Husband Under Construction (10 page)

Getting up to help himself to a piece of apple pie on the counter, Noah listened to his parents' conversation, as soothing and predictable as always. The sound of best friends, of true partners. Again, like with the grocery shopping thing, he felt a prickle that was almost envy, not exactly for what they had as much as for who they were.

What the hell was going on with him tonight?

A little later he said his goodbyes and walked out into the night, reminding himself that right now his brothers were all probably struggling to get kids asleep in houses strewn with toys, that they couldn't simply leave when the mood
struck. That in a few minutes Noah would walk into his apartment, and it would be empty and quiet, and he could walk across the floor without impaling his foot on a Lego piece or something, and he could sleep naked—hell, he could
walk around
naked if he wanted—without worrying about impressionable little minds.

Then he thought about Roxie, the pain in her eyes when she talked about her first fiancé, the baby she'd lost, about his reaction of wanting to make it better, make her better, and how that didn't jibe at all with everything, anything, he'd ever thought about himself.

And here he'd always assumed that things got clearer as you got older.

So much for that.

 

By the time Noah got to Charley's the next morning, Roxie had already stripped a good chunk of the stairwell wallpaper, a project that must've taken hours already.

“You even go to bed last night?” he called up the stairs, his renegade heart going
ka-thump
when she grinned down at him.

“I was up at four. Couldn't sleep.”

“Meaning I was up at four, too,” Charley muttered from the head of the stairs. Dressed in neatly pressed khakis, a blue button-down shirt open at the collar and a heavy brown cardigan that didn't droop from his shoulders nearly as much as it would've even a couple of weeks ago, the older man jerked his head in Roxie's direction as he passed her on the way down. “Girl's got news.”

“Oh?” Noah said, his stomach crashing as he hurtled to the conclusion that The Moron and she had patched things up. What the hell?

“I might have a job! In Atlanta!”

More stomach crashing. But again…what the hell? Wasn't
like he hadn't known all along she'd be blowing this joint sooner or later. Besides which,
there was nothing going on between them.

Then she bounced downstairs, eyes sparkling, face glowing, curls bobbing, and he just thought,
Hell.
“It's for this really chi-chi gallery. They want me to come for an interview next week! So, by the way, I won't be here Friday.” Man, that grin was bright. “Isn't it
wonderful?
”

Then she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him.

“Don't take it personally,” Charley said. “She's hugging everything in sight.”

“That's…really great,” Noah finally said, trying not to react to all that enthusiastic, sweet-smelling softness pressing against him, then setting her apart before she realized exactly how well that was not working. “You must be real excited.”

Behind them, Charley grunted as Roxie bubbled, “You have no idea! And
Atlanta!
” Then she took him by the shoulders and planted a kiss on his cheek. Lord, he half expected her to twirl around and burst into song. Instead, she clasped her hands and said, “I think this calls for Evangelista's cinnamon rolls and breakfast burritos, don't you?”

“I'll go,” Charley said, trekking to the front door, obviously seizing the opportunity to escape.

“Bring back enough for everybody! Silas and Jesse, too, they said they'd be here this morning!” Roxie shouted after him, then released a happy sigh. Until she must have seen something in Noah's face that made her happy to take a hike. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing. Except I
haven't
been up since four, so I'm not firing on all jets yet. So. Wow. Atlanta. That's…far.”

“I know,” she said dreamily, drifting back up the stairs with a goony smile on her face. “Oh, by the way…” She
leaned over to look at the front door, even though they'd both heard her uncle's truck roar off. “Charley and I had a heart-to-heart last night. About Eden. And I realized…I have to let it go. That it's not up to me to protect him.”

“And that maybe he doesn't need anybody protecting him?”

“That, too,” she said over the sound of another swath of old wallpaper biting the dust.

“But you're still worried.”

“Like you wouldn't believe. Still.” She cut the air with one hand. “I'm done.”

Noah leaned on the banister. “You call back your ex?”

Her eyes bounced to his, then back to the wall. “And ruin this good mood? No way.”

