Forbidden Falls (Virgin River #9)(53)

She made a face of disbelief. “Something’s wrong. Why don’t we just cut to the chase here and you tell me. That’ll save badgering time.”

“I had dinner with that nurse,” he admitted. “At the hospital. Not a date. I meant it to be coffee, but it was her dinner break.”

“Oh. And she’s after you.”

“Yup. Sort of,” he said. “She’d like to make me dinner. It wasn’t easy to stop her. She was almost quicker than me, and I thought I was ready for her.”

Ellie laughed. “Come in—I have popcorn. You can tell me all about it.”

“I shouldn’t. I’m imposing.”

“Yeah, you are, but you’re also in the clutches of a horny nurse and I want to hear about it. Come on.”

“Horny is stretching it,” he told her, entering.

“Uh-huh, and let me guess,” Ellie said as she closed the door behind Noah. She hung her towel over the sink. “She’s kind of pretty, aggressive, works the conversation around to the next time you’ll be together and has a totally futuristic tone. It goes something like, ‘And when would you like to do that?’”

“My God, are you psychic?”

“For Pete’s sake, have you no experience at all?” She sat cross-legged on her bed and offered up her bowl of popcorn. He perched on the end of the bed.

“Actually, I do have experience, I’m just not interested in Gloria.”

“Why not?” she asked. “Is she ugly?”

“She’s pretty,” he said. “And nice. But she just doesn’t start my engine, if you get my drift.”

“Noah, be careful here. Don’t tell me more than I want to know.”

“She’s boring,” he said. “Nice, pretty, real determined and boring. She’s exactly the kind of woman people try to fix me up with—proper and polite. I don’t know what it is about being a minister, it’s like people don’t want me to get too excited. And also, like they think it’s good résumé material for a woman to land a preacher. Or something. I don’t get it.”

“Good night, Nellie.” She rolled her eyes. “Noah, I’m not sure it’s the minister thing that makes you attractive. You’re actually kind of cute.”

His eyes widened briefly. “I am?” he asked, though kinda cute was not exactly what a man was looking for by way of praise.

“Mmm-hmm. You kind of make a girl want to shave above the knees. That was a compliment by the way.”

“Is that a big deal? Shaving above the knees?” he stupidly asked.

She laughed. “Pardner, for my last job I had to shave above the—”

“Stop,” he ordered. And she laughed some more. He helped himself to a handful of popcorn.

“One minute you want to hear all about it, then it offends your little sensibilities,” she teased.

“They’re not little,” he said, opening his mouth and dropping popcorn inside. “Good popcorn,” he said. “Is this microwave stuff?”

“Yup, but not bad. I love popcorn. Sometimes my gramma and I had popcorn for dinner.”

“Really?” he asked. “Not real nutritious. I mean, as a meal.”

“Noah, we were poor. There were times we ran a little low. But we were happy. If my gramma was worried, it didn’t show. We used to giggle about ketchup sandwiches. Pickle and peanut butter sandwiches. Popcorn or rice and tomatoes.”

“Rice and tomatoes?”

“A couple cups of rice, a can of stewed tomatoes, voila. Another favorite for the end of the month was soft-boiled eggs on fried potatoes. Didn’t you ever have things like that when you were a kid?”

Not while growing up, he hadn’t. “There were times we had pretty simple dinners, but…” His voice trailed off.

Ellie grabbed a handful of popcorn and shoved it into her mouth. “What was your growing up like?”

He took a deep breath. “Ellie, I didn’t grow up poor. I grew up in a big house—practically a mansion. My father was a pretty famous preacher—he was on television. He still is—famous and on television. He was ten years younger than my mother. She inherited money, so before my father made his in the ministry, she had hers. I think it’s fair to say she made him what he is.”

“No shit,” she said, wide eyed, fascinated. “Oops.”

“Don’t worry about it—I’m getting used to it. I’m an only child, my mother is dead and my father and I don’t get along. But there was always plenty of money while I was growing up.”

“Well, there you go,” she said. “Money isn’t the answer.”

“No shit,” Noah said.

Ellie might’ve grinned if Noah didn’t look so serious. “So, did you always know you were going to be a minister?” she asked.

“Absolutely not. I was going to be anything but a minister. I wasn’t about to follow in my father’s footsteps—for a religious man, he sure had his failings. But while I was looking for some answers to questions I’d had since I was about five years old, I ended up studying religion, among other things. Go figure. I discovered parts of the ministry that had nothing to do with being on television or being famous that appealed to me in a very personal way. It took me a really long time to get there, though.”