Tempting Nora (14 page)

"Do you hate your mom
after everything she did?" he asked.

Nobody had asked her that question before. Then again, she tried to avoid talking about her mom at all costs.
Still when she thought of the woman, she realized she didn't hate her. Maybe she should have, but mostly she was just sad because she'd never been good enough.

"No," she said, surprised by her own answer.

"The woman abandoned you." Gideon's eyes widened in shock as a black feather fluttered to the carpet. "I thought you'd hate her."

That's not all she did.

"She hurt me too," Nora whispered. "She never hit me, but verbally she…"

Darn it. She'd said too much again
. How did Gideon manage to sneak his way past the wall she'd built around her heart?

"Oh, Nora." He took a step toward her.

The urge to escape was fierce. She couldn't talk about this. Thinking of the past hurt too much.

"I need to run over to
my neighbor's apartment to grab Mr. Fleas and Chubby," she said.

Gideon didn't say anything. Instead he just stared at her in that probing way of his that made her think he had the ability to see straight into her soul.

Even though he didn't answer her, she said, "I'll be back in a few minutes."

She
fled from the room, feeling like the world's biggest coward.

Chapter Ten

The next morning, Nora jumped out of the shower and sighed. She'd barely slept again, if only because she remembered how she'd run from her apartment after Gideon had brought up her mom. After she'd recovered enough to return with her pets, she and Gideon had said a hurried goodbye. She could tell that he'd wanted to ask her questions but refrained from doing so because he was worried that she'd be upset. She hated that.

How was it that her mom still
managed to make her feel weak, even though she hadn't laid eyes on the woman in over twenty years? Something about that didn't seem fair. She'd always thought that she was a semi-strong person. Yeah, she still screamed when she saw a spider, but she had lived through some pretty harsh emotional circumstances. Yet last night she'd behaved like a coward. She knew that she didn't owe Gideon an explanation, but she wanted to prove to herself that she was strong enough to talk to him about her past.

That was why she wanted to
speak to Gideon as soon as possible. For the first time ever, she hoped he would show up at the tea shop. As she grimaced—mostly because of the conversation that lay ahead—she dressed in her work uniform she'd laid by the sink and pulled her wet hair into a ponytail. When she left the bathroom, Mr. Fleas yapped happily and scratched himself so hard he toppled to the floor. In the kitchen, she heard Chubby knocking his empty food bowl across the tile.

Yep, all was normal in the Williams
household this morning. Thank heavens for that. Gideon's theory must have been correct.

Still when she walked by the dining room, she stopped to stare at the corner where she'd seen the
mysterious shadow. Curious, she pressed her head against the wall, expecting to hear her neighbors moving around on the other side.

She heard nothing.

The silence was odd. After all, she knew Mr. Gibbs was home. When she'd run her garbage down to the dumpster that morning, she'd seen the man grabbing his newspaper.
Well, maybe he's in a different room right now
.
She was nothing if not logical.

She
rammed her shoulder against the wall, trying to cause a vibration strong enough to knock the picture down. The photograph remained upright. Frowning, she scratched the back of her neck and tried again. Unfortunately, no
matter what she did, the picture didn't fall. Heck, she still didn't hear any muffled voices either. She took a step back, feeling ridiculous. She hadn't listened at walls since she was six years old and locked in her mom's closet.

Just as she was about to turn around, Mr. Fleas trotted over to her and flopped dramatically at her feet.
That was his way of saying, "Master, pet me now!" The dog's fat pink tongue lulled out of his mouth.

"I'm not petting you," she said. "I'll be late for work."

The dog let out an eager whine.

****

Nora was late for work.

Mr. Fleas
had stared at her so desperately that it seemed inhumane not to give him a pet. At least, that was what she told herself as she rubbed his belly for five minutes. Still it didn't matter that she hadn't arrived on time. Nobody was waiting. That was why, as she stood at the desk, she was bored out of her mind. She checked the clock on the wall to see how much time had passed. Two minutes. Darn. Why was it that time rushed by when she was at home but oozed past when she was at work?

