Read the book: «Noah And The Stork»

Chapter One

Men were generally a pain in the neck, Janey Walters thought, but there were times when they came in handy. Like when your house needed a paint job, or your kitchen floor could use refinishing, or your car was being powered by what sounded like a drunk tap dancer with a thirst for motor oil.

Or when you woke in the middle of the night, alone and aching with needs that went way beyond physical, into realms best left to Hallmark and American Greetings. Whoever wrote those cards managed to say everything there was to say about love in a line or two. Janey didn’t even like to think about the subject anymore. Thinking about it made her yearn, yearning made her hopeful, and hope, considering her track record with the opposite sex, was a waste of energy.

She set her paintbrush on top of the can and climbed to her feet. She’d been sitting on the front porch for the past hour, slapping paint on the railings, wondering if the petty violence of it might exorcise the sense of futility that had settled over her as of late. All she’d managed to do was polka-dot everything in the vicinity—the lawn and rosebushes, the porch floor and herself—which only made more work for her and did nothing to solve the real problems.

And boy, did she have problems. No more than any other single mom who lived in a house that was a century old, with barely enough money to keep up with what absolutely had to be fixed, never mind preventive maintenance. And thankfully, Jessie was a normal nine-year-old girl—at least she seemed well-adjusted, despite the fact that her father had never been, and probably never would be, a part of her life.

It only seemed worse to Janey now that her best friend had gotten married. But then, Sara had been waiting six years for Max to figure out he loved her, and Janey would never have wished for a different outcome. She and Sara still worked together, and talked nearly every day, so it wasn’t as if anything had really changed in Janey’s life. It just felt…emptier somehow.

She put both hands on the small of her aching back and stretched, letting her head fall back and breathing deeply, in and out, until she felt some of the frustration and loneliness begin to fade away.

“Now there’s a sight for sore eyes.”

Janey gasped, straightening so fast she all but gave herself whiplash. That voice…Heat moved through her, but the cold chill that snaked down her spine won hands down. It couldn’t be him, she told herself. He couldn’t simply show up at her house with no warning, no time to prepare.

“The best scenery in town was always on this street.”

She peeked over her shoulder, and the snappy comebacks she was famous for deserted her. So did the unsnappy come-backs and all the questions she should’ve been asking. She couldn’t have strung a coherent sentence together if the moment had come with subtitles. She was too busy staring at the man standing on the other side of her wrought-iron fence.

His voice had changed some; it was deeper, with a gravelly edge that seemed to rasp along her nerve endings. But there was no mistaking that face, not when it had haunted her memories—good and bad—for more than a decade. “Noah Bryant,” Janey muttered, giving him a nice, slow once-over.

He was taller than she remembered, and had a solid, substantial look to him now. In high school he’d been lanky, slim but wide-shouldered with a bad-boy gleam in his sharp green eyes that made every female heart within range tumble just a little. Except hers, Janey recalled. Her heart had taken the whole long, irrevocable fall the first time she’d laid eyes on him. That would’ve been the fourth grade. And she’d stayed madly in love with him, right up to the moment he’d blasted out of town without so much as a backward glance.

Ten years ago, that had been. She hadn’t seen him since, but all the times she’d imagined this scene, it had never gone down like this, with him in a suit that probably cost more than she made in a month, while she was decked out in the latest in janitor chic. She reached up to pull the bandanna from her head, then decided against it; flat hair would only complete the fashion statement. “You swore you’d never come back to Erskine.”

And there was the grin that went along with the gleam. “Things change.”

“Really? You never could keep your word.”

His smile dimmed. “Still haven’t forgiven me, I see.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She pulled her bandanna off, after all, to brush at the droplets that had splashed onto her legs. Who was she trying to impress, anyway? A guy who’d claimed to love her a decade ago and then hightailed it out of town without even telling her why? “You haven’t crossed my mind in years.”

“Well, I’ve thought of you, Janey. You’re the one pleasant memory I have of this place.”

“Yeah, this is hell on earth,” she said, peering up and down the quiet street. Hundred-year old houses with perfectly manicured lawns and gardens sat behind white-picket or wrought-iron fences. Most of them were businesses now, all but her house and Mrs. Halliwell’s, across the street and a couple down. To him, Erskine, Montana, was tame, boring, forgettable. To Janey it was simply home. “No wonder you couldn’t wait to get out of here.”

