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

by Anna Adams

  “I don’t think I have a choice.”

  He couldn’t control his voice anymore. Emma hurried down the back stairs to the kitchen, where she filled a pitcher with ice water and grabbed a glass. She stopped to put them both on a tray and carried them back to Owen’s room.

  He seemed to be sound asleep until she set down the tray. Then his eyes opened. Ice-blue Gage eyes that stared at her without entreaty.

  “Are you going to fire me?” he asked, but his tone suggested she wouldn’t dare.

  He was right. His work was too good, and she had too much work left for him to do. Softening toward him had nothing to do with his family, or her unwilling attachment to Noah.

  “Not this time, but if you do it again, I’ll fire you without a second thought. I don’t want you and Noah to argue because you’ve made a mistake. I don’t want you to saw off your arm, and I don’t want Nan’s house falling around my ears.”

  “It won’t now.” He turned over, burrowing into the nest of comforter and sheets and blankets. “It might have if you hadn’t come home when you did, but I got to it in time.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  NOAH PUT ON the brakes at the stop sign before Bliss Peak Lane. The road to Emma’s house. Gossip had buzzed through town to arrive at the coffee shop in plenty of time to reach him on his morning stop for coffee and an egg bagel. His brother, Owen, had taken a taxi to Emma’s house just before the break of dawn.

  The question was, did he often take a taxi to Emma’s house, or was this a special, alcohol-fueled occasion? Apparently, he’d barely been able to recall her house number, but the cab driver had found it for him.

  Hank Kuchar, a farmer neighbor of Emma’s, eased to the stop sign behind him. Noah hit the blinker and turned up the mountain road. At the familiar gravel drive, he turned again. His car ground through the small sharp rocks. With each growl, each slip of his no-doubt-balding tires, his anger expanded until it was a tight, bitter band around his chest, cutting off his breath.

  He should have known the new and caring Emma would not be able to resist his helpless, wounded addict brother, showing up on her doorstep.

  Noah parked in front of the house and climbed out of the car, still fueled by anger and enough jealousy to make him uncertain what he planned to say, or how he’d ended up here. He had one idea only. To get his brother out of Emma’s hands.

  He knocked on the door harder than he meant to. His knuckles stung.

  Footsteps hurried to greet him. Light, sure.

  Not Owen’s.

  Emma opened up, wary in jeans and a dark green sweater. Her green eyes accused him before he said a word.

  “Don’t start on him,” she said.

  “How did you know why I came?”

  “Because the grapevine around here is faster than the swiftest internet connection, and you don’t drop in for a friendly visit. He made a mistake. He knows it.”

  “Emma, should you be offering him shelter and comfort, or reminding him he can’t live like our father?”

  “He asked me for help, and it’s only happened this one time.”

  “Okay, but he’s not your responsibility, and you aren’t doing him any favors. After seeing the way Dad ruined his life and ours, I don’t understand Owen’s inability to stop drinking. I understand you even less, since you’re the one who keeps telling me I can’t live for my family.”

  She stood aside to let him in. “Fortunately, you don’t have to understand me, and I didn’t think the wee hours were the best time to quiz Owen on the rightness of his decisions. As he mentioned this morning, I’m selfish that way.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t put family first.”

  “You two talked about me when he was drunk?”

  “Oh, dear.” She blushed as red as one of the leaves blowing across her yard. “I may have said I wanted you to choose me. Four years ago, Noah. Not today.”

  She wrapped her arms around her waist, and he finally grasped how she’d changed. Each of the days that had passed between them had refined her, creating fragile, lovely curves that taught him the true meaning of longing, but more than that, a surprising new spirit of kindness drove her, even when she probably didn’t feel kind.

  “I’m glad you couldn’t turn him away,” he said at last.

  “I didn’t mind,” she said.

  “You should.”

  When she looked at him, he saw a kind of yearning that opened a new connection between them. They weren’t hiding anything or hurting each other.

  “I’ve missed you all,” she said. “I understand making life-changing mistakes that you can’t take back.”

  “Owen didn’t make a mistake. He knows Mom listens for his car, and if she’d seen a cab at five this morning, she’d have been in his face.”

  “Or she would’ve asked you to be.”

  “And I would have told her the same thing I’m saying to you. I can’t change Owen, and neither can you. He’s fun, he’s talented, he’s troubled and unlucky enough to try forgetting in a vodka bottle, but avoiding the consequences is part of his MO.” Noah went to her. Without thinking, he put his arms around her. “He knew you’d let him in and put him to bed and bring him coffee and whatever hangover cure you could think of this morning.”

  With her own arms still folded around her, trapped between them, she quivered, and he looked down to find her laughing.

  “I did do all those things, but I’m not an expert at hangover cures. He felt so guilty he drank my raw egg in tomato juice and hot sauce. I only realized after I gave it to him that I saw it in an old movie.”

  “He deserved it.” Noah pulled her arms apart and wrapped them around his own waist. “I was jealous.”

  She stilled as if she’d frozen. “Why?”

