"You knew he had an attachment disorder before he was placed with you."
Placed. Was this the social worker?
No doubt Jilly needed Noah’s support, but something kept him frozen in place. They must not have known he was there. If Jilly had seen him, she would've brought him into the conversation. If he revealed himself now, they would know he'd been eavesdropping.
"I love him," Jilly said.
Noah's heart leapt. And then he realized she was talking about Casey.
"I just didn't know it was going to be this hard."
Would the social worker take the kids and send them elsewhere? It hit Noah hard, thinking about not being able to talk to Lindsey anymore. The girl had opened up like a flower in spring. Jilly had done so much good for her.
"Do you want to cancel the adoption proceedings?" the social worker asked.
Adoption.
A code gray was paged over the intercom, and there was movement behind him in the triage area. Loud voices distracted him momentarily from the conversation on the other side of the curtain. And then faded.
His thoughts whirled. Jilly was adopting the kids? Why hadn't she told him? He'd bared his soul to her last night, and she'd made it sound as if—she'd made him feel as if—they had a future together.
But adopting three kids wasn't some small thing. These particular kids had trauma in their past. She was making a lifelong commitment to them. And Noah knew that wasn't something she took lightly.
And then there was the fact that the system was rigged against people with disabilities. Being in a relationship with Noah would be a strike against her.
His ears pricked as Jilly spoke again. "Is this going to mess up my chances of being approved for the adoption?"
The social worker hesitated. "I'm going to be honest. It doesn't look great to have an incident like this as part of the kids' file. PJ was seriously injured. All three of them could've died."
He heard Jilly’s jagged breath. She loved those kids. She would've been worried sick about them from the moment she'd found out they were missing.
"If they continue to act out, whether that's running away or causing disruptions in school or vandalizing property, the judge assigned to your case won't look on it favorably."
She was telling Jilly to keep the kids in line. He bristled on Jilly's behalf. This lady hadn't been there, in the trenches, with Jilly. She hadn't seen how Jilly doted on those kids, how she’d fought for them day in and day out.
"If there's anything else you need to disclose, now's the time to do it—anything going on that might impact your petition for adoption."
His chest cinched tight as he waited for Jilly’s answer. A relationship with him might just kill her chances of getting the kids.
They hadn't put labels on their relationship. She'd told him that she wanted to be with him.
But that had been before he'd confessed everything about Chad.
Jilly was silent.
But his thoughts weren't.
Having Noah in her life was going to complicate things. Everything he'd told her last night was a matter of public record. Chad's death had made the news. Noah had never been formally charged. The police and coroner and everyone who'd mattered had ruled it an accident. But that hadn't stopped the local newspapers from printing all the gritty details. He still had a grainy black-and-white photo burned into his memory bank from a front-page story.
Jilly couldn't have a boyfriend with that kind of trouble in his past. He'd muck everything up.
And he was blind.
Surely any judge in his right mind wouldn't award her the kids if she were in a serious relationship with him.
Inside the cubicle, the social worker was making noises like she was getting ready to leave. Fabric rustled as she picked up her coat and put it on.
He had to get out of there. If Jilly saw him, she'd feel obligated to introduce him. Or things would get awkward, and she'd have to lie.
His cane tapped the floor in time with each thundering beat of his heart.
For one shining moment last night, he'd believed that he could have everything he wanted. Jilly in his life. The kids too, for as long as Jilly fostered them.
He hadn't expected this, hadn’t ever considered that a stupid decision he'd made when he'd been a kid would wreck this too.
He found himself outside on the sidewalk and ducked around the side of the building. He felt like he was falling into a dark, bottomless abyss. What was he supposed to do now?
* * *
Jilly went for a coffee run as a nurse and orderly transferred PJ from the ER to a regular hospital room.
She needed a few minutes to compose herself. Lindsey and Casey were with Callum and Iris. PJ was going to be fine. He was awake and alert, and putting on a calm facade so he could stay calm was exhausting.
She didn't make it to the cafeteria before her phone rang. Noah.
She needed a shot of Noah right now. One of his hugs would be divine, but she knew how stressful he found it to be in the hospital. How much he hated it. She could have her hug tomorrow morning when PJ was released.
Tears burned the back of her nose as she took the call. "Hey."
"How are you holding up? What happened?"
"I'm fine." She knew he'd hear the tears in her voice and what her I'm fine really meant. It was such a relief to let him in. She sagged against the wall in a corner where she was out of the way of foot traffic.
She told him about finding the kids missing from their beds, about that terrible trek out in the snow. The kids had walked across her farm and onto the huge ranch that bordered her property on the other side. The ranch was owned by an out-of-state corporation, and no one lived there. If she hadn't been able to track the kids because of the snow...
"PJ was really out of it when I found them," she whispered. Her arms and back still ached from carrying him nearly a half a mile at a dead run. She'd put him in the van while the other two had clambered in the back, knowing that an ambulance would take too long to reach them.
"By the time we got to the hospital, he was screaming."
