by T. L. Haddix
When she could finally talk, she shook her head. “I didn’t mean to fall apart on you.”
“Don’t apologize. I’m glad you did. I imagine it’s been a long time coming. And I feel much better about my meddling now that I know you aren’t some narcissistic psycho determined to jerk Eli around.” Sophie grinned at her.
“How about we get something to eat?” Haley asked, standing and heading for the fridge. “And maybe you can help me figure out how in the world to even approach him? I honestly don’t know where to start. Given what you told me about Erica and all the drama she created, he might not want a thing to do with me.”
Sophie raised an eyebrow. “Oh, somehow I doubt that’s the case.”
As they ate the soup and sandwiches Haley pulled together, they talked about Sophie’s new job instead of the situation with Eli, both seeming to need a lighter topic than what they’d just covered.
“Does it make me an awful person to say that I accepted in part because I knew it would drive Noah a little crazy?” Sophie asked as she nibbled on the crust of her grilled cheese.
Haley smiled. “No. Not at all.” She didn’t add that she thought Noah needed to be driven a little crazy by the vivacious and surprisingly down-to-earth blonde. That was something she would think about helping facilitate after she straightened her own mess with Eli out.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Noah was scraping down the breakfast dishes when a vehicle pulled up outside Saturday morning. It was still relatively early, just past nine, and he frowned. “Someone’s here,” he told Eli as he washed his hands.
“Who?” Eli, who was still sitting at the counter, scrubbed at his unshaven cheek. “Family?”
“No. Damn it, what the hell is she doing here?” he growled as he threw the towel he’d been using to dry his hands on the counter and stalked to the door.
Eli’s voice reflected his impatience. “Who? The only person I can think of you get that pissed off about is…”
“Sophie.” Noah opened the door and let her in, glowering at her the whole time. “You know, you keep turning up.”
“Bad pennies tend to do that,” she quipped, giving him a single glance before heading straight for Eli. “How are you?”
Eli accepted her hug, sending Noah a surprised look over her shoulder. “I’m fine. What are you doing here? Not that I’m not glad to see you,” he hurried to add.
She touched his cheek, a move that gave Noah a pang that felt suspiciously close to jealousy. “I had to come in to rent a place, and I was in the neighborhood. God, you’re tanned up. Handsome as ever.”
Eli kissed her hand and winked at her. “A week on the beach will do that to a fella. Want some coffee? Have you eaten?”
“I’d love some, and yes.” She started to take a seat beside him but stopped when Fig jumped on the barstool. “Oh, hello. Who are you?”
Noah grudgingly got her the coffee. “That’s Fig. She’s mine.”
“She’s gorgeous, aren’t you, sweetheart?” She was cautiously petting Fig, and the traitor was eating it up. Before Noah could warn Sophie not to touch her, she’d gently scooped Fig up and settled down with her in her lap. “Oh, what a girl. Maybe now that I’ll be in one place, I’ll get a cat or two.”
Eli’s grin spoke volumes as he looked from Sophie to Noah. “You should do that. So did you find a place?”
“Uh-huh. Sydney’s house. Since she’s living with Sawyer now, it’s empty. It’s bigger than what I need, but it’ll be nice to have a real home again and not an efficiency apartment.”
“Sydney…. I can’t even,” Noah muttered. He went back to the sink and finished loading the dishes in the dishwasher.
“It’s a good house. Plenty room for cats there,” Eli said. “Did you really come all this way to do something you could easily have handled over the phone?”
When she didn’t answer, Noah turned to see what was going on. She’d laid her hand on Eli’s arm and was staring at him.
“What do you think?” she finally said softly.
Eli covered her hand. “I’m okay.”
“You’re as okay as Haley is.”
Noah gave up all pretense of trying to pretend he wasn’t listening. He walked over to stand across from Sophie and Eli. “You talked to her?”
She nodded, meeting his eyes for a moment. “Last night. I spent several hours talking to her, as a matter of fact. She’s so worried that she’s messed things up with you,” she told Eli as Fig got down. “I told her I didn’t think that was possible, not after she explained what had happened. Why didn’t you tell me?”
He squeezed her hand and sat back with a sigh, stretching his arms up over his head. “I didn’t want to put that weight on you.”
Sophie shook her head. “Fig, your uncle is a very silly man, did you know that, pretty girl?”
The look Eli sent her, the one she didn’t see because her head was bowed as she talked to the cat, was hard for Noah to interpret. Sure as hell, there was concern there, though. And maybe a healthy dose of sadness.
“I don’t know where to even begin with her,” Eli said. “With Haley. I don’t know whose court the ball is in.”
“It sounds like Haley doesn’t know, either,” Noah said, crossing his arms.
“She doesn’t. Like I said, we talked for several hours,” Sophie told him. She smiled at Eli. “I like her. I really do. I think if someone sat down and tried to put you the perfect match together, Haley’s exactly who they’d have come up with.”
Eli pressed his fingers into his eyes. “Soph, she thinks I cheated on Erica with you.”