  “I wondered if you’re falling for Owen.”

  “But you don’t want me for yourself?”

  “I don’t know what I want.” He lowered his head and pressed his lips to her soft, mussed hair. “Do you have any ideas?”

  She hesitated, but then tightened her arms around him, and it was better than he remembered. Her closeness went straight to his head.

  “What’s happening?” she asked.

  “I needed to hold you. Do you want me to let you go?”

  She didn’t answer. He felt the tension in her body as she tried to breathe normally. He couldn’t manage it. He’d missed her. His arms felt less empty than they had in four years. His life felt less empty.

  “I let him in because he’s like a brother to me, too, and I wouldn’t want him to freeze to death. I didn’t want this one failure to cause more trouble between the two of you.”

  “You are not a naive woman. You know it won’t be just one failure.”

  “It might be. It doesn’t have to be a slippery slope. Maybe he felt bad because he couldn’t help Chad the way you did. He said he went to the field and saw you there.”

  “Did he? I didn’t see him, but I’m relieved he came back to look for Chad.”

  She tightened her arms, happy to see he was willing to share the responsibility of caring for a brother. Her hands linked behind his back, just as she used to hold him. As if she and Noah fit together, a lock and a key. “I don’t like seeing Owen in that shape. I know I was always tired of your taking responsibility for your family, but I couldn’t turn him away.”

  “You won’t be here long enough to see him do this again.”

  Noah felt Emma’s hands slowly unlink. After one last tightening of her arms that made him want more, she stepped away, taking her heat and her joy and the perplexing reassurance he felt in her embrace.

  He felt robbed.

  “I thought we were beginning to understand each other,” she said.

  “Did you?” It didn’t appear so. He pushed
at his hair, as if he still let it grow too long and she still ran her fingers through it in the front seat of his car under the moon.

  “None of this is her fault, Noah. Leave her alone.”

  Owen’s voice was a bucket of cold water from above. He stood at the landing on the cherry stairs he’d restored to a dark sumptuous shine. In yesterday’s clothes, he was a pale, rumpled ghost with circles beneath his eyes.

  “Let’s go,” Noah said to him. “I’ll take you home.”

  “Might as well. Let me get my things.” He turned back to his borrowed room. “But don’t give Emma any more grief because she doesn’t want to be cruel.”

  Noah’s temper sputtered with frustration of old. Emma gazed at him.

  “You can’t make everything right for everyone,” she said.

  He’d given up on trying to see his family healthy. He was content to just untarnish their name, which would be easier if Owen stopped drinking, and Chad stopped fighting and Celia managed to stay in school. And their mother didn’t set up a little side business as a matchmaker with him as her first customer.

  “Your imagination still works overtime,” he said. “Thanks for taking him in.”

  “Have a little faith in him,” she said, and he wondered if she could hear the desperation in her voice. “For your sake as well as his. Think about this. You haven’t succeeded in turning your family into a Dick and Jane story, so you’re using your protective energy to build this clinic for the town, as if you’re Bliss’s legal guardian.”

  “I absolutely am, but I’d still like my family to function like a normal family. And, Emma, I don’t want you to see Chad fighting, Owen drinking or Celia lashing out at you because she’s angry with herself. I tried to protect them from Dad. Why wouldn’t I protect you from them?”

  “I don’t want to be one of your responsibilities.”

  “I didn’t say that, Emma.”

  “Will the clinic finally free you from your compulsion to fix everybody in your reach? Because I believe in the clinic, too, and I believe I know how to help you get the funding.”

  His anger with Owen faded. Years of frustration at Emma’s clinging when he’d needed her to be strong came at him, choking him. Swift on the heels of that came the remembered hurt when she’d simply walked out of their engagement, out of his life, out of Bliss.

  All of that crystallized into anger at her for trying to manage him. For pitying him because she thought he was broken just like his brothers and sister. So he fought back, all restraint shattered.

  “You are not part of my life,” he said. “And you’re not qualified to analyze me. Stay out of my way. Your help is the one thing that might make the clinic too high a price to pay for this town.”

  Her mouth opened in shock. Her eyes glistened with tears.

  He didn’t care. It was her turn to hurt. He was not going to let her take care of him.

  He walked to his car. To privacy, to a place where nothing Emma Candler did could touch him.

  To wait for his hungover brother.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  DESPITE ALL HER best intentions not to fall for Noah again, she had. At least a little, which was too much. And he’d broken her heart again. Pretty hard.

  She pretended she was fine, working in her usual haunts and chatting with acquaintances who became closer as they learned she wasn’t a woman who’d hurt another human being. Noah had been right about that. Just living here and being a decent person had proven her innocence to people who’d doubted her.

  While You are not part of my life repeated in her head in a tone sharper than a guillotine, she worked on clients’ projects, earning the bucks to pay for her renovations.

  About noon a couple of days after the argument, she was working and cooking in the kitchen that was as much hers as Nan’s now. Leaving her laptop open on the kitchen table, Emma grabbed mitts and opened the oven to haul out her practice turkey. With two weeks to go until Thanksgiving, she wanted to give Megan and her father a good meal, but she doubted her skills. Thanksgiving had always been her favorite celebration. She’d rather not make it their least favorite.

