Deeper Than Need (2 page)

Yeah.

She should have gone with the other guy.

But she hadn’t. Noah had been able to knock the price down more than a little since some of the smaller projects he was taking on himself. He was starting on those tomorrow with a crew of older teenagers. The company he’d reached out to do the projects he’d taken on couldn’t fit it in for several weeks and these weren’t anything that could be left alone, so Noah, his beautiful hands and his more agreeable schedule won out.

Noah’s laugh drew her attention back to what was happening and she mentally kicked herself.
Fantasize later
—and she would.
Focus now.

Micah was rocking on the back of his heels and grinning up at Noah, a perfectly angelic smile on his sweet little face. Her apprehension grew. Micah looked his most innocent when he was up to his absolutely most mischievous.

“She did.” Micah looked over at her. “I heard her. The water got all hot on her and she screamed
really
loud and then she cussed.”

“Micah.” She planted her hands on her hips. “Don’t you have anything better to do than go running around telling people what I did this morning?”

Micah stared at her guilelessly. “No. She said she cussed ’cuz the water got too hot.”

She bit back a groan.

From the corner of her eye she saw a grin curving Noah’s mouth. He reached out and ruffled Micah’s hair. “You know, I’d probably get pretty mad if I was taking a shower and the water got all hot and burned
me.
”

“Would you cuss?” Micah’s eyes rounded as he stared up at Noah. There was something near adulation in those eyes.

It made her heart hurt to see the hero worship in her son’s eyes. It was understandable, but it was still a blow to her heart. Next to his grandfather, Noah was the only man who’d ever shown Micah any real kindness. Practically a stranger, but the man made Micah feel good. Noah made Micah laugh and talked to him like … well, like he mattered. His own father hadn’t done that. Maybe that was why she put up with these bizarre conversations more than she should.

Curling a hand over Micah’s shoulder, she squeezed lightly. “Come on, buddy. You don’t go asking people stuff like that.”

“But I wanna know.” He poked his lip out. “You tell me if I want to know something, I have to ask.”

Noah laughed, and the sound, deep and amused, rolled out of him, echoing around them. “The kid has a point. But no, I doubt I’d cuss. I’d probably be really surprised, though. Pretty mad if the water went from warm to hot in the blink of an eye while I was showering.”

Trinity fought the urge to fan herself. She’d just gone from
warm
to
hot
herself … all because Noah had to make her go think about him in the damn shower. Water sliding over that beautiful body of his. Warm water, sluicing down, sliding down, soap slicking over his flesh.

“It could burn your penis!” Micah practically shouted, and then he started to giggle.

Oh. Man.

She swallowed, hard, as a band threatened to constrict around her chest. Now she had to think about
Noah
and
showering
and his damn penis.
Oh, hell.
She blew out a slow, careful breath and glanced at Noah out of the corner of her eye. Forcing herself to breathe, she managed to say, “Micah, that’s enough.”

“Would you cuss if you got burnt there?” Micah asked. Obviously, he didn’t see the warning on her face. Of course not. He was too busy thinking penises. Boys and their toys—she’d already learned that a male’s fascination with the penis started pretty young.

“Ignore him,” she said to Noah.

He was a little red in the face, but the grin on his lips was echoed in his eyes. “He does come up with the craziest questions.”

“I’m trying to decide if it’s a
Micah
thing or a
boy
thing or a
child
thing.” Before Micah could come up with anything else, she shifted her attention to Noah. “You know why the hot water keeps jumping up and down like that? It’s the second time it’s happened. I thought you said the hot-water heater was in okay condition.”

Under the faded material of his T-shirt, broad shoulders lifted in a shrug. “It might not have anything to do with the hot-water heater … probably doesn’t. I’ll take another look at it while I’m here and see if I can’t get the plumber to move things up a little. It could be a simple solution, though—obviously Micah wasn’t in the downstairs bathroom, flushing the toilet, since he … ah, overheard you. But other things can cause the problem besides the water heater, and sometimes it’s an easy fix.”

