“Everything,” she said, and he could literally see the sparks of challenge dazzling her eyes. “Kara said the other kids made fun of Gracie.”
“Kids are cruel,” he pointed out.
“Yes, unfortunately they are. But don’t you see, when Gracie gets those shoes, there’ll be nothing obvious for the other children to make fun of. She’ll be happier. More alert. More confident. She’ll go to her classes with her head held high and...”
“And what?” he asked, leaning toward her over the table. “Grow up to be president, all because of a new pair of shoes?”
“Maybe.” Her features went stiff and her eyes flashed. “Why not?”
“Don’t you get it? It’s not that easy.”
“I didn’t say it was easy,” she told him quietly.
Noah knew he should shut up now. Just drop this whole conversation, but damned if he could stop the words from pouring from his throat. “A pair of shoes won’t feed a kid. Won’t make him feel wanted. Or needed. It won’t change his life.”
“It could change the way that child feels about himself, and sometimes I think that’s enough.”
He scrubbed one hand across the back of his neck and took a long drink of his iced tea.
“Noah...” She reached out, laid one hand over his and asked, “Who are we talking about now? Gracie? Or you?”
He laughed harshly, a scrape of sound against his throat. In the past few days he’d unwillingly done more thinking about his own past than he had in years. And of course his memories were getting in the way, coloring his reactions. He’d never told anyone else about his childhood, but looking into Annie’s eyes, he let the words come.
“Got me. Okay, yeah. I know what it’s like for Gracie and the other kids like her. Hell, they’ve probably got it better than I did. I was a foster kid,” he said, sliding his hand from beneath hers, despite missing the warmth of her touch almost instantly. He stood and walked across the small kitchen. Standing at the counter, he stared out the window at the yard and the gathering dusk. It was easier than meeting Annie’s eyes as he tore open an old wound. “I know all about old clothes, hand-me-down shoes that don’t fit. Everything I had was donated by someone, somewhere, to the county. And nothing changed for me until I changed it.”
He hated remembering what it had been like to be a child powerless to help himself. He hated the shame of knowing what he wore was ill fitted and old. Maybe that was why the situation with Kara had hit him so hard. Had drawn him in so quickly. So deeply.
A long-buried part of him was standing up, demanding to be recognized.
“And you had no help at all?”
Blowing out a breath, Noah looked out at Kara, swinging now, shooting her little legs out and up to the sky as if half expecting to actually fly. “There were a couple of families who tried, yes. But it didn’t make a difference.”
“Are you sure?” Annie stood up, too, and walked toward him. He heard her footsteps on the linoleum and turned his head to look at her, bracing himself for pity he didn’t want.
But she surprised him. She didn’t offer sympathy.
“Could it be that maybe those families who tried are what gave you the determination to succeed?” she asked and waited until he looked at her before continuing. Her eyes were sharp and clear, without the shadow of pity. “What if it was those people who fed your confidence enough so that you believed you could make something of yourself?”
Noah hadn’t really considered it before, but he supposed it might be true. A couple of times as a child, he’d worn new clothing. New shoes. And he had felt different. He’d felt as if he belonged. As if he were just like every other kid. And as he realized it, he looked at Annie and nodded slowly.
“All right, maybe you’ve got a point.” He turned his back on the window, leaned against the counter and folded his arms across his chest. “I hadn’t thought of it like that because, frankly, I’d rather not remember that time at all.”
“That’s a shame,” she said.
He laughed shortly. “Would you want to remember?”
“It would be hard to ignore a part of what made me who I am today.” She shook her head and added, “I had a family. A nice home. So maybe I can’t understand what you went through. What kids like Gracie are going through now. But everyone has problems, Noah. No one gets through life walking under a rainbow. We all have things we’d rather not think about or dwell on. It’s what we do with our lives in spite of those memories that counts.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“Oh, it’s not,” she allowed with a rueful smile. She turned her gaze out on her daughter and sighed a little. “When Kara’s dad died, I was terrified. I was alone with a baby to take care of. Those days can still come back to haunt me,” she added as she looked up at him again. “But I made it through. We made it through. And we’ve got a nice life now. Isn’t that what matters most?”
