This time, Noah was ready for her and swiped her nose with a napkin. “Gotcha.”
She looked up at him, aghast, lower lip trembling.
“Come here, Penny.” The girl next door crouched in front of Noah and held out her hands, just far enough away that she couldn’t touch him again.
“No-o-o.” Penny wasn’t just an athlete in the making. She was also a bit of a drama queen. She clutched Noah’s calf and shook her blond curls. “No-o-o.”
Penny’s mom raised those blue eyes to Noah’s once more, causing a heart-stuttering, equilibrium-shaking, white-noise-in-the-ears relapse.
“Given the way my daughter clings to you, we should be on a first-name basis. I’m Ella.” Her glance caught on Noah’s black gloves.
And just like that, Noah was reminded why he didn’t want a woman’s interest.
The world self-corrected. Stabilized.
“Mom.” Penny made a raspberry noise against Noah’s knee, negating her mother having any name other than... “Mom. Mom. Mom.”
“I’m Noah.” He ruffled Penny’s blond curls with his left hand. “Your daughter is what? Two?”
“I two,” Penny confirmed, holding up four fingers.
The twins ran by, followed by their mother, who said, “No one told me the terrible twos lasted long after the age of four.” She snatched a boy in each arm and gave them a playful growl as she stood, glasses sliding down her thin nose. “Only boys who behave get French fries.”
The boys stopped struggling and allowed their mother to carry them to the lunch counter, where she deposited each on a stool and ordered French fries from Ivy.
“Fesh fies?” Penny toddled forward into Ella’s arms.
“Apple fries?” Ella countered, then whispered conspiratorially to Noah, “So much healthier, and in my bag.”
His mother would have said, “She’s as adorable as her daughter.”
I’ve never liked adorable.
His sister would have said, “She’s not wearing a wedding ring.”
A fact I noticed completely by accident.
“Fesh fies!” Penny cried, pointing at the boys.
“But apple fries just aren’t the same,” Noah murmured. He caught Ella’s eye. “You should head back down the mountain before the storm hits. At Penny’s age, a case of the sniffles can turn serious overnight.” There. Spoken like a country doctor who only had a little girl’s best interests at heart.
Mitch gave Noah an approving nod, the kind of gesture that said, You’re one of us.
Noah clenched his teeth.
I have nothing in common with these people.
Worry flashed in Ella’s eyes. She’d no doubt weathered illnesses with her daughter before. Little kids picked up every germ.
“It’s just a cold.” Shane made light of Noah’s concern.
Ella’s gaze shuttered. She gave Noah a small smile. “Thanks, but it looks like we’re staying.”
“That’s too bad,” Noah murmured, staring at his gloved right hand and wishing Ella Monroe would leave town quickly.
A woman like Ella made a man remember he’d once had lofty dreams, made him think he could still be somebody important, made him try to regain ground when the odds were embarrassingly, impossibly stacked against him.
Well, what do you know. His inner cynic chuckled.
Turns out, Noah did have something in common with the other residents of Second Chance.
He wanted the Monroes gone.
ELLA SHARED BOTH potato and apple fries with Penny at the counter of the Bent Nickel and tried not to stare the entire time at Noah and his gloves.
It was chilly inside the coffee shop and Ella hated being cold, but when she’d wiped baby snot off Noah’s pant leg his gaze had heated her right up.
All due to embarrassment, naturally.
She sneaked a glance at Noah, testing her embarrassment theory.
His black hair was long and pushed back from his face, brushing his collar in loose waves. He had a full, short, dark beard and broad shoulders. His brow had been furrowed since she’d walked in and his eyebrows were on permanent ground patrol over his blue eyes. He’d seemed different than the rest of the men in the coffee shop. Or maybe it was just that he held himself stiffly, as if he considered himself an outsider.
Ella could relate. She’d spent most of her middle and high-school years feeling like an outsider, a foster child with a few friends and a drawer of hand-me-down clothes. She’d since filled her closet, but after what had happened at the reading of Harlan’s will, she wasn’t sure of her future as a Monroe. If she couldn’t make a market assessment Bryce’s cousins approved of would they shut her out of the family, too?
Her attention drifted to Noah. His clothes were new. That wasn’t what kept him apart from the others. It was the black leather gloves, she decided. That, and the soulful look in his eyes.
Their gazes connected, and Ella lost track of her breath. The lack of oxygen combined with awkwardness heated her cheeks. The embarrassment theory was holding water.
Embarrassment and the fact that he’s gorgeous and looks at me as if I wasn’t the kind of woman to eat a package of Penny’s cheese and crackers for breakfast.
The Bent Nickel diner was a throwback to a simpler time. Green-and-white checked linoleum tiles. Chrome bar stools with mint-green vinyl seats. Forest green vinyl booths and worn white Formica tabletops. Framed photos crowded the walls, mostly black-and-white pictures of people in front of cabins and vintage cars.
There were elementary-age kids gathered around the L-shaped counter and a booth beside it. Schoolbooks, notebooks and laptops were stacked or open. Tall milkshake glasses and baskets of French fries were distributed among them. Between the chatter they spared amused glances toward Andrew and Alexander, Sophie’s twin boys, who were holding a spinning race on their bar stools.
“Me, too.” Penny patted Ella’s arm and then pointed to the twins. “Me, too.”
Penny didn’t have the arm strength to spin herself. Ella turned Penny’s bar stool in a slow circle.
“Whoa.” Penny’s eyes got huge. When her back was to the counter she had nothing to hold on to, particularly when she had an apple fry in one hand and a potato fry in the other. That didn’t stop her from saying, “Again,” when she’d completed one circuit.
Ella turned her stool a second time, aware of Noah’s gaze upon them.
“Woof.” Penny was halfway around on the stool. She pointed out the window and dropped the potato fry. “Uh-oh.”
Ella stopped spinning as she realized what Penny had seen—a yellow dog with an uneven gait. “Someone’s dog is outside.”
“That’s a Labrasnoodle.” Roy moved toward the window. “Does it belong to one of you Monroes? It’s one of them designer dogs. A Labrapoo or Doodledoo or something.”
“We brought kids,” Shane said loftily. “Not dogs.”
“The dog’s limping.” Roy peered to the side. “Come on, Doc. Looks like someone dumped a dog out here again.” Roy glanced back at Noah.
Ella