by Anna Adams
“I’m glad. I don’t know how it’s happened, Emma, but you are a good, good person.”
Emma laughed a watery laugh and held on tighter to her mother’s hand. “You had something to do with it, Mom.”
“I don’t know what.”
“Well, you aren’t complaining about me giving it to the town, when it was once your home, too. I made the decision without asking you, and you’re okay with it.”
“Good heavens, I am changing for the better.”
Laughing, they hugged each other. When Emma straightened, Noah was standing in front of them. His anger shimmered.
“It’s not happening this way,” he said.
“Why do you look so angry?” she asked in confusion. “You can’t think I was showboating.”
“No. I think you just threw a line into the water to save me from drowning. I should be grateful but...I don’t need your Candler money fixing the problem.”
“I think you do,” Emma said.
He put his hand on her shoulder. His eyes were frosty, but his touch was heat, sinking through her clothes into her skin. He seemed gentle and concerned and angry all at once. “I won’t do it this way, with the girl on the mountain providing what the boy from the bad family couldn’t,” he said. “I don’t care what happens, we are not taking your house.”
Quiet and deadly, he rejected the goal that had directed his life since he’d come home. She couldn’t believe it.
“You aren’t that selfish,” she said, “and my house can work. The clinic will exist, and no one else, like Celia, for instance, if she stays here after college, will ever do that wild run through the mountains to save her own baby.”
“No. You can get in my face again, but giving away a house doesn’t mean I’ll accept you.”
He thought she was trying to buy his love? “I’m leaving town,” she said. “I’m not playing some seduction game. You have the clinic, and you don’t have me.”
His reply was to walk out without a backward glance.
“He’s hurt,” her mother said.
“He’s wrong. He’s always wrong about me, but at least I knew he’d eventually push me away.”
“Then you’re lucky.”
Her mother took her hand again and slid her other arm around Emma’s waist, her outrage easing Emma’s hurt feelings. Her mother saw that she was doing the right thing for the right reasons. The town needed a place for a clinic. She had a place to give.
“That’s the wrong man for you, and thank goodness you know it now,” Pamela said. “He’s not generous enough to accept your gift.”
Emma felt the eyes of her neighbors upon her. She no longer wanted to know what they thought. “Let’s go, Mother.”
“Certainly.” Pamela stood, gathering her purse and rattling that key ring that held every key she’d ever owned. The old familiar jangling comforted Emma. Her mother was on her side this time.
They’d just reached the lobby when Emma’s phone rang. She pulled it from her bag and saw her father’s name on the display. Her first thought was Megan.
“How’d it go?” were his first words.
“They’re going to do it, Dad,” she replied.
“I’m glad, and I want to hear all about it, but honey, Megan went back into labor this afternoon, and she’s still almost a month early. Her water broke, but she didn’t want me to distract you, so I waited to tell you. They’re delivering the baby tonight, and she asked if you’d come.”
“Yes.” Emma glanced apologetically at her mother. “I’m leaving right away.”
“I just spoke to Noah. He said he’d drive you. I know you’ll be anxious. I don’t want you to drive through the mountains again, when you’re stressed.”
Sharing a car with Noah would be infinitely more stressful, but she couldn’t tell her father about her argument with him. Not tonight. “Thanks, Dad. I imagine he’s waiting for me outside.”
“He said he would be. Tell him to hurry, but be safe. We both want you with us when your sister comes.”
“We’ll be there soon, Dad.” She turned away from her mom. “Give Megan my love.”
“I will. See you in a couple of hours.”
Emma disconnected the call, a strange combination of dread and joy clenching every muscle in her body.
“He’ll be waiting outside, Mother.”
“Your father?”
“Noah.” She turned and hugged Pamela. “I have to pretend I don’t hate him right now, and I can’t do that with you feeling overly righteous at my side.”
“Then I’d better wait here because I have a few thoughts I’d like to share with Noah Gage.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow or the next day.” Their arms clashed as they tried to embrace, but for once, Emma was glad of her mother’s convulsive hold on her. “I love you, Mother.”
“I love you, too. If I could take back even a few minutes of the times I hurt you...”
“We’re trying to be together now. I’m fine with that if you are.”
“More than fine.” She gave Emma a little shove. “Go now. I hope the baby and Megan are well.”
Emma hurried to the front doors and pushed through them. Noah was waiting by his car, leaning against the hood with his legs crossed at the ankle like James Bond or something.
“Let’s go.” She gave him a wide berth as she went to the passenger side of his car.
“I half expected you’d decide to drive yourself,” he said.
“I’m doing what my father asked, just for tonight. The last thing he needs is to find out you really are so full of yourself that you can’t accept help for the thing you want most.”
“Thanks for that.”
Against her will, she was drawn to his dry tone. She got in the car and arranged her skirt primly around her knees. She needed order to protect herself from the chaos of dealing with Noah and his continued suspicions.
