Читать книгу Suddenly Married - Loree Lough - Страница 11

“I’ll wash, you dry,” Dara suggested as she stacked the dinner plates, “since you know where everything goes.”

He gave her a sideways look. “I realize I come off as an old-fashioned stick-in-the-mud kind of guy,” he said, “but a couple of years back, I actually invested in a modern-day gizmo called a dishwasher.”

Dara grinned as Noah carried the nearly empty lasagna tray to the sink. “Amazing contraption,” he continued. “Put the dirty dishes in, close the door, and voilà! Clean dishes!”

“I stand corrected, Mr. Lucas.”

“‘Noah,’ Miss Mackenzie.”

“‘Dara,’ Mr. Lucas.”

He chuckled, tore off a sheet of aluminum foil and covered the leftover lasagna. “We could go on this way long into the night.”

“I’m afraid I can’t stay long into the night. In fact,” she said, standing on tiptoe at the window, “I should probably have left half an hour ago. I imagine the snow has started to mount up by now.”

Noah flipped a switch near the back door, flooding the yard with light.

Dara gasped. “Oh, my goodness! It’s white, as far as the eye can see, and still coming down like crazy.” She glanced at Noah, who had parted the miniblinds to stare out the half window in the back door. “How deep do you think it is?”

He squinted into the snowy night. “The bottom step is completely buried, and the snow is halfway up the second.” He met her eyes. “If I had to guess, I’d say there’s more than a foot.” He snapped the blinds shut. “We could get another twelve inches before it’s over.”

“But it’s not even Thanksgiving yet!” Dara glanced at the wall clock, then gasped. “How could it be nearly nine o’clock already!”

Noah shrugged. “Time sure flies when you’re having fun?”

“I suppose,” she said distractedly, looking out the window again. “I hope they’ve plowed the roads. I don’t know if my car will make it through a foot of snow otherwise.”

He held out his hand. “Let’s take a gander out the front window and see if the plows have been by or not.”

Hesitantly, she put her hand into his and let him lead her down the hall and into the living room. Had she done or said something to make him think she’d accepted his invitation because she was interested in him? The last thing on her mind had been romance!

Well, not the last thing, but romance certainly hadn’t been the primary reason for the visit. Her plan had been simple and straightforward: hire Noah Lucas to help her prove that her father had not committed a crime. She hadn’t expected to have an opportunity to discuss the arrangement this evening, what with the children around, but she had presumed the dinner would be a good start, a place to establish the rapport required to make the question possible…later.

Dara didn’t know if she’d define what they’d established tonight as “rapport,” but something had developed between them, or that almost kiss wouldn’t have happened in the kitchen earlier.

She blamed it on tension, hers and Noah’s. He hadn’t so much as hinted at that distasteful Pinnacle matter, to give him his due, but it was there anyway, like a translucent fog. Her nerves had been in a knot since he’d first told her about the charges against her father. Surely it was on Noah’s mind, too, since he’d have to be the one to start the prosecution ball rolling.

“I thought you might like the opportunity to replace the money,” Noah had offered, even before she’d taken a seat that first day, “before I make my report to Kurt Turner, if I can legitimately attest that the funds are here…”

Dara had a respectable sum piled up in her savings account, and she’d invested a few dollars in the stock market, as well. But two hundred thousand?

He’d been reserved, businesslike, coldly calculating up until that point, but the moment she admitted she couldn’t put her hands on that kind of money, his demeanor changed. His frown had deepened, and he dug into the file as if he’d gone back a hundred years in time, to some dusty Texas town where a rustler had escaped the jailer’s wagon. In a snap, it was as though he saw himself headin’ up the posse that would hunt down the bad guy, then hold him till the sheriff showed up to haul the varmint off to the hoosegow.

She could tell by the way he attacked this case that he could be as determined as a bloodhound, as ruthless as a pit bull. If she could harness that tenacity, put it to work on her father’s behalf…

“How can I get you on my side?” she intended to ask. Cut and dried. Period. From what little she knew of him, a man like that would probably admire her straightforwardness, because she’d be speaking his language.

A man like what?

He wasn’t cold and heartless. At least, not entirely. He was strict with the children, but what choice did he have, when circumstances had forced him to be both mother and father to them?

He was still holding her hand when they walked into his living room, where the children lay on their stomachs, chins propped in upturned palms, staring at the TV.

“What are you watching?” Noah asked.

“Some show about angels.” Angie rolled over to face her father. “See that man with the long blond hair?”

