Saving Alyssa (Mills & Boon Heartwarming) (21 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

T
HE
 
DAY
 
AFTER
 
Christmas could be depressing...if she allowed it.

With her parents, brother and sister-in-law on their way back to Philly, the house seemed ghostly quiet and empty, despite the wrapping paper, ribbons, foam electronics protectors and cardboard boxes scattered throughout the first floor. Billie decided to tackle the kitchen first, hoping the rest of the mess would seem less daunting once the hard jobs were behind her.

With the dishwasher humming and pots and pans stacked in the drying rack, she headed for the dining room. She put the furniture back in place and had just finished vacuuming the area rug when the doorbell rang.

“Figured you'd be up to your elbows in cleaning solution,” Troy said when she opened the door, “so I brought lunch.” He held up a brown paper bag and led the way to the kitchen. “How does sushi sound?”

“Like you're a mind reader.” Billie slapped paper plates and napkins onto the table. “I've been thinking about sushi, trying to remember the last time I had it.”

“I made sandwiches that day.”

“Oh. Yeah.” He shook his head. “Will this head of mine ever get back to normal?”

“Of course it will. Just be patient with yourself.”

She grabbed two bottles of water from the fridge. Tough times for Troy. Not as tough as the accident, but traumatic all the same. “But all that's behind you now.”

He shrugged and unsheathed his chopsticks.

“What does that mean?”

Another shrug.

“Troy! No way. Victoria is back in the picture?”

Using a chopstick, he pointed at his forehead. “This old bean got beat up pretty bad, but I'm not completely brain dead. I remember telling you that she deserves better that I can give her, and nothing has changed.”

Billie sat across from him and helped herself to a California roll.

“Go easy on that wasabi,” he warned. “These guys make it themselves.”

“Quit beating around the bush. Out with it. What has Victoria done?”

“Well, it all started day before Christmas Eve. She called to tell me her grandmother died. I felt like a heel. We'd spent tons of time with the woman, and because of how things ended, Victoria said she didn't feel like she could call and tell me.”

“Give me a break. It isn't as if you're an ogre or anything.”

“In all fairness, I did behave like a lout, there at the end.” He winced. “I yelled. Slammed doors. Even broke a lamp. On purpose.”

“Hey. I didn't know her nearly as well as you did, and she made
me
want to throw lamps on a couple of occasions.” Billie snickered. “At her butt.” Billie paused. “
But
...I sense there's more....”

“I asked for information, you know, so I could at least send flowers to the funeral home and a card to her mom. She hemmed. And hawed. So I typed her grandmother's name into the computer. Didn't find a death notice anywhere. To make a long story short, turns out there was a good reason for that.”

Billie huffed. “No way,” she said again. “Her grandmother didn't die?”

“She's happy and healthy, still living on her own in a retirement village.”

“Why would anyone make up a story like that?”

“Who knows why crazy people do anything. But she did me a favor in the long run.”

She failed to see how, and waited to see how her brother would explain
that.

“Victoria loves to be the center of attention...unless she looks like a fool. I called her back, thinking once she knew I'd caught her in the lie, it would balance out the way I ended things.
That
didn't end the way I thought it would, either.”

“I don't get it.”

“She read me the riot act. Told me I had a lot of nerve, rubbing her nose in—and I quote—‘the one little mistake' she made.”

“There had to be more than that. I know you.” Billie dabbed wasabi onto a California roll. “You wouldn't have ended it if she'd met you halfway.”

“There you go again, giving people the benefit of the doubt.”

It's what he'd said after Chuck left and refused to acknowledge the pregnancy. She took it to mean Troy had made more than just one mistake in the relationship, too.

“So is it finally over, then?”

Waving a chopstick like a conductor's baton, he sang the exit song from
The Sound of Music.

“Leave it to you,” Billie said, laughing, “to turn a sour note sweet.” She handed him the last shrimp roll. “What did she say when you told her you nearly died?”

“Didn't tell her. Didn't see the point. She already thinks I'm a jerk. Why add fuel to the fire by proving it?”

“I don't get it,” Billie said again.

“If I told her, she'd think I was trying to bury my bad behavior under that sad story. Last thing I want is her pity.”

Billie only nodded.

“Have you seen Noah since Christmas Eve?”

“No. But I'm sure he's been busy, being Santa and all.”

“Uh-oh. Something tells me your two tickets to paradise got canceled.”

“Paradise. Right.”

“Hey, you know me. What goes in here,” he said, pointing to his left ear, “stays in here.”

She grinned at his self-depreciating joke. “It isn't that I don't trust you. It's just...I had a feeling this would happen if I let myself get too involved.”

“Had a feeling what would happen?”

She thought of the almost kiss, and the one that had been anything
but
almost. Remembered what Noah had said when the fever weakened his typically steely self-control. Pictured the way he'd looked at her while sharing his Christmas wish...

Troy sat back, crossed both arms over his chest. “If I tell you something, you have to swear you'll keep it to yourself. You can't tell anyone. Not Mom or Dad. Not Bud. Especially not Noah...”

In high school, when she'd caught their brother, Todd, sneaking into the house after curfew—drunk—he'd promised never to do it again...if she didn't snitch on him. She hadn't told her dad about the speeding ticket and resulting court hearing that her mom hid for years. She'd honored Troy's request to keep quiet the details of the deal he'd made to sidestep Victoria's lawsuit threats. If only he knew how well she could keep a secret!

“Couple of times while I was visiting him, Noah let things slip. Little things at first. Like...how would he let you know he wanted more than a business relationship. And then he worried you might reject him if he ever screwed up the courage to ask you out. Couple days before the accident, he said you deserve better than a guy like him. Said some crazy stuff about baggage. And this morning, he came as close to telling me he loves you as a guy can get.”

