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“Do tell?” She arched her brow as she stepped from the office. “I’m going out for a while. Toby has the office and I’m getting on his nerves.”
“There are cars in the bay,” Noah gritted out.
“And you’re so handy with them,” she stated coolly as she moved from the office and closed the door behind her. “I’ll see the two of you in the morning.”
“Where the hell are you going?” The words were out of his mouth before he could hold them back.
Noah could feel the tension brewing in him, between them. She wanted promises. She should have learned how easily promises could be broken. He knew. He knew and it ravaged his soul, tore at his guts minute by minute, knowing, at any moment, any promise he made to her could be like dust. Like death. Simply gone.
“It’s none of your business where I’m going, Mr. Blake,” she told him. “But if you must know, I thought I’d go clean house.” Her eyes met his and he felt something constrict in his soul. “See ya’ll tomorrow.”
She moved to the cooler, grabbed a cold water, and left the store. Noah watched her walk across the asphalt of the station lot and take the walkway up to the house.
She moved slow and easy, her hips shifting, ass bunching. His hands clenched at the remembered feel of those curves under his hands. Two days without her and it felt like another six years.
“You’re killing her,” Rory said then. “You fly back in here, make her live again, and then suddenly, she’s hollow eyed and quiet. I hate you for that, Noah.”
And Noah nodded slowly. Yeah, he understood that. Related. Felt it. He hated himself. He shook his head and moved from the store, back to the garage. He had vehicles to fix, a mission to finish. Things were better this way. She wasn’t hiding in the house, burrowed in the bed, grieving for a man who no longer existed.
She was pissed. Probably hurt. But this one she could survive, he told himself.
He picked up the wrench and braced his hands on the frame of the SUV and wondered if he would survive it. Because he could feel the pain fracturing inside him, spreading through him until the ache was like an open wound.
Until the need for her touch, her laughter, her smile, sliced at his soul.
Sabella walked into the house and slammed the door closed. She was met by pictures. Dozens and dozens of pictures that filled the living room. Pictures of Nathan, of her and Nathan, Nathan and Grandpop, and Rory and Nathan.
They stared at her, mocking her.
She moved to the fireplace, to the mantel, and lifted the trifold frame. And she smiled. Their wedding picture. How young she had been. How stupid. She let her finger trace over Nathan’s strong jaw. It wasn’t as blunt now, it was sharper, leaner.
She’d been on the computer that morning, researching what kind of damage could have caused that. Shattered bones had been the most likely cause. Or broken bones that had rehealed improperly.
She closed her eyes and swallowed tight. Repairing it would have been almost as painful as the cause. His lower lip wasn’t as full as it had been, and there was a fine web of barely detectable scarring at one side.
She leaned her head against the picture of the man she had been married to.
“I love you,” she whispered. “I love you, Noah.” Because he was Noah now, and she knew it. Nathan still lived inside him, but she had a feeling Noah was the man Nathan had never given her.
She replaced the picture before she trudged up the stairs and moved to the shower. She’d promised Sienna and Kira she would meet them at one of the bars in town later. One of the few Rick didn’t fight Sienna over going to.
Rick was as protective of his wife as Nathan had been over her, long ago and far away. She shook her head at that thought.
She had several hours before she needed to get ready for that little
girls’ night out.
She walked into the bedroom, stared at the bed. She started by stripping off the comforter then the sheets. The pillowcases that still held his scent.
She changed the bed, packed the sheets downstairs to the washer, and poured the detergent and bleach to them.
She walked to the basement, pulled free one of the most expensive bottles of his wine and brought it upstairs. Hell, it wasn’t as though he needed it. He wasn’t sticking around and she damned sure wasn’t packing it up for him.
She cleaned house and drank the wine. She dusted and scrubbed. She cleaned the scent of him out of her home. She changed her comforter, pulled the pillows from the guest room and placed those on her bed. They definitely didn’t smell like Noah.
She turned the music up loud. Godsmack, Nine Inch Nails. All the those pesky hard rock bands Noah had always hated. And she hadn’t played them when he was home. She finished the wine and let the glow suffuse her.
She filed and painted her finger- and toenails. She showered, lotioned her body, fixed her hair, and put on the makeup she hadn’t worn in three years.
