by Loree Lough
“Nice to meet you,” Noah said.
“Same here.” Hands on his knees, Troy bent at the waist to make himself child-sized. “How ’bout I introduce you to the best treat you ever tasted while your dad and Billie talk?”
“No, thank you,” she said, grabbing Noah’s hand. “I’m the one who wants to talk to Billie.”
Billie met Noah’s eyes. “Really?”
“Well, yeah. She has something she wants to say. And then so do I.”
Troy held out a hand to Alyssa. “Do you like milk with your cookies?”
She looked up at Noah again, and when he nodded, she put her hand into Troy’s. “Just one cookie, though, okay?” Noah cautioned.
“Okay, Daddy,” she said as Troy led her into the kitchen. “After my cookie, is that when I should say what we practiced?”
“That’ll be fine.”
Billie couldn’t imagine what Alyssa had come here to say, but if it had anything to do with that dreaded allergy pill, she didn’t intend to let Noah browbeat her a second time. She took a deep breath.
“I guess it’s fate that you’re here, so I can tell you in person what I should have said….”
His brow furrowed slightly.
“I’m sorry about the allergy pill.”
“You didn’t know I’d already given her one.”
Billie didn’t really need Noah as a client, but the money would have definitely come in handy, especially if Troy took her up on her offer of a loan.
“That’s no excuse,” she said. “You were right. I should have realized you weren’t focused on my question.”
He studied her face for a second. “Still, I overreacted. Big-time. You didn’t deserve that, especially after the way you minded the shop while I picked Alyssa up at school, and hung around while I blasted that supplier.”
“I’m confused. Aren’t you here to say no thanks on the website?”
“The opposite, actually.” He gestured toward the computer in the corner of her living room. “Is that my site on the screen?”
She followed his gaze. “No, but I can pull it up in just a second.” Restless and unable to sleep, she’d worked on it last night, thinking it would be easy enough to change the header. He wasn’t the only bike shop in town, after all. Billie led him to the alcove she’d turned into her office. “Make yourself comfortable,” she said, removing the throw pillow from the wingback chair beside her desk. Then, facing the PC, she tilted the monitor so Noah could see it, and clicked through his site, tab by tab.
He pointed at the headline banner, where she’d typed in big bold Times Roman font SHOP EXTERIOR.
“I don’t have any pictures of the store.”
“No problem. I have a great camera.” Billie sat back. “Do you have any suggestions? Questions?”
“We can do this whole thing without any photographs of Alyssa or me, though, right?”
What a strange question. But if Bud was right, and they were in the witness protection service… “Sure, if that’s what you prefer.”
His lips formed a grim line as he said, “It is.”
“And this tab about experience and years in the business? How can we emphasize that I know what I’m doing without revealing that I have only a little more than three years’ experience?”
People were always saying that her face was an open book, so Billie focused on the monitor, to keep him from reading it now.
“If it’s there, people want details. If it isn’t, they usually don’t notice. At least, they don’t point it out. That’s been my experience, anyway. So it’s best to delete it.”
“That makes sense. Thanks.” He got to his feet, slid a checkbook from his shirt pocket. “Your proposal didn’t mention a deposit. How much do I owe you?”
She waved the offer away. “I’ll invoice you when the site is finished and approved, right before it goes live.”
He repocketed the checkbook. “Part of me is looking forward to that…and part of me dreads it.”
“Dread? That’s an odd way to describe the results of more business and more income!” She punctuated the comment with a too loud, too long laugh that made her blush.
“More money would be nice. More attention…” he shrugged “…I could live without.”
Billie didn’t know how to react to that. “You’re sure you don’t want some coffee?”
“I’m sure.” He held out his hand. “Good doing business with you, Billie.”
She wasn’t prepared for the strength and warmth of his handshake. “I’ll probably have things wrapped up in a week or so.”
“No hurry,” he said, releasing her hand. “Guess I’d better get in there before Alyssa talks your brother’s ears off. Besides, by now she’s probably dying to deliver her speech. She worked on it all morning.”