As she
moaned, she spotted a heavyset man approaching the shop.  It was Robert. He was followed by a curvy woman in an inappropriately short dress. It took Nora a moment to realize that the voluptuous woman was Meg. The sight of the pair made her ecstatic. She wasn't sure she could handle standing around with nobody to talk to for another minute.

When Robert came inside, she gave him a happy smile.

He returned her smile with a concerned frown.

"Geez, what happened to you?" Robert asked. "You look like
the possessed girl from the Exorcist movie."

This was friendship at its finest. Robert was always so affectionate
, so loving. He could qualify for best friend of the year.

Not.

As Nora narrowed her eyes, Meg followed Robert into the shop.

"That's not nice, baby," Meg said.

Baby? So Robert was being called baby now, was he? This was the first time she'd ever heard a woman call him that—which meant that Nora was morally obligated as his best friend to make his life miserable because of it.

"Baby?" Nora grinned at him.

"Shut up." He turned red and rubbed the back of his neck.

"I like it," she said. "Maybe I should call you that too."

"You'd better not," he sputtered.

"Oh, I think I will." She grinned wickedly at him.

"You won't." Robert shook his head. "You're my best friend. That would be weird."

Meg
frowned at her in a way that suggested she was wondering whether she should be jealous or not. Since Nora didn't want the woman to get the wrong idea, she backed off. Nothing was worse than a girlfriend unsheathing her claws.

"Okay, I won't,"
Nora said.

The other woman appeared appeased.
Crisis averted,
she thought, her shoulders slumping with relief.

"I didn't know you worked in a tea store," Meg said.

"Tea is my calling." Well, maybe not, but she didn't mind tea and it beat working the overnight shift at the local gas station.

"Any recommendations?" Meg asked.

"Jasmine green tea is pretty good." It was like drinking flower petals.

"Then I'll take some
of that." Meg took a moment locating the jasmine tea on the shelf.

Once the woman
found what she was looking for, she headed over to the service desk, her blue eyes wide. Nora tried to grab the bag of tea, but Meg seized her arm and didn't let go. She gaped. Perhaps the crises hadn't been averted after all. Maybe she was about to witness an explosion of jealous girlfriend hysteria. The last time Robert's special someone had gotten the wrong idea about their relationship, the woman covered her car with bologna. That had not been her finest hour.

Meg glanced at Robert, then leaned over the
desk.

Here it goes.
Nora's eyebrow twitched.
What's she going to do? Threaten to kill me if I go near him? Dig her nails into my skin? What?

Nora was on her g
uard. She wasn't sure what she would do if Meg made a threat, but she wasn't going to slink off. No, Robert was her best friend and she was allowed to have him in her life. As she prepared for an argument, she stared down the other woman.

"I wanted to apol
ogize to you," Meg said, catching her off-guard.

"Pardon?"
She was so shocked her mouth fell open.

"I wanted to apologize," Meg
repeated.

"Um, why?" She couldn't remember anything bad happening to her recently except for Gideon's arrival and the black shadow, but th
e woman had nothing to do with that.

"Didn't Robert tell you?" Meg raised an eyebrow.

"Huh?" She scratched the back of her neck. "Robert didn't tell me anything. At least, I don't think he did.

"Oh." Meg blinked. "That's not good."

"Sorry," Nora said, because that seemed like the right thing to say.

Robert, what exactly did you hide?
she thought venomously, her eyes narrowing. 

She glared at Robert, but he didn't appear to notice her. Instead the guy
opened a bag of passion fruit tea and sneezed into it. He put the bag right back on the shelf again. Wincing, she turned her attention back to Meg, deciding she'd attack the guy later when he wasn't sneezing on the merchandize.

"What didn't he tell me?" she asked.

"It's about my friend, Chloe," Meg said.

"That redhead
at the bar?" She couldn't remember anything about the woman except for the fact that she had a huge appetite and a perfect figure despite it.

"Yeah, that's ri
ght." Meg winced. "The thing is, she's a really great person."