He'd been in so much pain as his body had warmed back up. The doctors hadn't told her much as they'd worked on him, and she'd retreated to the hallway because she'd had a wide-eyed Lindsey and a worried Casey in tow. Callum had shown up soon after and whisked the kids home with him.
"Is he going to be okay?" Noah asked.
She swallowed back the tears. If she let them out now, she wouldn't stop crying. There would be time for that later. She still needed to get her coffee and get back to PJ. "Yeah. The doctor wants to keep him overnight, just to be safe. He'll be ready for more flag football in a week or two."
"Yeah."
But he didn't sound as if he was smiling. His voice was cool and distant when he asked, "Do you need anything? I can have Aiden send some food up there for you."
She'd been so focused on her own worries and fears that she hadn't considered how this might be affecting him. He cared about the kids, too.
"No. I'm okay."
She wanted to ask him to come, but she wouldn't be that selfish.
There was a strange sound on the other end of the line. Like he'd groaned but muffled it with his hand.
"Noah?"
He was silent, and for a moment she thought maybe the connection had been cut.
Then, "Look, I know this isn't great timing, but I was thinking maybe it would be better if we didn't see each other for a while."
"What?"
"I just had a big contract come through, and I really need to concentrate on this job. You know, and... you've got the kids to worry about."
There was something wrong. His words were too rehearsed. What was going on?
"Is this about last night? About what you told me?" Was he having second thoughts about letting her get close?
"It's not." But his voice was tight, as if he was working to control his emotions.
She pressed her fingertips into the bridge
of her nose. Her head was starting to pound. "I don't understand. Can we talk about this?" Later, sometime when she would be able to think straight. When she might be able to understand what he was really saying. This wasn't about him opening up to her. But he wanted to not see each other for a while.
It didn't make sense.
"PJ needs you,” Noah said. “So do Lindsey and Casey."
That wasn't an answer. "Noah—"
But he'd already hung up.
She was shaky and confused as she straightened from the wall. She started to dial Noah back, then thought better of it and slapped her phone against her thigh.
Stupid man was right. PJ did need her.
But she needed Noah. She loved him, and she didn't understand what had just happened.
She gave up on the coffee and decided to make sure PJ was settling in to his room. She was nearing the elevator bank when the doors opened and Iris stepped off.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
Her sister held out a Styrofoam mug from the coffee shack. "Making amends. Checking on you. Callum has the kids and everyone is fine."
Jilly's tears resurfaced, and she couldn't contain them.
Iris pulled her into a sisterly embrace. Jilly lost it completely, sobbing right there in the lobby. Iris pressed a wad of tissues into her hand as she ugly-cried.
Iris let her go on until the tears were spent. "How is PJ doing?" she asked as Jilly dabbed at her eyes.
She was a mess. "He's okay. Shaken up. He was in a lot of pain earlier." Her voice wobbled. "I'm afraid they're going to take the kids away from me." She'd had less than two months with Lindsey and PJ and Casey. She'd messed up. PJ could've died.
"And I think Noah just broke up with me."
Her tears were back, choking her. She pressed the tissue into her eyes, trying to stem the flow by sheer force.
"What?” Iris sounded indignant. “Why?"
"I don't know." She drew a shuddering breath. There. She wasn't going to cry again.
"He's in love with you,” Iris said. “It was obvious in the way he paid attention to your every move yesterday."
She knew. She'd thought Noah cared, too. Something was going on. And now wasn't the time to get to the bottom of it. There was a scared little boy upstairs who needed her.
She drew one last breath to steady herself. "I should get back to PJ."
Iris stopped her with a hand to her arm. "Jilly. I'm really sorry. About everything. I didn't mean to rub your nose in the fact that I was pregnant. Cal and I were happy, so I thought..."
Her petty jealousy and the fight with Iris seemed like a lifetime ago. "There's nothing for you to be sorry about. You have a right to be happy. Ecstatic. Incandescent. I didn't want to take any of that away from you and Callum. I should've talked to you. I shouldn't have been jealous."
"Maybe we both could've done better," Iris offered. She looked a little teary. "Is your doctor sure? That you can't get pregnant?" She hesitated over the question, as if Jilly might burst into tears over the sensitive subject. Maybe she would've, before.
"I have kids," she said with a teary smile. "I'm going to fight for the three of them. I'm petitioning for adoption."
She should've told Iris from the beginning. Her sister had always been on her side. She'd been beside Jilly through her cancer. She'd attended every doctor's appointment and sat beside Jilly when she'd been violently sick. Her sister was a warrior, and Jilly needed her on her side.
Especially now that she'd lost Noah.
20
This was hell.
Noah stood by his little pond listening to a territorial cardinal call out a warning. It was bitter cold, and he had his hands stuffed in his pockets because he'd forgotten gloves. His cane hung from his wrist.
The skin on his face felt frozen, but it was the block of ice inside his chest that made him want to cry out.
It'd been a week since he'd talked to Jilly on the phone, and, if anything, the black hole inside of him had gotten bigger.
He ached for her.
For the barely-there smile he could hear in her voice. The soft catch of breath that meant she was surprised. The softness of her hand entwined in his.
