God help her, Roxie thought on Thanksgiving Day, as she listened to Charley and Eden trade good-natured barbs across the table from each other, the woman was beginning to grow on her. In much the same way one did get sucked into all those absurd reality shows, actually. Eccentric didn’t even begin to cover it, she further mused when Eden bounced up from the table, one of her custom-made creations billowing around her as she floated to the kitchen to warm up the gravy, her prissy little dog clickity-clicking behind her. But she was clearly as smitten with Charley as he was with her, and jeezum, could the woman cook. So things could be a lot worse.
“So the house is all finished?” Eden now asked, settling back at the table like a swan on her nest.
Ah, yes. That. If nothing else, being here—up until this moment, at least—had diverted Roxie from thinking too hard about that last conversation with Noah. About the slightly horrified look in his eyes when she’d laid down what must have sounded like an ultimatum.
When she’d deliberately not answered that last question. Because right now, it was all about tossing out whatever obstacles came to hand, anything to slow down this runaway thing exploding between them.
“It sure is,” Charley said, chest expanded as if he’d done all the work himself. “And it looks terrific.” Then he smiled at Roxie. “Thanks to your nagging, girl.”
“Noah and his crew really did a great job,” she said, poking holes in her yams, fascinated with the marshmallow ooze. Then, smiling for Eden, “You really need to come see the house.”
Setting down her wine glass, the other woman eyed her speculatively. “You sure?”
Roxie reached out and took Eden’s hand, clearly startling her. “Absolutely. You’re welcome anytime.” Letting go, she raised her own glass to her uncle and grinned. “Anything to get this old coot off my back!”
Eden barked out a laugh, then took up her knife and fork to resume her demolition of her turkey leg. “I like you, honey.” She waved her knife in Roxie’s direction. “You’ve got brass ones, doncha?”
Do I? she thought. Because if that were true, would she cut herself off from something she wanted so badly it made her cross-eyed, simply because she wasn’t sure she could handle the aftermath?
Across the room, her phone warbled. “Sorry,” she said, scooting over to get it out of her purse. “I can’t imagine who it is….”
Seeing Noah’s number on the readout sent a jolt through her midsection. “Noah—?”
“I’m sorry, I must be interrupting your dinner—”
“No, no, not a problem.” Frowning, she shoved her hair behind her ear. “What’s going on?”
She heard a rattling sigh. “Dad…he had a heart attack.”
“Ohmigod, Noah! Is Gene…is he okay?”
“He’s out of recovery after the angioplasty. So I guess so far, so good. He’s still a little groggy, but definitely conscious. And a helluva lot calmer than the rest of us,” he said with the tense laugh of the petrified. “And…he asked to see you.”
Something close to alarm wrapped its long, bony fingers around her neck. And squeezed. “Me? Why?”
“You’d have to ask him that. So. Will you come?”
“Of course,” Roxie said, quickly, before the galloping heart rate, the cold, sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, had a chance to fully register. After Noah told her which hospital, she elbowed aside the panic enough to ask, “Hey…how are you doing?”
“Better now than I was a few hours ago,” he said on another shaky laugh that made her ache for him, and the panic ebbed…only to rush her from another, even more vulnerable angle, that she could deny it ’til the cows came home, but the fact was—big sigh, here—she was completely, hopelessly, pointlessly in love with the doofus.
“And your mom?” she said over the burning sensation in her eyes.
“A basket case in denial?”
“I bet,” she said, then swallowed. “I’ll be there in five minutes. What’s the room number?”
She found a pen in a drawer, scribbled the number on a paper towel, then turned to find that Eden and Charley had already put everything away and were in their coats, ready to go, worry heavy in Charley’s eyes as he held Eden’s hand.
Slipping into her coat, Roxie grabbed for her uncle’s other hand. “Hey. This is Gene we’re talking about. He’s going to be fine.”
Probably a lot better than I am, Roxie thought on a sigh, as she herded the couple out to her car.
It took longer to navigate the hospital’s endless corridors than it had to get there from Eden’s, although the interminable marching at least gave her a chance to come to terms with her surroundings. To pat herself on the back that she hadn’t walked through the glass doors, said, “Nope, can’t do this,” and gone tearing back out to the parking lot, a hyperventilating blur in an ivory mohair swing coat.
But she didn’t. And at long last, Roxie and her mini-entourage found the coronary care waiting room, filled cheek-by-jowl with Garretts. Noah stood immediately, shaking hands with Charley and nodding to Eden before yanking Roxie against him and holding on tight. With his brothers watching, heh. But—and here was the weird thing—almost as if he were comforting her.
When he finally let go, searching her eyes for heaven knew what, she said, “Where’s your mom?”
“In with Dad. The doctor came out a little bit ago, said if everything kept on as expected, Dad should only be in the hospital a day or so. But he’s gonna be fit to be tied when the sedation wears off completely.” He took her slightly aside, saying through a thick voice, “For all the man and I don’t see eye to eye, I can’t…”
“I know,” she said, laying her hand on his arm. “I know.”
At that moment, Donna Garrett emerged from the room, looking a little wan but collected—enough—in her Thanksgiving getup of a long, leaf-patterned skirt, a sweatshirt with gleefully oblivious turkeys marching across the yoke. Her sons all stood; she waved them back down. Seeing Roxie, she managed a smile, the skirt whooshing around her thighs when she sank onto the nearest seat, the adrenaline rapidly waning. She rallied enough, though, to give Charley a hug when he leaned over.
