Scarlett Heart (The Scarletts

by Brenda Barrett

  He looked away quickly.

  This was not happening. He closed his computer screen, so much for his grand plans to see if he could get his muse back while working in a cafe/bookstore.

  He should just go somewhere else— anywhere else, the day was still young. He got up and put his computer in the bag. The only issue that he could foresee with his plans for the day was that deep inside of him he was feeling miserable. It was the kind of misery that stemmed from his inability to write but it was also deeper, murky and unfocused, as if he had inherited it.

  Dean Long must have been deeply unhappy when he died.

  He needed to overwrite this feeling, as Whitney had said to him at the gym, develop his own feelings. Give his new heart new emotions.

  He walked to the door and turned to tell Raine goodbye.

  "You are leaving?" she squeaked.

  Noah regarded her curiously. "When do you go back to school?"

  "Next week Monday," Raine said. "I am not looking forward to it."

  "So what about Marion?" Noah asked. "When does she come by?"

  "This week?" Raine asked cautiously. "At two. I sort of assumed that I'd be working here this year. So, we already arranged it."

  Noah nodded. "Good. Can she work this week? I mean, do a double shift? I am going to need you for something else."

  "Me?" Raine's voice was breathless and she straightened up from where she was hovering over the display case.

  "Yes, you." Noah nodded, the idea had just occurred to him. He could use her help in sorting out his mother's books and get to know her at the same time. "I want you to help me with something."

  Chapter Seven

  "Where are we going?" Raine asked sliding into Noah's SUV.

  Noah grinned. "You are just asking me that?"

  "Well, sorry," Raine said feeling flustered around him especially in the confined space of his car. "I had to leave some instructions for Marion. Completely slipped my mind to ask earlier."

  "I was just kidding with you." Noah glanced at her. "We are going to get some books for the store."

  "Really?" Raine grinned. "I was going to talk to you about restocking tomorrow. The Christmas crowd wiped out our stocks."

  "Well then, this trip is going to be very useful." Noah smiled at her. "I think you are going to need to change. We are going to wade through some boxes and chaos."

  Raine looked down at her boxy dress. "I live a few minutes from here."

  She gave him her address and he nodded.

  He didn't try to make conversation with her through the journey. Instead, he turned on his CD player. Some modern instrumentals came on. She hummed along to some of the songs she knew, but Noah seemed to be in a world of his own.

  She supposed that was a writer thing. She once had a customer, a writer, who just came into the bookstore and sat and stared into space. The first couple of times she did it, Raine had tried to be helpful and ask her if she wanted coffee or pastries, but the writer would snap, "Don't you see I am busy writing!"

  Raine had quickly learned that staring in space was a part of her process. It looked odd to Raine and was downright weird but different people had their little idiosyncracies.

  Though, in her opinion, writers were a stranger bunch than others. She sneaked a peek at Noah and then smiled. She wondered what his quirks were. Most of his books were about people beating odds, extreme opposite individuals finding love—she understood Bradley's warning to be guarded around him. Noah wrote his books like he was a keen observer of body language. Like he was attuned to people's emotions.

  He was not just an observer, he had mastered the art of piercing stares and silent contemplation. He would make an excellent priest at confessional or a good detective.

  She could imagine him in an interview room at a police station, his gorgeous hazel eyes trained on her, his body still, minimal movements, composed, unreadable shuttered expression..."Spill it, Raine. Tell me about you and Bradley."

  She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Noah wasn't a detective and she was not usually given to flights of fantasy.

  She focused on the here and now. They were on the road to her house. Noah drove up to her gate and stopped.

  He just looked at her meaningfully until she scrambled out of the car. He didn't waste time on conversation did he?

  She let herself into the house and made a beeline for her suitcase where she thought she had some jeans. After a cursory search, she dumped the whole thing on the bed and found her errant make up case and her trusty anti frizz hair milk, hidden at the bottom of the bag. She hurried to the bathroom and put her hair in a quick upsweep and flashed on her makeup in record-breaking time. If there was an Olympics for who did their makeup the fastest she would have won.