He nodded.

“He’s one of the angels. Can you believe it? I didn’t know there were such things as boy angels.”

Chuckling, Noah said, “Some of the most powerful angels in God’s kingdom were boys. There was the archangel Gabriel, remember, and Michael, and—”

“Boat angels are no big deal,” Bobby said.

“Boat angels?” Dara asked.

Sitting cross-legged, the boy faced her. “You know, like the ones on the ark?”

Dara smiled. “Ark-angels. Of course.” And laughing, she said, “You’re an angel. A nutty one.”

The show’s credits scrolled up the screen as Noah said, “It’s after nine, kids. Time for bed.”

“But there won’t be any school tomorrow, Father. The weatherman said so, because of all the snow outside.”

“You’re probably right, Angie, but you’ve both been up since six.” He smiled. “Now, say good-night to Miss Mackenzie and run upstairs. I’ll be up in a minute to tuck you in and hear your prayers.”

Without another word of protest, the children turned off the TV.

“Thank you for the dessert, Miss Mackenzie,” Bobby said.

Angie nodded. “It was delicious.”

Dara laid her hands on their shoulders. “I had a wonderful time. And to prove it, maybe I’ll teach you to make ice-cream-cone cakes sometime soon.”

Cheery faces tilted up to meet her eyes. “Really? When?”

“We’ll discuss it in the morning,” Noah interrupted gently. “Now, scoot! Call me when you’ve changed into your pajamas.”

Dara opened the front door a crack, peeked out into the snowy night. “Hmm…the plows haven’t been by yet” She stood for a moment, transfixed by the sight. “It’s so beautiful out there,” she whispered, hugging herself to fend off the chill, “all hushed and white and sparkly.”

Noah rested his chin on her shoulder to have a look for himself. “Beautiful,” he agreed.

He was behind her, so she couldn’t read the expression that accompanied the unadorned statement, yet something in his full, rich baritone told Dara he wasn’t referring to the wintry landscape. The shiver that ran through her had nothing to do with the temperature, because there he was again, unsettlingly close.

“I’d better be going,” she said, trying to hide the tremor in her voice, “before it gets any worse.”

“Before what gets worse?”

Swallowing a gasp, she gave a thought to the possibility that he could read her mind. Then, dismissing it, she said, “The weather, of course.”

Noah turned her to face him. “You can’t drive that puddle jumper of yours in this mess.” With his free hand, he closed the door. “First snowplow that comes along will bury you for sure.”

“Well, I can’t stay here. What would people think?”

“They’d think you were smart enough to know better than to risk your life to protect your reputation.”

Reputation. The word reverberated in her ears. Preserving her father’s reputation had been the sole reason she’d come here.

Or had it?

Whatever the reason, it had gotten lost amid the children’s happy banter, a home-cooked meal, a near kiss.…

Now I know why they say you can’t judge a book by its cover. Noah had all but destroyed her original assessment of him with the affection he’d showered on his kids, with the home he’d made for them. If only he had been the brutal businessman she’d thought him to be, Dara wouldn’t be fighting her feelings for him now!

And how do you feel about him?

The answer was easy: she liked him. Liked him a great deal. Which made things hard, very hard, because in order for her plan to work, she would have to keep things “strictly business.”

Wouldn’t she?

Dara had heard of being backed into a corner, but it had never actually happened to her before. Well, you’re cornered now, she told herself, figuratively and literally. She stood, shoulders and backside pressed against the cool wall, blinking into his dark-lashed blue eyes. Instinct told her Noah would never harm her. So what’re you afraid of? she wondered as her heartbeat doubled.

Was fear responsible for her racing pulse? Or had some other emotion made her feel light-headed and jittery, like a girl in the throes of her first crush?

The only light in the foyer spilled in from the living room, soft and dim and puddling on the deep-green slate in buttery pools. The hazy amber rays painted his face in light and shadow, accenting the patrician nose, the square jaw, the fullness of his thickly mustached mouth.

She wasn’t afraid of him, Dara realized. Rather, it was her reaction to him that scared her witless. The pull couldn’t have been stronger, not if he were made of ore and a magnet had been implanted in her heart.

Noah pressed his palms against the wall, one on either side of her head. “If you insist on going home,” he said, “I insist on driving you.”

“But…”

But that would mean bundling the children up and loading them into the car, putting all three Lucases at risk on the slick, snow-covered roads.

“But what?” Noah asked.

