What Happens Between Friends (26 page)

She had a feeling, a deep-seated fear, that she’d found what she’d always been seeking right here in Shady Grove. And she’d tossed it away.

“I don’t know what to do,” she admitted.

Char stood. “Damned if I know,” she said, but she softened her words by holding out her hands. When Sadie clasped them in her own, Char tugged her to her feet. “But you can stay with me until you figure it out.”

* * *

E
VERYONE
GAVE
HIM
a wide berth.

Good, James thought on Monday morning. He preferred it that way. He’d had a tough week since sending Sadie on her way. But maybe he’d snapped at his sister and brother a few too many times. They’d banished him to hauling debris from the site to the Dumpster, a job meant for the high school kids who worked after school and on Saturday mornings, but James wasn’t going to complain. He didn’t want to be around people, didn’t want to answer any more questions about where Sadie was and why she wasn’t at work and when she’d be back.

He wasn’t sure if she’d left town yet, hadn’t let himself ask anyone if they knew what was going on with her. All he knew was that she’d called his father, told him she quit and no one in his family had seen her since. She’d leave. Maybe today. Maybe next week. All he knew for sure was that when she did, she wouldn’t come back. That, too, was for the best. He was done living his life waiting for her. Wanting her.

He was through loving her.

Despite the mild temperatures, he was sweating, his jeans and T-shirt clinging to his skin, his hair damp at the nape and forehead. It was quiet behind Bradford House, the only sounds the occasional power tool or the shout or laugh of one of the workers. Zoe trotted alongside him as he made trip after trip from the rear of the house, where the ripped-up flooring and baseboards were piled, to the flatbed truck.

He didn’t need Sadie. He had his work, his family and a job he loved. He had friends. Maybe he’d call Anne, apologize for not getting back to her after their date. They might not have immediately clicked, but they’d had a decent time. And maybe, eventually, their feelings for each other would grow.

If not, he would eventually meet a woman who made him feel the same things Sadie did, who wanted the same things he did out of life. A home. A family.

He smelled her first, the familiar light scent reaching him on a breeze, on a sigh. Walking toward the house, he lifted his head like a wolf sniffing for his mate. She was here, standing by the kitchen window, wearing one of her flowing skirts and a short jacket over a floral-print top.

He didn’t slow, couldn’t even look at her.

She stepped forward. “James—”

“Don’t.”
Don’t talk to me. Don’t look at me. Don’t remind me of what I’ve lost, what I’ll never have.

He lifted boards, set them on his shoulder and took them to the truck. Damn her. Damn her! Why did she have to come back? Why did she always have to come back? When he returned to the house, she was still there, Zoe sitting by her side.

“They should’ve sent your final paycheck to your mother’s house,” he said, wanting—needing—her gone.

“I didn’t come for my paycheck,” she said quietly. She sounded nervous, looked so beautiful it hurt just to breathe. “I came for you.”

“Don’t,” he repeated, harsher this time, and she flinched. Good. She’d better goddamn well flinch. “I’m not yours to come back for, so why don’t you do what you’re best at and just leave?”

This time when he took the boards to the truck, she followed, her steps quick, the ends of her hair lifting. “James, please, just hear me out—”

“No.”

What did she want from him, blood? He picked up his pace, wiped the back of his hand across his forehead.

She hurried to block him. “James, please.” He almost ran her over, but she scooted out of his way. “Please. Five minutes. That’s all I ask.”

“If I say yes, will you promise to leave after that?”

“I swear.”

She looked like hell. Her face was pale, her eyes rimmed red with dark circles underneath. He should find satisfaction in that, but he didn’t. Couldn’t. “Fine. Five minutes.”

He checked his watch, then grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler in the back of his truck, sat on the tailgate.

She swallowed hard and began to pace. He forced himself to look somewhere over her head, anywhere but at her. “Did you ever...” She inhaled deeply and started again. “Did you ever tell yourself you wanted something only to realize later that what you really wanted you had all along?”

He took a long drink. Put the cap on. “No.”

She smiled softly and it broke his heart. “Of course not. You’ve always been so...comfortable in your own skin. I’ve always admired that about you. Envied it.” She stopped pacing and stood before him, twisting her hands together at her waist. “You see, I thought I knew what I wanted. I thought that living a life defined by traditional roles and normalcy, I guess you’d say, would somehow make me disappear when all I’ve ever wanted was to stand out.”