  She surveyed herself in the mirror. She looked decent enough. Her hair looked much better than this morning's frizz fest.

  She grabbed her bag, put on flatter more comfortable shoes and was back in the vehicle before Noah could get impatient.

  He smiled at her. "Bravo, Miss Childs, you clean up well and you didn't make me wait."

  "Thank you." Raine flushed at his compliment. "You didn't say where we are going to get the books."

  "My mother's old place." Noah drove out of town and toward Hanover.

  She knew better than to make conversation, Noah seemed to like the sound of the background music rather than engaging in conversation. She was getting used to it. He glanced over at her once or twice.

  She caught his gaze once but was quick to look away.

  They eventually drove up to the Tryall Club, and was waved through by security.

  Raine looked around her at the carpet like green of the golf course and the blue bands of sea beyond that. She caught herself and closed her mouth with an audible snap.

  She had never been to Tryall before. She had always passed the entrance off the highway, saw the waterwheel by the side of the road and fantasized about its history. She had no idea that the property beyond the gates was so huge and so awe-inspiring.

  Noah slowed the car and pointed to a cluster of buildings. "That's the Great House."

  She nodded wordlessly.

  "And we are on Great House Drive."

  "Right," she cleared her throat. "When you said, your mother's old place I wasn't expecting this. Maybe it was the word old, as in dusty and decrepit, that I was thinking about."

  Noah chuckled. "My stepfather bought a place over here as an investment years ago. My mom came here to live when he died, said she wanted a change of pace in her life. She isolated herself for a while and in the process developed a book fetish, ordering cases and cases of books. Other people have food or shoes or some other obsession. Hers was books."

  "Is that why you became a writer?" Raine asked. She was dying to know more about him.

  Noah chuckled. "No, but maybe I got my love of books from her. I grew up without television. My mom got this idea that the television would rot my brain. I already had a heart condition, so she wanted me to take it easy—apparently television was too exciting for me."

  "You have a heart condition?" She turned toward him in the seat and examined him head to toe. He was in a white dress shirt and jeans. He looked lean and fit and incredibly healthy.

  Noah laughed. "I had a heart condition. I got a new heart a couple of months ago."

  "That's...you...are you serious?" Raine realized her voice was hoarse.

  "Yes, serious." Noah smiled at her. "Relax, the surgery was successful. I am not going to keel over and die any minute now. At least not from heart complications."

  Raine inhaled and then exhaled raggedly. "You look so...so...healthy."

  Noah nodded. "Why thank you ma'am." He drove up a slope and then stopped at a villa at the apex of the slope.

  "Good gosh," Raine exclaimed when she got out of the car. "This is quite a view."

  Noah ushered her inside, they passed a small courtyard and then they were in the house, which seemed as if its open plan was designed to
show off the infinity pool and the sea in the distance.

  "Gorgeous," Raine whispered, "I feel as if I am in a different world."

  Noah looked unimpressed; obviously he had probably seen this place a thousand times.

  "You can go have a look," he said, walking toward the wide wraparound veranda. "You can come and find me whenever you are ready. The place is designed in a circular manner around the great room. I'll not be hard to find."

  Raine nodded still in awe. She didn't know what to do first, focus on the view below, the inviting infinity pool or the many different colors of hibiscus which seemed as if they were waving to her from the steps of the gazebo.

  She headed to the gazebo and sat in one of the chairs and pinched herself. Now if she owned this place, she wouldn't leave, ever.

  But she didn't and she was here to work. She got up in consternation, Noah must think that she was the worst kind of slacker.

  She headed for the great room and looked around. There were woodcarvings, earth toned furniture, and pictures of colorful birds. She could see the kitchen through the archway and then she heard music.

  Beres Hammond.

