BELLA PRESSED HER fingers to the front door and waited, barely breathing, listening to the sound of Noah’s footsteps on the porch outside.
Was he going away? Please, let him be going away.
Sure enough, the footsteps receded, but it wasn’t until they’d finally faded that she let out the breath she’d been holding.
“Idiot,” she muttered. “Idiot, idiot, idiot.”
Her heart thumped from the shock of seeing him and she still felt the heavy weight of his coat around her shoulders, warm from his body and smelling of wood smoke and cedar, a masculine scent that had made her mouth go dry.
Still felt the pull, the longing that she’d thought was a product of her overactive teenage hormones, that she’d felt whenever he was around. Whenever his dark eyes had met hers.
She’d always wished he’d smile at her, but he never had.
He hadn’t now. In fact, the only reason he was here at all was because Lila had asked him to come check on her.
Did you want him to be here for you?
Bella snorted and pushed herself away from the door. She didn’t need anyone. She never had. And now he was gone, she never had to think of him again.
Bella turned, taking a look around the narrow hallway.
She only had vague memories of this house, but she remembered it feeling a lot more welcoming than it did now. Though that might have been to do with her grandmother.
A funny pain lodged in her chest at the thought of Grandma June. She hadn’t had a lot to do with her grandmother, but the few memories she did have were of a gnarled but warm hand enveloping her smaller one and a pair of kindly blue eyes. And a smile that made her feel like she was standing in a beam of sunlight.
Bella couldn’t say she missed her grandmother, not when she’d never really had her, but the thought that Grandma June was gone made her eyes prickle. Her mother hadn’t cried when she’d told Bella the news and made certain Bella knew that she wasn’t going back for the funeral. So Bella hadn’t gone to the funeral, either, though why she couldn’t exactly say.
She’d told herself it was for solidarity with her mother—Avery had never gotten on with Grandma June—but she was afraid it was more because she didn’t want to step back into the past here.
Jasper Creek hadn’t been a place of happy memories.
Coming cautiously into the kitchen, Bella fumbled again for the light switch and found it this time. The darkness fled, revealing a worn and old-fashioned kitchen, with green painted cupboards both above and below the counter, and an ancient woodstove up against one wall. A large window with a sink beneath it looked out over the front yard. With night descending hard, the glass was a big square of black, making everything feel depressing and cold.
Not what she remembered of this particular room. Her memories of the farmhouse might be vague, but the kitchen had always been special, with an atmosphere of warmth and togetherness. Her grandma standing at the stove cooking, talking or humming, delicious scents filling the room.
Food, good company and that nurturing atmosphere had always made Bella happy. Made her feel connected to people even when she wasn’t. It was what had made her decide on her dream of opening her own café, because even though she couldn’t cook, she loved the thought of providing people with a place like Grandma June’s kitchen.
A place for lonely people to reconnect.
Right now, though, Grandma June’s kitchen looked like a place where teenagers in horror movies were murdered by serial killers.
She grimaced and moved over to the scrubbed wooden table in the middle of the room. After putting her bag down on one of the chairs, she went to investigate the woodstove.
It was full of dead ash, and though Bella didn’t know much about lighting fires, she did know that a fireplace had to be cleaned first before a fire could be lit in it.
She spotted a metal shovel and brush hanging from a nail jammed into the wall. Grabbing both implements, Bella knelt and tried sweeping the ashes into the metal shovel. She felt clumsy, her fingers numb and her hands awkward. The ash drifted in the air, some of it going on the floor and sprinkling down the front of her jacket, getting on her damp jeans.
She ignored it, sweeping until she had a shovel full of ash and a cleanish-looking stove. Not knowing where to put the ash, she settled for leaving the shovel by the stove; getting the fire lit was more important than cleaning up.
Finding some kindling and twigs in a basket nearby, Bella dusted off her hands then stuffed both kindling and twigs into the bottom of the stove in a heap. She rose to her feet again and looked around for something to light it with.
No handy box of matches leaped out at her.
Her breath puffed in front of her face as she began pulling out drawers, cursing her own idiocy for not thinking to get a box of matches or a lighter.
You didn’t even stop to get food.
Bella slammed a drawer back in. Yeah, she really was an idiot.
Eventually, in a drawer in the hutch dresser that stood opposite the woodstove, she found a matchbox. It didn’t have very many matches left, but it was better than nothing.
Crouching down in front of the stove, she lit match after match, only to have each fledgling fire splutter and die.
Frustration curled in her chest.
Why couldn’t she get it to light?