All morning? It wasn’t even nine o’clock yet!
When they walked into the kitchen, Troy said, “There they are. See? I told you it wouldn’t be much longer.”
Immediately, Alyssa blurted, “I’m very sorry that I fibbed about the pill, Billie. And I’m sorry that I got you in trouble with Daddy. I promise never to do it again.”
A strange sensation spiraled in Billie’s heart. She should have tried harder to dislike this child. Maybe then she wouldn’t want to hug her. “I’m the grown-up,” she began, “so I should have known better.”
It seemed the most natural thing in the world to pluck a napkin from the basket on the bar counter, cup Alyssa’s chin in her palm and gently brush cookie crumbs from her chin. So natural that it scared Billie, and dredged up the familiar sorrow, born when she had buried her own little girl.
She backed away slowly, and tossing the napkin into the trash, said, “Then we’re even. I won’t give you any more medicine, and you won’t say you want some when you’d really rather have candy. Deal?” She held up a hand, traffic cop style, and waited.
Beaming, the girl gave her a high five. “Deal.”
Troy reached into the drawer behind him and retrieved Billie’s camera. “If this isn’t a Kodak moment,” he said, “I don’t know what is. C’mon, you two. Let’s get a picture for the kid’s scrapbook.”
Noah stepped between his daughter and Billie’s brother. His posture, his voice, his facial expression shouted “No!” A tense moment passed, and then he relaxed. But not much.
“I hate to break up the party,” he said, “but Alyssa has some homework to do, and I have a store to run.”
He faced Billie. “Again, thanks for letting us stop by so early, and on such short notice.” He took Alyssa’s hand and led her to the foyer. “Let me know if I can do anything to help with the website.”
Billie and Troy followed, stood side by side as he opened the door.
“Thank you for the cookies,” Alyssa said to Troy. “And for the new knock-knock jokes.”
“You’re welcome. Enjoy your day off.”
After they’d gone, Troy put the camera back into the kitchen drawer. “I thought you were making mountains out of molehills, but I stand corrected. There is something off about that guy.” Grabbing a stack of snickerdoodles, he headed for his laptop in the living room. “And this time, I’m going to find out what.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ALYSSA HAD CLIMBED onto his big rolling chair. At first, she’d bent over the desk, muttering as her pencil scratched on the paper, filling the fat blue lines with words like grab and band and flat. She’d spent the past few minutes, though, spinning and singing, “Round, round, I get around, wa-ooh, wa-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh.”
“I need to limit your time with that Beach Boys CD,” Noah said, squirting oil onto the squeaking cabinet hinge. “Having trouble with spelling a word, cupcake?”
“Just the extra-credit one,” she said, grabbing the edge of the desk.
“Do you remember how to sound it out?”
She exhaled a sigh of frustration and, retrieving the pencil, made the hard G sound, followed by R, then A.
Noah gave the hinge anot
her squirt. “How many letters in the extra-credit word?”
He could hear the pencil point tap-tap-tapping as she counted.
“Seven.”
“That’s a long, hard word…for third grade.”
“Oh, it isn’t hard. I can spell it. I just don’t want to.”
And then it hit him: the word was grandma.
Back in Chicago, they’d lived fifteen minutes east of Jillian’s mother. Half an hour in the other direction put them at his mom’s. Weekends, holidays and summer vacations had included lots of family activities, most involving the grandparents. And Alyssa, who’d been four when he’d taken her from them, remembered it all. There was a time when he’d looked down his nose at people who said, “If I could live that part of my life over again, I’d live it differently….” The mind-set was pointless at best, he’d thought, narcissistic at worst. Well, he didn’t feel that way anymore.
He put down the oil can and went to her. Crouching in front of the chair, he held her beautiful little face in his hands. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
She met his gaze, looking innocent and wise beyond her years at the same time. Common sense told him he could never give back all he’d taken from her, not even if he lived three lifetimes. But at the moment, Noah felt anything but sensible.