“I’ve always regretted the way things ended between us.”

Regret? He had no idea what that meant. She glanced over her shoulder even though she knew the front door was safely closed, and then she went down the stairs to be absolutely sure her voice wouldn’t carry inside. “Yeah, well, they did end, so why are you here?” she asked, taking a stance on the front walk, one hip cocked, arms crossed, chin lifted. Noah seemed to get some amusement out of it, judging by his slight smile, but it made her feel stronger.

“I was passing through on business and when I saw you…”

All she had to do was look at him and he got the message. He wasn’t stupid, just untrustworthy.

“I guess I should head out,” he said, but instead of leaving, he had the audacity to step up to the fence and offer his hand.

Janey was going to take it, too. There was no way she’d back down from the challenge she saw in his eyes, no matter what it might cost her to actually put her hand in his. She took a step forward, then stopped short at the sound of her daughter’s voice.

“Mom,” Jessie called, racketing out the front door and down the steps, jumping the last three as had become her habit. She hit the ground and barreled into her mother—another new habit—practically knocking Janey off her feet. “Mrs. Devlin called. They’re riding out to bring in the spring calves this weekend, and she asked if I want to go along. She said I could take the bus home with Joey tomorrow and spend the night, if it’s okay with you.”

“Mom?” Noah said, his jaw dropping. Not that he couldn’t see her as a mom; he couldn’t think of anyone who loved children more or would be better at raising them than Janey. It was only that, in his mind, she was still seventeen, still carefree and single, not a grown woman with a kid eight or nine years old….

Jessie turned around then and Noah found himself looking into a pair of green eyes, the kind of green eyes he’d seen every morning of his life, staring back at him from his own mirror. His gaze lifted, slowly, to meet Janey’s, suspicion oozing into the tiny part of his brain that shock hadn’t paralyzed.

Janey pulled the kid back against her, wrapping her arms around the girl’s thin shoulders. The truth Noah saw on her face slid into uncertainty, then misery when he didn’t speak. They stood that way for a moment, eyes locked, nerves strained, enough emotional baggage between them to make Sigmund Freud feel overworked.

The kid came to everyone’s rescue. She glanced up at her mom, then confidently stepped out of the shelter of Janey’s arms. She stopped halfway between the two adults, fixed Noah with a stare that was almost too direct to return, and said, “I’m Jessie. Are you my dad?”

NOAH FOUND HIMSELF still at the curb in front of Janey’s house, sitting in his car with no clear idea how he’d gotten there except that raw fury had something to do with it. By the time he fought through the red haze blurring his vision, the dashboard clock told him a couple of hours had passed. The day was no more than a pale crescent over the mountains and lights were burning in Janey’s windows. Homey, inviting lights that weren’t meant to make him feel like an outsider. But he did. He always had, his entire life. Some people would say that nobody could make you feel inferior without your own permission, but when you were the kid of a dirt-poor farmer in cattle country, and you moved to a town like Erskine where the people knew each other so well they were like family, ostracism was the least of what you felt.

Janey had been the one person he’d counted on to always stand by him, whether they were a couple or just good friends, even if it meant bucking the opinion of the entire town. He’d come back to town believing that hadn’t changed. But all these years she’d shut him out, making a home for herself and her daughter in this small, close-knit community. Without him.

It wasn’t fair of him to see it that way but he didn’t care. He needed to be angry, because without the strength of that emotion, he’d have to feel the hurt and betrayal—weak emotions that would make it impossible to face her again. And he had to face her again, if for no other reason than that she owed him an explanation about his daughter.

His half-grown daughter.

Noah wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Except scared. And angry.

He let the injustice of the secret Janey had kept carry him to her front door, three inches of solid, sound-deadening oak with a nice, big dead bolt. He’d kick it in if he had to.

Janey opened it before he could even knock, stepping out on the porch and closing the door softly behind her. “I think it would be best if you didn’t come in.”

“You can’t expect me to walk away.”

“I’m not expecting you to walk away, Noah. Just give yourself some time to calm down.”

“And what about Jessie? The kid’s been wondering where I’ve been all her life, and the minute I show up you hustle her off like I’m some kind of maniac.”

“If you’d seen the expression on your face, you’d have done the same.”

