She settled, melting like warm candle wax against my chest.
There would be no alternative for Nova. She’d given her word, and I needed to respect it. It didn’t matter what opportunity crossed her path so long as Noni needed her, Nova would be there for her. Everything else would either wait, or move on without her.
Knowing that hit me in the chest like the punch of a defibrillator. Only my heart hadn’t stopped. It would keep going no matter how shattered it felt.
All I could do was live in the moments that Nova shared with me, and when those moments were over, I’d find a quiet spot to pick up the pieces, hoping that one day she might come to collect them and melt them back together.
When morning came, Nova packed the small box up, and we left the yurt and the magic of the night behind us.
Instead of stopping at the house, Nova asked if we could head over to Stanley’s first. Noni must have been on her mind for the remainder of the night. And knowing Nova, like I thought I did, she’d want to check on her if only to give herself peace of mind.
We found Noni sitting at the kitchen table, purse clutched in her frail hands as if she were waiting for someone to pull in the driveway and pick her up.
“Good morning, Noni,” Nova said, bussing her on the cheek.
“Nova! You came back,” she said, releasing her purse and standing as she held her arms wide.
Nova hugged her. “I was only gone for the night.”
Noni shook her head. “Nonsense. You called me just the other day and said you were flying home. How was Haiti?”
Her eyes flickered over Nova’s shoulder and met my own. “Are you from Haiti?”
I watched Nova’s shoulders sag in disappointment as I answered, “No, but I worked there with Nova.”
“That’s nice. Nova, be a dear and tell Stanley I don’t need him to take me to the airport since you’ve found a way home,” Noni said.
The detachment was there in her eyes. When I looked close enough, I could see it—that spacey faraway look. Noni was stuck in the past, but not so far in the past to confuse her. But enough to upset Nova, and shake the already-tipsy platform under her own feet.
Noni wandered into the living room, and Nova darted off to the hallway.
I could hear her talking, so I followed her. The twin looks of utter despair on their faces as Nova and Stanley whispered to one another was heartbreaking.
When Stanley noticed me, he beckoned me to join them.
Nova’s arm came around me, face pressed into my shoulder as she said, “I don’t know what to do. Tell me what to do.”
There was no answer that would fix the situation, or reverse it. “Nova, all you can do is play along and be patient with her.”
She nodded, stepping back to wipe the tears from her cheeks.
“Before I forget to tell you, I received a phone call this morning from the insurance adjuster,” Stanley said.
“Took him long enough to get back to us,” Nova grumbled. “What did he say?”
“Well, that’s a bit tricky,” Stanley said, unable to meet Nova’s eyes.
“Meaning?” Nova’s patience was worn, and I could hear how close she was to snapping.
He hunched his shoulders before straightening them with a deep sigh. “Meaning, Noni hasn’t paid her insurance, so her coverage was dropped.”
Nova jerked in response. “There has to be some mistake. Noni always made sure her bills were paid. She never missed a payment.’
“I thought that, too, and I made him look into it again while I was on the phone. It wasn’t a mistake. The house isn’t insured. There’s more,” he said, hesitating.
Nova settled with her bag against the wall, bracing herself, and waved for him to continue.
“The insurance adjuster remembers when you had that water leak, so when he realized the lapse in policy, he called in a local contractor as a favor and asked him to go take a look at the house. He waited to call until he had a report on the extent of the damage so he could process the claim through the neighbor’s insurance as a work around to getting the house fixed.”
“And…”
“And the contractor reported that the roof, along with two of the structural walls, are rotting. Seems the original contractor who came out and fixed the water leak didn’t put the vapor barrier back up. It’s bad enough that the contractor told the insurance adjustor that the house should be knocked down, because it is beyond saving.”
Nova slid down the wall, backside hitting the floor.
Stanley lowered himself, crouching before her and taking her hands into his own. “You’re not alone in this, Nova. I’ll do whatever I can, however I can. We’ll make it work.”
“She’ll never get over this. How can we explain it? What do you think will happen to the state of her mind if the house has to be torn down?” Nova asked.
“Nova, she’s been out of sorts for a long time now. I don’t think it will matter… not in the long run, anyway,” Stanley answered, wincing at the truth of his words.
“This really sucks,” Nova said, scrubbing her hands down her face and then rising.
She put her hands out. Stanley took them, allowing her to help him up. “Teamwork, eh?”
She blew out a long breath, nodded, and then reached for me. “Can we go home now? I need some time to let all of this process. If Noni sees my face, she’ll know something is wrong.”
“Head out the back door,” Stanley said. “I’ll settle Noni in with some lunch and a movie. If anything comes up, I’ll call you.”
Whoever was banging on the door was going to get a firm piece of my mind if they woke Nova up. I crossed the living room with quick strides and jerked the door open, scowling.
“Eli!” Jared pushed past me with a suitcase in each hand and his guitar strapped to his back. “Good to see you, bro. Where can I put these?”
I pointed to the corner of the room. “Keep your voice down. Nova’s sleeping.”
“Nova? She’s here?” Jared asked, making his way back to the front door.
