Don't Let Go(42)

I felt my chin tremble, but it wasn’t from sadness, it was from my blood boiling.
“She died,” I said through my teeth. “I’m not under anyone.”
He shook his head just slightly, his eyes boring into mine. “Twenty-six years and you’re still here doing her bidding. Running a store you wanted no part of, giving up on what made you—”
“How dare you,” I seethed, pushing forward, not caring how close that put me. “You come back here after all this time and dare to tell me where I’ve gone wrong. You told me last night that I didn’t know the life you’d lived, well right back at you, babe.” My voice quivered with anger this time, and I didn’t care. “Everything I’ve done since you left has been on me. Every choice, every path I’ve chosen has been alone. Even when I was married, I was alone in my own head. You think you had to go overseas to be alone with your pain?” I poked him in the chest. “I was in a whole damn town full of people and was completely by myself.”
He grabbed my hand when I poked him, eyes flaring. I got the feeling that people didn’t dare do that to him. Well, then he shouldn’t have come back, because I didn’t give a rat’s ass at that moment about his aggression or pride or who he was in that other world.
“What happened to art school?” he pushed.
“Jesus, why do you care?” I breathed. “And why do you remember that?”
He used my hand to pull me in to him, jaw muscles twitching. He looked intimidating, but I was too torqued to let him mess with my head like that. I held my chin up higher and glared right back at him, pushing back the turmoil I felt in my own core at being held tightly against him. That didn’t matter.
“I remember everything,” he whispered through his teeth.
“Well, if you were so damned concerned about where I’d land,” I said, pulling my hand free and pushing at him. It only pushed me back, instead. “Then what kept you on the other side of the world?”
The thin white scar above his lip twitched. My heart sped up as I realized what the new thing was about him that made me so crazy. The softer he looked and spoke, the higher his engine cranked, so that talking up close and personal felt like a lightning show.
“Maybe I couldn’t stand to see everything ripped apart,” he said. “It was easier to start over.”
“Easier,” I repeated, smiling. “How convenient for you.”
His blue eyes went dark. “Don’t go there.”
“Oh, you already did,” I said, moving back to lean against the counter where he’d previously been. I gripped the edges so he wouldn’t see my trembling. “You don’t have the market on self-righteous anger, Noah. I’ve got a little of that myself. You followed me in here, and you’re welcome to leave if it’s uncomfortable now. If it’s easier.”
I knew I was playing with fire, even as the words fell out of my mouth. I expected to see the rage I’d seen the night before. Maybe he’d come pin me to the counter and yell at me. Maybe he’d storm out and leave and not come back. He didn’t do either of those things.
Instead, his face went stony, and he took two slow steps in my direction before stopping and shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans. It was an odd tack, and while initially bewildering, I saw the barely restrained energy pulsing through him. What was intended to be a casual stance of nonchalance was given away by the tightness in his shoulders and arms and a tiny twitch by his right eye. He focused on my mouth instead of my eyes and looked like he was ready to either chew me up or kiss me, and that thought was the one thing that did make my knees go weak.
“I’m listening,” he said slowly, robotically. He’d flipped a switch somewhere.
“I’m done,” I whispered. I truly had nothing left. Between Noah and his dad I felt like I’d just run ten miles in the sand with boots on.
His head moved almost imperceptibly, and just as he was about to speak the door opened slightly. Ruthie stood halfway in, one eyebrow raised in question as she looked from me to Noah and back again.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
He never turned around, never took his gaze off my face, and as I met his eyes I realized it might never be okay.
“It’s fine,” I said.
She nodded slowly and backed out, not looking entirely convinced. I wasn’t either. But I was too tired to do the leaving. He needed to go.
“Noah, it’s been a shitty morning and looks to be an equally dismal afternoon,” I said, rubbing at my face. “Can you just go?”
“Tell me about after I left,” he said in a low, toneless voice.
I wanted to scream.
“No.”
I pushed off the counter and made to walk past him, choosing to leave if he wouldn’t, but he reached across my middle to stop me, holding me at my waist.
“Please.” His face was still a mask, but his eyes looked different. Haunted, maybe.
“It doesn’t change anything, Noah,” I said, taking his hand off my waist but suddenly unable to let it go. It felt right, holding his hand, his arm, like in that one second we were who we used to know. It was disconcerting, and I averted my eyes. “It doesn’t change how you feel about me. You feel like I bailed, I feel like you did, and your dad thinks I’m the Antichrist. None of it matters now.” I squeezed his hand. “I may have signed those papers, but it’s not like I wanted to. And you left me to deal with the fallout of it all by myself, with a daily dose of your father to make damn sure I paid the price.”