Chapter Fourteen
Noah couldn’t believe he made it to Anita’s house without getting stopped for speeding. There had to be a way to make this right. To apologize even though he still thought he was right. Tony Delgado seemed like a decent guy who’d made mistakes as a young man. Who hadn’t made mistakes?
Noah had made plenty of mistakes over the years, but he’d always done what he thought was right.
He pulled in behind Anita’s Mini, skidding to a stop only an inch or so from the bumper. He remembered the day they met, how he’d almost crashed into her car when he’d turned the box truck in front of her. Maybe they were destined to be a near miss.
Noah was about to knock when he heard a scream and a crash. The door was unlocked, so he burst in and found her bashing the mantel over and over with the baseball bat he’d discovered under the sofa the night they’d made love on the living room floor. She looked fierce. Beautiful. Scary.
He had to call out her name several times to get through to her.
She turned to face him, breathing heavily, the bat raised high, poised to smash something else. He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Whoa. What happened?”
She stared at him as if she didn’t know how to answer. “What hasn’t happened?”
He figured if he kept her talking, she wouldn’t aim that bat at his head. “Okay. Pick one.”
“You had no right to contact my father when you knew I didn’t want to talk to him. You’re only a fling. A July guy.” She lowered the bat but still held it in a white-knuckled grip. “It was none of your business.”
Her words hurt like she’d cut out his guts with a reciprocating saw. “I guess you’re right.” He’d been thinking like a father, not a lover. A temporary lover, at that. She’d certainly made that clear. He lowered his hands. “Can you forgive me?”
“I’ll never forgive you.” Her eyes sparked with anger. “I’ll never forgive you for making me wish you weren’t just a fling. For making me want to fall in love with you.”
The breath whooshed from his lungs as if she’d punched him in the gut she’d already ripped open. “You love me?”
“Of course not. But I could, damn you, so easily. You know I don’t want to. You know love doesn’t mean a happy ending.”
“I could fall in love with you, too.” He suspected he was already there, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. Not yet.
“Well, isn’t that just great.”
The sarcastic tone of her voice scraped at his nerves. Had her mother fucked her up so much that she couldn’t appreciate love when she finally experienced it for herself?
“Yes, damn it, I think it’s amazing.” He lowered his voice, held her gaze. “Against all odds, you’re actually talking about loving me. Loving each other. It could happen if we let it. We can work everything else out. Stay. Stay here with me. We’ll make it work.”
“I knew you’d make me choose.” The accusation was sharp in her voice. “That’s what my mom always said. And she was right. Love makes you choose.”
“Anita—”
“Well, I’m not giving up the life I’ve built with my sweat and tears.”
“I’m not asking you to give up your life.” Or was he?
“We’re not kids just starting out like my parents were when love’s choices tore them apart. We’ve both built lives of our own. Look at you. You’re responsible for your family’s business. You have your daughters here. You’re going to be a freaking mayor.” She swiped a lone tear from her cheek. “Your roots are deep, salvage man. I’d never even ask you to choose.”
He stepped up to her, took the bat from her hand, and propped it up against the mantel again. He took her hand and locked her gaze with his. “Ask me.”
…
Anita shook her head slowly. How could he even suggest that? “No.”
He was so freaking sincere. “It would be a challenge, giving up my life for you, but it could be worth it.” He squeezed her hand. “You’re worth it.”
She yanked away. “I don’t want you giving up anything.” That’s how the resentment started. How the hate and bitterness burrowed in. “How could you even think of leaving your home, your family, your business, your town? They need you.”
“You need me.”
She clenched her fists and forced herself to keep her voice steady. “I don’t need you. And I don’t want you to follow me. Didn’t I make that clear?”
“Yeah, you made it crystal clear. I’m only one of many. I’m a fool who thought he had a chance with a woman who flits from man to man like a butterfly. You should have had that inked on your skin instead of that proud, fierce phoenix.”
And the bitterness had started already.
“Go, Noah. Back to your girls, your family, your town. To everyone who needs you.”
His dark eyes burned. “And what if I need you?”
Her phone rang, and from the ringtone, she knew it was her mother’s memory care facility. “I have to take this.” She grabbed the phone off the counter and turned her back on him. “Hello?”