  She smiled and headed to the far left of the great room. Noah was sitting in what appeared to be an office; it had books stacked from floor to ceiling. It had more books than the bookstore.

  He raised an eyebrow at her stunned look. "There is more. Lots more."

  "She read all of them?" Raine squeaked.

  "I doubt it." Noah chuckled. "She was just a shameless collector who got a little overwhelmed. I was thinking we should start in this room and then pack them up according to genre. What do you think?"

  "Yes!" Raine nodded and looked around. "This is going to take a while."

  Noah smiled. "But it is a lovely place to do it."

  "Definitely," Raine said heading for one of the shelves. At eye level she already recognized a famous mystery writer squeezed in beside a historical romance novel and a cookbook. They were all in mint-like condition. She opened the mystery book. It still smelled new. She took it out.

  "Where are the boxes?"

  Noah got up. "Soon be back. My mom has a couple of them in storage."

  He returned with four large boxes and put them in the center of the room. "I'll label them."

  Raine stole a glance at him while he labeled the boxes, she couldn't believe that he had heart surgery. She never met anyone with a different heart, or at least she didn't know of anyone who had gone through heart replacement surgery. It was still puzzling how good he looked.

  She looked away before he could see her watching him and started humming to the music. Every time I think of saying goodbye...everything inside me say it's a lie...so I can't...

  Her hums turned to outright singing. It was her favorite Beres Hammond song. It brought back memories, of high school of walking home in the rain, of salt fish fritters, of young love. The kind of love you thought would never die but inevitably does.

  She didn't even realize that Noah was standing beside her; she hadn't seen when he moved.

  He smiled. "You like this song?"

  "Very much." Raine nodded, "It's funny, it brings back memories of the taste of certain foods and rain and relationships and..." she stopped. "I talk too much."

  "No, you are doing okay." Noah smiled, "It's the same for me too, this song gives me a feeling of nostalgia, so deep and poignant and heart twisting that sometimes I feel a need to just sit down and ride out the overload."

  "Wow." Raine clutched the book she was holding. "Music does that to me sometimes."

  "I didn't even know the song existed until I got my new heart," Noah said lazily. He leaned on the shelf and looked at her. "I got up a couple of days after my hospital stay and it was playing in my head. So I had to find it."

  "So you think your heart had something to do with it?" Raine widened her eyes.

  Noah shrugged. "I don't know."

  "Interesting." Raine put down the book she was holding and turned to Noah fully. "You have one interesting life, huh?"

  Noah grimaced. "Actually, it used to be quiet and uneventful but now I like certain things like this song, when I heard it for myself the first time, I cried."

  "What? Raine chuckled. "You serious?"

  "Yep." Noah shrugged. "As mortifying as it is to admit this to you. I felt so sad, I just cried."

  "But it's not a sad song," Raine frowned. "It's romantic and hopeful. It talks about a guy who did wrong but can't say goodbye to the love he had for his woman. It's funny, my high school boyfriend, the only time I saw him cry was..."

  She clamped her mouth shut. She was talking too much again, but Noah was looking at her the intensity back in his eyes.

  "You can't stop now." His voice was husky. "You have to go on."

  Raine wet her lips, why was she talking about her personal life? This was Noah Scarlett. Her boss. The writer. Bradley's brother-in-law.

  She sighed. "I talk too much."

  "And I am too quiet." Noah grinned. "It balances things out. If it makes you feel better, you are the only person I have ever admitted to that I cried when I heard No Goodbye by Beres Hammond."

  Raine chuckled. "If I have to go into my life and drag up long forgotten memories, you have to do the same."

  Noah nodded. "Sure. No problem."

  "We can work and talk," Raine said turning back to the shelf.

  Noah turned to the bookshelf. "Yes, why not?"

  He took out a romance novel and put it in the box marked romance.

  "So, you had a high school boyfriend?"