Give up for the night. Go upstairs and go to bed.
No. Hell, no. If she couldn’t even light a fire, she might as well give up and go back to Seattle right now. She was not going to let this get the better of her. She’d left home at sixteen, when her mother had told her it was time to leave, and she’d found herself a job and a place to live, so surely she could handle lighting one small fire.
Resolutely, she rearranged the pile of kindling and reached for another match, only to find the box empty.
“Crap,” she muttered.
Tossing the empty box away, she sat down on the cold wooden floor and swallowed, her throat tight, the knot of frustration in her chest a big, hard stone.
She was cold, hungry, covered in ash and she hadn’t thought of food, and she couldn’t light the fire. And it had only been through Noah being here that she’d even managed to get into the house.
So much for being successful.
Something ran down her cheek and she wiped it away with a dirty hand, blinking hard, hating herself for her weakness.
It had been a tough week, sure, but sitting on the floor crying because she couldn’t get the fire lit? She should be thanking her lucky stars she wasn’t in the homeless shelter or sleeping on the streets.
She had a roof over her head and electricity, so the oven would work and maybe there was hot water. Perhaps having a hot shower and going to bed was a good idea.
Ignoring the heavy stone in her chest, Bella pushed herself up from the floor and went to check out the oven. That seemed easy to operate.
A memory floated through her head of her grandmother standing at the stove and stirring a pot full of melted chocolate and cream and all sorts of other good things. Real hot chocolate...
Bella took a breath and went to the pantry, pulling open the cupboards hopefully. There were jars of staples, flour, pasta, sugar and different sorts of preserves. Spices, too. But no chocolate. And no bread. Nothing that could be made quickly into food that she could eat.
Disappointment sat heavy in her gut.
She shut the pantry and looked at the old fridge that stood next to it. There wouldn’t be anything in it, but she checked it, anyway, and wasn’t surprised to find only a couple of bottles of lemonade.
So no food and definitely no hot chocolate.
The shower, though. There had to be a shower.
She went over to the sink to check the hot water, but no water came out of the tap when she turned it on.
Bella stared at it, the stone in her chest getting heavier and heavier.
The pipes must be frozen. There wouldn’t be a hot shower after all.
At least there was a shower at the homeless shelter.
She looked out through the window into the darkness, the cold settling down into her bones.
No fire. No food. No heat. Story of her life.
So much for this being a success.
Another something slid down her cheek.
Yay, crying again. Her mother cried at the drop of a hat. Whenever she needed help, or wanted money, or when things got hard, she turned on the tears. And someone helped her. It was magic.
Except when someone else was crying. Then Avery would get even more upset to make sure the attention remained with her. Bella had learned that the hard way.
She sniffed and wiped her face.
This was stupid. What she needed to do now was go to bed, and hopefully everything would be better in the morning.
Something moved in the darkness outside the window.
Shock arrowed through her and for a second she couldn’t breathe.
Footsteps sounded on the porch, then someone knocked on the front door. Hard.
Bella’s heart tried to beat its way out of her chest.
The knock came again and fear wrapped long fingers around her throat, choking her.
Another knock, this time accompanied by a deep, male voice. “Bella?” Noah Faraday called from the porch. “Are you in there? It’s me. Noah. Open the damn door!”
NOAH STOOD IN front of Grandma June’s door for the second time that night, cursing at his own inability to leave well enough alone.
But he hadn’t been able to get pretty little Bella Jacobson out of his head.
All he could think about was her in soaking sneakers and a damp leather jacket, looking up at him with big blue eyes.
The place was old, that finicky woodstove hard to light, and if the pipes had frozen from the cold snap the night before and she couldn’t get water for a hot shower, then she’d have a cold night.
He didn’t involve himself with the people of Jasper Creek. To them he was the son of that drunk Hank. They hadn’t liked his father, and by association, they didn’t like him, either. Whatever, the feeling was mutual and so he kept out of their way.
But just because he didn’t much like Bella Jacobson didn’t mean he could leave her to fend for herself in the depths of a cold snap.
It wasn’t neighborly and Grandma June was big on being neighborly. She’d been the only person in town who didn’t make comments about the trouble Hank caused—his father had always been a mean drunk—and he appreciated that.
So, cursing under his breath, he’d turned around and gone back the way he’d come, once more standing before June’s front door.
Except Bella wasn’t opening it.
He’d knocked a couple of times, then shouted, and he was wondering if the damn door had got stuck again, and whether he needed to kick it in, when it was tugged violently open and there was Bella.
