Forbidden Falls (Virgin River #9)(57)

She looked down at herself. “Oh, no,” she said. “I’m dusty and falling apart and probably look like a vagrant. I’ll just go home and—”

“No one over there cares, Ellie. And for heaven’s sake, you’re not eating popcorn tonight! Come on!”

“I care, Noah! I’m just getting to know these people. I’m at least going to be put together when I go there.”

“Fine,” he said in a pout. “Fine. Okay. Tell you what—figure out where we’re going to eat and I’ll take Lucy over for dinner and get takeout. I mean, we have dishes and stuff, right?”

The smile on her face said she liked that idea. “Right.”

When he got back from Jack’s with three bags of takeout, he found Ellie had spread a tablecloth on the clean basement floor, set two candelabra with lit tapers on the cloth and had put out plates. A picnic. Lucy plunked right down next to the tablecloth. Noah looked at it and said, “Nice.”

“Is this floor going to be too hard for you?” she asked. “Your desk is covered with stuff and there’s no table in the place. We could go to the RV or picnic on my bed at the apartment.”

“I like this.” He put down the sacks and settled himself on the floor. He opened the first bag and pulled out two bottles of beer. From the second bag he removed cartons of brisket, mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, warm bread and mostly melted butter. He put the third bag to the side and said, “Pie.”

“Were you starving?” she asked him.

“Aren’t you? Because unless you’re hiding the evidence, neither of us has eaten.” He twisted the cap off a bottle of beer and handed it to her.

“I haven’t had a beer in ages. At least a couple of years. I never drink.”

“You’ll probably get all loopy on me.”

“Probably,” she said, tipping the bottle up.

“What kind of stripper doesn’t even have a beer?”

“A sober one,” she informed him. “But I have to admit, this tastes very good. What kind of minister drinks?”

“Jesus turned water into wine for a wedding. He was hip. I bet they all got trashed.” He lifted his bottle toward her. “To your incredible find today. Good for you, Ellie.”

“And you thought I wouldn’t work out,” she said, toasting him. “I bet I’m the best assistant you’ve ever had.”

“And also the only one. Want me to dish us up?”

“Good idea. Now that I smell it, I think I’m going to stuff myself.” She watched him serve up two plates and it came to her he was very well trained. And she asked, “Did you ever get in trouble as a kid, Noah?”

“Depends on who you ask,” he said, passing her a plate. “My mother thought I walked on water, my father was never satisfied.”

“There’s that father thing again,” she muttered.

“The rule is, if I open the subject, you can ask questions,” he told her. “My father is a lot like Arnold Gunterson. Arbitrary. Low tolerance. Rigid and unemotional. He used to ground me all the time for little stuff. The punishment never fit the crime. I’d have to give up football because I was a half hour late on my curfew—and I had the earliest curfew in town. I lost summer camp when I was about ten because I didn’t curl the garden hose right.”

“Holy moly,” she said. She ate a forkful of mashed potatoes. “That’s a little over the top.”

“Well…He did trip on the hose,” Noah said. “But still, that’s kind of a no-TV punishment, not four weeks of summer camp. I mean, it didn’t kill him or even break any bones.”

She grinned at him. “Like you wished.”

“He’s a bastard, Ellie. My mother was a plain, sweet woman on her way to being an old maid when a poor young minister married her for her money. And made her life miserable from that moment on.”

“She told you that?”

“She didn’t have to tell me. I have no evidence, but I’m pretty sure he screwed around on her their whole marriage. He was frequently in the company of pretty, young women and it tore her heart out.”

“That’s awful, Noah,” she said. She reclined on the floor, her long legs out to the side, her hair falling over her shoulder while she ate. “Anyone who doesn’t go to his daughter-in-law’s funeral would be a bastard in my book.”

Noah looked down uncomfortably. “Dammit, I can’t lie. That was my fault. He wasn’t invited to my wedding, which was small and private, and I made sure he found out about Merry’s death, but he didn’t hear it from me. I had a secret agenda—if he came and was kind, I’d give him another chance. He didn’t. And I didn’t.”

Ellie’s fork was hovering in midair, her mouth slightly open. “Wow,” she finally said. “Are there a lot of people you have these kind of secret deals with?”

“Only him. And only once.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” she said. “So, were you in trouble as a kid?”

“When I was young, I tried my hardest to be the best kid in the universe and could still never do anything right. So when I hit about sixteen, I gave up trying to be good and started being as bad as possible. I really regret that. I hurt my mother.”