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“Maybe we can get a drink, catch up. Let me get your number.”
I hesitate. Not because I don’t want tohave a drink, but because I’m suspicious of everyone lately. And Lucas was just mentioned in one of the chapters Hannah sent. Though that feels like one coincidence that isactuallya coincidence. So I smile and nod. “Sure.”
“I actually forgot my cell phone at home today. I didn’t realize until I parked. So we’ll have to do this old school.” He pulls a leather satchel from his shoulder and unzips it, then tears off the corner of a piece of paper and hands me a pen. “Just like we did it back in the old days.”
I jot down my number and hand it back with a smile.
“Thanks,” he says. “I work three twelves—three days on, four off. Today is my last day on, but I’ll check in on your mom this afternoon.”
“I appreciate that.”
“I’ll call you?”
I smile. “Okay.”
The hospital is only a twenty-minute drive from my mom’s, but I yawn twice on the way there. Not having slept all night is catching up to me fast. I need at least a nap, and I should eat something, too, but probably after because I’m too tired to cook anything or go to a store. I pull into the driveway with big plans in my head, but it looks like they might have to wait, because there’s another car there already. An unfamiliar pickup truck, red, a little rusty. Typical Louisiana. A man steps—no,swaggers—out of it, and I know immediately who it is, even before he shuts the door and I see his handsome face.
“Noah,” I murmur. If I had any emotion left, I suspect I’d feel panicked. Angry. Suspicious. Instead, I feel like I might be a little drunk, though this time, alcohol has nothing to do with it. “What are you doing here?”
CHAPTER
14
You left this with the bartender.” Noah holds up two fingers, a credit card scissored between them. “Willow called me,” he says. “The bartender. I told her I’d try to return it to you.”
I’d completely forgotten that I’d given my Amex to open a tab when I ordered my first drink at the bar last night. We’d left in such a hurry.
I step forward and take the card. “How did you know where I lived?”
“Wasn’t too hard to figure out. You mentioned your mom was sick, so I asked around if anyone knew a local with the last name printed on your credit card.” He shrugs. “It’s a small town. Second person I asked goes to Saint Matthew’s and knew exactly who I was talking about and where Theresa Davis lived.”
I blow out a ragged breath. “Well, thank you for bringing it back.”
“You believe in fate, Elizabeth?”
My eyes widen.What is he asking me?I shake my head. “Not really. I believe we all choose our paths in life.”
“Then maybe youchoseto leave that card behind, perhaps even subconsciously, so I’d come find you.”
“I think it’s more likely I’m getting forgetfulin my old age.”
Noah smiles, flashes those killer, boyish dimples. “Why’d you run out on me last night, darlin’?”
“I just . . . I had a little too much to drink. And when the fresh air hit me, it sobered me up. I realized I needed to quit while I was ahead.”
“I thought we had a good time, had good chemistry.”
“We did. But . . . you’re too young for me.”
“I’m twenty-seven, not seventeen. Besides, most women would put my being a youngblood in the pros column, not the cons.”
Seventeen.
The age I was when . . .
I search Noah’s face for signs that he’s screwing with me. But I don’t find anything sinister lurking. “It just wouldn’t be a good idea to take things any further.”
“Do you have a boyfriend back home?”