Dara closed her eyes. Lord, she prayed, tell me what to do!

“Father,” Angie called from the top of the stairs, “we’re ready.”

“I’ll be right there.”

His mustache grazed her cheek before he pulled away. Without taking his gaze from Dara’s eyes, he grabbed her hand, led her back into the kitchen. “There’s a canister of hot chocolate in the pantry. Why don’t you fix us both a cup while I make my rounds.”

She glanced toward the French doors that led to the deck. Noah hadn’t turned off the spotlights, and they illuminated thousands of fat snowflakes, as big as quarters, that drifted down and landed silently atop the high, silvery drifts. Every twig and branch seemed to reach up and out, welcoming the thick downy blanket of white. Lovely as it was, Dara couldn’t drive in this. Noah had been right: her aging little compact could barely make it over speed bumps; it would never make it through a foot and a half of heavy, wet snow.

One foot on the bottom step, he turned and said, “I think the snow is a blessing in disguise.”

“A blessing?”

He nodded. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about, and now that you’re a captive audience…” He gave her a small, mysterious smile, then climbed the stairs two at a time.

Does he want to talk more about the Pinnacle funds? Dara wondered as he disappeared around the landing. She had the impression that subject was talked through. Shrugging, she walked into the kitchen. After filling the gleaming chrome teapot with tap water and setting it atop the back burner, Dara grabbed two mugs from the cabinet above the dishwasher. He doesn’t seem like the cocoa type to me, she told herself, dropping a tea bag into each cup. And while she waited for the water to boil, Dara wandered into the family room, where she held her hands above the warmth radiating from the big black woodstove.

She’d heard that Noah had lost his wife several years before moving here. So who had decorated this room? The furniture looked brand-new. Twin muted-blue plaid sofas, facing each other, flanked the fireplace. At either end of each stood a bleached-oak table. On one sat a lamp made from a birdhouse; on another, a brass lantern that had the earmarks of an antique. Magazines, arranged in a fan shape, lay on the coffee table. And framed photographs, rather than paintings or prints, decorated the walls.

Dara moved in for a closer look, saw first a five-byseven picture of Angie, bundled in a bunting, snuggled in her mother’s arms. Noah’s wife had been a beauty, just as Dara had suspected. Long, dark hair spilled over one shoulder, and wide, brown eyes gleamed with maternal pride as she smiled at her infant daughter. Another picture, taken a year later, showed her in a similar pose, this time with Bobby on her lap.

Beside that photograph hung an eight-by-ten fullcolor portrait of Noah and Francine on their wedding day. Her shimmering hair had been gathered in a loose topknot and secured by a wreath of tiny red roses and baby’s breath. The off-the-shoulder gown skimmed her trim waist and hips, rippled out behind her like a white satin river. And Noah, outfitted like royalty in a white tuxedo, stood straight backed and beaming beside his beautiful new wife.

Like the stage manager of a one-act play, the photographer had set the scene, positioning the bride and groom face-to-face on the altar’s red-carpeted steps, arranging her gauzy veil to float around her face like a translucent cloud. He’d placed vases of flowers at their feet, linked their hands around the stems of her redrose bouquet. Talent and artistry aside, he could not have fabricated the love that blazed in their eyes.

Dara had dreamed all her life of loving—of being loved—like that. What would it be like to have found and lost it, as Noah so obviously had? Devastating, she thought. And for the first time since their meeting, Dara believed she understood why Noah sometimes seemed so standoffish, indifferent, almost harsh with his children: he was holding life at arm’s length to protect himself from experiencing such pain ever again.

But if that was the case, why had he come so close to kissing her…not once but twice!

Sighing, Dara returned to the kitchen, where the water was at a full boil in the kettle. How would Noah take his tea? she asked herself, stirring half a teaspoon of sugar into her own mug. With honey and lemon? Cream and sugar? Or just plain? If she had to guess, she’d choose the latter. Everything else about him was no-frills, from the neatly trimmed mustache above his upper lip to the gleam of his razor-cut hair.

And whatever it was that he wanted to say to her, she had a feeling he’d get straight to the point.

Francine had always been the one who’d listened to their prayers, but once she accepted the fact that her illness was terminal, she had said, “It’s important that you be there for them, morning and night. How else will they learn that talking to God can be as easy and as natural as breathing?”