He was dying, even though his lungs kept breathing and his heart kept beating.
He’d spent as much time as he could outdoors. Being away from the house meant he couldn't hear if Jilly or Lindsey or PJ knocked. He also avoided the temptation of his phone. Jilly had left him two more voicemails. He hadn't played them. He hadn't been able to make himself delete them, either.
He'd thought he was heartbroken when Callum and Cord left town after graduation night. That was nothing compared to this.
He'd let Jilly in, except there was no let about it. She'd found the tiniest crack in his wall and levered it open.
He'd fallen in love with her.
And now, he was getting what he deserved. Somebody who'd done what he'd done didn't deserve to be with someone like Jilly.
Lindsey and PJ needed her. Even Casey, who reminded him of the boy he'd been in middle school. Lost and afraid and desperate for someone to want him.
Jilly would be good for all three of them. She'd change their lives.
And if she was in a relationship with Noah, she wouldn't have a chance. He'd heard the social worker. Jilly didn't need any more strikes against her.
Things were better this way.
But knowing that didn't stop the hurt.
21
"Ms. McDane's agent sent over two more offers from other novelists. I'll forward you the email so you can look over them. Is there anything else you need me to do?"
Aiden was worth his weight in gold. But even an all-star assistant deserved to spend the holiday with the ones he loved. "We're good. We can catch up after the New Year."
"Okay. Hey, I wanted to say thanks for the bonus check. It came in the mail yesterday."
Noah cleared his throat. He'd rather Aiden hadn’t mentioned it at all. "You've done a great job for me this year. I wanted to make sure you know how much I appreciate you."
He was about to hang up when his assistant said, "Noah, are you okay?"
The question was a surprise. It was outside the bounds of their normal conversations.
"Jilly called me this morning,” Aiden continued. “She seemed worried about you. And... I just wanted to make sure that you were, you know…"
"I'm fine." He wasn't fine. He was a mess. Aiden could probably hear it in his voice.
Just the mention of Jilly’s name made Noah feel as if his insides had been pulverized with a meat hammer.
Before he could reiterate just how fine he was, he heard a noise from the other room. He realized he hadn't gotten a headbutt to his leg or a claw in his sock for twenty minutes. Where was Honey Bear?
He stuffed his phone in his pocket and stood to investigate.
He paused on the threshold just before he hit the kitchen. There was someone in here. He sensed the person before he heard the harsh breaths from across the room.
"Stop right there." The young voice was pointed and angry.
"Casey?" What was the kid doing here? How had he gotten inside? Noah was sure he'd locked all the doors.
"Stay away from me. I've got—I've got your cat. And...I've got a knife."
Noah went perfectly still. The boy's emotions were out of control. Noah recognized the shaky delivery but also the certainty underneath the boys words. If he didn't really have a knife, he was excellent at bluffing.
"Don't move! I promise you I'll do it." Something was very wrong if Casey was threatening the kitten that he'd spent so much time loving on.
"Is it okay if I sit down? I'll put my back to the wall. See?" Noah sat on the cold tile floor, his shoulders against the wall on one side of the doorway.
Noah wasn't going to do anything that might jeopardize the kitten that had shown him nothing but affection.
And deep down, he knew that, if Casey harmed the kitten, there would be no coming
back from that. Jilly would lose him for good, maybe lose all of them. And Casey would lose the chance at the normal life he had right now. A violent twelve-year-old would be treated much differently in the system than a normal kid.
He had to be careful. He needed Casey to put down the knife. All his inferiorities showed up and laughed in his face. What did he know about reaching a kid Casey's age? He couldn't keep a friendship alive. There was a part of him that was still a scared twelve-year-old boy staring in horror at the lifeless body of his best friend.
"I don't think you really want to hurt Honey Bear." He said the words with his voice as low and calm as he could make it. No shouting, even though he wanted to howl at the unfairness of this whole situation. Getting upset was only going to magnify what Casey was feeling. "What did she do to you?"
"Nothing." The boy grunted. "But you did."
The boy was standing between the counter and the table. The kid was smart. He had a clear line of sight to both the mudroom and the kitchen doorway. If anybody came to help—cue hysterical laughter here, who was coming?—Casey would be able to see him.
"Whatever's going on, we can fix—"
"Stop it!" Casey cried. "Shut up!"
Behind Casey's shout, Noah thought he heard a sound like the front door knob rattling.
"This is all your fault." The words were punctuated with a sniff.
Noah felt a little like crying himself. If he’d stayed away from Jilly... If he hadn’t tried to make friends with Chad... If he’d never been born... "I know," he whispered.
There was a long pause.
Noah stayed silent, afraid that, if he spoke, it would only enrage the boy. He didn't know what kind of knife Casey held. A pocket knife? A switchblade? Or even one of Noah's kitchen knives?
Any of the above could be fatal for Honey Bear.
They seemed to be at an impasse. The kid didn't want to talk. Noah didn't know how to fix this.
But maybe silence was the answer after all, because after a long couple of minutes, Casey began to talk.
Cowgirl Next Door (Sutter's Hollow Book 3) Page 16
