“You don’t have to keep it quiet. Last time I saw my father I was eight years old. I am not responsible for him or his choices.”
“No. Jesus, Noah.” Something indefinable had changed in Colin’s voice. “I’m sorry.”
He cleared his throat. “Can’t pick our parents.”
“No. I wouldn’t pick either of mine.”
Noah wasn’t going to cut himself open and bleed here and now even though he felt a sense of kinship unfamiliar to him. He had a meeting with the facilities manager scheduled to start in ten minutes. Nothing had really changed. “You’ll let me know?” he asked.
“The minute we find out.”
He made it through the meeting, and the dozen routine phone calls he had to make thereafter.
The Novocaine wore off at some point, leaving him with a sensation that felt more like pressure than pain. It made it hard to sit. Muscles began to jerk in rebellion. He needed to run, to hammer a punching bag, to do something. Finally he shot to his feet, told Ruth he had to talk to someone and took the stairs rather than the elevator down one floor. Nobody in Development and Planning appeared surprised to see him. City Councilman George Miller was leaning against the counter looking mad, his face and balding pate both red. He straightened, but Noah only shook his head.
“Not now, George.”
He rapped lightly on Cait’s door, hoping like hell she was there.
“Come in,” she called.
He did, and, upon seeing that she was alone, he shut the door behind him, leaning back against it.
Her face was drawn and tired, but she was beautiful anyway. Today’s outfit made him think of fresh peaches, blushing with color. She looked at him warily.
“Will you have dinner with me tonight?” he asked.
Those soft gray eyes studied him for an uncomfortable length of time. “Is something wrong?”
Wrong? He examined the concept. Finding out his father had been dead all this time, had been murdered, wouldn’t alter Noah’s life in any meaningful way. The dead part was no surprise. People didn’t usually disappear as thoroughly as Brian Chandler had unless they had died. Even so… The pressure inside his chest was still increasing. Sooner or later it would boil over. It had to.
Yeah, he guessed it was fair to say something was wrong.
“I don’t know yet,” he said. “Will you spend the evening with me?”
He didn’t think he could stand it if she made a jab implying all he wanted was sex.
Sex—well, that might be one way to release this near-unbearable force building inside him, but it wasn’t what he wanted most. Right now, he would have given anything to hold her. Take her weight against his and let her bear some of his. With employees, not to mention a city councilman, right on the other side of the door, that wasn’t possible here and now, but he thought he could hold on if only he knew she would leave with him at five o’clock.
She smiled at him, though it wavered a little. “I’d love to, Noah. I was going to call you and…and say I’m sorry for reacting the way I did the last time you asked me. Maybe the stress is getting to me.”
“I don’t see how it can help but be.”
“Let me know when you want to go.”
He nodded and reached without looking for the door handle. “George is out there,” he warned.
Her eyes widened. “George Miller?” She whispered even though it wasn’t necessary.
“None other.”
“Oh, Lord.” She kept her voice hushed. “He’s not happy. I’m starting to wonder if Phil wasn’t the only one who had a little arrangement with someone in the department. George is acting shocked to be asked to complete more steps in an application, as if he’d never had to hire water or septic or traffic engineers before and considers them a waste of money. His latest project is…well, maybe not ill-conceived, but not carefully conceived, either. I know Earl rubs you the wrong way, but at least he dots his i’s and crosses his t’s.”
One side of his mouth lifted in the first glimmer of humor he’d felt all day. No, in longer than that. Since he’d scared Cait with his display of temper.
“Then I’ll never complain about Earl again,” he swore.