grades. I was cheerleader and prom queen. You were always proud of me. But what if I had failed you the way you failed me? I trusted you to be honest, but you lied to me my entire life.”

  She was burning so hot she felt cold. “Now, it’s payback time. I want money. A lot of it. I’m starting my own business and you’re going to finance it, just as you promised you would before you unfairly reneged. I’ll let you know within the next few days exactly how much I’ll need. I will pay you back at a fair interest rate over time, because I’m an honest person.”

  “And if I don’t want to help you?”

  “How lucky for me that you and Lee-Anne have handed me leverage on a silver platter. If you don’t cooperate, if I don’t see the money in my account when I need it, I will call Graeme Clark and tell him what I’ve seen here tonight.”

  “Don’t tell my husband,” Lee-Anne whispered. “He’ll cut me off.”

  No one, Monica thought, no one was ever going to be her meal ticket. She would make her business work. She would be a success. She would pay her father back and never lean on him or anyone else again. She never wanted to be in Lee-Anne’s position.