“Rox—”

“I know, I know. And I will. I swear. But not right now.”

Noah thought for a moment. Decided to spit it out anyway. “Would it help if I was around when you did?”

Big old eyes flashed to his. “No! I mean, that's very sweet, but…” Shaking her head, she slapped a wet sponge against the next piece of wallpaper. “I have to do this by myself.”

“Who says?”

She frowned down at him. “Who says what?”

“That you have to deal with him on your own.”
And you're setting yourself up for getting closer to the woman, why?

“I do,” she said, tossing the sponge into a bucket on the landing, then wiping her hands on a towel before sitting on the stairs a few feet above him. “Because I was the one who ran. Well, after I kicked him out of our apartment. And to be fair, I think he deserves an explanation. If not an apology.”

Noah's brow knotted. “Sounds to me like he doesn't
deserve
anything. Except a swift kick in the ass, maybe.”

“Already did that. Not literally, of course. But he got the message. So I'm thinking this is for me.”

See, this is why female logic eluded him. “How can you apologizing to him be
for
you?”

She leaned back on her elbows, a crease digging into the space between her brows. “Because our relationship was a mistake. A mistake that would've never happened if I'd been honest with myself. And with him. If I hadn't gotten involved for the wrong reasons.”

“But what he said to you—”

“Was cold and unfeeling and reprehensible. Absolutely. But even if he'd been kinder about it, things eventually would have fallen apart, anyway. And the reasons behind that were every bit as much my fault as his. That's all I'm saying.”

On a sigh, Noah came to sit on the step right below hers, leaning forward so as to leave enough space between them for it not to be awkward. For her, at least. “That job offer really put you in a good mood, huh?”

Her laugh was soft. “It definitely did. But I'd already come to that conclusion about Jeff and me.”

“You're something else, you know that?”

He felt her gaze on the side of his face, followed by a shrug. “Only trying to muddle through life like everybody else.”

Maybe so. But clearly her muddling skills were better than most. Especially Noah's.

“So when you gonna call him?” he asked, quickly standing when his loud, chatterbox brothers walked through the door. Roxie stood as well, lightly tripping down the stairs to give them both hugs. Charley hadn't been kidding.

“Soon,” Rox promised, tossing Noah a smile over her
shoulder, earning him quizzical looks from both his siblings. “When it feels right.”

And for a moment, assuming Jeff the Jerk wanted to make amends, Noah almost felt sorry for him, that he was stupid enough to screw up what he'd had.

Almost.

 

If nothing else, seeing Eden every day gave Charley the perfect excuse to get out of the house, leaving Noah and Rox and the crew to the chaos. Not that he needed an excuse to visit his
girlfriend,
he thought, with what was probably a dumb grin, as he drove toward Santa Fe.

He wasn't sure, at least not yet, that what he felt for Eden was love, exactly. Not like he'd felt for Mae, that was for sure. Maybe he
was
infatuated. And maybe that's all it ever would be. But what he'd said to Rox about Eden making him happy? That was true enough. Because she made him forget the pain. Not Mae. He'd never forget her. Just the pain. And why that was a bad thing?

He pulled into Eden's apartment complex's parking lot, getting a little thrill when she waved from her balcony, her face all lit up. Although her yelling, “Yoo-hoo!” at the top of her lungs he could live without, truth be told. He could definitely understand Rox's reservations—the woman wasn't exactly a shrinking violet.

She vanished inside to greet him at her front door, giving him a big kiss on the lips, which was as far as their sex life went at this point. Not that she wasn't amenable to something more down the road, she'd said, but what with their being still newish to widowhood and all, she thought it best they wait. For what, Charley wasn't sure.

“So what do you think?” she said, spinning around in the cramped living room to show off what he assumed was one of her new creations, something that couldn't decide if
it was a blouse or dress or what, worn over a pair of those skinny pants that made her feet look big. Not that he would tell her that. As usual, she'd overdone her strong, spicy perfume. Mostly it didn't bother him, but he did occasionally consider suggesting she take it down a notch—or two—only to immediately rethink that. Women rarely took kindly to what could easily be construed as criticism of their personal hygiene.

