“Those are good questions, Janey, every one of them.”
“And I had good answers for them, except she was too young to understand those answers. She doesn’t know how it feels to be in love, to trust someone so completely…” Janey clenched her fists, refusing to let him see how much it had hurt. “I lived it and I don’t even understand it.”
“Janey—”
“Then she started asking the hard questions,” she continued, talking right over him. “Like why didn’t her dad want to spend any time with her, or at least meet her? And here’s the really hard one, Noah. What’s wrong with her? No matter how often I said it had nothing to do with her, I could tell she still thought it was her fault.”
“Jeez, Janey.” Noah ran a hand back through his hair, leaving it rumpled, a fitting counterpoint to the wild light in his eyes, eyes so like Jessie’s it was painful to look into them.
Janey bit back the rest of the angry words clawing at the back of her throat. He’d earned her anger, but making him hurt, like she and Jessie had hurt, wouldn’t solve anything. “Jessie stopped asking questions about you a long time ago. She’s accepted the fact that her parents aren’t together. It’s not unusual, even in Erskine. It’s just—” She caught her lower lip between her teeth and turned away. It didn’t help; Noah could still read her mind, it seemed.
“You’re wondering whether it’s a good thing I’m here or not.”
“Yeah, well, something about stuffing toothpaste back into the tube occurs to me.”
“So, what happens now?”
She brought her eyes back to him. “Right now that depends on you.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“And I can’t give you the words, Noah.”
He jammed his hands in his pockets, seeming more uncertain by the second.
“If you can’t do this, I’ll find some way to explain it to her.”
“What if I say the wrong thing?”
“At least it’ll be you saying it. And you can always apologize. It’s not like she thinks you’re perfect or anything.”
He held her gaze for a moment, then smiled wryly. “No, I don’t imagine she does.”
“I’ll go get her.” When Janey got to the tower room, however, she found Jessie curled up fast asleep on the old sofa that had been there forever. For the last four years her beloved stuffed bear had held a cherished place on the topmost shelf of her bedroom hutch. The fact that it was back in her arms tonight spoke volumes about the state of her heart and mind.
Janey brushed the hair from her daughter’s brow, carefully so as not to wake her, and covered her with an old knitted blanket. Better she have as many hours of peace as she could, Janey figured, easing out of the room and down the creaky staircase. Noah would have to come back tomorrow.
But when she got downstairs, he was already gone.
Chapter Two
Janey had been upstairs longer than she intended, but she’d expected Noah to hang around. Of course, he’d never had much staying power….
“I’m in here,” he called out.
And she’d become way too cynical, she realized as she followed his voice into the parlor. So he’d romanced her out of her virginity after their senior prom and then left town. All on the same night. So he’d ignored her attempts to tell him he had a child, then got angry with her when he found out by accident. Water under the bridge, all of it. She’d gotten herself through college, with the help of her parents, and even after she’d lost them, within months of each other, she’d made a life for herself and her daughter. There were times—okay, there were lots of times—when she’d wished there was a man around, not just to deal with a broken-down car or paint the porch, but because it would’ve been nice to share the emotional load once in a while. But she had friends, a whole town full of them, and she had Jessie.And if, every now and then, she woke in the night, unbelievably lonely, that was her choice, too.
There’d been opportunities over the years, but no one who’d…Hell, she might as well admit she compared every man she met to Noah. Or not to him, exactly, but to the way he’d made her feel all those years ago. Nothing since had even come close.
Until now. Noah was sitting in her father’s favorite armchair, suit jacket unbuttoned, tie loosened, his head back and his eyes closed. She’d seen her father sit just like that, countless evenings after countless days at his law office. A strong sense of rightness washed through her—which she had no trouble shaking off when their history flashed through her brain. Even if she still loved him, she’d be a fool to trust him again. And Janey Walters was nobody’s fool.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” she said.
He opened his eyes and stared at her long enough to make her antsy before he lifted a brow in inquiry.
“She’s sleeping.”
Noah felt every muscle in his body relax—well, not every muscle. He should be taking this unexpected reprieve as an opportunity to get his thoughts in order, but how could he with Janey prowling the room like that? He could understand the nerves that kept her on her feet, but when she reached up to straighten a picture, all he could think about was how incredible she was. Beautiful. Her face was more angular than he remembered, pared down by time and maturity so that her inner strength showed through. He’d always been a sucker for strong, self-sufficient women, and there was something about Janey, taking charge of her life in that ratty old bandanna and T-shirt. And the jeans…
He closed his eyes, hoping that if the denim was gone from his sight, he’d forget how it hugged her bottom and skimmed the swell of her hips. It didn’t work. Closing his eyes was like giving his imagination a blank canvas, and Janey Walters was a model who would’ve done any of the old masters proud. One look at her and he felt as if a freight train had slammed into his chest.
Or maybe that had more to do with finding out he had a daughter.
He opened his eyes again, caught her watching him, and nodded toward the chair across from his.
“I have paint all over me,” Janey said.
“It’s probably dry.”
She said a word under her breath that sounded suspiciously like damn, which, in light of what followed, made perfect sense. She started for the door, saying, “I left the paint open and the paintbrush is probably rock-hard by now.”
“It’s just a paintbrush, Janey.”
“It’s not just a paintbrush when—” She broke off, shook her head.
That hesitation was unlike Janey, at least the Janey he used to know. She’d always been so in-your-face, so unafraid to put her opinions and feelings out there and dare anybody to take issue with them. In Erskine that went beyond courage.
But she had someone else to think of now. What she said and did would reflect directly on Jessie, and if he knew Janey, she’d go well out of her way to avoid causing her daughter any unhappiness. Not that the old Janey wasn’t still in there somewhere. She might be more tightly controlled now, more guarded, but one look into his daughter’s eyes, and there was no question where she’d gotten that straightforward approach to life. Janey had raised her alone—and done a hell of a job. But then, Noah had never doubted Janey would be a great mom. She’d always known what she wanted. And he’d always been afraid he couldn’t give it to her. In the end, he hadn’t. He’d let her down just like everyone had expected him to—worse than they’d expected.