“I’m sorry for what I said.”
A rock through the windshield would have startled her less. “What?”
“I should have thanked you. I wasn’t able to find or say the right things to persuade the council, and you did. You helped in a way that I couldn’t.”
“But only to get your attention, right?” Her words dripped sarcasm. “To be some shining star you wouldn’t be able to resist.”
He didn’t answer right away, and her anger boiled.
“I don’t know,” he finally said. “It doesn’t even matter. The clinic is all that matters.”
“It does matter, and I’m glad it’s going to happen, but I was trying to help you, not manipulate you. You took total responsibility for your family, and that eventually translated to protecting the town—giving everyone here what they should have had from the start. So I tried to give you the one thing that would free you to make your own choices. To suit yourself for the first time in your life, and you think...” She sputtered to a halt.
Spewing all that into the car’s tense interior, she’d probably confirmed for him that she was some crazy, lovesick stalker. Who’d taken a four-year break.
He drove in silence for a few miles. She almost dared to hope she’d finally gotten through his thick, stubborn skull.
“Would you enjoy being managed, Emma? If your father were doing it? If I were?”
“You never listen to me.” He was still trying to protect himself. Somewhere inside him, the abused child was still trying to prove he was good enough. “Dad never felt you were right for me, but I’m still in his life, and he’s in mine.”
“Then if I were the one, trying to give you what I think you need?”
“Right now, no, I wouldn’t enjoy it. I don’t want you near me.” She folded her hands on her lap, exercising iron control. But maybe that was the lesson she needed to learn ne
xt. What good was control, if it turned you into a frozen soul?
From that moment until Noah stopped the car in front of the hospital entrance in Knoxville, neither of them said a word. Despite her wounded feelings, the worst outcome of this confusing argument would be losing him from her life for good.
She wanted to beg him to see what she’d really tried to do, not what he suspected her of doing.
But the silence had stretched too long. If she broke it, she’d cry instead of talk.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
NOAH WATCHED HER hurry into the hospital, then pause at the information desk. As he drove to the parking lot, his mind was on Emma, suffering in harsh silence because of what he’d said. Did she really think she was good at covering up? He seemed to hurt her constantly.
Even his apology had turned into an insult. No doubt she’d prefer he go back to Bliss and leave the blessed Candlers alone.
But he was genuinely concerned about Megan and the baby about to be born four weeks early. So he parked the car and went up to the fourth floor maternity ward. He made his way to the labor and delivery waiting room, his mind on Emma and her family and the pain that had made her seem so fragile as she looked away from him in the car.
She came out of one of the labor rooms just as he stepped into the waiting room. They had it to themselves. A couple of rows of green couches, a selection of dog-eared magazines. Televisions set on different stations, babbling in the background.
Emma’s happiness faded to apprehension the second she saw him.
“How are they?” he asked.
“She’s close to transition. She took those birthing classes with Dad while they’ve been here. He actually hired a private instructor and scheduled their own classes so they could cover them more quickly.”
“I’m sure he did.”
“I’m glad he wants to take care of Megan and the baby. You don’t have to be sarcastic about him every time you’re angry with me.”
“I’m not angry, Emma.” Not strictly true, but anger was a ludicrous response to having his plans for the clinic finally within his grasp. “The baby’s all right?”
“They believe she’s over six pounds, even though Megan’s only thirty-six weeks along. They think she’ll be all right.”
“They’ll probably keep an eye on her for a couple of hours after birth.”
Emma sat on one of the sofas. He sat across from her.
“You don’t have to stay,” she said.
“I do.” He wouldn’t leave her on her own until he was positive everything was going to turn out well for Megan and the baby.
She looked at him with real anger. Jolting anger. How had they come to this again?
“I’d rather you left,” she said. “Seeing you makes me want to ask why you always assume the worst about me.”
“When your dad comes out here and tells us the baby’s born, and mother and daughter are thriving, I’ll leave. Until then, though mine may be the last shoulder you want, it’s yours if you need it.”
She glanced at the offending body part. “In case I’ve dreamed all my life of laying my face on a bed of nails.”
He almost smiled. She had fight. He had to admire her fight. “I am sorry for the way I behaved.”
“You can’t help what you feel. When we go back to Bliss, I’ll get in touch with Mr. Phillips on the council and find out who they want to handle things with the house. You and I shouldn’t have to deal with each other often.” Apparently, she needed to ensure he knew they were not getting over this.
He nodded, but the town was not getting her house.
* * *
THE HOURS DRAGGED BY. Noah rose from his couch and disappeared, only to return with coffee exactly the way she liked it, two sugars and cream that lightened it to caramel brown. She thanked him and drank it, just to prove she wasn’t petty.
It tasted like battery acid.
Emma kept her mind on the life arriving just inside the doors behind Noah’s back. Her little sister, a new chance for her family to get a childhood right.
