Don't Let Go by Sharla Lovelace Page B

Becca’s lunches—assuming she actually stayed at school to eat—I pulled in and justified it as productive. I blew out a breath as I tugged my purse onto my shoulder and entered the lobby. I had to shake off this crap. This was crazy. Yes, I had a bucket of shit swirling around, but so did everyone else. I wasn’t special. And this was my town. I was not going to go skulking around it like a scared bird just because my particular bucket might get stirred up.
    I had to learn to live with Noah back in town, like it or not. And I had to tell my daughter things about myself that went against everything I’d ever preached to her.
    And I could never eat at the diner again. Or wear red.
    I rounded the corner toward the tellers and was stopped short by a huge donation display of a giant red kettle, the sign reading Help our local families. Give at the teller window.
    “Show-offs,” I said under my breath.
    I started digging for my wallet as I stepped around the obnoxious kettle and right into a pair of arms and hands that I didn’t see and wasn’t ready for.
    “Oh!” I exclaimed, my head shooting up. “I’m so sorr—”
    My word was cut off as I looked up into Noah’s face. Again. About four inches from mine. Damn it.
    “—ry,” I pushed out, as all the air left me.
    Time stopped in those few seconds, and all the little nuances of his face that were new registered like files being tucked away. A tiny white scar above his upper lip. Another thin sliver of one through his left eyebrow. The little laugh lines next to his eyes. All new to me, and yet achingly familiar. The subtle scent I’d picked up from him earlier filled my senses as his eyes panned my face in the same three seconds. I wondered what he saw.
    His face went neutral again as he dropped his hands from their hold on me and backed up a few inches. I could still feel the heat imprints on my upper arms.
    “Sorry,” he echoed.
    I should have just gone to work. This was what I got for being a big lame wuss.
    I shook my head and gripped my purse strap. “No—um—I’m just—” I pointed at the teller windows so I could shut up. “Going over there.” I noticed he wasn’t, and was kind of hovering around the desks. “What are you doing?”
    “Opening an account,” he said, nodding toward an empty desk. “Waiting to, anyway.”
    I nodded. Of course he was. That’s what you do when you move to a new place and plan to stay. Forever. Noah and Shayna and the newest little Ryan.
    “A joint one?” I blurted out, feeling suddenly like I was standing off to the side watching myself talk.
    He smiled. “Not just yet.”
    Not just yet. “So don’t you have to have an address or something?”
    His eyebrows drew together slightly on that. “My dad’s is fine for now. I just need to get a debit card.” He looked around the room, probably silently begging the bank lady to come back to her desk and rescue him. “We’ll start looking for our own place soon.”
    “Oh, good,” I said, shaking my head at myself. Oh, good? Who was using my mouth?
    Noah met my gaze again with that infuriating locked-in non-blinking thing of his, and as much as I wanted to look away, walk away, do anything that carried me away—I couldn’t move.
    “Listen, I’m sorry about just dropping by earlier,” he said, backing up yet another step. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
    I shook my head. “It was fine—”
    “No, seriously,” he said, the hint of a smile at his lips. “I didn’t take into account that you might have—someone there.”
    He ran a hand along the back of his neck on the last words, as though they made him itchy, and I closed my eyes, wishing to die.
    “I didn’t—I mean, I don’t—” I stumbled, opening my eyes again. Of all nights to call Patrick. “That wasn’t like that.” I held my chin up, refusing to show weakness.
    Noah’s eyebrow shot up, carrying the tiny scar with it. “Okay,” he said on a chuckle. He stepped forward