“No, she doesn’t,” she told him, rubbing his shoulder. “She really doesn’t. I know how awful it probably felt last week, okay? But you have to try to put yourself in her shoes. She’s had her entire life uprooted over the last few months, including falling head over heels for you. She lost her only family, or the only one who gave a damn about her anyhow, she lost her home… and then here her best friend is telling her that everything she knows about you is wrong. And she’s showing her proof. I daresay that if your situations were reversed, you’d have had similar doubts in the moment.”
He was shaking his head. “She should know me better than that by now.”
“When she’s had a good night’s sleep and a moment to think about it, she does. Eli, to put it very bluntly, you and I, we’re used to Erica’s special brand of vitriol and poison. She’s not. Haley’s got a lousy family life from what I was able to gather last night, but God almighty himself would be appalled to be confronted with the reality of Erica. Am I wrong?”
He shook his head mutely.
“Well, that’s what she was hit with, very unexpectedly, in the face, and by someone she trusts. Or did trust. I guess they’ve had a bit of a falling out because she won’t give up on you, and her friend didn’t like that she wouldn’t worship at the altar of Erica.”
“She hasn’t called me.”
“Have you called her?” Noah was surprised to hear his own voice. When Eli frowned at him, he scowled back. “Well?”
“No, but…”
“But what?” Noah asked softly, crossing his arms more tightly over his chest and widening his stance. “She’s in the wrong, so she should do the apologizing? You heard what Sophie said. She doesn’t know how. We’ve both seen firsthand how strong Haley is over the last few weeks, you know that as well as I do. But she’s not a confrontational person. She’s quiet and unobtrusive unless you make her really, really mad like Dudley did that day when she moved. That’s her uncle, and I thought she was going to take his head off,” he told Sophie.
“Rightly so,” Eli murmured.
“For the record, I agree with Sophie. I think you and Haley…” Noah shrugged as they both looked at him, varying levels of surprise on thei
r faces. He focused on Eli. “You two fit. You know that as well as I do. We ran away for a few days, got some space and some perspective, I thought. It’s time to man up and forget about who’s in the right or the wrong here. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from watching Mom and Dad, all the aunts and uncles, and Grandma and Grandpa over the years, it’s that you have to pick and choose your battles in a marriage. That doesn’t mean you won’t fight over time. It does mean you have to make sure you’re dying on the right hill. And I don’t think this is a good hill to die on.”
Eli stared at him, shaking his head a bit, then he sighed. “I hate being wrong.”
Noah slapped at him gently with the dishtowel. “Yeah, well, you’ll hate being alone for the rest of your life more.”
“Smart-ass.” Eli caught the towel and gave it a tug. “Okay. Fine. I’ll go get cleaned up and… I guess I should drive down there.”
Sophie frowned. “What’s wrong with walking? Are you okay?”
Eli shrugged. “Fido’s a bit loose. It’s getting close to time to get the permanent prosthesis, and I’d rather not risk the walk.” He hugged Sophie. “Thank you for this. Both of you.”
Sophie pinched his cheek and grinned at him. “Anytime, sugar.”
He tousled her hair in return, causing her to duck away and swat at him in a move that reminded Noah of Molly. The action was so very much like two siblings interacting, he frowned, feeling for the first time like he might possibly, maybe, have gotten the basis for their relationship wrong. When he realized he’d been judging them by the same damned yardstick Haley’d been handed courtesy of Erica, he had to swallow down a curse.
Eli wasn’t the only one who didn’t like being wrong.
Once Eli’d gone to get cleaned up, Sophie stood with a sigh. “I’ll head out. I think he’s okay now, but I’ll be in town until Monday just in case. Will you call me if he needs me?”
Noah nodded and walked around the counter to escort her to the door. “Does this mean you’ll be at the farm for lunch tomorrow?”
She eyed him, then shrugged as she got her coat on. “I hadn’t thought about it.”
“Bullshit. You’d probably get in trouble if you didn’t show up, though. Just so you know. The folks would all take it personally.”
A faint hint of a smile crossed her lips. “I’d hate for them to take offense.”
Noah followed her out onto the porch, pulling the door closed behind him. He crossed his arms against the cold morning air. “What you did here, with being the bridge? That was a nice thing. Hopefully, it’s enough.”
“Hopefully. Oh, by the way—he’d not told her about what happened back in high school. And in order to get her to understand who Erica was, I had to tell her. She knows you’re a medium.”
From the stiff way she held herself, Noah knew she was braced for his wrath. When it didn’t come, he was as surprised as she was. “He was planning to tell her everything that evening. How’d she take it?” He started to scuff his toe against the floor of the porch but stopped when he realized that would give away his discomfort.
“Surprisingly well. She said her grandfather was unique, too. And um, looks like Eli’s not going to have to go to her, after all. Oh, my goodness. That’s my girl.”
Noah followed her finger, which was pointing to the spot where the path came out of the foggy woods alongside the tall privacy fence that surrounded the garden. Haley was making her way toward them.
“You mind sticking around for a bit? Just in case?” he asked in a low voice as he waved at Haley. He hated making the request, but if things didn’t go well, he knew Eli would need her.
“Of course not.”
“Morning,” he greeted Haley.
“Hi, Noah. Sophie.”
