by Amy Olle
“How’s she doing? I feel terrible about what happened.”
“Don’t,” Noah said. “She’s over her idiot ex.”
“Not that. I meant what happened at the pub.”
Noah stilled with his hand on the doorknob.
Shea turned back to the dishes. “I can’t believe she thought I would fire her because some creep thought he had the right to put his hands on her.”
Hot fury flashed behind Noah’s eyes. “She was a little fuzzy on the details,” he lied. “What exactly happened with the creep anyway?”
Shea rolled his shoulders. “Some drunk asshole got grabby with her. We bounced him, but I think he rattled her pretty good. Hope she’s all right.”
Noah made a noncommittal noise while his heart tried to pound its way out his chest. “She will be. In time. It’s only been, what, a week?”
“Closer to a month now.”
Noah swallowed the sand filling his mouth. A month ago, a drunken creep had put his hands on Mina.
His Mina.
An entire month, and she’d never said a word about it to him.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The noxious glow emanating from the laptop turned Mina’s stomach.
She’d spent the last four weeks setting up an accounting system for Shea and entering three months’ worth of data from his handwritten ledgers into the new software.
She searched for stillness in the numbers. There’d been too much noise around her lately. Too much disorder. The house was in constant upheaval, her mind in perpetual disarray.
Ever since that creep had copped a feel.
She longed for quiet, and unable to find it, she started to suspect the noise and chaos originated inside her.
Lost in the numbers, she didn’t hear Noah until he stepped through the door. A mouth-watering aroma emanated from a white bag tucked under his arm.
“Hey.” She offered him a smile.
His expression warmed. “Hey. You hungry? I brought dinner.”
She groaned. “Those aren’t nachos, are they?”
“They might be.” With a smile, he placed the bag on the table and shucked his winter coat.
A number jumped out at her from the spreadsheet, and she squinted at the computer screen.
In the kitchen, Noah poured himself a glass of milk.
He sat across from her, his gaze shifting from her to the computer and back. “How are things going? Everything on schedule?”
He thought she was working on her spreadsheet for the renovation.
She didn’t know why she hadn’t told him she wasn’t waitressing much anymore but was doing Shea’s bookkeeping instead. Probably because then she’d have to explain why, and that conversation danced too close to the topic of the groper.
The groper she’d also failed to mention to him. Not because she didn’t trust Noah but because she desperately wanted to forget the whole thing had ever happened.
“I won’t bore you with the details,” she said.
“What happened to the million-dollar trust fund?”
She rolled her eyes. “There was never a trust fund.”
“I thought every Winslow got one of those at birth.”
The numbers still weren’t adding up and Mina tabbed to another column. “Rose set me up with a college fund, but I used it as a down payment on the house.”
“An Ivy League education isn’t cheap. Did you get a scholarship?”
She deleted the data in the last cell and corrected a transposed figure. “I didn’t go to college.”
A heavy silence pulled her attention away from the computer.
Confusion furrowed Noah’s brow and he shifted in his chair. “When I left town, I thought you were planning to go to Columbia.”
Her mind stuttered. “I didn’t get in to Columbia.”
His chewing stopped, and he swallowed. “How is that possible? You were an excellent student.”
“Senior year, my grades slipped a little.”
He gaped at her as if had no idea who she was. “What happened?”
“Nothing happened.” Her heart thrashed inside her chest. “They slipped and I didn’t get in.”
“There are a lot of good schools that aren’t so difficult to get in to. Did you apply to any others?”
“Is this a quiz? ’Cause I didn’t study.” She slammed the laptop shut.
He eased back in his chair. “Just a question,” he said easily.
Regret seared through her. “I’m sorry.” She stabbed at her temples and rubbed. “You didn’t deserve that.”
His features softened. “I might’ve deserved it a little.”
“I don’t want to fight.”
His teasing smile slipped into place. “Were we fighting?”
“Yes. You were pointing out my flaws.”
He grew serious. “Then I’m sorry. That wasn’t my intention. Please forgive me.”
“Well, that depends.” She reclaimed her seat at the table. “Are those Shea’s nachos in that bag?”
“An Irish pub known for its Mexican food. I can’t say I saw that coming.”
He tore open the bag and soon slid a plate loaded with nachos across to her. They ate in companionable silence until she asked about the excavation. He spoke passionately about his work and she relaxed, absorbed by his animation and the interesting tidbits he shared.
After a natural lull, he asked, “How is the waitressing going? Any easier?”
The tension returned to her shoulders. “A little.”
He pointed toward the laptop. “Does it provide enough to help with the bills?”
A smile found its way to her lips. “More would be nice.”
He made a commiserating sound. “I bartended for years.”
Mina groaned. “Bartending must be impossibly hard.”
“After I memorized the drinks and got my speed up, it wasn’t too hard.” He paused, as though considering his next words. “The hard part was the idiot clientele. Alcohol can turn some people into real creeps.”
Mina stiffened. She finished chewing a tasteless nacho and swallowed it with an audible gulp.
“Have you had to deal with much of that?” Noah asked.