“I’m sorry to bother you on your vacation, Ms. Delgado, but we have conflicting dates for your return this year, and I just wanted to verify when you will be back in Philadelphia.”
Anita could feel Noah’s gaze burning into her back. She was so tempted… No, better to make a clean break. “Thanks for calling. I’m leaving now. I’ll be in to see my mother this evening.”
“You’re going back to Philadelphia today?” he asked after she set the phone back down.
“Please don’t make this harder than it has to be. It was always going to be temporary.” She took a deep breath and steeled herself before she turned around to face him for the last time. “Good luck with the election. Ginny says you’re going to beat that lousy Ethan Bradford.”
He cleared his throat. “I hope so.”
She leaned close and kissed his cheek. “Goodbye, salvage man.”
He brushed a stray tear off her cheek with the edge of his thumb. “Goodbye, Anita. Drive safe.” He turned then, and she watched him walk away.
Anita didn’t start shaking until he was out the door. She sank to the sofa and clenched her hands in her lap. He’d scared the living hell out of her when he’d suggested he might be willing to give up his life in Lakeside for her.
She couldn’t let him do that.
It was easier to stay mad at him. Remember that he’d way overstepped the bounds when he contacted her father. And to ask her to stay? How dare he? Her heart began to thud at the thought.
She was out of here. She could call a realtor when the work on the house was completed. She didn’t need to be in Lakeside. Noah had a key. Even with all that had happened between them, she knew he’d keep an eye on the house for her.
She’d already packed most of her stuff when she went to Noah’s. Everything was still in the car. She could be home by dinnertime. She jumped to her feet. Nothing to think about.
There was a knock at the door. God, who is it now?
She opened the door to Antonio Delgado, a suitcase at his feet. She stumbled back.
“Hello, mija.”
Her father wasn’t quite as big as she remembered as a child, but his shoulders were still broad, his spine straight.
She stepped into the doorway to block his way. She couldn’t deal with anything else today. “What are you doing here?”
He began to reach out to her, but when she stiffened, he pulled his hand away. “I came to see you, of course.”
“Well, I don’t want to see you.” She wouldn’t let his dejected expression move her. “I want you to go away.” She couldn’t let him in. Not into the house. Not into her heart. “You have to leave.”
“I flew many hours to see you.”
“That’s not my fault.” She narrowed her eyes. “Does Noah know? Did he arrange this?”
“I was perfectly capable of doing it on my own. Don’t paint Noah Colburn as the villain.” He nodded toward the house. “Can I come in?”
He was here now. Her father. Here. Her blood rushed in her ears. She couldn’t move. “There’s no point. I’m going back to Philadelphia today.”
“I’ll go with you then.”
“No.” She dragged her fingers through her hair. What was happening? How could she even consider it? Was she considering it? Could she be shut up in her car for seven hours with her father?
He took a step forward. “I want to see Patty. My poor Patty.”
He’d have a rude awakening. “I was just leaving. I need to grab a few more things.” She stepped out of the doorway. Apparently, she was considering it.
“I’ll help.” He followed her in. “I haven’t been in this house in a long time. Nice kitchen.”
Anita kept walking. “Noah and I stripped the wallpaper here in the dining room. Boy, was that a messy job. The painters will be here tomorrow. Mom told me Aggie died before I was born. I never knew her.”
He placed his hand on her arm to stop her nervous babbling. “Patty was your whole family, then. I’m sorry, mija.”
“You should be.” Stepping into the bedroom, Anita handed him a tote bag full of photo albums and the framed pictures she’d taken from her mom’s room. “What did you think of my grandmother?”
“She was strict, but she had a wicked sense of humor. She could fly off the handle, speak without thinking, and your mother must have learned from her.”
Speak without thinking? Was that in her DNA? “Aggie told me the women in our family are stubborn and overreact.”
“She told you? I thought you never met her.”
“I’ll explain on the way.” She grabbed a couple other bags, and they filled the trunk and the back seat of her car.
They weren’t even off the lake road before her father said, “I don’t want you to think I didn’t love you. That I didn’t want you. Because I did.”
Her grip tightened on the steering wheel. “Actions speak louder than words. You ever hear that saying in Spain?”