  Besides, cooking was a mindless task that distracted her, as long as she listened for the oven timer.

  Down the hall, the front door opened and then banged shut.

  “Owen?” It was Saturday, and she hadn’t expected him. He worked on his own projects on weekends. That had been part of their deal.

  “Just me,” Brett called. “Who knew you could cook? What smells so good?”

  She stared at the roasting pan and the golden bird. “Dad, I’m surprised you’re not better known as a man of tact.”

  “Forgive me and let’s have a turkey sandwich.”

  “You don’t want to ruin your Thanksgiving appetite.”

  “Why are you cooking now?”

  “Didn’t I ask you and Megan to come for Thanksgiving dinner? I thought I had. I’m sure I hinted, but I wasn’t sure I could manage the bird.” She turned to the fridge and extracted one of Nan’s large blue Fiestaware bowls. “I made cranberry sauce yesterday.”

  He went straight to the breadbox and pulled out a loaf. “I’m willing to risk the sandwich. I’ll be hungry for turkey again when you need me to be. Do you have any dressing?”

  “That’s my next task.” She lifted a yellowed piece of paper, so old it was almost transparent in the wintry sun through the window. “I found the recipe. I need to copy it before I try to use it. Wouldn’t want to lose it.”

  “Are you remembering ingredients by making rhymes? Or was that just a little poem you made up for me?”

  “A poem for you, Dad.” She took a carving knife from the block on the counter. “I suppose we should let this turkey rest awhile.”

  “Let’s live dangerously.”

  So they made sandwiches, and Emma poured milk, the Candler drink of champions. They sat together at the island. Emma swung one leg free, waiting for him to speak up. When he didn’t, she said, “Dad, I’m glad to see you, but what’s going on? Aren’t you supposed to be at work? You usually work on Saturdays, don’t you?”

  “I came from there after I heard from Leonard Phillips.”

  Emma stopped as if he’d flipped a switch. A sudden brisk wind showered the kitchen windows with leaves. “The chairman of the town council?”

  “Did you know that Noah gave us a private presentation last night?”

  “No.” She was caught between pain and hope at the mention of his name. “I wish the rest of the people on his side could have gone to support him.” And that explained it. Noah would have made sure she didn’t know he was speaking. He’d been that angry.

  “I sent him a note, that I’d listen with respect, that I’d consider with no bias,” Brett said.

  “Did you, Dad?” She pressed a hand to her chest, she felt so grateful.

  “After he spoke, I told my colleagues that maybe it was time to consider what he’s suggesting. He’s a hard worker. If we put him in charge of staffing, he’d find a way to bring other doctors here who’d be willing to take what we could offer.”

  “But your colleagues don’t want to consider it?”

  “They said he’d spoken three times, and if there was no new information, then he should forget it. Their concerns remain the same, honey. There’s no building available, and they refuse to spend money or risk breaking the covenants on new construction.”

  “You couldn’t explain that Noah’s aware of that, and he’ll find something?”

  “I did, and it got me nowhere. That’s why I came to you,” he said. “Maybe you could break the news to Noah? Suggest he give them a little time to cool off and let his presentation and my behind-closed-doors speech sink in. The council already feels I’ve swung my support the other way because people think you and he are close.”r />
  “If he changed your mind, why can’t he change theirs?”

  The ringing doorbell cut them off. They both looked down the hall with dread.

  Emma was repeating a silent mantra of Don’t let it be Owen when my dad is here. He’d weakened her faith in his sobriety the other night.

  “It’s probably Megan. If she’s heard, she’s going to be furious. I tell you, I am tempted to make use of the back door.”

  “No you don’t.”

  Emma was tempted to drag him down the hall with her. Instead, she hurried to the door on her own. Worse than either of their guesses, Noah was waiting in the cold outdoors, his collar turned up.

  “I wanted to apologize,” were the first words out of his mouth. The former chill in his eyes was gone. “The way I behaved was cruel, and I don’t want to be cruel to you.” She heard her father’s footsteps in the hall behind her, and Noah’s gaze swerved over her shoulder.

  The chill returned.

  “Dad dropped by,” she blurted. “He wanted to talk to you.”

  “The council says no.” Instead of looking beaten, Noah braced his shoulders. “I’m not surprised.” He looked at Brett. “Thanks for your help,” he said.

  Brett nodded and headed back toward the kitchen.

  “Come in.” Emma tugged at the sleeve of Noah’s jacket, careful not to touch his skin. Despite his constant rejections, she didn’t know how to turn her back on him. “We could talk about what to do next. I’m not trying to force myself into your business, but Dad thinks you should let the council cool off. We still have all the promo efforts going.”

  He shook his head. “I have no choice. I have to keep working on this.”

  Before she could answer, a door slamming in the kitchen covered her in shame.

  “That’s my dad, bolting like a scared rabbit.”