Noah had said that she never just let anything happen.
Maybe this time she could.
Maybe Noah would have his way after all. Because the more time she spent with him, the more she believed that she really could fall in love.
That one day, she could even end up as somebody’s wife.
As Noah’s.
Chapter 9
Noah waited in Taylor’s sparsely decorated living room while she changed into something more comfortable. Normally, he loved the sight of a beautiful woman all dressed up, especially if it was for a date with him.
But Taylor had just looked miserable. Now that he knew how infectious her smile could be, he wanted to do everything he could to make sure it never faded.
He was still in awe of what an incredible woman Taylor had turned out to be. He never would have guessed that their simple flirtations at the electronics store could lead to so much more. And he meant it when he said that he was going to make her fall in love with him. He was already falling—falling so fast, it excited and terrified him in equal measures.
Good thing he had always loved a good thrill rush.
As for Taylor, she’d given so much to their country, though she seemed to belittle her sacrifice since she hadn’t yet seen combat. Still, she was fraught with anxiety over every little decision and non-decision alike. She deserved to smile. She deserved to finally be able to relax and know that someone was taking care of her, too—that she didn’t have to do it all on her own as she always had.
Oh, he had it bad.
Perhaps he’d caught the love bug from his brother, Oscar. As much as the goofy, lovesick version of his brother irritated him, he also realized now that he’d been a bit jealous of that happiness.
And now he also knew why.
Finding a girl you wanted to risk everything for made life so much fuller. Maybe even ornery Billy Idol would come around to Taylor in time. They could be one big happy family, and…
Okay, he needed to calm way down.
This was their first official date, and the last thing he needed to do was ruin it with ridiculous declarations of love. They didn’t even know each other well enough, though it kind of did feel like he’d seen straight into her heart that weekend on their fishing trip.
And it kind of did feel like she was finally beginning to see into his.
Just then, the door to Taylor’s bedroom opened from inside, and she strode across the living room to join him on the couch. “Sorry it took so long,” she said.
“That’s okay. You’re worth waiting for.” And he meant that in every sense of the word.
He wanted to lean in and kiss her again. Not kissing her these past few days had been a new and unwelcome form of torture, but he wanted her to make the next move. He needed to know that she was comfortable, that he wasn’t rushing her along too fast.
Or like a startled moose, she could run away and never look back.
Noah didn’t want to be just some guy she’d known once. He wanted to be the guy, and the fact that didn’t send him running straight out that door seemed nothing short of a miracle.
Or some kind of divine destiny.
“Did you order the food?” Taylor asked, folding her hands in her lap and looking up at him shyly from behind freshly painted eyes.
“It should be ready in about 45 minutes. They’ll call.”
The phone rang a few seconds later, but it wasn’t Noah’s. It was Taylor’s.
“Well, that was fast,” she joked, frowning as she clicked to answer the call. “Hello?”
Noah watched as Taylor listened to the mumbled words of the caller on the other end of the line.
Her eyes widened, and the mumbled stopped. “Just one moment, please.”
“Is everything okay?” Noah asked, sensing the tension that rolled off from her in waves.
She smiled, but he didn’t buy it. “Yeah, yeah, of course. I just need to take this in the other room.”
Worry overtook Noah as he watched Taylor walk away from him for the second time that evening. Why did it feel like she wouldn’t be coming back this time?
Taylor closed the door behind her, making sure it had latched all the way. “I’m sorry, could you just repeat all that again, please?” she asked Johnson, one of the Call of Duty guys that worked with her.
“Let’s just say I was passing by a desk and happened to see your name on some paperwork. Looks like your transfer request has been approved. Unit Supply Specialist in Charleston. Congrats, Hunt.”
“I’m sorry, did you say Charleston?” She couldn’t believe it. Almost didn’t want to.
“Yes, Hunt. You’re headed home.”
“Th-thanks, Johnson,” she mumbled at last, and they both hung up.
Taylor stared at the idle phone in her hands. She’d gotten her first choice of assignment, a dream come true. So why did it feel like it was somehow a punishment?
And how would she tell Noah?
Panic rose to her chest, and Taylor forced herself to take deep, steadying breaths. Unlocking her phone, she then flipped to her text messages and re-read the last several she’d exchanged with Noah.
I can’t wait to see you tonight, he’d texted earlier that day. Prepare for the best steak of your life!
And “I’ll make you fall in love with me,” he’d said after their first kiss.
Only moments ago, she’d decided that maybe—just maybe—she could love Noah Rockwell. She could change her rules, if it meant getting to keep him by her side.
But tonight’s call had come as a firm reminder. Taylor’s life wasn’t her own. She wasn’t the one who got to make the rules. She’d married the military, and now they needed her to move on to some place new.
Was this a reminder, a divine intervention from the almighty General in the sky?
Taylor didn’t know about that, but she did know that she had to comply with orders. Whether it came tomorrow or next week, her time with Noah was up.
She would allow herself this one evening, and then she would move on. Soon Noah would be nothing more than a fond memory. Knowing that freed her from her anxieties at last.