“You worked real hard on the rest of the list, so I think you can skip the extra-credit word.”
Her eyes widened, and so did her smile. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Whew,” she said, shoulders sagging. “That’s a relief. For a minute there, I thought you and me were gonna have another one of those.”
“One of what?”
“You know. Those nights where I say something about Mommy or Gran or Pop,” she began, bobbing her head, “and it makes you sad, and then I get sad, and then you feel bad….” She sighed.
Yeah, he knew, all right. Those nights weren’t happening as often as they once had. But they happened. As recently as Mother’s Day, when a commercial had appeared on TV, and Alyssa had said she wished the two of them could have shopped for a heart-shaped pendant for her mom. It had hit him like a roundhouse punch to the gut, and he’d locked himself in the bathroom to get hold of himself.
When he had emerged ten minutes later, and Alyssa had seen his red-rimmed eyes, she’d known he’d been in there blubbering like a baby. And when she’d hugged him, tiny hands patting his back as she’d said, “It’s okay, Daddy. It’s going to be all right, I promise,” he’d almost lost it all over again.
The bell above the entry door jangled, and he straightened. “How would you feel about driving over to Ledo’s for supper?”
“I’d say let’s!”
“Then it’s a date.”
A husky female voice called, “Anybody home?”
“It’s Max!” Alyssa said.
“Hey, short stuff. Why aren’t you in school?” She held up a palm. “Whoa. You’re not gonna sneeze and make me sick, are ya?”
“No, I’m not sick. Me and Daddy couldn’t sleep, on account of I took two allergy pills instead of one. So he let me stay home so I could take some naps.”
Hands on her hips, Max looked at Noah. “What’s this? You overdosed your kid?”
“It wasn’t Daddy’s fault. He gave me a pill, but I wanted candy. So I didn’t tell that to Billie, and asked her to give me another one.”
“Billie. Here. Doling out meds to your kid. Unsupervised.”
She knew very well what had happened, but Max was Max, and he knew better than to point it out. She adopted a tough New York cop voice and crossed her arms over her chest.
“Why, I oughta cuff the both of yas—you an’ this Billie character—an’ throw yas in the slammer.”
Alyssa looked from Max to Noah and back again, and satisfied that the adults were joking, giggled.
“We’re going to Ledo’s for pizza,” she said. “Would you like to come, too?”
Max’s job with the U.S. Marshals Service wasn’t common knowledge; rather than risk being recognized by someone who might connect her to the witness protection program, they could never be seen in public together. She’d purchased a ten-speed and car carrier at Walmart for the sole purpose of having a legitimate excuse to visit Ike’s Bikes.
“Wish I could, but my boss will have a fit if he sees me out having fun when I should be working.”
“We could order a pizza instead.”
Max tugged gently at Alyssa’s ponytail. “Tell you what, if it isn’t too late when I get all my reports turned in, I’ll be back, and we’ll do that. Deal?”
“That’s exactly what Billie said when we were at her house, right before we high-fived!”
“Far be it from me to be outdone by a…by a Billie!” Max gave Alyssa’s little palm a gentle slap, then looked at Noah. “I have news for you.”
The agent stopped by often, always with no warning whatever. Occasionally, she delivered a message that got stuck between post offices when the Marshals Service didn’t have time for in-person deliveries. More often than not, though, the sole purpose of her visits was to see how things were going.
Noah tensed, and studied her face for signs that O’Malley had found them. No…she didn’t look anxious, and didn’t seem to be in a hurry to get them out of here and on to a new location. And since she hadn’t suggested they talk in private, away from Alyssa’s tender ears, he relaxed a little.
“If you ever get tired of marshaling, I’m pretty sure you could find work in Hollywood, teaching screenwriters how to build suspense into movie scenes.”
“And if spinning bike wheels ever gets too boring, you might consider stand-up comedy.” She rolled her eyes. “On second thought, maybe not.”
“Max…” He held out his hands in a gesture of silent supplication. “You’re killin’ me here.”
