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“The microbrewer owns the bowling alley. I like the beer and prefer coming here over the brewery itself. People leave me alone.”
“Oh.” Then, letting curiosity get the better of her, she asked, “So, what happened to your leg?”
Noah frowned. “Kind of a personal question, isn’t it?”
“You saw me crying into the yogurt,” Willow said with a shrug. “That pretty much did away with my inhibitions.”
Willow looked away from his keen-eyed stare and focused on her children. Emma’s blond pigtails swayed as she rocked back and forth, watching her bowling ball roll slowly down the lane. Willow should get her phone out and take a picture or two of this first, but she had a personal rule about phones at the table.
She shifted her gaze back toward him, an apology on her tongue. He spoke before she could.
“I injured my leg in a fire,” he said in a tone and manner that declared the topic closed. He followed immediately with, “So why the tears?”
Well, guess she’d asked for that, hadn’t she? Willow was spared an immediate reply by the arrival of a server carrying two glasses of beer. After setting them on the table, he asked, “Anything to eat?”
“Not for me, thank you,” Willow said with a smile. “We’ve already had dinner.”
“Large pizza. The works,” Noah said.
“You must be hungry.” Willow hoped to distract him from the topic of her tears, so she plowed ahead with food talk. “Is the pizza here good? My mother orders from Pizza Planet, and it’s pretty good. My kiddos will eat pizza every day if I let them.”
“It’s excellent here, believe it or not. Drew and Emma might want some as an after-dinner snack. Why were you crying, Willow?”
So much for distraction. Willow slid her thumb along the side of the glass, scooping up a bead of condensation as she sought an explanation that wouldn’t bare her soul.
“Is something the matter with Drew?” Noah pressed.
“Drew?” Her head came up. “Why would you ask that?”
“When he asked me to come to your family wedding, he—”
“Whoa,” Willow said, interrupting. “He what?”
“He invited me to Uncle Jake’s wedding,” he replied, the faintest gleam of a twinkle in his golden eyes. “Your brother?”
Willow nodded, sitting back hard against the padded seat of the booth as he continued. “He said you told him he could bring a friend. Apparently, he considers me his only friend in Lake in the Clouds.”
That took Willow’s breath away. Her heart twisted. “Oh, Drew. He breaks my heart. Truly he does. I’ve been trying to help him find other children his age to befriend, but it’s been challenging. I should have signed him up for youth basketball, but the season had already started when we moved here, and I decided to wait for baseball. That starts next week.” She brushed at a crumb on the table, summoned her nerve, and asked, “Did you accept his invitation?”
“What?” Noah’s brows arched. “No, of course not. I’m a recluse, don’t you know? I don’t do weddings.”
Willow didn’t know whether to be relieved or insulted. “But you do bowling alleys?”
“A man needs his pizza. Nobody delivers all the way out to my place. You’re attempting to deflect. Talk to me about your meltdown. That seemed to be more than wedding jitters.”
She considered telling him it was none of his business, but that felt rude in light of the kindness he had shown her. She decided to share half the story. She told him about her in-laws’ arrival and the news Maggie had relayed about buying her a house.
“That’s some gift,” he responded. “Comes with some strings, I’ll bet.”
“Strings. Yarn. Rope. Chain. Spools and spools and spools of it.”
“You didn’t tell her to keep her house?”
“No. She literally just sprung this on me. The situation is more complicated than just a house. I need time to think everything through and speak to her with kindness. I know her heart is in the right place. They are my children’s grandparents, and they love Drew and Emma. I don’t want to alienate them. I think it’s important for children to have family in their lives.”
Had she not been watching him, she’d have missed the grimace that flashed across his face. A story there. Was Noah Tannehill a divorced father, perhaps?
His voice was rough as he added, “I know it’s tough to be a single parent.”