“Okay, so I’m steamed. But it can’t be good—”

“Don’t you dare lecture me on what’s good for Jessie. You haven’t been around—”

“How was I supposed to know?”

“I called you when…when I found out I was pregnant. I left you a message.” She stopped, wrapping her arms around herself.

Noah got the impression she was fighting back tears—but that was absurd. The Janey he remembered never cried.

“You didn’t return my call,” she finally finished.

“You should’ve kept calling.”

“That was my responsibility, too? To hound you until guilt brought you back here when love couldn’t? It’s not bad enough that I had to tell my father and see the disappointment—” This time her voice did break.

Noah took a step forward, just one, before she took a step back and he remembered that all he should be feeling toward her was anger.

It didn’t take her long to get herself together. Janey was nothing if not strong. “What would you have done?” she asked him. “Given up college, forgotten all your plans for a big career and settled here?”

“You didn’t give me the chance.”

“No, you didn’t give us a chance, Noah. You walked out with no goodbye, no explanation and now you stand there and tell me I should’ve dragged you back out of responsibility when it was clear you didn’t want me? You knew me better than that.”

Yes, he did. Janey wouldn’t have begged, but when she’d called him all those years ago, he’d let himself believe she was going to do exactly that. He’d told himself that she loved him enough to swallow her pride and ask him to come back. He’d never imagined she might have another reason for contacting him—his ego hadn’t allowed it—so he hadn’t contacted her. And he’d thought he was being so noble, that if he really loved her he’d let her go because that was best for her. “Janey—”

She held up a hand. “That’s behind us now, and I’d rather not rehash it, if you don’t mind.”

“No,” he said after a contemplative moment. There was no use rehashing it, and what could he have said? That there’d been regrets? That he’d often wished he’d made different choices, burned fewer bridges? What good would it do them now? “We have a daughter. That matters.”

Hearing it put like that shocked her. Her expression didn’t give her away, but she stiffened and even in the deepening gloom of the covered porch, he could tell all the color had washed out of her face. The last of his anger faded. He’d just discovered he had a daughter, but it must, Noah realized, have taken a great deal of courage for Janey to even open her front door, knowing that no matter how he reacted, she’d have to deal with it and then help Jessie do the same.

“We can stand out here,” he said, slapping at a sudden sting on his neck, “or we can go inside.”

“A few mosquito bites won’t hurt us.”

“Okay, but it’s not only the mosquitoes. Someone’s bound to see us, and the news will be all over town before you can say West Nile virus.”

Her mouth curved in a ghost of a smile. “Gossip is the national sport around here, and I get my turn to be the star player, like everyone else. It’s never really bothered me.”

“Even if it means you’d be linked with me again?”

She shot him a look. He had a point, but she’d be damned if she admitted that the last thing she wanted was to hear her name and his in the same sentence. In any context. She’d had enough of that when she was seventeen. “It’s not as if we have much choice. People are bound to find out you’re back in town again.”

He didn’t reply, and although his expression was inscrutable, Janey didn’t get a very positive feeling about what he was thinking. Or maybe, where Noah was concerned, it was best to be pessimistic. “If you’re truly worried about Jessie, leaving now is about the worst thing you could do.”

“I didn’t leave, did I? I want to discuss this, but I don’t see why we have to be eaten alive while we’re doing it.”

“Consider it planning your part in the food chain.”

Noah did the why-me combination, heavy exhalation, eye roll, a little shake of his head. “You were always too stubborn for your own good.” He closed the distance between them and reached for her.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Worse things have happened.”

“True, but you were around then, too.”

“Does that include Jessie?”

She went still, one hand creeping up to rub at her aching chest. “I’ve never considered her a bad thing.”

He cupped her elbow and steered her up the front steps. “Just the fact that I’m her father.”

Janey would’ve told him to go to hell, but she couldn’t have dug a coherent sentence out of her brain with a bulldozer, let alone voice it. The touch of his fingers on her bare skin had scorched enough brain cells to leave her temporarily senile.

When he let go of her to open the door and her mental processes kicked back in, she realized this was about Jessie. The girl had been wondering about her father for nine years, and when she finally met him, he completely freaked out. Heaven only knew what was going through her daughter’s mind, Janey thought, because she rarely did. If Noah disappeared now, though, Jessie was bound to take it personally. Janey had firsthand experience with that.

