Now She's Back (Smoky Mountains, Tennessee 1)

by Anna Adams

  Besides, everyone knew she was only staying long enough to repair termite damage to her grandmother’s house.

  Bliss had never made Emma Candler happy either.

  * * *

  THE SCENT OF sawdust and new wood treated to discourage termites filled the house. Emma leaned her forehead into the screen on one of the wide, open windows, to watch her contractor, Owen Gage, on the lawn sawing lengths of wood to repair her wraparound porch. Down below, in town, the courthouse bell tower spiked above wispy clouds.

  The clock bonged out three echoing chimes, and Emma turned back to her work. The house her grandmother left her had been empty for thirteen months. Dust that would have upset Nan covered everything. Emma had spent her first two weeks back home digging into the grime and neglect, eradicating loneliness that made her ache for Nan’s comforting, sensible company.

  With every dish and each neatly folded linen, slightly musty from disuse, she heard her grandmother whisper, “Come home. Take your place. Grow up, girl.”

  And every time she felt tempted, she remembered that Bliss had always felt like a suit of clothes that didn’t fit. She had no place here, and she’d finally grown enough to know her life was elsewhere.

  Besides, Noah lived here. Each time she left the house, she risked running into him. She didn’t want to renew their unhappy relationship, but she still wondered why she’d never been enough for him. Why he’d never chosen her first.

  It couldn’t matter anymore. She wouldn’t allow it. When a woman couldn’t find answers to such a simple question, her only peace would come from burying the question forever.

  She carried the last tray of china cups from one of the cherry cabinets to the kitchen island. She surveyed stacks of Limoges Haviland China, and the jewel tones of Nan’s everyday Fiestaware.

  Which stack to wash first? The last time she’d emptied the kitchen cupboards to clean the shelves, she’d been eight years old, and she’d stood on a red stepstool to pass crockery and china to Nan. The memory filled her with longing so keen she closed her eyes and felt the metal stool’s steps cutting into her bare feet.

  Lift your face and look to the sky to keep from crying.

  That was what Nan had always said.

  Emma looked up at the plaster ceiling. An iron chandelier hung from a rose medallion in the center. Both were blurred by her tears. She hadn’t yet come to terms with the death of the one person who’d made her believe unconditional love existed.

  She could almost see Louisa Dane, in a pale green housedress, her hair in tight, black curls, her movements swift and economical.

  “Careful,” she’d said that long-ago afternoon when thunder had rumbled on the mountain, and wind had blown gusts of raindrops through the open windows. “I’ll be leaving these dishes to you, and you’ll pass them on to your daughter. You don’t know it now, but one day you’ll have some chicken or ham, a sweet potato or some coleslaw from these plates, and you’ll remember helping me with my spring cleaning.”

  “But will I be glad?” Emma had asked, eager to get to the attic for a rendezvous with Nancy Drew or Judy Bolton, girl detectives whose books Nan’s mother had collected.

  “More than you can imagine. This is a memory you need to press in your heart. I know because I loved my grandma, too.”

  Emma picked up a rose-painted plate and held it to her chest as if she were hugging her grandmother. As if she still could.

  The sound of sawing stopped, abruptly dragging her back to the present. Owen had no helper, so when he needed an extra set of hands he put hers to work.

  “Why are you here, Noah?” she heard him ask.

  She straightened, then set the plate carefully back on its stack.

  The men’s voices continued, one filled with righteous anger, the other low and rich, bringing back hurtful memories.

  “Cut the drama.” Noah’s voice rose above his brother’s.

  “Well, what are you doing here?” Owen asked. “Can I offer you a beer?”

  Emma’s stomach tightened, reminding her of every argument she’d witnessed in her own home and at Noah’s. Wife against husband. Brother against brother. Father against children. Her newly clean, white kitchen dimmed as she took a step toward the hallway.

  “Beer jokes aren’t funny when I’ve picked you up staggering drunk so many times. I came because Mom asked me to make sure you’re sober enough to work on this house.”

  As Emma left the kitchen and looked down the long hall to the front door, Noah stepped in front of the screen, his back to it. In his navy suit, he was out of place. His dark brown hair was shorter, curling tightly against his head, cut close above his ears. His back looked broader, his shoulders tense.

  “I’m not drinking,” Owen said, with the futile air of a man no one believed.

  Noah’s stillness was hard to read from behind.

  “Even if you aren’t,” he said, “this isn’t a one-man job.”

  “When it’s not, I put Emma to work.”

  “Emma’s paying you, and you make her work on her own house?”

  She hurried toward them, slowing only when Owen’s gaze veered over Noah’s shoulder, his eyes angry enough to light a fire.

  “Stop,” she said. “I don’t need to be rescued, Noah, and Owen, we’re losing daylight minutes.”

  She opened the screen and stepped onto the porch. Lean and controlled, Noah dropped his ice-blue gaze all the way to her bare feet and then dragged it back up her faded jeans and Doctor Who T-shirt, to her makeup-free face and pulled-back hair.

  “Emma.”

  She trembled as if he’d touched her, but he showed no sign that she’d ever mattered more than any homeowner who’d hired his brother.