“I’m so glad to see you,” Sophie told her, giving her a quick hug. “Are you here to talk to him?”
Haley nodded. “If he’ll see me.”
Noah smiled. “He will. Come on inside. I’ll tell him you’re here. He’s getting cleaned up.”
Leaving her to Sophie’s care, he hurried to Eli’s room and knocked. The whole time, he was torn between hoping to God his brother was able to work things out with Haley and trying to figure out what in the world he was going to do with Sophie while they waited to see how things turned out.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Eli couldn’t make himself move from the side of the bed. He’d just gotten out of the shower when Noah had tapped on the door, letting him know Haley had arrived.
“Okay. I’ll be out in a couple of minutes.”
He hurried through getting dressed, then headed for the bedroom on crutches to sit down and put Fido on. But getting the first sock on the stump and rolling the second one in his hands was as far as he’d gotten.
He was petrified that when he went out to the living room, instead of fixing things, Haley’d tell him she was done with him. Even Sophie’s confidence and Noah’s assurances didn’t help dispel his fears.
When a soft knock sounded on the door a moment later, he actually jumped. Closing his eyes, he cursed himself under his breath for being an idiot. “Come in,” he called.
But still he couldn’t do anything other than sit there.
The door eased open, and there Haley was, biting her lip. “Hi.”
Eli nodded. “Come on in.” He watched her warily, not sure what to say or do.
She stepped inside, then closed the door, leaning against it to watch him with as much caution as he was eyeing her with. “Is this okay? That I’m here?”
He cleared his throat. “Yeah, um, yeah. It’s good.” He looked down at the silk sock he’d unwittingly wadded up, and he carefully smoothed it out over his knee. His heart was pounding furiously, and he was afraid he was going to throw up. He swallowed, then inhaled deeply.
“So… we need to…” He shrugged, completely at a loss. Something Sophie had said earlier, about how they knew how to deal with Erica’s own special brand of poison, came back to him. If Haley’d been screaming at him, he’d have known what to do, what to say, to talk her down. But she wasn’t.
Instead, she was standing perfectly still against the door, misery written all over her face, looking as uncertain as he felt.
Reaching his hand out to her took every bit of courage Eli had, but he did it. “Come here.”
In a second, Haley was in his arms, shaking. Neither of them spoke. They just held on to each other.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered after a minute. “Eli, I’m so sorry.”
He wiped away the tears that had wet her cheeks, then moved her hair back off her face before sliding his fingers into the silky strands to cup her head. “I love you,” he said, his voice low, right before he kissed her.
Haley clung to him tightly, returning the kiss. It was soft, poignant, and full of desperation and sorrow.
When he lifted his mouth from hers a bit later, he didn’t go far, just turned to nuzzle her cheek, letting his face rest alongside hers. There was dampness where their skin touched, from his eyes as much as from hers.
“I’m so scared,” she told him. “I’m afraid I’ve lost you. And I’m afraid of what happens from here. Because I love you, too, but I don’t know what to do about that.”
“Oh, Haley. You’ve not lost me. Not even close.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “As to what happens from here, what do you want to happen?”
She pulled back with a sniffle and touched his cheek. “I don’t know. I want this to be easy, to be simple. I don’t want to have to think about making decisions or trying to figure out life-changing moves. I want to be with you and be happy and not worry about the future. I’ve spent so much of the last few years not being able to make plans, being at the mercy of Gramps’s illness, you’d think I’d be wanting to nail every move down in stone. But I d
on’t. That’s beyond me right this moment. I just want to be.”
Eli considered her words, even as he tried to figure out how to respond. “Okay. I’m uh, not sure what that means, exactly, but we can play it by ear. As long as we’re together… you do mean we’d still be together, right?”
She nodded and slid her arms around his neck, resting her head on his shoulder. “Yes. I’m so damned sorry about what I said, how I acted last Saturday. Can you forgive me?”
He didn’t answer right away but studied her solemnly. There was no teasing light in her eyes, no enjoyment for the distress she’d caused him. Instead, there was genuine upset and concern.
“I never cheated on her, but especially not with Sophie. I need to know you believe me about that.”
She nodded. “I do. As soon as I’d had a chance to think, to sleep, I knew I was wrong, and that I’d handled things so badly. I couldn’t figure out how to reach out, how to take that first step toward making amends. Thank God for Sophie.”
Eli chuckled and kissed her again, briefly this time. “She’s something else. Though for the record, even if she hadn’t shown up, I’d have been knocking on your door today or tomorrow. Just as soon as I garnered up the courage to do it. I was scared, too. Still am. I want us to work, Haley. I want to build a life with you, not just have a casual date here or there.”
“I want that, too. But I don’t think I’m ready to take any big steps right now.”
He couldn’t stop touching her face, kissing her softly. “Then we’ll go slow and enjoy the journey. How does that sound?”
She smiled. “It sounds perfect. I do love you, Eli Campbell.”
As they kissed again, more intimately this time, he felt the broken, tattered pieces of his heart settle back into place with an easy flutter of happiness and joy. The relief of having Haley back in his arms, back in his life, the rightness of it all, was so overwhelming all he could do was smile.