“Very nice,” Charley said, smiling when Eden grinned back, even though that little Chihuahua of hers growled at Charley's feet. He'd never been a big fan of tiny dogs, but Eden was devoted to the thing, so he supposed he could get used to her.

“For goodness' sake, Diva,” Eden said, scooping the little rat dog into her arms. “You act like you've never seen the man! Go on, give him some love.” Thankfully, for both dog and him, she didn't actually thrust the poor creature into Charley's face—a move which would have probably resulted in Charley's losing his nose—but when she offered up her “baby” the beast did seem amenable to a quick scratch behind the ears.

“I made chicken salad inside a cranberry Jell-O mold,” she said, setting the dog down and moving to her eating nook, the bistro table all set for two. “Hope that's okay, I got the recipe out of a magazine.”

Still full from two burritos and a cinnamon roll earlier, Charley smiled. “Sounds perfect.”

He sat while, humming to herself, Eden bustled and fussed in the kitchen, a woman apparently content in her world. Content with him, he thought on a small burst of pleasure. Her garment billowing like a benign jellyfish around her, she swept back into the living area and set the half-size serving platter in the center of the table with a “Ta-da!”

“Wow. That looks amazing,” Charley said, and she flushed, pleased.

While Eden settled across from him, Charley waited to see if Mae had something to say about all of this. But no. In fact, his wife hadn't talked to him since the one time, when she'd told him to fix Rox. Not that he or anybody else could “fix” the girl anymore than he'd let his niece dictate the terms of his relationship with Eden. And if she got this job, he'd be genuinely happy for her. Except there was something decidedly off about her excitement. Like it was a little too forced, maybe. And he was betting that “something” had to do with Noah—

“Everything okay?” Delicately salting her chicken salad, bracelets jangling, Eden cast a smile in his direction while the dog peered bug-eyed at Charley from her lap.

“Thinking about Roxie,” he said, eagerly digging in despite his lack of appetite. Woman definitely knew her way around the kitchen, that was for sure. Although her dishes tended more toward the exotic than Mae's—there was some spice or other in here he didn't recognize—but it was pretty good.

“Is she coming for Thanksgiving?”

“She said she would.”

“Willingly?”

Nodding, Charley forked in a second bite, then took a taste of the cranberry mold. Not bad. But he did not feel up to going into his and Rox's conversation the night before. “She's got a job interview next week. In Atlanta.”

“Really?” Eden plucked a small, knotted roll from the basket beside the platter, slathered on a good helping of low-fat spread. “She must be over the moon.”

“She is.”

“But you're not.”

About to grab one of the rolls, Charley stopped, his gaze darting to hers. “What makes you say that?”

The slippery fabric slipped off one freckled shoulder when she shrugged. “You're not exactly a closed book, Charley.” She pinched off a chunk of roll and popped it into her mouth. “And I bet I know somebody else who wouldn't be happy if she left,” she said, waving the uneaten part of the roll at him, the dog's head bobbing along. “That Noah.”

“Noah?” Not that Charley didn't suspect the same thing, his niece's protests that there was nothing between them notwithstanding. A blind man could see they were attracted to each other. Because he
was
a nice boy, despite his reputation. Good-looking, too, Charley supposed. But after his and Rox's talk last night he'd got to thinking, that after what she'd been through with that Jeff, it'd take more than
nice
and
good-looking
to sweep the gal off her feet again. “Rox'd never have him,” he said mildly. “Not her type.”

“Doesn't mean she's not his.”

Suddenly the very thing about Eden that had hooked him to begin with—her boldness—wasn't sitting all that well. But he couldn't exactly tell her she was butting into private family business, could he? So instead, he said, “Only because she's female, most likely. Rumor has it boy's got more oats to sow than ten men combined. He could never make Roxie—or, I'm guessing, any other gal—happy. At least not in the long run.”