She stepped closer, her eyes pleading, her voice soft. “But with you, I always stood out. You always saw me as someone special. As someone worthy. That meant something to me. Means something to me. More than you’ll ever know.”

He felt himself soften. He hardened his heart. “Glad I could help your ego.” He tossed the empty bottle into the back of his truck. Checked his watch again without really seeing it. “Time’s up. Goodbye, Sadie.”

He brushed past her, told himself that the sheen of pain in her eyes wasn’t real. That she wasn’t hurting, couldn’t be hurting nearly as much as he was.

“You saw the real me,” she called. “From the time we first met, you’ve always accepted the real me, and I was so stupid, so blind I couldn’t even see it. And when you kissed me on your birthday, it was like...God, James, it was like coming home. It was like I knew, finally, where I was meant to be for the rest of my life, and that scared me.

“I’m not as brave as you are,” she went on, persistent and, if her tone was anything to go by, determined. “You were right when you said I was a coward. I am. But I want to change. I want to be brave, but more than that, I want to spend the rest of my life proving to you how much I love you.”

Her words were like a knife to his heart. “If this is one of those let’s-be-friends speeches, I’ve heard it before. I’m not interested.”

She hurried over to him, blocked his way so he couldn’t pick up any more boards. “I don’t want to be your friend. I mean, I do. You’re my best friend, but I want to be more than that. I want to be your lover and your wife. The mother of your children and the woman you grow old with. I want to be the one who brings color into your world and into that brown house of yours. I want to get a dog, a friend for Zoe, and teach them both how to play dead and I want to spend my days working at a job that I love that fulfills me creatively, my weekends making your house our home and my nights in your arms. I want,” she continued, her voice shaking, her eyes wet, “to have your babies and dance with them in our living room and make love to you after they’re put to bed. I want to be your life, your future. Please, please say you still want that, too. Please forgive me and I promise I will never, ever hurt you again.”

Could he believe her? Could he afford not to? James wasn’t sure. All that he was sure of was the truth shining in her eyes, the hope he saw on her face. It was the same hope trying to build in his chest. Hope he couldn’t deny.

He lifted a hand, trailed the tip of his finger down her cheek. “I want that, too,” he whispered.

She shut her eyes. “Thank God.”

And she leaped into his arms and kissed him, a kiss filled with promise and friendship. But most of all, a kiss filled with love.

* * * * *

Look for the next book in the
IN SHADY GROVE
series by Beth Andrews! Coming in December 2013 from Harlequin Superromance
Keep reading for an excerpt from
Home to Whiskey Creek
by Brenda Novak!

We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Superromance.

You want romance plus a bigger story!
Harlequin Superromance
stories are filled with powerful relationships that deliver a strong emotional punch and a guaranteed happily ever after.

Enjoy six Harlequin Superromance stories every month!

Visit
Harlequin.com
to find your next great read.

We like you—why not like us on Facebook:
Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks

Follow us on Twitter:
Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks

Read our blog for all the latest news on our authors and books:
HarlequinBlog.com

Subscribe to our newsletter for special offers, new releases, and more!

Harlequin.com/newsletters

1

The past is never dead. It’s not even past.

—William Faulkner

N
o way would he be able to reach her, not with his bare hands. And Noah Rackham didn’t have anything else—just his mountain bike, which lay on its side a few feet away. In the pouch beneath the seat he kept a spare tube, the small plastic tool that made it easier to change a tire and some oil for his chain but no rope, no flashlight. He wouldn’t have packed that stuff even if he’d had room. For one, he’d come out for a quick, hit-it-hard ride before sunset and wasn’t planning to be gone longer than a couple of hours. For another, no one messed around with the old mine anymore. Not since his twin brother had been killed in a cave-in a decade and a half ago, just after high school graduation.

“Hello?” Kneeling at the mouth of the shaft where someone had torn away the boards intended to seal off this ancillary opening, he called into the void below.

His voice bounced back at him, and he could hear the steady drip of water, but that was all. Why wasn’t the woman responding? A few seconds earlier, she’d cried out for help. That was the reason he’d stopped and come to investigate.

“Hey, you still there? You with me?”

“Yes. I’m here!”

Thank God she’d answered. “Tell me your name.”

