It's Never too Late - By Tara Taylor Quinn Page 0,28
Nonnie, she was alone. Completely alone. “I know we haven’t known each other long, but I consider you a friend. And you needed a friend. I’m not sorry. I’m glad I was here. Any time you need to talk, or need anything, I’m here.”
In Bierly he’d never have had to say that. Folks just knew.
He could barely make out her nod in the darkness. And so he sat with her. It was just the silence, the night, the glistening water fountain and him. There with her.
Ten minutes passed in silence, and then she shook her head.
“You okay now?”
“Yeah.” She glanced at him, a half smile on her lips. “I don’t know what came over me. It was all so long ago. And I’m fine, really. I don’t make a habit of falling apart. Ever. I hardly even think about that time in my life.”
He wondered if maybe she should.
“Something’s obviously bringing the old memories to the surface,” he said. “Maybe it’s just that you’re away from home, out of your element. Starting a new life...”
He was going through similar adjustments. Reflecting on the life he’d had, the perceptions he’d held, all the things he’d thought he had known.
“Mark?”
“Yeah?”
“Back home, people call me Addy. Would you mind doing so?”
Did he mind? Hell, no. “Is that what your folks called you?”
“My mom, yeah.”
She sat straight up, apparently back in control of her emotions. It was as if she hadn’t just been sobbing in his arms minutes before. Her strength was impressive.
Her compassion—Nonnie couldn’t say enough about her—was noteworthy. And she was sexy as hell.
No wonder he couldn’t go an hour without thinking of her.
She seemed to need silence and he was happy to sit with her for as long as she wanted. Sleep was irrelevant.
“No one knows about my father.”
“That he set the fire, you mean?”
She nodded. “The fire marshal...he was a friend of my father’s. And back then, fire investigation was based almost solely on the opinion and theories of the fire marshal.”
“They didn’t have fire forensics like they do now.” She was in Mark’s territory now.
She nodded, and said, “If he’d ruled that my father started the fire, I’d not only have been emotionally scarred, but I’d have lost his benefits. There’d have been no money for the funerals, or for my care. So he didn’t. I’m sure the fact that my father was a firefighter and friend had something to do with it, too. They protect their own.”
“So what makes you think your dad set the fire deliberately?”
“I know he did. Several years later, my dad’s friend came to see my grandmother. I think he was checking up on me, actually. Anyway, they were in the kitchen talking and I could hear them through the register in the bathroom.”
“Did you say anything?”
“No. Not to anyone. Ever.”
So why him? Why now? And why wasn’t he feeling the least bit cramped by this...thing...between them? He wasn’t receiving replies to his texts to Ella, but things were still somewhat unresolved in his mind regarding the woman he’d expected to marry someday. The woman he’d mentally committed to.
He’d promised Ella he’d be back. It was a matter of his word, not whether or not she believed him.
Or maybe the situation was resolving itself. Maybe his heart knew what his mind was not yet processing—that Ella was not his one and only. That leaving her wasn’t reprehensible. Or wrong.
“You want to go out to dinner sometime?” His words sounded like firecrackers in the night.
“Depends.” Her gaze didn’t move from the fountain.
“On what?”
“Why you’re asking.”
He wasn’t sure. He’d just asked. Kind of like asking Ella to marry him. “You’re patient with my grandmother. We’re friends. I’d like a night out and don’t know anyone around here.” Not entirely true, but close enough. He didn’t know anyone well enough to want to hang out with them for a whole evening.
“So we’d be going as friends.”
“Sure, we can keep it at that,” he said. That was what he wanted, too. Except for when he was thinking about making love with her. Which he was trying not to do, semi-successfully.
“‘Friends’ is all I can offer you.”
He wondered why, but didn’t ask. “I’m good with that.”
When she didn’t say anything else he asked, “When do you want to go?”
“I’m assuming you’re talking about going to Phoenix, right? Other than diners there’s not much here.”
He hadn’t thought that far ahead.
“Phoenix, it is. When?” He could hear himself pushing her. And didn’t stop.
“Your schedule is a lot more complicated than mine,”