  Then he tugged at his tie, a sure sign of tension, and she released a breath. She didn’t want to be the only one pretending indifference. But the past was over. Time had swallowed it up, and she should be grateful she never had to worry about mattering to Noah again.

  “Why don’t you come inside?” she asked. “Owen’s busy out here. We don’t need to disturb him.”

  “Don’t bother, Emma,” Owen said. “I’m the reason he came. He’d like to breathalyze me. You don’t even figure in his plans.”

  A gust of cool wind rustled through the changing leaves and brushed the mortified heat from her skin. She’d given Owen this job even though her father had suggested his drinking might turn her renovations into a disaster. When she’d left town, Owen had been a guy who liked to party. Now, he was as blunt as a hammer, with an alcohol problem that cloaked him in censure.

  “One thing I don’t have to do anymore,” Emma said to both brothers, “is listen to anyone in your family argue. This is Owen’s place of business, and I can’t afford more labor hours while you two sort out your problems with each other.”

  Noah nodded. “Right.” He turned to his brother. “I’ve given up being the family do-gooder. This was a onetime deal. Just drop by the inn and let Mom see you’re sober.”

  His suggestion apparently lit a fuse. Owen’s work boots scraped through grit and sawdust on the porch planks as he came at his brother. Emma stepped between them.

  “What do you think you’re doing, Owen?”

  “I don’t need—”

  “You need to calm down.” She turned her back on him, ignoring the rage shimmering around him.

  Noah looked at her, his full mouth stretched thin and bracketed by deep lines.

  Soon after she’d left, she realized she’d been one more needy burden to a guy who’d carried his family on his back all his life. But now he looked even more disillusioned than he had the night she’d walked away. Four years hadn’t made him any happier.

  “Come inside, Noah, and I’ll give you coffee.” Talking might ease the awkwardness between them. She was tired of ducking d
own alleys and around corners to avoid him.

  Noah nodded. He paused to put a hand on Owen’s shoulder. His fingers were splayed, long and sure.

  And kind.

  Emma stared at the veins beneath his skin, the ridges of flesh on his knuckles. He could say he wasn’t in the business of protecting his family anymore, but he was lying to himself.

  Noah loosened his tie as he crossed the threshold. “What do we need to talk about?”

  She glanced back at Owen, who was gulping coffee from his thermos lid. His eyes bore dark circles. He hadn’t shaved in the five days he’d worked for her, and his hands shook as if he’d electrocuted himself with one of his own power tools. If he was drinking the hair of some dog, she might drag him up to the roof and throw him off herself. As Owen poured another cup, she shut the door and willed herself into a state of detachment.

  “We need to get some things straight,” she replied.

  He was lean, but he made the foyer seem small, despite its being as large as most of the apartments she’d rented in her wanderings across Europe and Asia. He dissected her with his gaze as if she were another problem he needed to solve.

  She tugged at the hem of her T-shirt. Even with the windows open and a late-October breeze whipping fresh air into the house, Emma felt uncomfortably warm, too aware of the man. She turned down the hall, hiding her face from his intense gaze. Noah could read people in seconds and decide what came next.

  Hence his skill at protecting his mother and siblings from their father.

  After reaching the kitchen behind her, he walked around the island and took a couple of mugs from the long cabinet over the coffee maker. Just like the old days, when they’d visited her grandmother, who’d occasionally advised, but never judged or doubted that the guy from an abusive family belonged with the daughter of the town’s most scandalous woman.

  “How long are you staying?” Noah asked.

  “Gossip travels these hollows as fast as the breeze. I’m surprised no one’s told you I’m only here until Thanksgiving. The house should be finished by then.”

  He poured the coffee for both of them and pushed one mug toward her. He turned back to the cabinet and took down sugar, then grabbed half-and-half from the fridge.

  “So we don’t need to discuss anything. You’re just a visitor here. I’m never leaving Bliss. Case closed.”

  “I don’t know if you think of me like most people here.”

  He laughed, startling her. “Of course not. I was there, I saw everything, remember? Anyway, the very next day, I drove my father in his car to his brother’s in Kentucky, and then I took the bus back. He’s not welcome here.”

  “I might have pushed him if he’d hurt my mother or Nan.” Or Noah. A piece of information she left in the past. “I’m not staying long, but I’ve dreaded seeing you.”

  “No need.” Noah pulled at his tie once more. She must have imagined the tension she’d thought she’d seen in the movement. He seemed totally relaxed as he added cream to his coffee.

  “We don’t owe each other explanations,” he said. “You left, and I stayed. That’s all we need to know.”

  Then why did she feel as if she were testing an injury every time she saw him?

  “I do wonder why you hired my brother,” Noah said.

  “What?” If she meant nothing to him, why did he care? “Was I supposed to ask you before I hired him?”

  “Answer me.”

  She tried to see it through his eyes. “You think I might be using Owen to get at you?”

  “Your father must have told you about Owen’s drinking. You came back for your dad’s wedding and Nan’s funeral. You must have heard about my brother.”