“Of course. I simply ask that you have an open mind, mija. I will do whatever I have to do to have a relationship with you now.”
Hadn’t she always longed to hear those words? “Okay, talk.”
“I don’t know how much your mother told you.”
“She told me a lot, but then, she told me Aggie was dead, so maybe everything she said was a lie.” Anita had never considered that until she’d gotten the call from Carter.
“I loved your mother very much.” She could hear the truth in his voice. Like she heard it in Noah’s?
“Noah’s parents knew you. Do you remember Donna and Chuck? They told me they were sure you loved each other.”
“Of course I remember them. We would ride motorcycles and play board games. They are still in Lakeside?
“They run the salvage business, Colburn and Sons.”
“Noah never mentioned his parents’ first names, and I didn’t remember the last name. They say it is a small world. It is true.”
“Let me tell you what I know, and then you can tell your side. You and Mom met at college. You both wanted to be doctors. You came to Lakeside during breaks. A year or so in, there was a whoops.”
He turned to stare at her. She didn’t take her eyes off the road.
“I never considered you a whoops. Well, if I am honest, we were terrified when we first discovered Patty was pregnant, but we were happy once we got used to the idea. If her mother had reacted differently when we told her…”
Anita tried to focus on the road and not the overwhelming emotions. “Yeah, so Aggie threw her out. You eloped and went back to school. Mom had to drop out because she got sick and tired, and she waitressed to pay the bills and watched you get another step closer to what she’d dreamed of for herself.” Anita had heard it so often growing up, she could repeat it word for word.
“Is that what she told you? I encouraged her to go back to school after you were born. My parents were wealthy and would have covered our bills, and there was a woman next door who watched you while your mother was working. She would have been happy to do the same if your mother had been in school instead.”
“So did she really not want to be a doctor?” Anita had never considered that. Had her mother been looking for an excuse?
“I don’t know.” He sounded confused as well.
“She got her nursing degree and was an ER nurse for years.”
“Then she got her schooling after I’d left.”
He left. He made it sound so matter-of-fact. “You left us when Mom wouldn’t move out of the United States.”
He huffed. “I’d told her I wanted to go back to Spain when we first began dating. I guess she didn’t believe me.”
“Maybe she thought having a child here would change your mind, and you’d stay.”
Her father was silent for a moment. “I never thought of it that way. I suppose she could’ve thought that. She didn’t expect her mother to react the way she did. We thought we’d have Aggie’s support.”
Determining Aggie’s and Patty’s motivations would always be supposition. Maybe Noah was right. It helped to be able to talk to her father. To ask direct questions and get the answers she’d always wanted.
“Do you still practice?”
“I was an orthopedic surgeon. Unfortunately, the arthritis has decided my fingers can no longer manage.”
“You’ve retired?”
“Only a few months ago. Yes.”
“Do you have a family in Spain?” Did she have family?
“I married again when I was in my forties to a lovely widow. We had no children. Maria died several years ago.”
She’d wondered if she’d had any half siblings. That answered that question. But it wasn’t the most important question. Maybe she could finally get real answers from her father.
It was time to get to the heart of it. “You say you loved me. Wanted me. I still don’t understand why then you never visited me. I assume you had the money to travel, because you contributed a lot of dough to my trust fund.”
“I regret I ever agreed with your mother’s decision that there should be a clean break.”
What? It had been her mother’s decision? Anita’s throat closed. She couldn’t think. Didn’t know what to feel. She whipped into a convenience store parking lot, shut off the motor, and grabbed the bottle of water in the cup holder. She gulped while her mind whirled. “Explain please.”
“She didn’t want me to be a part of your life. She felt you would be confused by a father who only showed up occasionally.”
“She wanted to hurt you and ended up hurting me.” How could Anita interpret it any other way?
He grasped her hands. “Remember I was young. I still had much schooling. I worked insane hours. I wouldn’t have been able to travel much, if at all, in those early years.”
Excuses. Excuses. “That was convenient for you, wasn’t it?” But a little voice in the back of her head asked how many excuses she’d given Noah that morning.
“I can see how you would think that.” Her father’s gaze was so intense, she had to look away. “It probably was, yes, convenient at times. I could tell myself it was what Patty wanted, and that made it all right.”
