Forbidden Falls (Virgin River #9)(77)

“I want this to be only between us.”

“Sure. Of course. It’s personal. I agree.”

“I don’t want anyone around here to know it’s like this between us. I just work for you, that’s all.”

He frowned. “We don’t have to share our personal lives with anyone, but we don’t have to hide the fact that we care about each other.”

“Yeah, we do, Noah. No one can know about this. About us.”

“Ellie, why? Are you embarrassed to find yourself attracted to a man who’s a minister?”

She laughed a little bit. “No. But no one would ever believe you seduced me. And you did, Noah. You did and I loved it. Not only are you the sexiest minister alive, you might be the sexiest man alive. But people will think I trapped you. They’ll think I ruined your purity and dirtied you up. And I don’t need that right now.”

“Come on, you’re wrong…”

“I’m right,” she said. “No matter how much I try to do the right thing, no matter how determined I am to do the right thing, everything that happens ends up being my fault. And when people around here find out you like me…they’re going to think I cast an evil spell on you and made you break your vows.”

“Honey, I didn’t take a vow of chastity. I didn’t promise not to love a woman. I never said I wouldn’t have a perfectly normal sex drive. I’m not fifteen, Ellie, I’m thirty-five and I’ve missed passion. Passion and intimacy, two things that are really healthy for a normal man. Don’t argue with a man with seven years of theological training.”

“People don’t get that about you like I do. They think of you as different. As a minister. Please, Noah. Let’s just act like I work for you, and that we’re casual friends.”

“We can do that, if that’s what you need. Or we could change the way things have been for you. We could be honest without being indiscreet. We could hold hands, you could let me put my arm around your shoulders, smile at you like you’re special. Treat you like the woman of my choice while I enjoy being the man of yours.”

“You don’t get it, do you, Noah?” she asked, shaking her head. “Don’t you see how fragile this is? How much hangs in the balance for both of us? At some point—maybe sooner, maybe later—the people here are going to figure me out. They’ll know I come from a dirt-poor background, that the men who gave me my children didn’t marry me, that I was a stripper when you hired me. What if they hate me? What if they treat my kids like trash because of me?”

“I won’t let anyone—”

“Don’t you see it’s your future in this town, too? What if they ask themselves what kind of minister you could be if you’d choose a woman like me? Oh, Noah,” she said, running her fingers through his thick, dark hair. “We’d get along okay in a bigger town where no one knows us all that well, where I’m not hooked up with the local preacher. But here—you and me? It could ruin us all.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s not going to be that way.”

She smiled at him. “You’re just a fool,” she said. “It usually is that way.”

He gazed into her eyes for a long moment, then he covered her mouth with his for a long, deep, luxurious kiss. He began to grow firm, still inside her. “You’re wrong,” he whispered. “And it won’t work. It will show in my eyes. Everyone will know, even if I never touch your hand.”

“Promise me to try, Noah. Please, promise me.”

“I’ll try, if that’s what you want. But, Ellie, one of the best parts of you is that you never have shame. You make your choices, you do your best, and guilt and shame—the two most useless, negative emotions on the books—just aren’t part of you.”

“I’m not ashamed of loving you, Noah,” she said. “I’m afraid. For both of us.”

Afraid yet one more thing in her life would go badly? Wouldn’t turn out? Would punish her rather than bringing her joy?

Loving him? Was she talking about her feelings or her actions? he wondered. Both, his inner voice told him. She was hardheaded and sure of herself; she wouldn’t do anything she didn’t want to do. She loved him. And they had come further than they had planned, but she still wouldn’t say it. She wouldn’t say, Noah, I love you.

“I’m going to do everything I can to make sure you’re not afraid,” he said gently. He pressed his lips against her temple. “But first, I’m going to make love to you again, before I have to start pretending I barely know you.” He smiled at her.

“Excellent,” she said with a heavy, yielding sigh.

Thirteen

It was after four in the morning when Noah kissed Ellie goodbye and made the walk back to his RV. He saw the lights were on inside and wondered if he’d forgotten to turn them off when he left, but once inside he saw that George was up, sitting at the table with coffee and his laptop open.

George looked up, lifted a brow and gave a half smile, but he didn’t say anything. Noah poured himself a cup of coffee and sat across the small table from George. Lucy rose slowly, wandered to Noah and put her head in his lap, looking up at him with those big, sad brown eyes. She looked incredibly sympathetic.

“This is a little awkward,” Noah said.