“It...it’s Adelaide. But my friends call me Addy. Why?”

“I want to know who I’m talking to. Can you tell me what happened?”

“Just get me out. Please! And hurry!”

“I will. Relax, okay, Addy? I’ll think of something.”

Cursing under his breath, he rocked back on his haunches. Ahead of him, the dirt road that temporarily converged with the single track he’d been riding disappeared around a sharp bend. To his left was the mountain, and to his right, the river, rushing a hundred feet below. He saw more of the same scenery behind him. Trees. Thick undergrowth, including an abundance of poison oak. Moist earth. Rocks. Fifty-year-old tailings from the mine. And the darkening sky. There were no other people, which wasn’t unusual. Plenty of bikers and hikers used this trail, but mostly in the warmer months, and certainly not after dusk. The Sierra Nevada foothills, and the gold rush–era town where he’d grown up, were often wet and chilly by mid-October.

Should he backtrack to the main entrance of the mine? Try to get in the way they used to?

He’d already passed that spot. Someone had fixed the rusty chain-link fence to keep kids from slipping through. Noah couldn’t get beyond it, not without wire cutters or at least the claw part of a hammer. That entrance and this shaft might not even connect. It was likely they didn’t, or whoever was stranded down there would’ve made her way over—provided she was capable of moving.

Scooping up his bike, he hopped on and went to check. Sure enough, the fence, with its danger keep out sign, was riveted to the rocky outcropping surrounding the entrance. He couldn’t get through; he didn’t have the proper tools, and there was nothing close by he could substitute. The only foreign object in the whole area was a bouquet of flowers that lay wilting in the mud. Noah guessed Shania Carpenter, Cody’s old girlfriend, had placed them there. She’d probably come up here to commemorate the anniversary of when she and Cody had started dating, or become an item, or first made love or...whatever. She’d married, divorced and had a kid, in that order, but she’d never gotten over Cody’s death.

Neither had Noah. It felt as if a part of him had died that night.

And now someone else’s life could end the same way.

Certain that this entrance wasn’t the answer to his problem, he returned to the shaft. He never would’ve noticed this other opening if not for that cry for help. The boards that’d been pried loose were so covered by moss they blended in with the rest of the scenery.

“I’m not going to be able to reach you,” he called down. “Is there some other way out? A tunnel that might not be sealed off?”

Considering what had happened to his brother, was it safe for her to move?

“No. I—I’ve tried everything!”

The hysteria in those words concerned him. “Okay. Listen, I know you’re...frightened, but try to stay calm. How badly are you hurt?”

“I’m not sure.” It sounded as though she couldn’t suck in enough air to speak normally, but he couldn’t tell if that came from fright, exhaustion or injury. “Help me, please.”

He
wanted
to help; he just didn’t know how. The shaft was too deep to reach her without rope. But if he hurried off to notify rescue personnel, he wasn’t sure she’d be alive when he got back. Trying to bring others would take too much time. There was no place for a helicopter to land. And it wouldn’t be easy to get an ambulance in here. A Jeep or truck could make it, but even that would be a challenge in the dark. Flooding several years ago had washed away parts of the old road.

But if he stayed, he’d soon lose all daylight and he had no flashlight. Even if he managed to get the woman out, how would he transport her in the pitch-black?

“Can you walk?” he called.

There was a slight delay. “How far?”

“I’m wondering if you’re mobile, so I can assess the situation.”

“I—I’m mobile.”

That made a difference. It meant she wasn’t so badly off that he couldn’t sit her on his bike and run alongside. If he could get to her.

He was pretty sure he had a flashlight and a length of rope in his truck. He might even have food or something else that would come in handy. A sweatshirt would keep her warm, at least.
He
could use it if she didn’t need it. It’d been a nice day, hence his lightweight bike shorts and T-shirt, but it was growing colder by the minute.

“Sit tight,” he called down. “I have to go to my truck but I’ll be back. I promise.”

“Don’t leave me!”

Panic fueled those words. “I’ll be back,” he repeated.

Tension tied his stomach into knots as he ignored her protests and clipped his feet into the pedals of his bike. The uneven ground and rocks and roots that offered the challenges he so enjoyed suddenly became unwelcome obstacles, jarring him despite the expensive shock absorbers on his bike. He was moving faster than ever before, especially through this stretch, where the riding was so technical, but he had no choice. If he didn’t...