“An easy fix?” She eyed him warily. “Just how easy?”

“Easier than you think.” He smiled and grabbed a few more things from his truck. “Won’t even cost that much, but I need to poke around first and see if I’m right.”

Trinity sighed and looked up at the house. She’d known this was going to be a costly mess. But she’d also seen the house, looked at pictures of the pretty little town, the river that rolled so lazily by. She’d felt it, deep inside. She belonged here. This was someplace she needed to be. She just felt a weird little
click.

Of course, it was possible she was insane, because when she saw Noah for the first time she’d felt the same damn
click.

She’d looked at him and it was like,
There you are. Where have you
been
?

She felt like she’d been waiting her whole life for him, only she hadn’t realized it until the very second their gazes locked.

Yeah, it was very likely she’d lost her mind.

CHAPTER TWO

MYDPP.COM/FORUMS

I need a drink, Preach. The nightmares are awful.

—CTaz

The forums for the Madison Youth Drinking Prevention Program were a brainchild Noah had crafted maybe five years ago. One of the kids he’d known back when he’d still been a youth minister had shown up at his door.

I tried to stop, but I can’t. I don’t want to tell my parents, but I gotta tell somebody.…

Kids needed a safe place to talk.

Noah understood the need to hide the secrets, the need to bury himself in a bottle, to drink away the pain. He’d been all of seventeen the first time he picked up a bottle, hoping it might help silence the screams, wash away the blood he saw every time he closed his eyes. For a while it had worked. Then booze wasn’t enough, so he’d turned to women. That spiral had lasted for far too long, and every time he took a drink, every time he took a woman to his bed, the misery and the pain had continued to fester inside him.

He knew that pain, knew how it could eat at the soul.

Maybe if Noah had felt he had a safe place to turn, he wouldn’t have fallen so far, so hard. So he’d opened his door to the kid, listened as he cried. Eighteen years old, full of pain, and desperate. It had been June; Noah remembered that. The kid’s parents seemed to be decent people, but Noah knew better than most what masks some people wore.

Misery and pain were little demons, eating away at Paul Browning. The boy had told Noah if he didn’t get away he was going to kill himself.

Noah had reached out to a friend in Louisville and Paul had been gone within a few days. A month later, he was ready to enlist in the military. Paul hadn’t come home since, but sometimes he e-mailed Noah. Always with a request:
If you talk to my folks, don’t mention me. I don’t want them to know you still talk to me.

Because the boy’s pain had to come from somewhere, Noah had honored that request.

A few months after Paul had disappeared, Harrison, a friend of Paul’s, had come to Noah’s door, looking just as battered. Just as bruised. Harrison didn’t want to talk much, but he had mentioned Paul.

For a minute, Noah had thought the boy would open up, talk about whatever was eating at him. In the end, all Harrison had said was,
I’m glad Paul got out, Preach.

Out of what?

Harrison wouldn’t say anything else. He’d left. A week later, he’d hung himself in his parents’ garage.

Noah never could get past the guilt, the feeling that he should have done something …
more.
Reached out to the kid, made him understand that Noah would help. Somehow.

Thus the forums were born.

A lot of adults in town hated them. Others were reluctant to admit it, but they were glad the site was there. Teenage drinking was a problem, even in small-town Indiana. For a town that small, it seemed like drinking and drugs were actually a lot more prevalent than Noah would have expected, especially with the teenage boys. They also had a number of runaways, and in the past ten years, six boys had committed suicide.

Something had to be done. Noah didn’t know if the forums were the answer, but at least it was an action.

Some didn’t really like having an alcoholic, even a recovering one, in charge. The way Noah saw it, nobody but a man like him was going to understand the challenges some of those kids faced. Plus, they trusted him.

That was what they needed.

He’d fought for these boards, and he’d won.

He wanted to believe having this safe haven helped.

He didn’t know if he was right, but he chose to believe he was.