“But it was never all right.”
“No, mija.”
“I would have rather had you occasionally than never.”
“I realize that now. Can you forgive me?”
The echo of Noah’s question made her heart clench. “I don’t know.”
“Noah told me you forgave Aggie after you got to know her. I hope you will try to get to know me before you make your decision.”
She put the car in gear and pulled onto the highway. “I guess we’ve got a few more hours.”
…
The last place Noah wanted to be was at work, but he couldn’t ignore his responsibilities just because his world had exploded. Besides, Charlene was at the house, and he wasn’t in the mood to make nice with her. There was a tap on his door, and Ginny poked her head in.
“What’s this about you and Charlene getting back together?”
“Where did you hear that?”
She stepped in his office. “Rumors?”
“Char did leave Bruce and come back with the girls, but we’re not getting back together again.”
“Good. I was going to smack you upside the head if you even considered it.” She crossed her arms. “So the painters called. They can start on the walls at Anita’s house this afternoon if we can get the old mantel out of there now. Did you want me to send Pete or Jimmy or…?”
He pushed to his feet. “I’ll go right now.”
Ginny grinned. “I thought you might like the excuse to go over there.”
“Anita’s not there. She’s going back home.”
“No! To Philly? For good?”
For good? That was the question, and he was afraid he knew the answer. “Yeah. I’ll go get the mantel now.”
“Okay.” Ginny touched his arm. “Noah?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry about Anita.”
“Yeah.”
“But don’t forget the meet-the-candidates thing at the town hall tonight.”
Shit. He’d forgotten all about it. “No problem.”
“I’m going to post an update on the renovation progress right now.”
“You do that.”
His stomach was in knots as he drove down the lake road. Maybe she hadn’t left yet. How would she react if she saw him again? Could he still convince her to give them a chance?
Anita’s car wasn’t in the driveway when he got there. Guess he had his answer. He pulled out his tool belt with the crowbar and hammer. That mantel shouldn’t take too much effort to pull off.
There was no answer to his knock, so he used his key. This time, he paused to get a good look at the new kitchen. The guys had done a great job. The colors Anita had picked out for the walls, countertops, and floors worked together perfectly. They should have, with her artistic eye.
Damn, he missed her already.
Did he let her go, knowing that had been the deal from the beginning? Did he give her a little time and hope she’d get used to the idea of loving him? Or did he push, knowing this thing between them had turned into much more than a fling?
He didn’t have an answer right now, so he continued through the dining room and into the living room. He set the tools down. The bat still stood by that abused mantel. He picked it up and smoothed his hand over the hardwood. He could picture Anita taking out her frustrations with it not that long ago. Aggie had done the same. Had it helped them deal with what life handed them?
The tension had been building inside him all day. Noah tested the heft of the bat. He’d once thought if he hadn’t been weighed down with work responsibilities from an early age, he might have played baseball. Not that he would have been good at it, but still, he would have liked the chance to try.
Without another thought, Noah lifted the bat and let it fall with all his might onto the wooden mantel. The force vibrated through his arms, down his legs. But he was already raising it again, smashing it again.
Ethan Bradford. Smash.
Charlene. Smash.
Colburn and Sons Salvage. Smash.
Anita.
Noah lowered the bat, breathing hard. She was right. It was his fault that he’d insisted on adding romance to what was supposed to be a fun one-month fling. If there hadn’t been wine and flowers and walks through the park, would emotions have found their way into their hearts anyway? Who knew? It was too late to second-guess things.
It was his fault he’d contacted her father when she didn’t want him to, but all that had done was speed up the breakup. Nothing would have changed in the end.
It was time to remove this poor mantel. If the painting was finished today, he could install the new one tomorrow, the one Anita had picked out a lifetime ago.
He was right. The mantel came off the wall with a couple of quick tugs from the crowbar. As he lifted it away, he saw a small envelope, the size and thickness of a greeting card, on the floor. They often found cards and photographs that had slipped behind mantels over the years. He picked it up. It was addressed to Anita.
He’d been given another reason to get in touch with her. Thanks, Aggie.
Noah stowed the mantel in the back of the box truck and went back into the house for the bat. He carried it out with him. It wouldn’t be smashing any more mantels.