A Winter Wedding(42)

“That’s got to be from Noelle, doesn’t it?” she asked.

He didn’t know anyone else who was pissed off at him. And she had a key. “Has to be,” he agreed.

“Wow. What set her off? She was so friendly when I spoke to her.”

Kyle continued to stare at those two ugly words and at the deep indentations of the pen that showed how angry Noelle had been when she’d written them. “I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t do anything that would warrant this.”

“Is she angry that I’m here—staying with you? Does she think there might be something going on between us?”

At odd moments—last night, and then while they were getting the tree, and even when they were at his folks’ house—it did feel as if there was something going on. But he couldn’t say that. If Lourdes felt the same thing, she was in denial about it. Every time they accidentally touched, or their eyes lingered on each other a second too long, she’d bring up those women she’d found on Single Central.

“No,” he said. “She knows we’ve just met.” He remembered Noelle’s many attempts to hang out with him lately, the incessant calls, the suggestions that he drop by Sexy Sadie’s while she was at work—and then the more blatant offers that had come later. “She isn’t getting what she wants, so she’s throwing a tantrum.” He’d seen her do that before, plenty of times, hadn’t he? But they’d been married then. Or going through the divorce. This shouldn’t be happening now.

“And what does she want?” Lourdes asked.

“To get back together.”

“She came out and told you that?”

“She didn’t need to. I knew it. But yes, this morning she mentioned something about there being no need for us to grow old alone when we could have each other.”

Lourdes looked more closely at him. “Are you sure you’re not still sleeping with her? I can’t imagine a woman doing this unless—”

“Because you’ve never met anyone like Noelle,” he interrupted. “I haven’t touched her—despite her many offers. She asked me to come over today. I refused. That’s it. I’ve tried to let her down gently, but she makes that impossible. She pushes you until you have no choice except to be blunt.”

“Should you be worried?”

You don’t want me as your enemy, Kyle... He knew she had a temper, and not much of a conscience, but it was difficult to conceive of her doing anything that might seriously harm someone. He wouldn’t put it past her to do other things, pettier things. “No, not really.” He glanced around the house, wondering what else she might’ve touched. This was an obvious display of power, a way to show him he wasn’t as out of reach as he thought. “But it’s well past time to get those locks changed.”

“Will changing the locks even do any good? You told me her uncle’s a locksmith.”

“He’s trustworthy.” Shit, weren’t situations like this supposed to get easier with time? It’d been more than five years since they were divorced.

But Noelle hadn’t found someone else in all that time. That was why she wouldn’t move on and forget about him. And she perceived him as having money, which she was convinced would solve all her problems.

“She certainly knows how to kill the Christmas spirit,” Lourdes said.

Kyle crumpled the note and threw it away. “This is nothing. Don’t let it upset you.”

She didn’t seem capable of forgetting it, though. “Maybe we should go over to the farmhouse to sleep tonight. She doesn’t have a key to that, does she?”

“No.”

“Good. I wouldn’t want to become the subject of some Dateline episode.”

He was fairly certain she was joking, but Noelle’s sudden rage did make him uncomfortable—because it was so unprovoked, and there was nothing he could do to placate her. He wasn’t going back to her no matter what. “It’s too cold at the farmhouse, remember? We’ll be fine here.”

Although she’d taken off his coat, and it was warm in the room, she rubbed her arms. “Spurned lovers can do some crazy things.”

“We divorced more than five years ago. That’s got to make a difference. She can’t be as into me as she thinks she is.”

“Maybe you’re not as easy to get over as you think you are.”

Their eyes met in one of those moments when neither seemed capable of looking away, even though that shouldn’t be happening. “Olivia got over me without any trouble,” he said, to break it.

She frowned at him. “She still cares about you. Most people can’t say anything nice about their past partners, but Olivia genuinely admires you and wants you to be happy. At least, I got that impression.”

“Well, we are sort of related these days.”

“I’m guessing she’d feel that way regardless.”

Determined to conceal whatever sizzle he felt when he was with Lourdes, he crossed the kitchen to stare into the fridge. “I should’ve waited to piss Noelle off until we’d finished the food. The water heater should’ve been worth that much.”

“You got a lot of groceries this morning,” she said. “I’ll throw a meal together.”