“I’d rather be a bit uptight than a hobo like you,” Noah said as he looked at the ripped jeans and faded shirt Finn was wearing.
“Hey! I was in a uniform for seventeen years of my life. Now I want to be comfortable,” Finn said. “It’s a much less stressful way to live. You should try it sometime. Why don’t we get dirty and go shoot some Tannerite?”
The desire to take the afternoon off and do just that was so damn tempting Noah found himself close to saying yes.
He shook his head.
“I have too much work to get done right now to play hooky today, but it’s tempting. Some of us can’t live like bums and sit around the house in ripped-up clothes,” Noah said. Finn just smiled, not seeming offended at all. “Besides,” he added before his brother could say anything, “I have nothing to prove to anyone.”
“Come on, little brother. We’ll have a blast, and we haven’t had a day like that in a long time,” Finn pushed.
“Yeah, your adventures usually end up with someone in the ER, and I can’t afford a week off of work,” Noah pointed out.
“That only happens once in a while,” Finn told him with a laugh.
Brooke was watching the two of them with a smile. She didn’t have any family left and had told them several times she loved that by marrying Finn, she’d inherited an entire new one. Noah was glad to call her his sister.
“You two enjoy the rest of lunch. I just got paged to the clinic,” Brooke said after her phone went off.
“It’s Saturday,” Finn said with a pout that cracked Noah up. His brother wasn’t normally the pouting kind.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she told her husband. “You hold down the fort until I’m back.”
“Deal,” he said before kissing her so intimately Noah once again felt like an intruder.
“Don’t let the children escape,” she warned before stepping out of the room.
“Where are my nieces?” Noah asked. He was a lot in love with them.
“Sleeping. It’s a rare event,” Finn said with another laugh.
“Brooke trusts you on your own with them?” Noah questioned.
“I’m a hell of a dad,” Finn said as he puffed out his chest. “But those little girls do give me a run for my money,” he admitted. “And with Brooke back to work part time, we’ve hired a nanny. Not that she doesn’t trust me,” he quickly added, “but because we both realized sleep deprivation was beginning to make us slowly lose our minds.”
Noah laughed some more. “You’re getting outwitted by a couple of infants. I love it.”
“You just wait,” Finn warned. “You’ll be on this side of life before you know it. Then my girls will be sleeping through the night, and I’ll be laughing at you,” he promised.
A shudder ran through Noah. “No way. I’m not that dumb,” he said.
“Mm-hmm. That’s what I thought. Now I can’t even imagine how lonely I’d be without Brooke and those girls. They’re my world.”
“Damn straight they are,” Noah said. “And my nieces.”
“Yeah, we’re all pretty blessed.”
There weren’t more true words spoken. They’d always been a blessed family. Some people might forget that, but Noah vowed to always remember and always be grateful. His mother had reminded them too often of how fortunate they were for him to dishonor her by forgetting.
He said goodbye to his brother after another hour. It was time to go find Sarah. He wasn’t even going to pretend he didn’t want to see her. And he had some soul-searching to do. Maybe it truly was time to trade in the suit and look at life like an adventure. Maybe if he could do that, he could do anything.
CHAPTER SIX
Dreaming was essential to the human existence. If people spent more time with their dreams and less time in reality, the world would be a happier place. Sarah firmly believed this. Why was it so damn important to grow up? Why did she feel she had to always be in control of her life and her experiences? She didn’t want to grow up, didn’t want to be responsible. Yet even knowing this and having a desire for freedom, she couldn’t seem to let her hair down and let it all go.
She wanted to be one of those people who decided to be in Neverland forever and think to hell with anyone who had a problem with it. But no matter how much she desired that, she couldn’t seem to get herself to act on her own wishes.
Sarah had spent so much time in school in uptight clothing with glasses on and her brain active while trying to portray a person who had it all together that she hadn’t known anything about life. She was beginning to figure that out, but she was still a little lost. Now she was twenty-seven and just now starting to know who she was.
On her days off she lived in a favorite pair of sweatpants and a camisole. But she wouldn’t dare show up in public like that. While working, she often wore a pencil skirt and cotton blouse. She wanted nothing to do with silk or satin or any clothing that would take too much time to coordinate. The more time she spent on grooming, the less time she had to do her actual work.
She did have a love of fitness, though, and there was always a gym bag in the back of her car, because she never knew when she’d need to go for a run. Her brain never stopped working, so sometimes the only way she could begin to shut down was to push her body to the breaking point and then go a little farther. Just because she could. She loved the Cam Hanes saying of “Nobody cares. Work harder.”
Being an architect was about the greatest job a person could have. She’d always been a creative person, but there were so many fields she could’ve gone into with her love of design. When she’d looked at the architectural degree, there’d been no more looking. She’d found her passion, and she couldn’t wait to see her creations all around the world. But it was still a predominantly male-driven field, which made her feel the need to work that much harder.
As much as Sarah did love dreams, there was a time and place to feel them. This wasn’t it. Right now she had a lot of work to get done. She sat in her small office and tried to focus on the design she was working on. This project was difficult because it was the first one that her name would be attached to that the world was going to be critical of. Whenever the Anderson name went behind something, it became a media sensation.
She had to force herself not to panic as she erased another line and fought herself not to throw the entire paper into the garbage can. It wasn’t only that this was an Anderson project; it was also the fact that she was working with Noah Anderson, who was driving her and her hormones absolutely crazy.
She’d been more than willing to take her time making a name for herself, but now she wasn’t going to be able to do that. This job could make or break her career. That was a lot of pressure for someone who already was so critical of themselves. She wanted to be a superstar in this world of art and creation. But she wasn’t sure she’d ever feel she was good enough, because there was always something she could do to make it better.
She lost track of time as she continued working, so when someone tapped on her door, she about jumped out of her seat. Then she was annoyed with herself. There was no reason to be jumpy or irritated at a distraction. Maybe it would refresh her mind enough to finish this dang drawing.