She stared at her plate and contemplated the words to tell him about the pervert. He’d given her the perfect opening, and she could not bring herself to step through it.
“No. I’ve been lucky.”
They plunged into silence. His demeanor changed, and something like a deep sorrow came to hang over him. He pushed his plate away.
She ducked her chin.
“I was talking to Shea earlier and—”
Her head snapped up. “When?”
His dark eyes shimmered with knowledge. “I just came from his place. I don’t think he likes the idea of you and me.”
Her heart dropped to her stomach. “I didn’t tell him about us, I swear. I haven’t told anyone.”
Noah’s features pulled into a deep scowl. “Are we hiding it?”
“I assumed you didn’t want people to know... to think...”
“I don’t give a fuck what people think.”
A surprised gasp fell from her lips.
“Why wouldn’t I want people to know I’m sleeping with a smart, smoking-hot woman?”
Because she was a fraud.
The shrill ring of a cell phone punctured her stunned silence. Instinctively, Mina reached for her phone, tipping the device so she could read the new text message displayed on the screen.
“Emily’s planning another visit.” She pushed up from her chair. “I think I’ll call her back. Do you mind?”
His eyes told her he did. “Not at all.”
Mina dialed Emily’s number as she shuffled away. She raised the phone to her ear and slipped into her bedroom, closing the door behind her.
Through the last sliver of opening, she risked a peek at Noah to find he tracked her movements from the table.
She eased the door shut on his too-perceptive gaze.
Noah tried to force his mind back to the stack of essays on his desk, but all he could think about was Mina. She was on edge. Irritated and jumpy.
And pulling away from him.
His chest ached with the realization. He wasn’t ready to lose her. Yet.
He didn’t know how, or when, it’d happened, but he could no longer deny the fact that he cared about her. Like the Trojan horse, she’d slipped past his defenses and laid waste to his poor, defenseless heart.
He read an entire essay without registering a single word. Instead, his mind worked the puzzle of Mina Winslow. Old memories knocked loose of one of the last times he’d seen her before he’d left school.
They’d returned from winter break, and he’d realized right away that something was different about her. She hadn’t smiled her shy smile anymore. The dark circles under her eyes had matched her dark clothing. It was as though in those days away from school, the light had gone out inside her.
For two weeks, she’d ignored him. To get a reaction out of her, he’d snatched her notebook off her desk to copy her notes, as he always did, but when he’d peered down at the page, only nonsensical markings and scribbles had blanketed the paper. Page after page of her notebook filled with nothing more than doodles. She’d written no words at all.
When he’d wordlessly handed the notebook back, she wouldn’t meet his gaze.
After that, he’d watched her closely. She’d smiled and laughed with the rest of their classmates, but whenever she’d thought no one was looking, her eyes had filled with a deep, wounding sorrow.
The hair, the clothes, that notebook. Unease had settled in Noah’s gut. Something was wrong, he remembered thinking. Terribly wrong.
Then his life had derailed, and he hadn’t thought about Mina again for some time. When he had, he’d only recalled her with anger and bitterness.
A knock sounded on his office door. Noah glanced up to find one of his students hovering in the doorway.
Noah pushed thoughts of Mina from his mind and offered the kid a smile. “Hey, Damion. C’mon in.”
Halfway through fall semester, the kid was on course to fail the class. He skipped class more often than he attended, and on exam day, Noah could count on Damion to be absent. Then one day, when Damion had deigned to show up, Noah had given a pop quiz.
That quiz had showed Noah two things. One, Damion was bright, and contrary to appearances, he had been paying attention to everything Noah had taught, and two, he most likely had a learning disability.
Noah had quickly tweaked the class structure. He’d started recording his live lectures and, after class, posted them online for later, or multiple, viewings. Next, he’d offered students the choice of oral, essay, or multiple-choice assignments and exams.
Damion took a cautious step inside. “Hey.”
“What’s up?” Noah asked.
Damion pulled a rumpled paper from his back pocket and held up the crumpled note. “They was hungry.”
Noah blinked. “Who was hungry?”
Damion approached his desk in a meandering sort of way and shoved the paper at Noah. Noah unfolded the sheet and smoothed out the wrinkles. He peered at the small typeface and started to read.
Written in an outdated narrative tone, the article discussed a small settlement of immigrants on a remote peninsula in northern Michigan “heretofore uninhabited” for obvious, logical reasons.
Noah’s heart started to pound. He scanned the rest of the text, which detailed the settlers’ struggles for food and shelter in the inhospitable locale and concluded on an ominous tone. “Starving and banished from their homeland, they invited the devil into their midst.”
Noah looked up into Damion’s youthful face. “Where did you find this?”
“At the old courthouse. My mom was cleaning out all the stuff left behind when they built the new building. She says they has all kinds of old books and stuff still there.”
Noah’s gaze sharpened on the skinny teen. “There are other books?”
Damion nodded.
A broad smile overtook Noah’s face. “Can you show me?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Large snowflakes swirled on the wind, as if suspended in eternal flight.