Emma refused to let herself collapse because Noah had been cruel. No one who saw him stride out of that courtroom could doubt his public rejection was meant for her. This was her turning point. She could beg him to stop being angry with her or she could move forward, getting her beloved house ready for the town.
She took out her phone and read a book to avoid the temptation to talk to Noah. Reasoning with him was a waste of both their time.
As more hours passed, they were still alone in the waiting room. The other moms who came through must not have had extended family, or at least not family who couldn’t wait for daylight to visit. Finally, as the sky began to lighten outside the windows, the doors behind Noah opened, and Emma’s father came through them, carrying her swaddled sister.
Emma stood, dropping her phone and her purse.
“Dad.”
Noah stood, but he didn’t move.
Emma hurried to her father. He was cradling her tiny head, one hand under her body, and Emma stared into her infant sister’s face. The baby blinked deep blue eyes and opened her mouth in the softest, sweetest complaint ever heard on the whole, beautiful earth.
“Meet Evelyn,” her father said. “Evelyn Emma Noelle Candler.” Emma let herself cry, just for once, because her tears were pure happiness. Her father hugged her, and they both held the baby together.
Noah made to leave.
“Wait,” Brett said. “Noah, we called her Noelle because it was as close to Noah as we could think of. We want to thank you for everything you’ve done for Megan, especially because you and I have disagreed many times. Only a good man wouldn’t hold my bad judgment against me.”
Noah swallowed so hard his Adam’s apple visibly shifted. He crossed the room, wonder on his face, the tension that was so often a part of him gone.
“I sure got a beauty named for me,” he said, looking from the baby’s face to Brett’s. “Thank you. And Megan.”
“I’ll tell her. I know you two must be tired. If you want to wait, you can see Megan in about an hour. I have to take the baby back to the nursery now, but I’ll see you later, one way or the other.”
“Sure, Dad.” Emma hugged him and kissed his cheek. “She’s amazing.”
“You’ll get to hold her in a little while,” he said.
“I can’t wait.”
Then, surprisingly, he turned the baby so Noah could get another, closer look. “I’m glad you gave me time to realize I was wrong about you,” Brett said to him. He looked with love at his new daughter, and then grinned at Noah. “You’re part of us from now on.”
Emma felt a little numb. Noah looked more than touched. He seemed speechless, but his smile was real. It shone all the way to his eyes, and Emma was tempted to care again, to believe he could be human and live with the utter disappointment of receiving a helping hand.
* * *
WITH THANKSGIVING COMING the next week, the traffic back into the mountains was heavy. Noah gritted his teeth, kept his hands on the steering wheel and kept going.
He could have used the time to think about his problems, but why confront what he couldn’t fix?
Unfortunately, making his mind blank had also never been his greatest talent.
Emma had been right about one thing. The clinic had been his goal. He’d wanted it, he’d fought for it, and the town would have it. In the past few weeks, he’d started trying to pull back from his position as caretaker of his family. Chad had agreed that he shouldn’t become Odell’s mirror image and Celia had discussed her next moves with him, but he hadn’t pushed either of them along the path he’d choose.
Owen, he couldn’t say. Owen was a festering worry who had every reason to tell Noah to mind his own business.
But finally, after two
-plus years of fighting everyone with power in the town of Bliss, the clinic was approved.
That should make him feel something.
He rubbed his stomach. He’d been too filled with rage and disappointment and shame to know what emptiness felt like until now.
And he was feeling this because the clinic hadn’t happened the way he’d expected? Because it had required the fine hands of the Candlers, the family on the hill that looked down on his family’s neglected farm?
Only, the farm wasn’t neglected anymore. His mother was turning it into a showplace. Except for the barn where she stored her seasonal decorations, and Owen kept his larger tools and another farming neighbor garaged a backhoe.
The barn.
As long as he had a plan to work from, he didn’t have to think too hard about emptiness or his own inexplicable response to Emma’s kindness.
He had the barn.
After a shower and shave he drove straight out to the farm.
His mother wasn’t in the big yellow kitchen, but Owen was pouring coffee into a mug sized for a giant. He looked up.
“I’m not hungover.”
“I should probably let up on you about that,” Noah said.
“You mean after your temper tantrum at the council meeting last night?”
“I guess I’m not surprised that got all the way to you already.”
“Gossip about the sainted Dr. Gage? Naturally, all our friends want to report to me because they have the idea that you and I are enemies.”
“Enemies?” Noah took down a mug that almost matched Owen’s in size. “We’re brothers, not enemies.”
“Some of our fair citizens assume that your contempt for me means we don’t get along.”
“Contempt?” Noah shook his head and poured a mug full of the strong, black coffee that should be his mother’s real claim to fame. “Is that what you think? I’m not getting through to anyone around here. Owen, I’ve been terrified that you were one drink away from turning into Dad. I want you to have a life, a future. I want you to find happiness.”
