Don't Let Go(91)

Love always,
Your friend, Shayna

I was trembling as I read it again, and folded it up. Yeah, I was a great friend, all right.
I laid in bed awake a long time that night after Becca left, watching the shadows on the walls move with the sway of the tree outside. Listening to the many settling noises of an old house, that only seem noticeable when the life inside goes quiet.
Somehow, I’d found the secret key with my daughter. Ironically, it was the same one I’d always needed myself, and my mother refused it time after time. All the way to her grave. I was so grateful that I learned this lesson now, so that Becca hopefully had a chance at the life she wanted. Or at least the opportunity to try. And maybe she wouldn’t be lying awake at forty-three, lamenting her life and cursing me.
I pulled my phone from my bedside table and pulled up my photos. One in particular. Seth and Noah looking at me, making my heart hurt again. You still love him, don’t you? Becca had said. He loves you, Jules.
I’d spent a week of nights just like this, falling asleep to the memory of being in his arms. Remembering every touch and every kiss and every inflection of each word we’d said since he hit town. And every look. God, those looks of his—they were worth more than a million words. Did he go to sleep every night remembering those things? Could he close his eyes and smell me the way I could him?
My heart, that I’d kept protected and sealed off for so many years, even in some ways from Hayden, was now open and exposed and battered. Over a man that was taken, or so I thought. Now, all my wonderings over whether they were going to work things out—if he decided to take on another man’s child—that was all null and void. And meant nothing if he was leaving.
If he was leaving.
A very selfish and immature imp inside me kept asking how he could leave. When a second chance was right there for the taking. When he could look at me like he did—how in holy hell could he walk away again?
But that wasn’t the reality of the world. We weren’t independently wealthy people who didn’t need incomes. And Copper Falls held only grief and pain and bad memories for him. So, the logical thing to do would be to go.
I’d survived it before. I’d do it again.
And there was something else. Something that kept circling around after my talk with Becca. Something that made my heart race every time I considered it, and reminded me of the exhilaration on her face.
It was going to be a long night.



Chapter 24

It was freezing out. Not really, but colder than my thin robe and bare feet like to dance with for long. Luckily, my newspaper was just a few feet off the porch, and Mrs. Mercer couldn’t frown too much about my attire.
Not that I cared. Mrs. Mercer was likely the only one to ever see me that undressed again.
But it was okay. Just not being depressed on this day was a first. For the first time in so many years, I could face January 29 with joy, because I knew the person it belonged to.
“You should teach Harley to come pick that up for you,” said a voice to my left as I stooped to pick it up; it sent my skin to a whole new level of goose bumps.
I dropped the paper as I whirled around, leaned over to pick it up again, and stood up feeling like a jumping bean. How the hell did he always manage to catch me naked? And then that thought dissolved as the expression on Noah’s face warmed me from my very core on out.
Gone were the tortured, troubled, conflicted expressions that I’d become used to seeing on his face. In its place was a calm, a contentment. Dare I say he even looked happy? Had that been there last night?
They offered him his dream job.
He was leaving. This was my good-bye.
Everything in me died.
“I—um—well, if I did that, what exercise would I get?” I said.
Jesus, what drivel was that? I wrapped my arms around myself and wished for an ankle-length robe. One that wasn’t sending frigid air and too-close-to Noah-vibes up into my girlie parts. No, it wasn’t just being so close. It was the look. Not the death glare. Something entirely different, and damn it to hell I was just getting used to the other one.
“Today is Seth’s birthday,” Noah said, not blinking.
“Yes, it is,” I said, a small smile pulling at my lips. “First time I can actually put a name to it.”
“Do you have to work today?”
What the hell was this? “Yes, it’s the first day of the carnival, it’ll be crazy down there.” I licked my lips and adjusted my robe. “What’s up, Noah?”
His expression grew real. Too real. “Wanted to talk to you.”
I nodded, feeling my heart go numb. “Okay.”
“But what’s Mrs. Mercer gonna say when I follow you into your house now, with you just wearing that?” Noah said, gesturing toward me and then waving toward her window.
Was he playing with me? I couldn’t tell. He was different, but if he was jacking with my head, it wasn’t funny. I tilted my head to study his eyes and clenched the paper tighter in my hand.
“Follow me in?” My knees started to shake for reasons that had little to do with the cold. “That’s okay, we can talk out here.”
“You aren’t quite dressed for it,” he said, his voice smooth.
“If you came to tell me good-bye, Noah, I’d rather it not be in my house,” I said. I was pretty impressed that the words made it out of my mouth without pause or stutter.
His eyes narrowed just slightly. “And if I came to tell you I love you?” he said, taking a step closer. “Do I get to come in then?”
All my breath whooshed out of me like a hippopotamus sat on my chest, hope dancing around on top, and the newspaper landed on my foot with a thud.