Home to Whiskey Creek (Whiskey Creek #4)(24)
Author: Brenda Novak

He felt himself gape at her. He’d only stopped by to see if she was okay! “You don’t even want to be friends.”

“I’m afraid not.”

“No one rejects friendship,” he said. “It makes you look bad.”

She squared her shoulders. “Well, I just did so I’ll live with however it makes me look.”

“Addy, Noah, are you coming?”

Noah wanted to beg off and get the hell out of there. But he’d put Milly to the effort of making coffee and felt he had to drink it.

“Fine. If that’s how you’re going to act, I don’t want to be friends with you, either.” He realized how juvenile that sounded, but he felt younger than he had in a while, and certainly more vulnerable. Circumventing Addy, he strode to the kitchen. “Smells delicious.”

If his voice was too curt, Milly didn’t seem to notice. Fortunately, she was hard of hearing. Smiling brightly, she handed him a cup and all but shouted, “It’s nothing fancy like those fresh-roasted blends, but…”

“Thank you.”

“Addy?” she called. “You coming?”

Adelaide appeared in the doorway, looking miserable. “I’m here but…none for me, Gran.”

Milly made shooing motions. “You two have a seat and relax. The night is young. Let’s enjoy it. Before Noah leaves, I want him to get out his phone and check his calendar—that’s how you young people do it these days, isn’t it?—so we can pick a date to have him over for dinner.”

Noah glanced up to catch Addy’s reaction, and saw her stiffen.

“Noah was just telling me that…that he’s swamped, Gran,” she said. “We wouldn’t want him to feel obligated to take time out of his busy schedule.”

“Oh, phooey! A man’s got to eat, doesn’t he?” Milly handed him cream and sugar. “You can make time for us, can’t you, Noah?”

Obviously expecting him to follow her lead, Addy tilted her head.

Any sane man would decline Milly’s invitation, to protect his ego, if for no other reason. He’d already been flatly rejected—in advance. Even his offer of friendship had been thrown back in his face.

But her reaction to him didn’t make any sense, especially considering how she’d once felt. She couldn’t even tell him why she didn’t want to see him again.

“I’ll make time,” he said. Then he saluted Adelaide with his cup. “When would you like to do it?”

9

A week from Saturday. That was the date they’d settled on. November 2. Then Noah would come to the house again, this time for dinner.

Adelaide couldn’t believe he’d had the nerve to accept Gran’s invitation, knowing she didn’t want him there. For once in her life, she’d tried to be firm, even if it came across as harsh. But her rejection shocked him more than anything else—shocked him enough that he became determined to win her over.

She shouldn’t have created a challenge. A man like Noah couldn’t resist a challenge. He was a professional athlete, after all, someone conditioned to attack the difficult, to prevail. She should’ve been all dewy-eyed and swooned over him, as if she hoped to drag him to the altar. Then he would’ve run away as fast as his muscular legs could carry him.

It was a stupid miscalculation on her part. And now she had to face the prospect of spending an entire evening with him and acting polite because Gran would be there.

She couldn’t sit across the dinner table looking at him all evening. Her emotions were too scrambled. She’d spent two whole years fantasizing about him. She’d all but stalked him at school, loitering at strategic places in the halls simply because he had to go by there to get to class. And not only did she have the residual pangs of that to deal with, she had to cope with the fact that he reminded her so much of the man who’d changed her life forever.

She wished he’d leave her alone. She needed space. After that graduation party fifteen years ago, she’d spent the summer on pins and needles, trying to appear “normal” while everyone else mourned the loss of Cody and she pretended to do the same. No one had ever confronted her with questions about that night, not even to ask if he was alive when she’d last seen him. Maybe it was too unbelievable that the most popular boy in school would waste his time on a lowly sophomore, because even the people who’d seen her in his company hadn’t mentioned her. That included Kevin, Tom, Derek and Stephen, who’d dragged her into a different part of the mine before raping her. They were gone when Cody came back—everyone else was gone—but must have guessed she was the reason he’d returned.

If so, they probably assumed she wouldn’t be powerful enough to overcome him. Or they’d decided to keep their mouths shut to preserve their own secret. That was all she could figure.

Regardless, as that summer wore on, people stopped talking about the tragedy and, finally, most of those who’d been present at the party went off to college. Then Addy’s life got a little easier. She ran into Cody and Noah’s parents occasionally. But she didn’t have to live, on a daily basis, with the constant reminder that Noah posed.

She’d been so grateful for the reprieve, so relieved when he left, that she hadn’t really missed him. She’d scarcely thought of the girlish desires he’d evoked, even though they’d once consumed her. She’d felt only anxiety, fear and regret when he came to mind.

But now that he’d walked back into her life—or, rather, she’d walked back into his—everything seemed to have reversed itself again. Cody wasn’t Noah and, despite the family connection and their similarities, she was quite clear on that. Noah hadn’t attended the graduation party that had ended so tragically. He’d been with his best friend, Baxter North, at a different party, one that included midnight street hockey instead of alcohol.

“Where are you going?” Gran asked, obviously surprised when Addy scooped up her keys.

“For a drive.”

Gran lowered the volume on the TV, which had been blaring to compensate for her lack of hearing. “You feel well enough to do that?”

Addy zipped up the sweatshirt she’d pulled on with a pair of jeans. “I’ve been cooped up all day and I need to get out of the house.”

“But I’m not sure it’s safe, not until Chief Stacy catches the person who abducted you,” she argued.

“No one will bother me while I’m in my car, Gran. If the man who cut my screen door thinks I’m anywhere, he’s going to assume it’s here.”