“Yeah. Yeah, it is.” Noah nodded thoughtfully. He had shared things with her that he’d never told anyone else. He was feeling something for her that he’d never known before and he realized that for him, there would be no going back. “You know, Annie Moore, you’re really an amazing woman.”
She smiled at him. “Noah Fielding, are you flirting with me?”
A tight, cold band around his heart loosened as he admitted, “Looks like I am. What do you think about that?”
She gave him a slow smile. “I think I like it.”
* * *
“WHAT’S THIS?” NOAH came up behind her desk the following afternoon and looked over her shoulder at her computer screen.
A bubble of excitement danced through Annie as she turned her face up to his. “I found this website online. It’s for an organization called Shoes That Fit. They’re in Claremont—just a couple of hours from here.” She looked back at the screen, at the flashing images of smiling children. “This whole situation with Kara and Gracie and the new shoes has had me thinking for days about possibilities. After all, it’s not just the O’Malley family having trouble. A lot of people around here are.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said.
“Well, look what I found.”
“Shoes That Fit,” Noah mused, leaning over her for a better look at the screen. “They donate shoes to kids in need?”
“Not just shoes, but backpacks filled with school supplies,” Annie told him. “And school uniforms. Pretty much everything a child needs to feel confidence in himself.”
She reached for his hand and held on. “I called them while you were on that conference call with the lawyer. I actually spoke to the executive director, Roni Lomeli, and she was terrific. She told me so many wonderful stories about how they’ve helped children in hundreds of communities in California. And it’s all done in a way that not only saves face for the kids’ families, but for the kids themselves. Oh, Noah. Just listening to her, I wanted to rush right out and make the kind of difference she has.”
He eased back and sat on the corner of her desk. “You’ve really given this a lot of thought.”
“I really have. And talking to Roni just sort of solidified everything for me. You know, this organization helped more than one hundred thousand children last year in dozens of states. That’s amazing. It shows what can happen, how change can ripple out from one person helping another.” Annie looked up into his eyes and said, “Going over this website, reading the thank-you letters from children whose lives have been changed, has really motivated me, Noah. We could do this. Here. In Crescent Bay. We could help by starting our own Shoes That Fit chapter right here.”
Noah smiled at her and stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. “I’m guessing you’ve got a plan.”
She grinned. “Just the start of one. It’s going to take some refining.” Turning back to study the bright, cheerful website, she admitted, “But the Shoes That Fit organization is really helpful, and they’ll go out of their way to assist us if we’re interested in starting up a chapter.”
�
�We?”
Annie heard the questions tucked into that one word and held her breath as she looked back at him. His features gave away nothing of what he was thinking. She couldn’t tell if he was amused or irritated. If he was going to be the Noah she’d come to know and care for—or if he was going to retreat into the too-private, distant man she’d always thought him to be.
She held her breath, hoping that he wouldn’t pull back. Wouldn’t turn from this. From her.
“I thought,” she said slowly, “that with your help, it would all go much faster.”
“Is that the only reason you want me involved?”
“What other reason is there?” she asked, refusing to admit to wanting him as her partner in this until she knew how he felt, too.
As if understanding exactly what she was thinking, he stood, pulled her to her feet and tipped her chin up with his fingertips. His gaze locked with hers, and Annie felt heat sweep through her. His eyes weren’t distant and cold. Instead, they were shining down at her with all the warmth she’d ever dreamed of.
“Do I really need to tell you the other reason?” he asked.
“No,” she said with a slight shake of her head. “No, you really don’t. But you could show me.”
Smiling, he dipped his head to hers and kissed her, a delicate, gentle brush of his lips to hers. And it was enough to send sparks dazzling through her system.
