Forbidden Falls (Virgin River #9)(55)

“But when, Noah? When did you give up?”

He looked at her steadily, peering into her large eyes. How did she know the things she knew? Could her grandmother have taught her so much about instinct? Or was she just plain an old soul? “When he didn’t come to my wife’s funeral,” he said.

And before she could respond, he walked down the stairs and away into the night.

As Noah walked away from Ellie’s apartment, he thought, that was wrong, the way that happened. That’s not the way you tell a friend about your past. And he realized suddenly, Ellie had become his friend. When you ask someone if you can join them for their very limited time with their children, that’s about friendship.

Yes, she was a friend now. She trusted him with her personal challenges, even if they might be embarrassing. But that was what was odd and admirable about Ellie—she might not want the town to know the details of her past, but she had no shame; she didn’t waste her energy on it. For such a young woman, she was comfortable in her own skin. And then he realized with a shock of sudden clarity, she didn’t treat him like a minister. She treated him like a friend. A regular man.

Too often, people approached him as someone whose approval they needed, and that was so far from his role. It not only made him uncomfortable, it created a barrier between him and friendship. And he didn’t want only friends in the clergy. Ellie? She didn’t much care if he approved of her. He loved that about her.

The only thing that seemed to rattle her were issues with her kids—their welfare and safety.

Noah, however, had enough shame for both of them. What kind of fool laments his sad childhood to someone who ate popcorn for dinner and slept beside her grandmother on a sofa bed her entire life? Or how about the way he dropped that bomb about Merry’s death? Ellie lost her boyfriend in an accident when she was a kid herself, a poor kid who was expecting a baby. She must have been devastated and terrified. But she somehow kept on trucking, determined. Hercules Baldwin. He would have to apologize to her in the morning.

He was behind his desk in his office the next morning when he heard the backdoor open. Lucy bolted for the door to greet Ellie. When he saw her in the doorway, he said, “I’m sorry, Ellie.”

But she said, “I’m sorry, Noah,” at the same moment.

And then in unison they both asked, “What are you sorry for?”

“You first,” she said. “Go on. My list might be longer.”

“I’m sorry I told you my wife had passed away like that. That was cold. You deserved a more thoughtful explanation. She died of cancer about five years ago. She was very young and her illness was sudden. She went fast. I shouldn’t have told you the way I did. What are you sorry for?”

“I’m sorry your wife died. I’m sorry your father let you down and sorry I ask such personal questions. And sorry I confront you and push the point so much. And I know I tease you and torture you and I’m very sorry that I have way too much fun doing that. I think I need to work on boundaries. First of all, it’s not my business and second, you’ll tell me what you want me to know when you feel like it. And I should show more respect for your—you know, your position. That you’re a minister. And everything.”

He laughed and shook his head.

“What’s funny?” she asked.

“I ask you about lap dances, but you’re apologizing to me about boundaries? I have an idea—let’s just go back to being ourselves and not be sorry about any of it.”

“Okay. Except that one thing—I’m sorry your wife died.”

“Thank you. I’m not trying to keep it a secret, that I was married, that I’m widowed. No one asked. And then someone did—that nurse. Gloria.”

“Well, I guess she had to be sure you weren’t g*y,” she said, and grinned largely.

He grinned back. She was impossible. And wonderful.

“I’m going to get some work done,” she said. “You have flooring coming real soon and there’s a storage closet under the stairs that’s full of dusty old boxes. I thought I’d get in there.”

“You can if you want to, but I’m not going to have the flooring extended into the closet. It’s a big storage area; it makes no sense to spend the money there. The boxes won’t care.”

“It should be cleared out anyway,” she said. “Unless there’s something else…?”

He was shaking his head. “Go for it. I only opened the first two boxes and found them full of rotting sheet music. Whatever is in there is probably destined for the Dumpster. After you look through it, I’ll haul it over behind Jack’s.”

She gave him a salute and off she went. And Lucy, the traitor, followed Ellie downstairs.

Noah was supposed to be dreaming up a wedding script, paying bills, catching up on some e-mails—but he was thinking. Merry would have liked Ellie. While most wives wanted their husbands to hire unappealing women to work for them, Merry was never that way. Ellie’s bold sexiness wouldn’t have intimidated Merry; she was a confident woman. Of course, Noah’s total devotion might’ve had something to do with that, as well.

And Merry wasn’t one of those proper, boring types, either. She had been born and raised in Seattle and was a dangerous liberal feminist. Before they were married, she belonged to an organization working toward the decriminalization of prostitution. She’d been arrested a couple of times—once for chaining herself to a tree to protect the forest from decimation, once for picketing a federal building. She was also very involved with an AIDS hospice program. And she did volunteer work for Habitat for Humanity—she said holding a hammer made her feel strong.