He couldn’t even think about what might happen if he didn’t. He’d seen his brother’s crushed head. They’d made the decision as a family not to have an open casket.

Small pebbles scattered, churned up by his tires as he charged through patches of gravel. Hoping to shave off a few minutes, he climbed a steep embankment he typically tried only when he wanted maximum difficulty.

He made it up and over the ridge, and down the other side without mishap, but it felt as if it were taking forever to reach the highway.

By the time the trail leveled out, his lungs burned and his quads shook, but he knew that had more to do with fear than physical exertion. He owned Crank It Up, a bike shop in Whiskey Creek, and raced mountain bikes professionally. Thanks to endless hours of training, his body could handle twenty minutes of balls-to-the-wall riding. It was the memories of the day he’d learned his brother was dead and the frightened sound of Addy’s voice that made what he was doing so difficult.

In case her life depended on his performance, he forced himself to redline it, but daylight was waning much faster than he expected. What if he couldn’t see well enough to return? Considering how narrow the trail was in places, and the sharp dropoff on one side, his tire could hit a rock or a groove in the hard-packed dirt, causing him to veer off and plummet into the freezing-cold river—an accident he wasn’t likely to survive. The road, though wider, would take twice as long.

You won’t fall.
He knew this trail far too well. This was where he felt closest to his brother—and not because Cody had died here. They’d started mountain biking when they were only thirteen, used to explore these mountains all the time. That was how they’d found the mine in the first place. It was Cody who’d turned it into a popular hangout during the final weeks of high school. Kids could bring booze or weed up there without being noticed or interrupted by the police, so a core group from the baseball team had thrown parties that had occasionally gotten out of hand. Toward the end, Noah had stopped going. He hadn’t liked watching his brother snort coke, didn’t appreciate the way Cody behaved when he was stoned. Noah had also been afraid Cody would get Shania pregnant before they had the chance to leave for college and he didn’t want to attend San Diego State without him. They’d done almost everything together since birth.

He’d mentioned the risks to Cody many times, but no amount of warning seemed to faze him. Although Shania hadn’t been at the party—her parents had whisked her away to Europe as soon as she had her diploma in hand—his brother had gone a little crazy that night with all the drinking and drugs, and he paid the ultimate price. From what Noah had heard, the party Cody had thrown graduation night had been as wild as they came.

Maybe if his brother had been thinking straight, he would’ve made it home safely, like everyone else....

After navigating a few final twists and turns, Noah spotted the gravel lot next to the two-lane highway where he’d parked, and raced down the straightaway.

Sweat rolled off him the second he stopped, despite the cold, but he barely noticed as he searched his truck. He found the towrope in his toolbox, a sweatshirt shoved under his seat not far from the flashlight and a stash of energy bars. He already carried all the water he had in a bladderlike contraption on his back. Unfortunately, he’d drunk most of it, but he found a first-aid kit in his jockey box, which was some consolation.

He had what he needed, but in case things didn’t go as smoothly as he hoped, he wanted to call for help so there’d be a rescue team waiting.

He’d put his cell phone under his floor mat to keep it out of sight. There’d been a rash of car burglaries several months ago, courtesy of a group of teenagers who smoked pot and hung out at the river all summer—“river rats” they were called.

He fished his phone out to check for service. Coverage was spotty in these mountains. But obtaining a signal didn’t turn out to be the problem. His battery was dead.

“Shit!” He wasn’t one of those people who kept his phone attached to his ear 24/7. It was more of an afterthought—obviously, since he didn’t carry a charger.

He gazed up and down the road, hoping a vehicle would come by, but after a few seconds, he realized he couldn’t keep standing there. He had to make a decision. Should he drive to Jackson, which was closer than Whiskey Creek, or go back for the woman as he’d originally intended?

Jackson would take too much time. He’d promised he wouldn’t be long and for some reason it was important to him to make good on that.

Draping the rope around his neck, he tied the sweatshirt to his waist and tossed out the extra tube and tire-changing equipment he had in his seat pack without even caring where it fell. He needed room to squeeze in the energy bars and the contents of the first-aid kit. Then he held the flashlight against the handlebars and took off.

He had to get back to the mine before full dark. Otherwise, he’d be forced to take the road or travel even more slowly on the trail, and he feared that whoever was stranded in the shaft couldn’t survive the delay.