Perhaps she could have loved Noah as he so adamantly insisted, but they would never know now.
Next time, she would be more careful. She would guard her heart more closely. She would wear her mask and refuse to let anyone lower it from her face.
Her face! Oh gosh, was that a tear?
She took several more deep breaths, then padded on a bit of powder from her makeup kit to cover the splotchy trails of her sorrow.
“It could have been so much worse,” she told herself. “The call came right on time.”
She smiled at herself in the mirror. It didn’t look authentic. She didn’t feel authentic. Noah needed her to be happy, to enjoy the evening. She would let him down later, but he’d already ordered their dinner. They were already here together.
She just needed to find a way to say goodbye.
Chapter 10
Noah didn’t trust the smile on Taylor’s face. It seemed too big, too forced, not like the authentic moments of joy her face had captured during their weekend fishing trip together.
She was hiding something, something related to that call.
“Everything okay?” he asked when she returned to sit beside him on the couch.
“Better than okay,” she answered perkily, leaning in to give him their first kiss of the evening.
Noah loved kissing Taylor, but not if she was using their affection as a mask for dishonesty. As hard as it was, he pushed her away and searched her eyes for some seed of the truth.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” She pouted, and a blush rose to her cheeks.
Studying her more closely, he recognized the tell-tale sign of tears, which she’d poorly tried to cover up with some kind of cosmetic cream or powder.
“You’re making me uncomfortable,” she said, shifting her gaze to the floor, trying to escape him all of a sudden. From awkward to ha
ppy to fake to scared, he just couldn’t keep up with her shifting moods tonight.
Noah hadn’t done anything wrong, which could only mean…
“Am I leaving, or are you?” he whispered.
Taylor jerked her head up to look at him again, that same overzealous smile spread across her face again. But it wasn’t the smile he’d come to crave. This wasn’t the real Taylor. “No, no, we’re both staying here for dinner. You did place the order, right?”
He sighed. Of course, she would be just as difficult as ever. She didn’t know any other way to be. “The call,” he said, his throat dry as he forced out each word. “It changed something.”
“Stop being ridiculous, Noah. Can’t we just enjoy tonight?” she begged.
“Taylor, I have always been honest with you, right from the start. Tell me what happened.”
She shook her head, smiled. “Noth—”
“And don’t you say nothing, because I can tell.” He placed a hand on her arm and felt her shiver against his palm.
“I am,” she said at last.
He nodded even though he didn’t understand yet, didn’t know which of his questions she had finally decided to answer.
“I’m leaving,” she whispered, turning her eyes back toward him. Her tears had begun to fall again, and Noah wanted so badly to kiss them away.
“Was it something I did to make you uncomfortable?” he asked, fearing her answer.
She shook her head sadly. “I put in for a transfer before I even met you, and it just got approved.”
“A transfer to where?”
“Charleston.”
“When are you leaving?” Now that he knew what he was up against, he needed to know all the details, so that maybe they could find a way through this newest obstacle. Oh, but it was a big one.
“I don’t know. It could be tomorrow. It could be several weeks. The Army is a whole lot of hurry up and wait when it comes to these things.”
“But you’re not leaving tonight?”
She shook her head subtly. “No.”
“Then let’s make it a night to remember.”
Her eyes widened, almost as if she was having a hard time taking in the sight of him—that she couldn’t see him clearly, but she wanted to. “How?”
“I don’t know yet, but we’ll figure it out as we go.”
“I don’t know, Noah.” She shivered again, but didn’t resist when he wrapped her in a hug. Instead, she brought her arms up to embrace him, too. Then she whispered, “Won’t that just make things harder?”
“They’re already hard, and you’re already here. Please just give me the night.”
“Okay.”
Taylor let Noah hold her hand as they walked along the coastal trail following the path outlined by the Anchorage Planet Walk. After finishing their takeout dinner, which was every bit as delicious as Noah had promised, they drove their cars over to a place called the Kincaid Chalet.
“What are we doing here?” she’d asked.
“Leaving,” he said, opening the passenger side door to his car and motioning for her to get in. “We’ll be back for it soon. Well, soon-ish. I promise.”
He drove downtown and parked his car in an open lot. He pointed to a huge, yellow dome down the road and told her about the plans he had for them that evening. “We’re going to start at the sun and walk all the way to Pluto. The Planet Walk was planned to scale with the solar system. I haven’t done it since I was a kid, but I just knew we had to come here tonight.”
“And we’re going to walk all the way back to where we left my car? That will take forever.”
“If only,” he answered with a sad smile. “It will take us about five hours, but it’s our last night together, and I wanted to make sure you’ll remember the guy you met back in Anchorage when you’re out kicking Army butt in South Carolina.”
“And you chose the planets because—”
“Because we already had the stars.” Noah tugged at her hand, giving it a tight squeeze as he did. “Now c’mon.”
As he guided Taylor gently through Anchorage, he told her stories about all the places they passed. He’d lived a full life here, brimming with happy memories.