"Uh-huh." She was confused. Where the heck was this going?

"Her husband is great too," Meg added.

"Okay."
She raised an eyebrow.

"But they're a little strange sometimes," Meg said. "Chloe
even left a note under your door. You know, the one warning you about the man you were yelling at in the bar."

It took her a moment to remember
the note Meg was talking about. When she did, she gasped. The note had warned her about Gideon.

"Why the heck did
Chloe do that?" She frowned, startled and horrified at the same time.

"Like I said, my friend and her husband are amazing, but they're a little crazy sometimes." Meg let out a dramatic sigh and clapped her hand to her chest. "
Dmitri—that's Chloe's husband—knows that Gideon guy from somewhere and told Chloe that he's trouble. That was why she stuck the note under your door. She said that Gideon saw hunting women as a game or something."

For some reason, the words stung, even though
Nora knew they were true.

"You mean she gave me the note because she thought he's
a player?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Well, that wasn't exactly
what she told me, but that's the general idea." Meg picked paint from her fingernail. "Like I said, Chloe is lovably crazy. I just wanted to let you know that there isn't a psycho stalker at your door. It was just her being a little weird."

"Uh-huh." She was
still shaken. "How did she figure out where I lived?"

"Well, it's pretty easy to find that information online, isn't it?" Meg said. "There are no secrets these days."

"I can't believe this."
First the shadow, now this.
 

"Yeah, I can't either."
Meg groaned. "Chloe has been riding the crazy train for ages, but now I'm pretty sure she qualifies for VIP treatment and a reserved seat. Sticking that note under your door was a pretty nutty thing to do."

"Well, I guess it's better
that she gave me the note instead of some other weirdo." From what Nora could recall, Chloe hadn't given off a creeper vibe.

"Exactly." Meg winked.

For a moment she didn't say anything. Her thoughts wandered back to Gideon and the fact Chloe had said he hunted women. Maybe it wasn't wise to listen to the advice of a person who'd stuck a strange note under her door, but she couldn't help but groan at the thought of the woman's warning. If Gideon hunted women, then she was his target—and she was falling for his tricks. She even still intended to tell him about her mom despite this conversation.

As she chewed her bottom lip, Meg swayed awkwardly.

"I must sound like a horrible person, calling my best friend crazy," Meg said. "Chloe's amazing. She really is. I call her crazy to her face too, so it's not like I'm a backstabber or anything."

Finally,
Nora forced herself to pay attention.

"
You have the right to call your best friend crazy," she said.

"You think?" Meg asked.

Instead of simply nodding, she called out, "Robert, you're a freaking nut, do you know that?"

Robert
scowled at her.

"I'm a nut?" Robert said. "You're the one who
wrote 'free gumballs' on a piece of paper and stuck it on the gumball machine outside of my work. What kind of sane person does that? You're the screwball in the room, not me."

"See." Nora winked at
Meg.

"I think you and I are going to get along great." Meg snorted.

Well, she'd rather have that than bologna on her car.

****

Nora's shift was almost over and Gideon still hadn't come.
Of all the times for him to stop stalking me,
she thought, her eyebrow twitching. Today she needed to talk to the guy, so naturally he decided not to visit her. Frowning, she seized her purse so she would be prepared to leave the moment Maura arrived.

She froze in horror.
Wait a second, why am I this upset he didn't come?
The whole day—except for the half an hour when Robert and Meg had visited—had oozed past. That wasn't normal. Suddenly, she realized a horrible truth—she was growing attached to Gideon. And not just a little attached. No, she was major attached. The day that Gideon decided she wasn't worth the trouble, her heart was going to hurt. A lot.

No!
She clapped her hand to her chest.
Why am I thinking like this?

She started smacking herself over the head with
her purse, wailing, "Why, why, why, why?" between each strike.

Of course
a person had to enter the tea shop at that exact moment. Wincing, she looked up and saw Gideon. The man was smirking. But why wouldn't he be? After seeing her smacking her head with her own purse, the possibilities for ridicule would be endless.