Here, she thought, is everything I’d hoped to find.
When she opened her eyes to look up at him, his gaze moved over her face as tenderly as a touch might have.
“I think, Annie Moore,” he whispered, “we’re destined to be a great team.”
CHAPTER
FIVE
NOAH SAT AT his desk the following afternoon and marveled at the changes in his life over the past week. He never would have believed that anyone’s world could transform so completely in so little time. But maybe, he thought, it was because he’d been ready for it, whether he’d known it or not.
From the outer office came the sound of something crashing to the floor. Noah grinned.
“Sorry!” Kara’s voice was singsongy as she picked up her mother’s desk phone from the floor, where she’d knocked it in her dusting efforts.
“Are you all right?” Since Annie was downstairs at the mall, taking today’s mail to the post office, he and Kara were alone in the office.
“I’m fine. I knocked the phone off the desk.”
“Again,” he said when she stuck her head around the door to give him an impish grin.
“Again,” she agreed, pushing strands of blond hair out of her eyes.
Noah had never really cared for children much, but being around Kara had opened his eyes to what he’d been missing. It had opened his heart to the possibilities that existed if he would just reach out for them.
“I’m all done, Noah,” Kara announced as she walked into his office and leaned on his desk.
“You must be pretty close to being able to buy Gracie’s shoes by now, aren’t you?”
She walked around the edge of his desk, trailing slightly grubby fingers across its surface. “After you pay me today, I can buy them,” she said proudly. “Then Gracie can go on the field trip with me on Friday and nobody will laugh at her ever again.”
The heart that had so recently been awakened inside Noah’s chest ached a bit—with pride, with love—for the shining little girl looking up at him with adoration in her eyes. A hell of a responsibility, he thought, accepting a child’s love. And he made a promise to himself never to let her down.
“You’ve done good work here this week, Kara,” he told her as he reached into his wallet for a five-dollar bill. “I’m proud of you.”
Her grin brightened even further. “You wanna help me count the money?”
Amused, he asked, “Don’t you already know how much is in your safe box?”
“Yeah, but it’s fun to count it!” Without waiting for a response, she raced out to her mother’s desk, sneakers slapping against the floor in her rush. In a blink she was back, setting the small wooden box on his desk.
“Here’s your pay for today,” he said. She nipped it from his fingers. Then she opened the box reverently, looked inside and went perfectly still. “It’s gone.”
“What?” He sat up, looked into the box and saw she was right. It was empty.
The little girl turned big blue eyes swimming with tears up to him. “Noah, where’d it go? Gracie’s shoe money’s all gone and I worked so hard and now I can’t get the shoes and Gracie won’t be able to go on the field trip with me. Noah, where is it?”
“I don’t know, sweetie,” he said, irritation spiking inside him. Annie wouldn’t have moved the money without telling her daughter. And he hadn’t done it. The only other explanation was that someone had stolen it.
Instinct had him pulling the crying little girl into his arms. She cuddled against him and sobbed, her body shaking with the force of her tears and crushing hurt.
“Did somebody take it, do you think?” She asked her question between hiccupping sobs. “Who would do it? Why would they do it?”
“I don’t know, sweetie, but I’ll find out,” he promised. He pulled her up onto his lap, and when she curled into him for comfort, the last, lingering trace of the “old” Noah faded away. He wasn’t the man he’d been. Now he was the man who loved a child and her mother. The man who would make this right for Kara.
“Are you sure you didn’t take the money home with you last night?” he asked quietly.
She shook her head against him, burrowing closer. “Uh-uh. Remember, we went to the pizza place before you took us home and I told you I almost had enough money for the shoes so I was gonna keep it in Mommy’s desk so I could go and buy them right away. And now it’s all gone!”
“It’ll be all right, Kara,” he murmured.
When the office door opened and Annie walked in, he lifted his gaze to hers.