“Where’s Murphy?” I asked, following him.
“Keeping warm,” he said, pointing to the passenger side of the truck they’d arrived in.
She saw me and waved, eyes going wide when I stepped outside without a jacket.
“Where’d you get the truck?” I asked, going around to the tailgate.
Jared snorted, obscuring his face in a cloud of white as he pushed one of several boxes that filled the bed toward me and said, “Oliver’s bag of tricks.”
With the box in my arms, I paused beside Murphy’s window long enough to jerk my head in the direction of the house as Jared rapped his knuckles against the back window and said, “Come on, Murph, it’s colder than a polar bear’s ass out here.”
I chuckled, hearing Murphy squeak when she darted around me and blew inside the house like the artic wind.
Chapter 12
Nova
I’d slept like the dead. There was no other way to put it. Every inch of me ached, which told me I hadn’t moved much from the time my head hit the pillow. Sleeping that soundly left my head feeling as if it were filled with cotton, along with my mouth.
I could have closed my eyes and gone right back to sleep had it not been for the sound of voices down the hallway. A tinkle of laughter woke me the rest of the way up. It was a woman’s laugh, and one I was sure I’d never heard before.
After a few failed attempts, I managed to sit up. It would have been easier to fall back over and close my eyes, but my curiosity got the best of me. Especially when I heard Eli’s animated tone as he spoke.
Wiping the sleep from my eyes, I pushed the covers back and made to stand.
The thick padding of my socks muffled my footsteps down the hallway. I swayed like a drunk coming home from the bar and had to steady myself with one hand against the wall until the giddiness passed.
My slow procession gave me a few more seconds to pull myself together. It also made me feel as though I wer
e eavesdropping on their conversation. Which wasn’t the case at all, since I couldn’t help overhearing what they said. And if it were something they didn’t want overheard, I didn’t imagine they would be talking so freely.
But still… I made to clear my throat, or maybe even cough so they knew someone was listening, when Eli asked, “When do I have to leave?”
It sort of felt as though my world had completely crashed down around my ears. I must have made some sort of noise because the next thing I knew, he was there in front of me, tipping my chin up. “Hey, sleepy head.”
I wanted to jerk free from his hold. Wanted to demand he tell me what was going on. Yet, I did neither of those things. Instead, I hugged him, breathing in the scent of his cologne, enjoying the way he pulled me against his chest tight enough that I could feel his heartbeat against my cheek.
I fought to keep my emotions in check when he kissed the top of my head and then pulled back enough to look down at me. “Jared and Murphy are here. Come on, I’ll introduce you.”
I didn’t want to meet Jared and Murphy, not right then, anyway. What I did want was a rewind button that took me to the previous night when it had been just us, sitting under a sky of diamonds, black velvet, and the eerie glow of dancing lights. Or even further still to the days in Haiti that we shared under the blistering heat of the sun.
“It’s nice to meet you, Nova,” Murphy said, giving me a smile that could have rivaled any toothpaste commercial.
She was beautiful with her poised stance and perfect features. Beside her, I felt like a frumpy pile of unwashed socks.
“So, Nova, are you ready to join us in the super-secret underground world of Cole Enterprise?” Jared bluntly asked, dodging Murphy’s elbow.
“Jared,” she said, giving him a look that made him smirk back at her.
“I…” I had no idea what to say.
“Jared, leave her alone about it,” Eli said, hand coming to rest on my lower back as if his touch alone would give me the strength I’d need in order to deal with Jared.
“Is there a place I can put our bags? I’d like to get unpacked and settled in. It’s been a long couple of days,” Murphy asked.
“Sure, you’ll just have to give me and Nova a few minutes to move some stuff from the spare room,” Eli said.
I followed him into my room. Once the door was closed, he pinched the bridge of his nose and said, “Nova, I’m sorry about all this.”
“Sorry about what?” I asked, wondering if he meant Jared and Murphy showing up, or if he was fixing to tell me he was leaving.
“I had no idea they’d be here today,” he answered.
My heart sank a little. “You don’t owe me an apology because your friends are here.”
He closed his eyes tight, hands settling on his hips as he rocked on his heels with an explosive sigh and said, “I’m being relocated.”
Everything in me froze.
“I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, or if they’ll even send me back. Jared and Murphy will be taking over here since Jared can’t go in the field,” he said as he stepped back and leaned his shoulder against the door.
The torn expression on his face told me he didn’t want to go, but would do it anyway because that was his job. I had to respect it, even if I didn’t like it. “Where are they sending you?”
His head tipped to the side as he processed my question. I didn’t think he’d expected me to ask him that.
“Siberia,” he finally said, wincing when I shook my head.
“And you thought Alaska was cold?” Siberia? What in the actual hell did he need to go to Siberia for? Did they not like him or something?
He pushed away from the door, and caught my hand up in his. “Nova, I don’t want to go, but I have to.”
“Do you know when?” Surely he’d have some idea.
He shook his head. “Medic teams get called in last minute. It’s uncommon to be put in place ahead of time. It does happen occasionally, though.”
“Do they at least tell you what you’re going in the field for?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.