  "Yes." Raine bit her lip. She didn't want to say too much. Her past and present were dangerously intertwined. She imagined Bradley wagging his fingers at her and telling her to stop talking.

  "We grew up in the same district my boyfriend lived a few houses over from mine."

  "Paddington," Noah murmured. "When I hear Paddington, I think greenery."

  "Yup, lots of it." Raine chuckled. "Too much. I am pretty sure some parts of Paddington, especially the caves, are just how the Tainos left them centuries ago."

  "Intriguing," Noah murmured. "I'd love to visit."

  Raine laughed. "You make it sound like a resort. In order to reach Paddington, you have to be guided there. It's in the wild we don't have many outside visitors."

  Noah smiled and nodded. "Okay."

  "People in Paddington are pretty old fashioned, you know. They still believe in ghost stories and three-footed horses and those kinds of nonsense. My maternal grandparents were especially old fashioned."

  She shook her head. "My mom was their youngest and she got in trouble pretty early. She was just fourteen. She had me at eighteen."

  "Describe her," Noah said not pretending to be looking at books anymore he pulled up an ottoman and indicated for her to sit and he got another one and sat nearby.

  "You are not working," Raine frowned at him.

  "But this is infinitely more entertaining." Noah winked at her. "And for the first time in months I feel inspired."

  "You writer types," Raine shrugged. "I hope you don't write about me."

  "Not you exactly," Noah murmured. "I tend not to write about people I know, but I've been toying with the idea of writing a story that's similar to your mother's. Young lady growing up in a rural area with strict parents...meeting and falling in love with a variety of men, thinking that each one was the special one. I am warming to that as a back-story for something. Tell me more about her."

  "My mother?" Raine rolled her eyes. "Seriously? There is nothing to tell. She was my grandparent's wild child. The one who kicked against conventions, the town hottie."

  "Do you look like her?" Noah asked.

  "No, I don't look like her at all. My mother is petite and voluptuous. She has ridiculously nice skin, I mean no blemishes and a face that has dazzled many a Paddington man. She is really good looking."

  "But you are describing you, apart from the petite part." Noah grinned. "Are you sure that you don't look
like her?"

  "Very sure." Raine flushed. "I look more like my dad's side of the family. As a matter of fact I look very much like my aunt Gracie—tall, average curves, average everything. When I was ten, I was towering over my mother and feeling awkward about it. Of course, now I realize that my mom is just really short and that I am not a giant."

  Noah chuckled. "I was taller than my mom too and I liked it. By the way, you are not average."

  "Oh yes I am," Raine shrugged, "average is not bad. Especially in my family, no one expects you to get ahead with your brain. So average is good."

  She turned away after that revealing statement, she hoped Noah didn't pursue it, she regretted saying so much. He was silent for a while, as he picked book after book out of the bookcase then he asked. "So how'd they meet?"

  He was pursuing her mom's back story. Raine chuckled. "What is this book you are thinking of a nineties Jamaica, rural love, teenage pregnancy, what?"

  "Maybe all of them," Noah said dryly. "But the overarching theme is searching for love in all the wrong places, or something like that."

  "That about sums up my parents," Raine said ruefully. "My mom met my dad while passing a construction site. He was a day laborer with a couple of kids already and she was the young girl who hadn't even made it to third form in high school without getting knocked up by an older boy from the school.

  But they were so hotly in love that no one could stop them from hooking up and then after they had me, everything fizzled out.

  A few months after that both of them were in different relationships. Searching again for that elusive something.

  I have a brother on my father's side who is just three months older than me and a sister by my mom's side that is exactly a year younger. They found other people pretty quickly after their great romance."

  Noah nodded. "Is that why you broke up with your high school boyfriend? You didn't want to follow in your parent's footsteps?"

  "Not really, we were way different than my mixed up parents. I was determined to get out of Paddington. He wanted to stay and work on his father's dairy farm. I got a job at a hotel so I left."

  Raine didn't realize that she sounded wistful until Noah asked her softly.