Internal Fixation - Tawdra Kandle Page 0,37

And by the fact that he never ended up coming back downstairs. I mean, he’s been away for over a year, and he comes home and takes a long nap?”

Anna had gone upstairs to check on her grandson about an hour after he’d left Noah and me in the kitchen. She’d come back downstairs moments later, her face placid.

“Poor thing’s exhausted. He was on his bed in just a towel—I’m assuming he got out of the shower and was just too tired to keep going. I put a blanket over him . . . but no sense in waking him up. He needs the sleep.” Her eyes had met mine, and in them, I saw both compassion and regret.

Now, thinking about it, I shrugged. “He must have been pretty tired, I guess.”

“Hmmm.” Noah steered the truck off the asphalt onto the dirt road that we’d cleared this past summer to lead to my cabin. “Seeing him must have been tough on you.”

I worked to keep my tone even. “It was a slight shock to my system.”

“Because of the hospital, you mean? And the way he took off on all of you?”

I hesitated. “That’s definitely a big part of it.”

“Hey.” Noah reached across and brushed my hair away from my face. “Are you okay?”

I wanted to laugh and say, yes, of course I was okay. I wanted to shake off this sense of my world having turned upside down—again. I didn’t want Noah to think that Deacon’s return, as unexpected as his departure had been, had rattled me to my core.

But I didn’t do anything like that. Instead, when Noah’s fingertips touched my cheek, I burst into tears.

It was so fucking embarrassing. I pressed my palms to my eyes and tried to steady my breathing. “I’m okay. Sorry. I just—give me a minute.”

“Em, you know, it’s okay to cry. You don’t have to hide anything from me. I’m not going to judge you for having feelings.” His thumb swiped away a tear from my cheekbone. “It’s healthy to express how you feel. It can actually improve your physical and mental well-being.” He gave me a crooked smile. “A very wise naturopathic doctor told me that.”

“Ha. Very funny.” I sucked in a deep breath and then let it out. “I don’t cry. Really. I hate to cry, and I never do it. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“It’s been a challenging couple of weeks.” Noah chuckled. “Between your move and the football game with all of the shit that was going on around that . . . and then today, seeing Deacon when you didn’t have any inkling he was coming back might have been the last straw. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Anyone would need a little emotional break-down after all that, sweetheart.”

“I guess so.” I knew I should broach the subject of my relationship with Deacon right now. Noah had to have sensed the tension between us today, and it wouldn’t have taken a genius to figure out that most of it had nothing to do with our work at the hospital or my anger over Deacon leaving to handle it on my own.

“Angela used to say you two were meant to be together.” Noah didn’t sound particularly upset about that bit of information. “She said you were adorable, and when I pointed out that you guys fought all the time, she just laughed and said it was foreplay. She told me that Deacon had been in love with you since the minute you met.”

I snorted. “I adored Angela, as you know, and I appreciate that she had a lot of respect for Deacon, but in this case, I have to say she was wrong. Deacon and I . . . we were never meant to be. What was between us didn’t last long, and it was a bad idea from the get-go. It didn’t mean anything . . . particularly to him.” I pushed out of my mind the memory of Deacon kissing me for the first time on that dark beach in Tampa. I refused to remember how much I’d wanted him, and how intense and addictive our nights together had been.

Noah nodded. “You’ve never really said anything about him to me, but looking back, I figured you’d been . . . together in some way. There was a vibe around you, and even though I was pretty focused on Ang, I remember that. And that night in the hospital, when I was so upset and