“I can’t believe you still live here,” Noah said, as he ushered her into the big old Victorian house that had been built by her great-great-grandparents.

She slipped into the front parlor, turned on a floor lamp with a fussy, glass-fringed shade and felt instantly comforted. She loved the cheerful tinkling sound it made, how it threw prisms of light into every corner of the room, the same way it had for as long as she could remember. “Where else would I live?”

“New York, L.A., London. There are some real cities out there in the world, Janey.”

“I like it here. You’re the one who couldn’t wait to get out of Erskine.”

He went quiet for a long moment. “I had my reasons.”

“I knew you weren’t happy here, Noah, but you never wanted to talk about it.”

“It’s still never.”

She stepped back out of the parlor. “Is that why you’re standing in the hallway?”

He stared at her for a second, mouth set in a grim line, eyes dark and intense.

“The front door’s right behind you.”

She could see he was considering it, and she knew before he spoke that he’d come to the same conclusion she had only moments before. This was about Jessie.

“Where is she?” Noah asked.

“Upstairs, in the tower room.” Janey said, referring to the uppermost floor of the turreted part of the house. The room was ringed with windows and high enough to see over the other houses in this part of Erskine. Jessie seemed to find the view soothing, although all that would be visible at this time of evening was the sun setting behind the mountains. “It’s where she goes whenever something’s bothering her.”

“So did you,” Noah murmured with a half smile Janey couldn’t bear to see. The look of pleasant nostalgia on his face was too painful to believe.

“What have you told her?” he asked.

“What’s there to tell her? I had no idea where you were or what you were doing.”

“So all I am is some guy you slept with ten years ago?”

“What do you want to hear, Noah?” She straightened, coming out into the hallway to confront him, her voice as tightly controlled as her temper. “That she used to ask who her father was, and where he was, and why her mom and dad weren’t married like most of the other kids’ parents—or at least divorced and splitting weekends and holidays?”

“Those are good questions, Janey, every one of them.”

“And I had good answers for them, except she was too young to understand those answers. She doesn’t know how it feels to be in love, to trust someone so completely…” Janey clenched her fists, refusing to let him see how much it had hurt. “I lived it and I don’t even understand it.”

“Janey—”

“Then she started asking the hard questions,” she continued, talking right over him. “Like why didn’t her dad want to spend any time with her, or at least meet her? And here’s the really hard one, Noah. What’s wrong with her? No matter how often I said it had nothing to do with her, I could tell she still thought it was her fault.”

“Jeez, Janey.” Noah ran a hand back through his hair, leaving it rumpled, a fitting counterpoint to the wild light in his eyes, eyes so like Jessie’s it was painful to look into them.

Janey bit back the rest of the angry words clawing at the back of her throat. He’d earned her anger, but making him hurt, like she and Jessie had hurt, wouldn’t solve anything. “Jessie stopped asking questions about you a long time ago. She’s accepted the fact that her parents aren’t together. It’s not unusual, even in Erskine. It’s just—” She caught her lower lip between her teeth and turned away. It didn’t help; Noah could still read her mind, it seemed.

“You’re wondering whether it’s a good thing I’m here or not.”

“Yeah, well, something about stuffing toothpaste back into the tube occurs to me.”

“So, what happens now?”

She brought her eyes back to him. “Right now that depends on you.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“And I can’t give you the words, Noah.”

He jammed his hands in his pockets, seeming more uncertain by the second.

“If you can’t do this, I’ll find some way to explain it to her.”

“What if I say the wrong thing?”

“At least it’ll be you saying it. And you can always apologize. It’s not like she thinks you’re perfect or anything.”

He held her gaze for a moment, then smiled wryly. “No, I don’t imagine she does.”

“I’ll go get her.” When Janey got to the tower room, however, she found Jessie curled up fast asleep on the old sofa that had been there forever. For the last four years her beloved stuffed bear had held a cherished place on the topmost shelf of her bedroom hutch. The fact that it was back in her arms tonight spoke volumes about the state of her heart and mind.

Janey brushed the hair from her daughter’s brow, carefully so as not to wake her, and covered her with an old knitted blanket. Better she have as many hours of peace as she could, Janey figured, easing out of the room and down the creaky staircase. Noah would have to come back tomorrow.

But when she got downstairs, he was already gone.