“Okay. I’ve had my fun. Now it’s your turn to have some.” She lowered her voice, to keep Alyssa from hearing. “O’Malley was moved into the general population.”
If not for Max, Noah wouldn’t know anything about the senator. Phone calls could be traced and internet trails could be followed…straight to his door. If O’Malley had lost the safe haven of his Pay to Stay single cell, he wouldn’t last long.
Noah glanced at Alyssa, preoccupied by a blue jay splashing in the birdbath out back.
“How long ago?”
“Just happened.” One eyebrow rose slowly. “I know what you’re thinking, but don’t get your hopes up just yet. O’Malley reminds me of the giant squids I read about in Smithsonian—huge, powerful, dangerous predators, with forty-foot tentacles covered by sharp-toothed suckers. They’ve been around since…since forever, because they sit quietly in the dark until—”
“See? I was right. You were born for Hollywood.” It was a good thing that Alyssa was watching the bird, because a description like that might give her nightmares. It might give him nightmares. “I don’t buy it. No one has ever seen one.”
“Alive… Scientists have studied the ones that washed ashore, dead, or got tangled up in fishermen’s nets.” Max put her hands on her hips. “So, smart guy, they do exist. But that isn’t my point. My point is it’s way too soon to let your guard down. O’Malley is like that sea beast. He still has friends in high places on the outside. Who knows what strings he could pull? We’re not out of the woods…yet.”
She went to the window, spent a few minutes whispering with Alyssa about the strange and sometimes comical habits of birds, then came back toward him.
“Thanks for the update, Max.”
“My pleasure. You can rest easy about Billie and her brother, too. They’re okay.”
It didn’t surprise him that she’d had them checked out. She’d run his neighbors, Alyssa’s teachers and all his customers through the Marshals’ database. It had always been a relief, hearing the people he and Alyssa were interacting with wouldn’t harm them, but never more than this time.
Before he could fully accept what he’d just acknowledg
ed, Max said, “I saw you coming out of her house this morning.” She lowered her voice to add, “If you want to keep up this ‘it’s strictly business’ facade, you’d better do a better job of controlling your facial muscles.”
Noah didn’t know what to say, so he shrugged.
“I know, I know,” she said, and began counting on her fingers. “You don’t think you’re ready for a relationship, that even if you were, you’re not good enough for you-know-who. Yeah, okay, so you were a workaholic, made some mistakes—big ones. But, Noah, you paid for them. You aren’t that guy anymore. I know, because I’ve walked that rocky road, right alongside you.”
Noah rubbed his chin. “Here’s something I never told you, something that might finally change your mind about me—or at least about whether or not I’m entitled to a regular life.” He made sure Alyssa wasn’t listening, and continued.
“A few months before Jillian’s murder, we left Alyssa with my mom and went out to dinner. No special reason. Jillian just wanted some time alone.”
He remembered the way she had looked that night, cheeks flushed from too much wine, eyes glittering in the candlelight.
“She asked me if I loved her. Not one of those ‘stroke my ego’ things you women are famous for… Jill honestly didn’t know. That wasn’t on her. It was on me. I’d spent so many years putting career advancement ahead of everything else that I forgot what was important.”
“But that night, you reassured her.”
“Yeah, I did, because despite my conceit and self-centeredness, she was the love of my life. Every promotion and award I earned were more hers than mine. Because—to cite a tired old cliché—she held down the fort while I did it all.”
“You were lucky. I’ll give you that.” The agent paused, stared hard at him. “But so was Jillian.”
Max opened the door. “See ya, kiddo,” she hollered to Alyssa. Then, facing him, she said, “There are no parallels, you know, between her and Billie.”
And then she left him to think about her parting comment.
CHAPTER TWELVE
NOAH JOCKEYED JEFF’S Venge onto the repair stand and inspected the bike’s pulleys. The teeth were worn down, keeping them from spinning freely. “Yep,” he said to himself, “gonna need to replace those.”