“They do. We get briefed on the mission when we’re en route to wherever we’re going. And we stay on until the patient can be transported, or released.”
“And then?”
“And then we go back to our home base,” he answered. “Mine was Chicago, until they moved me here. But with them moving Jared and Murphy here, I’m not so sure anymore.”
“Can’t you ask your boss?”
“Believe me, next to this upcoming mission, that’s at the top of my priorities,” he said, giving my hand a brief squeeze and then letting go.
Was it fair of me to want to know what he planned to do? It might have been had I been able to take him up on the job offer. But I couldn’t. Noni needed me.
“Is it okay if we move your things into my room, so Jared and Murphy can use this one?” Eli asked.
“Why wouldn’t it be okay?”
He sighed, giving me a tender smile. “Nova, I just told you I was leaving. I’d be a real bastard if I kept on acting as if I were staying. If you want, you can take my room and I’ll take the couch.”
“Is that what you want?” I asked, wondering if that was his way of taking a step back without having to be blunt about it.
“No. Selfishly, I want to go to sleep with you in my arms, and wake up with you there.”
“Selfishly, I want that, too,” I said. “Now, help me get everything moved so they can settle in.”
“I don’t deserve you, Nova,” Eli said, coming up behind me to put his hands on my hips and pull me close. “But I’m damn sure going to try and be everything you need.”
“You already are,” I whispered.
“Where’s Jared?” Eli asked, noticing Murphy at the table by herself.
She looked up from the tablet in her hand, eyes bloodshot and puffy from rubbing them. “Checking his eyelids for pinholes.”
“I’ve made the bed. If you’d like, I’ll help you with your suitcases so you can get some sleep,” I said, extending the tentative olive branch to what I hoped to be a friendship.
She gave me a weak smile and nodded.
“I’ll get the bags, Murph. Nova can show you to your room. I’m sure you’ve already scoped out the rest of the house by now,” Eli said.
“You act like you know me,” she scoffed. “By the way, you’re almost out of toilet paper.”
“Damn,” he hissed under his breath. “Guess it’s back to the store for the tenth time in three days.”
“Gotcha covered. Check one of those boxes,” Murphy said over her shoulder as she followed me.
Murphy sat down on the edge of the bed with a bounce. “Thanks for giving up your room.”
Eli set the suitcases in the closet and left with a, “Night, Murph.”
She yawned in reply.
“If you need anything at all, just let me know.”
She politely thanked me, then keeled over onto her side and was out like a light. I slipped out the door so as not to disturb her.
It took a bit of prodding, but Eli finally got Jared up on his feet and down the hallway. A few loud bangs and muttered curses later, Eli was back in the living room and opening the boxes pushed against the wall.
“Shouldn’t you wait?” I asked.
“Nah, it’s just supplies,” he answered, flipping open the first lid and digging out enough toilet paper to last for at least a month.
I settled in beside him. Opening the box he pushed in front of me, I hauled out non-perishables.
“Oh, man, Riley must really miss me,” Eli said as he hugged a box to his chest.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Care package. I’ll put it on the table, and we’ll open it last,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows.
I laughed. “Must be some care package.”
Once everything was put away, Eli opened the box on the table. “Yes! She didn’t forget.”
“Hot
chocolate?”
He gave me a mocking look. “This isn’t just any hot chocolate. I’ll have you know it’s my favorite.”
I peeked inside the box. “You’re a junk-food junkie. Look at all that sugar.”
“If you’re nice to me, I’ll share it with you,” he said, smirking.
“Just how nice do I have to be?” I bantered, fluttering my eyelashes.
He backed me against the kitchen counter, pinning me in place. The corner of the box of hot chocolate dug into my shoulder as he kissed me.
My hands slipped into the back pocket of his jeans and I gave his backside a brief squeeze.
He broke the kiss and leaned his forehead against mine. “That’s at least worth a honey bun.”
“Oh? How do I go about getting you to share your hot chocolate?” I asked.
He pushed the box into my hand before lifting me off the ground. My legs wrapped around his hips, one arm looping around his neck as I put the box between us, and then I wiggled close enough that our bodies pinned it in place.
“For God’s sake woman, whatever you do, don’t drop that box.”
I laughed when he smacked me playfully on the backside and then carried me to our room. He lowered us to the bed, pausing briefly to toss the box of hot chocolate over the side of the mattress.
With Jared and Murphy arriving, our lives took on a new schedule. I split my mornings and afternoons with Noni. In between those times, I sat with Murphy and Eli going over property details. The next Cole Enterprise location had become forefront with Murphy.
Jared was sort of all over the place. He’d pop over Murphy’s shoulder and give his opinion every now and then, or tell a joke to see her laugh when the monotony of the job put a scowl on her face.
I hadn’t forgotten Eli’s comment about Jared not being able to go out in the field, but I hadn’t found a way to ask why without feeling like I was being nosy.
When Jared wasn’t buzzing around like a demented bumblebee, he played his guitar. I enjoyed those moments best. It brought a sort of peace around us that soothed everyone.
Under Northern Lights (The Six Series Book 6) Page 10