She still wore her beanie, but now her delicate features were smeared with ash, with more ash down the front of her jacket and staining her jeans.
She looked like an extra from a zombie movie.
“You didn’t have to scare me like that,” she snapped before he could speak. “Why are you here, anyway? I told you I didn’t need your help.”
Noah ignored the sharp edge in her voice, studying her face instead. Because running through the middle of the ashy smears on her cheeks were two white tear tracks.
The tight thing in his chest tightened even further. Dammit. He couldn’t walk away now, could he?
“Did you get the fire lit?” he asked instead, knowing already what the answer would be since the air in the house was still chilly.
“Yes.” She stared stubbornly back at him. “I’m fine.”
“Uh-huh.” Noah stepped into the hallway and, without a word, headed into the kitchen.
“Hey! I didn’t say you could come in!”
He ignored her, going over to the woodstove and surveying the mess. Ash was everywhere, not to mention a shovel full of it sitting next to the stove. Also bits of twig and, most pathetic of all, an empty matchbox.
“It was going,” Bella said from behind him, sounding defensive. “You knocking on the door distracted me and now it’s gone out. So thanks.”
Noah ignored that, too, turning from the stove and going over to the sink. He twisted the cold tap and was again unsurprised when no water came out.
He turned around.
Bella stood by the table, her arms folded, her chin at a stubborn angle.
Too bad, though. Those white tear tracks were evidence that this little city girl wasn’t handling things the way she kept insisting she was.
“You’ll come stay with me tonight,” he said, in no mood for argument, because he wasn’t feeling particularly warm himself. “Get your bag.”
She stared at him as if he’d suggested she strip her clothes off and dance naked on Grandma June’s kitchen table. “Excuse me?”
“You heard what I said. You can’t stay here, not tonight.”
“Of course I can. I’ve got everything I need—”
“You don’t have heat and you don’t have water. Do you have any food?”
“Yes. I’m not stupid.” But her gaze flickered as she said it.
Noah fixed her with a look. “Do I need to check the fridge?”
“I have candy bars in my bag.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” he said, losing patience. “My place has a fire, a hot shower and I’ve even got a spare room. You can stay there, get warm, have something to eat, get a good sleep and come and deal with this in the morning.”
She shifted on her feet, glancing away from him. There was a nervous energy to her that he hadn’t noticed before. It was distracting. “I’m good, thanks.”
“So you’re fine with freezing to death here?”
“I’m not going to freeze to death here. There are blankets upstairs.”
Noah frowned. Why was she was being so stubborn? Her mother wouldn’t have argued. Avery Jacobson would have grabbed her bag and been over at his house, living it up like she owned the place.
Perhaps he should leave her. Maybe she wouldn’t freeze, but she’d have a very uncomfortable night. And if she was going to be so stubborn, perhaps she might even learn something from it.
He took in her ash-stained face and damp clothing once again.
Nope. He couldn’t do it. He didn’t like the thought of her being cold and hungry, and him right next door in his warm house, doing nothing to help her.
He wasn’t good with people so he wasn’t sure what to say to convince her to come with him, so he simply moved over to the chair where her bag sat and picked it up, masking his surprise at how light it was, given she was supposed to be staying here for an entire season.
Her eyes widened. “Hey, what are you doing? Put that down.”
“No.” He threw the bag over his shoulder and headed back to the front door. “Come on. We can have this discussion at my place. I’m getting cold.”
He could feel her astonished gaze following him, but he ignored it, stepping straight through the open front door and onto the porch.
Then he turned around to find her standing in the doorway, staring at him in outrage. “Are you coming or what?”
“No. Are you insane?”
“If you don’t want to walk, I could carry you.” He meant it, too, though why that thought sent a shot of heat through him, he didn’t know.
“Oh, my God, no,” she muttered, her gaze flickering to his shoulders, then away.
She’d done that in the hallway just before, too. Was she checking him out?
The tight thing in his chest shifted, moving lower, becoming a different sort of feeling altogether.
Noah shoved it away. It had been a while since he’d allowed himself female company, and when he did, he preferred women who were passing through town, who weren’t staying and didn’t want anything more from him, because he wasn’t in a position to give anyone anything.
He was done with seeing to another person’s needs. He’d been doing it all his life and he was done. And he had a feeling, looking at Bella Jacobson standing in front of him now, that she was a woman who might turn out to be an endless dark well of need.
Just like her mother.
Irritated for no good reason, Noah turned around. “If you want your bag, you’re going to have to come and get it,” he said over his shoulder.
And headed down the porch steps to the gate.