It had been a lousy day, though, and all Noah really wanted to do was go to his bed, tumble facedown and just fall asleep.

Maybe once he fell asleep, he’d have another sweet dream about Trinity. He wouldn’t mind that a bit. On the other hand, if he fell asleep too early he’d wake up before four, and that would really suck.

Better off if he just stayed awake until midnight or so. But he was so tired. Gritty-eyed, he focused on the computer and took a sip of coffee as he read the message again. It left him feeling sad and even more tired.

I need a drink, Preach.…

Yeah. Noah knew that feeling. Even understood about the nightmares. He’d drowned his own sorrows for more years than he cared to remember. CTaz was one of the kids Noah didn’t know if he’d ever be able to help. The boy had been fighting these demons for a long time, and each time Noah thought they were making progress the kid slid right back down into the pit, sinking a little further each time.

Just talk it out, C,
Noah typed.
You fight it off each time. You can do it again.

This conversation was one Noah had had dozens, hundreds, of times over the years. It worked for some. It didn’t work for others. But if he could help even one kid, keep even one kid off the road where Noah had crashed and burned, it was worth it.

He didn’t keep his identity private here. He was the only one who wasn’t anonymous, although he’d managed to figure a few of the members out—and he knew the other moderator/co-owner of the forums.

Noah used his real name on his profile and he had his cell-phone, home, and work numbers listed. The kids knew they could call him, anytime. More than a few had.

But most preferred to keep the contact online.

Talking ain’t enough anymore. I need a fucking drink, Preach. I can’t sleep.

Dragging one hand down his face, Noah blew out a breath and stared upward for a second as he reached for the words. How did he explain to the boy that he understood? He
knew
what it was like, to have the nightmares eating at you, vicious teeth that tore chunks out of you until you didn’t think you’d survive another night.

CTaz didn’t need that, though. He just needed to talk.

You maybe want to meet up? Talk? It might help.

It might. It might not.

Noah didn’t know if there was anything anybody could have said to him twenty years ago that could have helped him.

CTaz’s answer was immediate and swift:

No. I don’t wanna meet. I just want a fucking drink. Shit. Shoot. I’m sorry. I don’t need to be cussing so much. Sorry, Preach.

A reluctant smile curled Noah’s lips.

You don’t need to worry about that as much as the other problems, C.

With a hope and a prayer he added in:

Why don’t you tell me why you need it? I didn’t think you’d been drinking that much lately.

There was a difference between wanting a drink and needing it. The forums were there for both groups of kids, but their end goal was to keep kids from drinking and to help those who were already addicted. Noah ran this site with a friend of his, but he was the only one qualified to counsel anybody, so things like this usually fell to him. He got tagged whenever things looked rough or it looked like one of the kids might be in danger. Noah and his friend had a protocol set up and they did everything they could to keep these kids safe. If a threat looked imminent, the cops were brought in.

It wasn’t enough.

Nothing was ever enough.

Noah didn’t think CTaz was an alcoholic. Yet. But the way the kid was fighting, if he ever fell, he was going to fall hard and fast.

I just do. I can’t sleep. Hey, I don’t think I wanna talk about this anymore. I’ll be all right.

Sighing, Noah tapped out a response before CTaz could leave the chat:

If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. We can talk about something else. But at least hang around until you think you can get through the night without a drink. If you get so tired, you fall asleep on the keyboard, we’re in good shape.

There was a pause, and then finally CTaz typed out:

That’s some screwed-up shit there, Preach. You ought to be telling me to get a good night’s sleep and all that. Not telling me to pass out at the computer.

True enough.
Rubbing the back of his neck, Noah debated on how to respond to that and finally went with the truth:

You probably get that from your parents. I’m not here to be your parent. I’m here to help you get through whatever is bothering you. If you go to bed and lie there, worrying about whatever is bothering you, that’s not going to help you avoid the need to drink, is it? I’d rather you be tired and sober than rested and hungover. Sounds better, doesn’t it?