Annie was spellbound by the sight of Noah comforting her crying daughter. Her heart took that last wild leap into love. Hugging the knowledge to herself, she hurried across the room and asked, “What happened?”
In between sobs, her voice muffled against Noah’s broad chest, Kara told her everything, and Annie’s heart broke for her little girl. “I’m so sorry, baby.”
Kara lifted her head from Noah’s chest. Her eyes were red and her cheeks tearstained. “I get it now, Mommy. Why it’s bad to steal. ’Cause this feels really, really bad inside.”
“I know, honey.” Annie smoothed her daughter’s hair back from her face, then glanced at Noah.
“I can’t buy Gracie’s shoes now, Mommy,” Kara said on a wail, dropping her face back to Noah’s chest.
“Yes, you can,” he told her, shifting her slightly so that he could look into her bereft eyes. “I’m going to replace the money you lost and then we’re going shopping.”
“You are?” Kara blinked up at him, hope beginning to shine in her features.
“Noah, you don’t have to do that,” Annie told him with a shake of her head. “I’ll give Kara the money and—”
“No. Her money was stolen from my office, so I’ll make it good. And I’ll find out who took it. But that’s for later.” His gaze met Annie’s. “I’m not going to let a thief steal Kara’s dream. Not when she’s worked so hard for it.”
Annie took a breath and held it. He cared. For her. For Kara. And that was such a gift she hardly knew what to say. But her daughter didn’t seem to have that trouble.
“You can’t buy the shoes, Noah,” she said softly. “Not you, either, Mommy. I have to buy them for a present. Because if a grown-up buys them, then Gracie might get embarrassed and I don’t want her to feel bad.”
“I am so proud of you,” Annie said.
“You’re a very special little girl,” Noah told her, “and Gracie’s lucky to have you as a friend. But, Kara, I’m not buying the shoes. You are. It’s your money. You worked for it. I’m just giving you back what was st
olen. Do you understand?”
She thought about that for a long minute, chewing at her bottom lip. “I guess that’s okay, then. Is it, Mommy?”
“I think,” Annie said, looking directly into Noah’s eyes, “that it’s absolutely perfect.”
He smiled at both of them. “Now that that’s settled, I think there’s a little girl who needs to buy her friend some shoes.”
“Now?” Kara asked. “Really?”
“Right now,” he said, smiling. He took out his wallet, counted the money into Kara’s waiting hand and asked, “Well? Ready to go shopping?”
Clutching the money in one tight fist, Kara threw her arms around his neck and said, “You should have a little girl, Noah, because you’d be a good daddy.”
“You think so?”
“Uh-huh.”
Annie inhaled sharply and felt the sting of tears in her own eyes. Her daughter, whether she’d said so or not, was coming to love Noah Fielding. And now, looking into Noah’s eyes, Annie saw that the feeling was mutual. It seemed as though this was all moving so quickly. And yet, on another level, she felt as though she’d known Noah forever. Now, as she looked into his eyes, she saw the promise of something wonderful written there.
Idly she wondered if she would have a nameless thief to thank for one of the most beautiful moments of her life.
* * *
KARA HUGGED THE shoe box to her chest throughout the ride to Gracie O’Malley’s house. The smile on her face was bright as sunlight and her eyes were clear and shining with happiness, her earlier misery forgotten in the anticipation of giving something important to a friend she loved.
Noah looked at her in the rearview mirror and knew he’d never enjoyed a shopping trip more. Watching the little girl proudly march into Mrs. Higgins’s shoe store and pay for something she’d worked so hard for was...more touching than he would have imagined.
Glancing at Annie in the passenger seat beside him, he noted her smile, too, and realized that somehow over the past week or so, Annie Moore and her daughter had become not just important to him, but essential.
More Than Words: Acts of Kindness: Whispers of the HeartIt's Not About the DressThe Princess Shoes Page 16
