One mention of her name was all it took to erase all that hard work and effort to run from the past.
Fucking Melinda.
She’d ruined him in every way it was possible to ruin a man. Breaking his heart would’ve been more than enough, but she’d also destroyed his ability to trust just about anyone.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Noah trusted his siblings and the ten Abbott cousins who’d grown up with them. Any of them would take a bullet for him, and vice versa. He didn’t see them every day, but he knew they were always there for him, as was his mother, his grandfather, his aunt Molly and uncle Linc.
Anyone else? Forget it. He couldn’t imagine any scenario under which he’d trust another living being who wasn’t a blood relative. That was Melinda’s legacy.
He gripped the wheel tighter than usual, his entire body vibrating with the tension that filled him any time he let his mind wander in her direction. Which was why he never let that happen. Why’d his mom have to mention her and stir up shit that was better left locked away in a dark corner of his mind that he rarely visited?
She might never have existed for the time or attention he gave her these days, which was zero.
Until someone mentioned her name and brought it all back like it’d happened yesterday rather than three years ago.
Noah slammed his hand against the wheel in frustration, which only made his hand hurt. It didn’t do a damned thing to address the ache in his chest that resurfaced any time she slithered out from under the massive rock he kept over her and the memories of her. He’d give everything he had never to have to think about her again.
But alas, the brain didn’t allow you to disassociate from memories you’d rather not keep. Nope, you got to hang on to the good, the bad and the hideous. How lucky were humans to carry around a gelatinous mess in their heads that could serve up a lacerating memory any time you were feeling good about the progress you’d made in moving on from something painful?
So lucky.
At some point, he needed to do something about the fact that he was still legally married to her. He’d resisted anything that would put him back in contact with her, even via lawyers. Eventually, he’d get around to taking care of that but not today.
Noah pulled up to the diner and left his truck running while he ran in to pick up the coffee and breakfast sandwich that Megan had ready for him five mornings a week. His cousin Hunter’s wife was a sweet, welcoming woman who always greeted him with a cheerful smile and a friendly word. She was a bright spot in the gloom that was his life, and he looked forward to seeing her every day. Add her to the small list of people he trusted, not that he ever shared anything more with her than good morning and how’re you today.
When he stepped into the diner, he was surprised to see his uncle Linc and grandfather Elmer sitting at the counter. “You boys are out early today,” Noah said as he accepted the to-go bag and coffee from Megan. “Thank you.” She had his credit card on file, and he insisted she add a twenty percent tip to each order.
Elmer Stillman whirled around on his stool to greet Noah with a big smile. Elmer was the best man Noah had ever known, with Linc coming in a very close second. The two men had been there in every way they possibly could be for Noah and his siblings after their father left, and he loved them both.
“How’s it going, son?” Elmer asked.
“Not too bad. You?”
“We were talking about Linc’s father. He passed away the other night.” Linc had just seen the man for the first time in forty years, after a rift none of them had known about until recently when Linc’s father asked to see him.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Noah said to Linc. “Are you okay?”
“I am, but thanks for asking. We knew this was coming.”
“Still…” Noah said.
“Yeah,” Linc said, grimacing. “Still…”
“The blessing in this is that Linc is back in touch with his three siblings,” Elmer said.
“That’s true,” Noah said, aching for his uncle. Family shit could be so very painful, especially the stuff you had no control over, like a father turning his back on his children. Until Linc recently heard from his estranged father, Noah hadn’t known the Coleman siblings had so much in common with their uncle.
Mike Coleman had resurfaced a year or so ago, after more than twenty years of silence, looking for bone marrow from one of the children he’d abandoned.
Audacious, to say the least.
Gray had donated to him, albeit reluctantly, but Mike’s return on the scene was hardly welcome by any of his children. His deadbeat father was another thing Noah would prefer to never think about again. “I’ve got to get to work. I’m sorry again for your loss, Linc.”
“Thank you, son.”
Noah loved when his uncle called him that.
“I’d like to come to see the progress at the inn one of these days,” Elmer said.
“Stop by any time, Gramps.”
“Will do.”
“Have a good day, you guys,” Noah said as he headed for the door with a smile and a wave for Megan.
And with that, he’d exchanged more words with others by six a.m. than he usually said in a full day. He got back in his truck and drove the ten seconds it took to get to the parking lot at the inn, sat in his warm truck to eat the bacon and egg sandwich on a grilled English muffin and drink the coffee fixed just the way he liked it.
There were pluses to living in a small town where everyone knew you. There were also minuses to being so well known.
Noah had thought about moving somewhere that no one knew him, so there’d be no chance of anyone mentioning her name out of the blue like his mother had done this morning. His mom didn’t know the details of what’d gone down with her. If she had, she’d never mention Melinda’s name to him. Noah didn’t blame his mother for having questions. Of course she did. One minute, he was happily married, and the next, he wasn’t.
The last thing on God’s green earth he wanted to do was relive that nightmare, even if it meant his mother would never again say her name in his presence. Since he didn’t want to talk about what’d happened, he supposed he had to put up with the occasional question even after all this time.
But he didn’t have to like it or the way he felt after he had to confront memories that put him in a foul mood.
As prepared as he could be to face another frigid day on the job, he got out of his truck and headed toward the framed outline of the inn, which was barely visible in the mist of early morning.
He stopped short at the sight of the architect, Brianna Esposito, her white project manager hard hat covering dark curly hair. She stood outside the back door, hands on her hips, glaring at him with fire in her dark eyes.
What now?
She drove him mad in more ways than one. For one thing, she micromanaged every aspect of the job—or at least she tried to. For another, any time she looked at him with daggers in her brown eyes, the way she was now, he went hard as stone. He told himself it was just because he hadn’t gotten laid in a while, but he’d started to think it was something much worse than that.
Because there was absolutely no way he could be attracted to the feisty, bossy, pain-in-his-ass, know-it-all architect from Boston.
No way at all.