It had been just one of the many things he’d promised in her last hours. So far, he hadn’t let her down. With the help of a cleaning service, he kept the house shipshape and saw to it Angie and Bobby ate three squares a day. He made sure they continued with their piano lessons and took her place in helping them with their homework. And most important of all, he’d made a point of attending Sunday services with them after their Bible class ended. “Children learn by example,” Francine had said.

More times than he cared to admit, Noah wished he’d been more observant of all the little things she’d done to make his life pleasant and peaceful. Things like pretty flower arrangements that brightened dark corners. His bathrobe, belted and hanging neatly in their closet. Socks, freshly laundered and paired, then rolled into a ball and tucked into his top dresser drawer.

She’d known without his saying so that he didn’t like his feet cramped into a tightly sheeted bed. And so, in addition to covers that were pulled back and smoothed, Francine had, without fail, untucked the sheets and blankets every night.

Raised in St. Vincent’s Orphanage with nothing but a change of clothes to call his own, the closest he’d come to loving and being loved was when old Brother Constantine invited the lonely boy to join him for his daily walks around the academy grounds.

He’d been dumped on the headmaster’s doorstep at the tender age of two, and by the time Noah turned fourteen, he’d given up hope that one of the smiling couples who came “visiting” would take him home. The starry-eyed ladies and their stoic husbands were looking for babies, after all, and he’d grown too tall, too gangly, for their tastes. Besides, if his own mother hadn’t wanted him, why should anyone else?

But years of the brother’s quiet and steadfast acceptance opened the boy’s heart to the possibility, at least, that one day he might find the kind of warmth that can be generated only by a loving family. And when he was twenty-two, four full years after he’d left St. Vincent’s and Brother Constantine behind, Noah found it in the arms of Francine Brewster.

Her motherly ministrations were like soothing salve, healing the raw wounds of desperation inflicted by years of believing love was an emotion intended for everyone, anyone but him.

He had accepted her gift of unconditional love, and, believing it was far better to show her that he appreciated it, Noah took to doing little things for his wife. Things like surprising her with bouquets of wildflowers, plucked from the roadside; building a potting shed out back, complete with heat and electricity, where she could tend her green-leafed “pets.” He added a room to the back of their Pennsylvania farmhouse so she’d have a place to read when the mood struck.

Oh, how she’d brightened his life! Noah often said he would have tried to reel in the sun if she thought it might warm her, would have gathered up the stars to add sparkle to her life. She’d laugh softly and wave his wishes away, saying, “You’re plenty warm and sparkly for me!”

Still, he’d have done anything she’d asked of him, because Noah believed that nothing he did or built or said could ever balance the scales once she’d given him those precious treasures called Angela Marie and Robert Edward.

He missed her. Missed the companionship and the camaraderie. And being with Dara tonight had reminded him that a rock-solid marriage could be as comfortable as a feather bed.

He hadn’t met a person who didn’t love Dara—and he’d spoken to dozens in trying to find out if she might be involved in the embezzlement scheme. Why, he’d need a calculator to count up all the people who said she’d done them a favor or a kindness over the years!

She certainly had a way with children, his own in particular. She had an incredible sense of humor. And from all he’d seen, she enjoyed hard work. He sensed that the sweetness in her started in her heart, reverberated to every other part of her. And she’s certainly pretty enough, he thought, picturing her dark doe eyes, her bouncy curls, her heart-stopping smile.

More importantly, Dara was a devout follower. That was essential. Francine had specifically told him if love ever came knocking again, he should open the door—provided a Christian woman stood on the other side. “A believer will see to it Angie and Bobby are raised in the faith. She’ll teach them through her own example, not just by words alone.”

He’d prayed himself hoarse over it; if he had to rehitch his wagon—and according to the counselor, that’s exactly what his kids needed most right now—why not yoke himself to someone he sincerely respected, a woman he genuinely liked?

Noah shrugged. Because who knows? You might just find yourself feeling more than friendship for Dara…one day.

If he was honest with himself, he’d have to admit he felt more than that for her now. How else was he to explain the way his heart had thundered when he’d almost held her in his arms…when he’d almost kissed her lovely pink lips.…

“Father?” Angela Marie was saying now.

She’d caught him daydreaming, and she knew it. Noah returned her mischievous smile.

“Good thing you listened to my prayers last,” she said, grinning.

He tucked the covers up under her chin. “And why is that?”

“Because Bobby gets his feelings hurt if you don’t pay attention to his prayers, remember?”

Nodding, Noah chuckled. “What makes you think I wasn’t paying attention to your prayers?”