Billie didn't know what to say, or how to feel, especially after learning the reasons for Noah's sometimes peculiar behavior.

“I didn't realize you guys spent so much time together. But why are you just now telling me all this?”

“Didn't think of it until just now, to tell you the truth. But what difference does it make? He sent every signal a guy can send. You're smart. And intuitive. I can't believe you didn't figure it out on your own.” He smirked. “Evidently, you don't know everything.”

“If that's the impression I leave you with, I'm embarrassed. And sorry, too.”

“I'm telling you all this because I think if you gave him a sign that you're interested, he'd eliminate the middleman. Namely,
moi.
”

She ought to tell him how, on two separate and very different occasions, she'd all but thrown herself at Noah. That
 
would give her brother a good laugh.

“Remember Dave, that guy you dated in high school?”

“How could I forget the guy you ran up the flagpole—literally—because he dumped me two days before prom? You nearly got suspended.”

“And it would have been worth it. Guy's gotta look out for his kid sister, y'know?”

“I appreciate it. And I love you, too.”

“So anyway, my point is I wouldn't tell you to...I don't know, flirt or whatever...if I thought Noah was a bum.” Troy shrugged, then broke into song again. “Nobody better hurt you, or make you cry-y-y....”

“That's three songs in a row. But at least you have good taste in music.”

They shared a moment of quiet laughter. Then Troy shoved the sushi containers aside and leaned both elbows on the table.

“Correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the feeling you fell for the guy, weeks ago. So what do you have to lose, letting Noah know?”

Billie wanted to cry. She put too much wasabi on a sushi to hide it. “All right,” she said around a bite, “I admit it. I have...I have feelings for Noah. But I can't
 
give him a sign.”

“Why not?”

Because, she thought, one night—probably soon—he would simply disappear without a word, the way he'd left everything and everyone in Chicago. Here one minute and gone the next, like the fog that clung to the rocky banks of the Patapsco.

Troy nodded. “I get it. It's a leap of faith. A big one. After what Chuck did to you, I can see why you're leery. But the only thing Noah has in common with that self-centered jerk you married is...” Troy paused, then said, “I was going to say gender
 
is the only thing they have in common. But Chuck is not
 
a man.”

Billie blotted her eyes.

“Told you that wasabi was powerful. Maybe someday you'll listen to me.”

“Maybe.”

“Go for it, kid. What do you have to lose?”

Nothing. Everything. Billie sighed and dipped another California roll into another deliberately huge dollop of wasabi, let the tears come...and blamed them on the sauce.

* * *

“I
KNOW
 
IT
'
S
last minute, so if you're busy, I understand.”

Billie couldn't believe her ears. Noah Preston, inviting her to Alyssa's birthday party tomorrow, and thinking she might have other plans. It was almost laughable.

She could play it cool. Pretend there was something on her calendar that she'd have to rearrange. Decline, to reinforce the “That'll teach you to make
me
an afterthought!” attitude. But she'd never been any good at those silly, passive-aggressive games. Life was complicated enough without trying to control others. Relationships shouldn't be that much work, either.

“I wouldn't miss it,” she said. “What can I bring?”

“Just your pretty self.”

He made a noise—something between a groan and a cough. Proof that a little unintended truth had slipped out, and he didn't know how to react to it?

“It's funny you called, because I was going to call
you,
to ask when I could bring her present.”

“You didn't need to get her anything. That kid has more toys than she knows what to do with.”

Billie heard the grin in his voice, and it touched that sweet, warm spot in her heart. “Of course I did. I love you guys.”

She slapped a hand over her mouth and hoped she hadn't made the same “oops, what have I said” noise he'd just made.

“You okay with burgers and dogs on the grill?”

“Sure. I'll make my world-famous potato salad. Who else is coming, so I know how much to make?”

“Half a dozen kids from Alyssa's class and a parent or three. Bud, Troy, Max... I know it seems too cold outside to grill, but there's a method to my madness. I'm not good with small talk, and the deck isn't big enough for that many people.”

So, she thought, a
real
party, then, and not just something thrown together on the fly.

“Did you already order the cake?”

She heard his hiss of frustration. “Darn. I knew I was forgetting something.”

“Relax. You worry about the paper plates and plastic utensils—”

“Sheesh...”

He'd forgotten those, too? Well, he had time to pick some up.

“—and I'll bake the cake.”

“You'd do that?”

Anything for you, Noah, Nate...
whatever
your name is.

“It'll be fun, dragging out my decorating tools.”

“Thanks. See you at—”

She looked at the receiver to check the reception, which was dumb, because he'd called her house phone.

“Um, see you at three. And thanks, Billie. You're a sweetheart. Thank you.”

Sweetheart, indeed,
Billie thought as he hung up. She grabbed her keys and headed for her parking pad out back, thinking
idiot is more like it.
She and Noah didn't even have a relationship, yet here she was, feeling hurt and rejected. Which was ridiculous and unfair, since he hadn't made any promises.

Maybe she had become one of those women that stylists and their customers talked about at the hair salon, the kind who ignore the signs of trouble and plow ahead when things go awry, determined to make the impossible work. She'd be the one all her friends and relatives tried to match up with their coworkers, bachelor neighbors and recently widowed former schoolmates.

The errands, at least, would divert her attention from what promised to be a strange and sad future. By hitting the grocery store while most people were eating supper, she could get in and out with the ingredients for the cake and potato salad, some balloons and streamers, and still get home by six. While the cake was in the oven, she'd start the potato salad, and while the spuds were boiling, she'd make baked beans. Barring unexpected interruptions, she'd have everything ready before she turned in for the night.

What a joke, Billie thought, grabbing a cart. She'd probably lie awake all night, wondering if they'd have any time alone together while she decorated and got the buffet table set up for Alyssa's guests.