“So, my mom and dad used to try to give us some culture, which meant we spent a lot of time here at the Performing Arts Center.” He pointed to the big building opposite the sun installation. “We’d sneak out of concerts and plays when our parents weren’t watching and whitewash each other. It was usually Sebastian that got tossed in a snow bank since he was the youngest. When the concerts were over, Mom and Dad would come to find us and we would hide. All of us dressed to the nines, shivering, dripping wet, and out of breath. We usually got grounded after that, but then a few months later, my parents would want to try to culture us again, and we’d act out again. They never gave up trying, though.”
Taylor laughed as she pictured it. “It must have been so nice growing up with brothers. Your poor mom, though. Seems like the three of you were really a handful.”
“Don’t feel too bad for my mom. She’s gotten her revenge a hundred times over now that we’re grown. I’m kind of sad that she didn’t get the chance to meet you, though. She would have loved you.”
“Really? Why is that?” Taylor tried to picture what Noah’s mom might look like. Was she tall and heavy like her—or was she petite and pretty? Did she try to force her sons into some kind of mold they’d never fit, or did that all end with their trips to the concert hall?
“Don’t worry about that,” he said. For the first time since she’d met him, Noah flushed with embarrassment. “Look, we’ve reached the next planet and the Hotel Captain Cook, named for the famous explorer. Sebastian wanted to be him so much when we were younger, so naturally, Oscar and I ruined it for him by pretending to be the Hawaiians that killed him. Most kids played cowboys and Indians, but not us.” It seemed he’d decided that, since they couldn’t share their futures, they might as well share their pasts.
“Sounds like you tortured Sebastian growing up,” Taylor answered, laughing.
“Believe me, he deserved it. And still does. Didn’t you fight with your brothers and sisters?”
“Nope. It was just me and my mom,” she told him.
“Your dad?” he asked, looping an arm over her shoulder as a chill rippled through the air.
“Killed in combat before I was born,” she told him without feeling any sadness or longing for her father. His absence had always been a fact of life, and she’d never known things any other way.
Noah kissed her temple as they continued to walk slowly forward. “And that didn’t put you off joining the Army yourself?”
“No, it’s actually a big part of why I decided to enlist. It makes me feel close to him, like I’m carrying on his legacy. He was a brave man.”
“And you’re an incredible, brave woman,” he said, kissing her again.
“And you’re too much,” she retorted, reaching him to give him a playful jab on the shoulder.
Noah grabbed her wrist and pulled her into his chest. His eyes shone in the setting darkness as he said, “And you’re exactly the right amount.” Then he kissed her, right there beside Saturn.
“Look, the stars are starting to come out,” Taylor murmured, pushing herself out of his embrace. She didn’t want to pull away, but if she wasn’t strong now, they’d both end up rooted there to that spot well into the morning… possibly forever.
Love wasn’t in the cards for Taylor, but—oh—if it was…
She grabbed Noah’s hand and tugged him up the trail. If they focused on walking, on the map, then maybe the impending goodbye wouldn’t hurt so badly.
“There she is.” Noah pointed into the stars above. “Your twin.”
Taylor’s eyes moved up the length of Noah’s arm and into the night sky where she saw a bold, beautiful W shining dully. “Cassiopeia.”
“Think of me whenever you see her.” He stopped walking and wrapped his arms around her. “We’ll always
have the stars,” he whispered, bringing his face close.
“And now the planets, too.”
“The whole universe.”
They continued the hike in stops and starts, taking their time to appreciate nature’s spectacle and their last blissful moments of togetherness.
When they finally reached the Kincaid Chalet, Taylor knew that this was goodbye. There was nothing left to say.
“Don’t go yet,” Noah said as she glanced toward her car.
“Don’t you need a ride back to your car downtown?”
“No, I’ll call my brother. I owe him a rude awakening anyway.”
“Do you want to go inside?”
“No, it’s closed.”
“Then?”
“Here, hand me the keys.”
Noah opened the driver side door of Taylor’s sedan and jammed the key into the ignition, then turned on the radio where some poppy song broadcast into the night.
“I was kind of hoping it would be ‘Fly Me to the Moon.’ How perfect would that have been?” Noah said, opening his arms and asking Taylor to walk into them for the last time.
“It’s already perfect,” she said, finally letting down all her defenses, finally trusting herself enough now that it was too late.
Chapter 11
Noah watched Taylor drive away from the Kincaid Chalet, from him and any life they might have had together. When her tail lights at last disappeared into the night, he sank down onto the stone steps outside the closed building and looked up at the stars.
This is it, he told himself. Time to move on. What other option do I have?
There were no solutions, not to this problem. He smiled to himself when he glanced down at his phone and realized the time. At least he had an opportunity to get a little bit of revenge on Sebastian for waking him up early a couple weeks back. He tapped on his brother’s contact and waited for the inevitable fight. At least that would take his mind off Taylor—or so he hoped.
The Alaska Sunrise Romances: A 9-Book Sweet Romance Collection Page 13
