Internal Fixation - Tawdra Kandle Page 0,38

I went to talk to Deacon and I found you instead—Deacon was pissed off when he walked in on us talking. I didn’t stop to think about it at the time because I was just worried about Angela, but later, I realized he must have thought it looked suspicious, huh?”

I chose my words carefully. “It wasn’t anything you did or anything that I did, actually. I didn’t know at the time, but I guess something that happened in Deacon’s past made him more, um, susceptible to believing I might do something inappropriate.” I wasn’t sure why I was tiptoeing around this topic. I should’ve come right out and told Noah what Deacon had shared with me in his good-bye letter. But for some reason, it felt like a confidence that I didn’t want to violate, even now.

“I guess I can understand that.” Noah ran his hand over the top of the steering wheel. “I had a buddy in Texas whose wife had cheated on him with a teammate. That’s some bad shit right there, believe me. It can destroy a team when one member betrays another like that. It had been almost ten years for this guy, and he’d divorced her and married someone else, but it still wasn’t easy on him when his new wife was hanging around with all of us. He told me once that it was like a broken bone that hadn’t healed right, and just seeing his woman laughing with another football player brought back all the pain.”

This was one of the things I adored about Noah. He was intuitive—I hadn’t had to share all the dirty details of Deacon’s past for him to get the gist of what I was trying to convey—and he was empathetic, relating something in his own experience to what I’d just described. I knew that he’d have my back in any confrontation with Deacon, but at the same time, he wasn’t suddenly going to go caveman on the man he liked and respected. Not without a dang good reason to do it, anyway.

“Yes, exactly,” I agreed. “So while I understand why Deacon acted like he did, I don’t want to be with a guy who can’t—or won’t—trust me. Your teammate’s new wife must have been a very patient and compassionate woman. I don’t think I have it in me to be that way.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.” Noah grinned at me. “I’d say you have untapped reserves of compassion. And you’re very patient with me.”

“I’m glad you think so highly of me, but it’s possible you’re a little bit biased, being my friend.” I smiled back at him, and for a moment, the rest of the day fell away, and I felt myself beginning to relax. Noah had that effect on me; his easy humor and the way he listened to me without judgement was refreshing. Being around him was uncomplicated and fun, which was one reason why we’d spent so much time together over the past year.

It was also why wanting more with this man was so tempting. I had a hunch that a relationship with Noah—one that included romance and dates and sex, that is—would be refreshingly simple, even considering the complicating factors of his status as a fairly recent widower and his increasingly high-profile as a professional football player.

Thinking about that reminded me of something I’d wanted to ask Noah. “You don’t think today’s going to be a problem for you, do you? I mean, the fact that you were at the party, with all those people at Anna and Jimmy’s house. Most of them recognized you, I bet. I don’t want to cause any issues.”

He shook his head. “Nah. If anyone asked me why I was a guest at a Christmas party in Harper Springs, I’d tell them the truth—my friends invited me. And you were so busy the whole time, flitting around here and there, that I’d challenge anyone to have taken a picture of the two of us together, unless it was right when we were arriving or leaving. That’s unlikely, since we were the first ones there and among the last to leave.”

“That’s true.” And in the kitchen, when Noah had called me babe, as he often did in a carelessly affectionate manner that meant absolutely nothing beyond friendship, there hadn’t been anyone but Deacon. No one was around to see Noah lay his hands almost possessively on my shoulders and give them a gentle squeeze . . . except for