Mina pulled the collar of her winter coat high and scurried up the sidewalk to the Thief Island Bank. She bustled through the front doors and stomped the snow from her boots before plucking her paycheck from the back pocket of her blue jeans and approaching the ATM.
Finished with her banking, Mina continued into the bank’s interior. Hoping to borrow some energy, she’d sucked down several cups of coffee that morning and urgently needed to use the restroom before heading out on her next errand.
She breezed through the lobby, past a faceless sculpture and disorderly wall mural, and ducked into the surprisingly elegant ladies’ room of sleek marble and warm wood.
Once done, she readied to leave her roomy private stall, and the lining of her coat caught in the zipper. She was fiddling with the mess, taking care not to rip the fabric, when the restroom door opened and voices filled the small space.
At first, Mina thought nothing of it. Then she became aware of the unusual nature of the voices. Heavy and hushed. A woman’s husky laugh.
A man’s deep baritone.
Mina froze. She peeked through a crack between the stall door and wall.
She caught a glimpse of bare flesh. Her gaze traveled up a woman’s leg. Past the hem of a red skirt riding high on an exposed thigh.
A man’s hand moved to the woman’s thigh. Then inched higher. The gold band on his ring finger winked under the fluorescent lighting.
Mina swallowed a giggle. Maybe they were newlyweds, stealing a kiss.
The woman uncrossed her legs and he stepped between them. Mina picked up the distinct sound of a zipper coming down.
Oh, no. They were stealing more than a kiss. Unless Mina made her presence known very soon, she’d be trapped until they finished.
The man slurped on the woman’s neck. “You’re a dirty girl, you know that?”
Mina froze when she recognized the low timbre of Drew’s voice. That was Drew’s dirty-blond hair, and the woman spread out on the countertop? She had long, slender legs, a trim waist, and no one, not even Vivian, could possibly call her chubby.
Which meant she wasn’t Drew’s fiancée. Correction. She wasn’t his wife.
Mina straightened, unhooked the door latch, and strode from her stall. She marched up to the sink and turned on the faucet while Drew stumbled out from between Phoebe’s legs.
Mina might’ve laughed at their twin expressions of shock except it just wasn’t funny.
“Are you getting déjà vu, too?” Mina said. “That’s so weird, isn’t it?
Anger and alarm warred for dominance over his features. “Mina, what are you doing here?”
Phoebe slid off the counter and began buttoning her blouse.
“It’s a public restroom, Drew. What do you think I’m doing?”
Mina finished washing her hands and pulled a paper towel from the dispenser while Drew yanked up his zipper.
“You’re ridiculous,” Mina said. “Both of you.”
Phoebe sighed as though plagued by boredom.
Drew’s light eyes turned glacial. “Be careful you don’t hurt yourself climbing up on that high horse.”
Mina tossed the paper towel in the trash. “Well, I’m off. I think I’ll go call my good friend Frannie Howard and invite her to lunch. I wonder what she’s been up to lately?”
Mina turned on her heel and strode from the restroom. Eager to be away, she hurried down the hall toward the lobby.
Behind her, the restroom door crashed open and struck the concrete wall with a thunderous crack. She turned as Drew barreled toward her.
A ripple of fear, unreasonable fear, slithered down her spine. She tamped down the instinct to run.
His long strides ate up the ground until he stood over her. “Listen to me,” he hissed. “T
his needs to stay quiet. Do you understand?”
“Do you understand the purpose of a public restroom?”
A muscle ticked in his jawbone. “If this comes out, my campaign is over.”
“Your campaign?” Disgust rippled through her. With Drew, certainly, but more so with herself. How could she have been so wrong about him? “That’s what you’re worried about? What about your marriage?”
His hands balled into fists and he leaned close. Too close, and the hairs rose on the back of her neck and arms.
“I kept your secrets, Mina. Now you can keep mine.”
Drew walked away while around her, the world stopped.
Her heart did not beat. Her lungs refused to draw air. Her mind replayed his words but failed to grasp their meaning. Nothing, so absolute was the horror that gripped her.
She didn’t know how long she remained frozen to the spot, panic squeezing her chest.
Voices echoed around the lobby as people went about their bank business. Someone rounded the corner to the hallway, and Mina startled.
Freed from her paralysis, she charged past them and through the lobby. She launched herself past the congregating bodies and toward the exit.
Heedless of their curious stares and the sting of winter air, she charged down the path toward her car, her feet pounding in time to the frantic rhythm of her heart.
Footsteps pounded behind her, hounding her, and a sob wrenched from her throat. She grasped for her car keys as she ran, but they remained buried in the bottom of her purse. Frustration and fear choked her.
Her grip slipped, and the purse dropped on the ground, the contents spilling into the street at her feet. Another helpless cry ripped from her. On hands and knees, she collected her scattered things while snow and slush soaked through her jeans.
She whirled, ready to confront her attacker.
No one pursued her. She was losing her mind. She crawled behind the wheel of her car. Her lungs shrank to half their usual size, and she couldn’t hold enough oxygen. She inhaled deep breaths. Dizziness circled.
Though she had no recollection of making the drive, she reached the carriage house just in time.
She threw up in the shrubbery.