  She rubbed the back of her neck as she remembered avoiding Noah at Nan’s service. She’d wanted to thank him for coming, but she hadn’t trusted herself. Her mother’s constant hunger for the next man had made her afraid Noah was her drug. There hadn’t been anyone as serious as him since she’d left.

  “It’s an old habit,” he said, “trying to get my attention.”

  Because he’d rarely focused it on her. “So you think I realized, after four years, I couldn’t possibly live without you, and then chose the one contractor who’d drag you to my home.”

  “I just need to make sure you know that won’t work.” He looked straight at her, the kindness he’d shown Owen just as evident for her.

  “Noah, I broke up with you, and I didn’t come back dying to worship at your arrogant feet.” Only, he wasn’t being arrogant. He was trying to let her down easy, just in case she needed letting down. The three years of their relationship had been an exercise in frustration she wouldn’t repeat for any reason. “I hired Owen to repair the termite damage to my house because his estimate was the one I could afford, and he has good references.”

  Noah straightened the tie that seemed to be giving him so much trouble and drank from his coffee cup. “And we’re not getting involved again.”

  “I only give my time now to people who deserve me,” she said. It would be true if any other man had mattered to her as much as Noah.

  She had acquaintances, colleagues, clients in her website design business. No one who made her want to love again.

  Noah took his mug to the porcelain sink she’d bleached to glowing perfection only that morning. “I should get out of here,” he said. “Why are you spring cleaning? Are you planning to sell?”

  “It’s crossed my mind, but no. Nan just wouldn’t want me to neglect her belongings.”

  “Yours now.”

  “They’re still hers, but she’d hate the dust and grime.”

  Owen, carrying a load of new pickets for the porch, stopped outside the open window and looked in. She shook her head, slightly.

  Noah didn’t even look back. “Owen’s checking on you?”

  “He’s still my friend.” Owen had always been like a brother to her. When she’d come back to town, they’d continued their friendship as if they’d been interrupted in midconversation. “You and I will have to work at being friends, but nothing’s changed between Owen and me.”

  “Of course everything’s changed between us, Emma. You left, and you told me I could either come with you or we were through.”

  “I thought we weren’t discussing this.”

  “You need to know the truth. You’re obviously still hurt.”

  “You give yourself too much credit.”

  “I make a living out of seeing when people are in pain,” he said. “I never blamed you for leaving. I wanted to go with you. That night, I wanted to go more than you can imagine.”

  For an instant she believed him, but instinctive insecurity took over and made her wary. Noah had pulled the mat from beneath her too many times.

  “When my father shoved you down those stairs, I wanted to kill him. Instead, I had to drive him to another state and make peace with my mother for doing it. She was still in thrall to the abuse that went on in that house.”

  His raw voice cut her. “Don’t,” she said.

  Emma stared up at the iron chandelier. She’d wanted to go to the police once after Noah had picked her up, and she’d seen his black eye and a grazed jaw. But Noah had said they would take his brothers and sister and scatter them to different foster homes. He’d said at least he could hold his father off.

  “When you left, Celia was only fifteen and Chad was thirteen. I couldn’t leave them. My mother was...” He brought himself up short, his survivor’s reticence taking over again. “She couldn’t handle her own life then.”

  “You were almost out the door,” Emma said. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “You’re right about settling the past between us. If we do it now, then no matter when you return from now on, we won’t have to rake up these old coals.”

 
It was the right answer, but it still hurt, and she resented him for that. “I only came back to fix the house.”

  Emma started toward the front door, but she didn’t have to urge Noah to leave. He was ahead of her by several steps. Memories rolled through her mind. Kisses stolen in this hall, his mouth eager, his hands gentle. Whispers broken off as they’d reached the foyer and the range of Nan’s acute hearing.

  Now she watched as Noah gave a last look around the large, square foyer, at the crystal drop chandelier, the Sheraton console tables on which two Tiffany lamps flanked a bowl that held her keys and notes she’d written herself, the folder that contained Owen’s estimate.

  Noah obviously knew he’d never see the inside of her home again. He reached for the glass knob on the front door.

  Movement shadowed the long window beside the door, and he glanced through the beveled panes that scattered prisms of rainbow light on the wide-planked maple floor. Owen walked past, maneuvering another armload of white-painted pickets.

  Noah nodded at his brother. “Let’s say he can’t get this work done right. Can you afford to have it redone?”

  “He won’t let me down,” she said, instantly feeling guilty and foolish for the bitter words.

  “I didn’t let you down. I took care of the people who needed me.” He dropped his hand from the doorknob. “I finished training, which meant that I could keep my family from starving or sleeping in the cold.”

  Another series of images, imagined ones, shot through her thoughts. Noah’s mother cowering as his father hit her, Noah pushing between her and his enraged dad and the other terrified children. He’d made the correct choice.

  “You’re right,” she said. “You never let me down.” She moved closer, ready to shut the door as soon as he went out.

  Noah’s head jerked back, as if she’d surprised him. But he didn’t linger. He was out the door and crossing the porch before she knew it. She watched through the glass beside the door as he crossed the porch, then took the stairs with the athlete’s grace that had drawn her to him years ago. Opening his car door, he climbed in, gunned the engine and sped down the drive, his tires spewing gravel and dust.