“Because,” she said matter-of-factly, “you didn’t say ‘Amen’ when I finished.”

“Good night, sweet girl,” he said, bending to kiss her forehead.

He turned out the light, and as he stepped into the hall, he heard her whisper, “I love you, Father.”

“I love you, too.”

Heart knocking against his ribs, he descended the stairs and headed for the kitchen, where Dara was waiting for him. What he was about to say wouldn’t be easy, but it would be right.

Dara had finished one cup of tea and was halfway through a second before she decided to wait for him in the family room, where it was warmer. According to the carriage clock on top of the TV, he’d been gone twenty minutes.

It seemed like an hour.

Dara worried about staying the night. What would his neighbors say when the little red car that had been parked in his driveway before the snow started was still there in the morning? What would Angie and Bobby think when they woke up and found their Sunday-school teacher asleep on the sofa in their family room? And speaking of Sunday school, how would the parents of her other students feel when they found out she’d spent the night in a widower’s house?

You’re a grown-up, they’d scold, why didn’t you check the weather before it got too hazardous to drive? To which she’d reply, Well, if they don’t think any better of me than that…

Still, others might say that she’d subconsciously allowed herself to get waylaid at Noah’s house. Some would no doubt think it hadn’t been unconscious at all, that she’d deliberately gotten stranded, miles from home, on one of the worst weather nights of the year.

Dara sighed. Because, in all honesty she didn’t know which scenario was true.

She was standing at the stove when she heard him coming down the hall. “How do you take your tea?” she asked when he came in from the small home office adjacent to the kitchen.

He carried a thick accordion file under his arm. “No hot chocolate?”

“I figured you’d suggested it only on my behalf.”

Grinning, he said, “You figured right.”

“So…?” She pointed to the mug

He hesitated a moment before saying, “Strong and black.”

She wondered about the tick in time that had passed before he answered. But his response had been what she’d expected: no frills, just like Noah himself.

“Sorry it took so long up there. The kids get a little wordy sometimes.”

It isn’t like I was going anywhere, she wanted to say, not with a foot and a half of snow on the ground. “I didn’t mind,” she said, instead. “I made myself comfortable in the family room. It’s very warm and cozy in there.”

“Then what say we bring the—” He frowned at the file. “How about if we drink our tea in the family room?”

The way he’d stopped midsentence Dara knew he hadn’t said what he’d intended. His serious expression told her it wouldn’t be long until he did.

She carried their mugs into the family room. While she’d waited for him to tuck the children in, Dara had decided the big overstuffed recliner in the corner was Noah’s. Her father had had a favorite chair, and it, too, had that certain comfortably worn quality. She put one mug on the table beside it, placed the other on the coffee table and nodded at the file. “What’s that?” she asked, sitting on the end of the couch nearest his chair.

“Something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about,” he said, sliding a manila folder from the file. “But before I show you what’s in here, I want you to know I feel terrible about this.”

Why did his tone of voice, his choice of words, remind her of when her father used to begin her childhood scoldings with “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you”?

“I gave a lot of thought to what you’d said the other day in your father’s office, that he wasn’t the kind of man who could steal.”

Dara’s heart hammered; her palms grew moist. This was going to be much more serious than any reprimand her dad had ever doled out.

“I never had the pleasure of meeting him,” Noah continued, “but his reputation as an honest businessman was well-known…and well-deserved, from everything I’ve heard. That’s what prompted me to take another look into this matter of…of embezzlement.”

Embezzlement. The word echoed loudly, harshly, in her ears, like the deep, repeating grate of the school’s fire alarm.

“You sounded so sure of his innocence,” Noah said, “that it made me believe if I dug deep enough, looked long enough, I might just find the proof you were talking about, proof that would clear his name.”

“You’re not going to believe this, but…”

“But what?”

“I came here tonight hoping to discuss that very thing with you.”

His furrowed brow told her he still didn’t understand.

“I was hoping you’d go to work for me, looking for…looking for—”

“Proof that would clear your father’s name?” he repeated.

Dara nodded. “You didn’t find it, did you?”

His somber expression was her answer.

Noah took a deep breath, handed Dara the file. “I didn’t leave a stone unturned. I checked into everything. No one escaped my scrutiny, not the board of directors, not Kurt Turner, not the bookkeeper or even the secretary.” Noah paused, still frowning. “Only a handful of people had access to that money, and each one of them could account for every cent.” He met her eyes, his frown intensifying slightly. “The trail deadends at your father’s door.”