“He’s dozing,” she said to the room at large as she smoothed back her flyaway hair, then sagged back against the vinyl cushion, her eyes drifting closed. “He may have been the one who had the heart attack, but mine will never be the same, let me tell you.” Then she opened her eyes and spotted Roxie. “Oh, my goodness…you came?”
“Well, yeah, of course.” Roxie sat beside her, hugging her purse to her middle. “Because Noah said Gene asked for me?”
“About a half hour ago.” Reaching for Roxie’s hand, Donna gave her a gentle smile. “He wouldn’t tell anybody why, but he was pretty insistent. Fair warning, though, honey—he was still pretty doped up at that point. He might not even remember asking. Hate to think you came all the way up here on a fool’s errand.”
“No, actually, I was already here, having dinner with Eden. But I would’ve come no matter what.” Then, remembering her manners, Roxie introduced Eden to everyone…a moment before, unfurling her voluminous shawl, Eden plunked herself down on Donna’s other side.
“I know we just met, so forgive my butting in…but I’ve got a pretty good idea what you’re feeling right now—”
“Oh, I’ll be fine in a minute—”
“Like hell.” Tears glistened in Eden’s mascara. “You might be brave. You might even be calm. But fine? No damn way. Trust me, sweetheart, I’ve been there. I know. Just like I know you need to let it out. And far better in front of me than your husband, right?”
Roxie could see Donna’s valiant fight to hold it in—the tiny shake of her head, the tight press of her lips. But then, on a long, soft moan, she dissolved into tears, not even protesting when Eden pulled Noah’s mother against her chest, making soft, crooning noises of her own.
Holy cow.
Suddenly overcome with all the emotions she’d thought she’d left back in the parking lot, Roxie stood and fled into the hall, only to hear Noah’s soft, “Bringing back memories?” behind her seconds later.
She jerked around. “How did you—? Oh. You mean about the baby?”
He came closer. Wearing a brown T-shirt underneath a tan denim jacket, she noticed. Not black. “Well, that, too. But a couple of days ago, while you were at work? Charley got to talking.” Compassion flooded his eyes. “Said you were at the hospital with your parents after the crash. By yourself.”
Unable to speak for the tears clogging her throat, Roxie simply nodded. A second later she was once more in Noah’s arms, his head nestled atop hers. “I can’t imagine how awful that was for you,” he whispered. “And then…the other.”
“Yeah. Not a big fan of hospitals,” she finally got out, pulling away. But he grabbed her hand.
“Maybe I had to tell you Dad wanted to see you, but you didn’t have to say yes.”
“I know. But I would’ve come in any case.” She took a deep breath, thinking, Fear is for wusses. “Even if you’d only asked for yourself.”
His brows lifted. “Really?”
“Really. So why didn’t you?”
Still holding her hand, Noah glanced down, pushing out a sigh before meeting her gaze again. “Because I can’t figure out what we are to each other. And whether whatever that is includes being able to call on you in a crisis.”
“Don’t make me smack you,” Roxie said, and he smiled. “Look, I don’t know what we are to each other, either. But I sure as heck know I hate it when we’re not talking.”
He gave her a crooked smile. “Me, too—”
“Rox?” Silas said from the waiting room doorway. “The nurse said Gene’s asking for you.”
Noah walked her to his father’s door, giving her hand a brief squeeze before returning to the waiting room. But oh, dear God—the déjà vu when she stepped inside, saw Gene hooked up to all those whirring and beeping machines, was so strong she had to force herself to breathe.
Her father had passed away in the E.R. within minutes after being brought in, but her mother had hung on for almost another full day, although she never regained consciousness. Mae and Charley had gotten there as soon as they could, but Charley had told Noah the truth, that all through that long, horrible night she’d been by herself, barely seventeen and frightened out of her wits, staving off the agony of losing her father by willing her mother to stay alive. How she’d ever recovered from that, she’d never know. Let alone gone on to recover from Mac’s death, from losing the baby, from Jeff’s betrayal….
Noah was right, she thought with a slight smile. She was one tough little cookie.
Fortunately, Noah’s dad didn’t appear to be going anywhere, thank God, even though he was still a bit loopy from the meds. But his color looked pretty good, from what she could tell, and the machines all seemed to be beeping and whirring as they should.
At Gene’s indication that she should sit, Roxie silently lowered herself onto the edge of the padded chair next to the bed. “How do you feel?”
He almost smiled. “I’m gonna say like crap, although I’m not entirely sure.”
“I bet.” She swallowed. “You…wanted to see me?”
Gene rolled his head to look at her, grimacing at the oxygen tube in his nose. “It’s funny,” he said slowly. “In the back of your mind you know you don’t have forever, but even further back you think you do. The doc says I’m gonna make it, but I’m not taking any chances. You sweet on my boy?”
Nothing like cutting to the chase. “Oh, Gene…if this is going where I think you’re taking it…please don’t—”
“I’m only asking ’cause I know he’s got feelings for you.” He pulled in a noisy breath. “Strong feelings. Stronger than he’s probably ever had for anyone else his entire life. So before I make a damn fool of myself, I need to know if those feelings are reciprocated.”
Damn. Damndamndamndamndamn. What on earth was she supposed to say? Maybe the man wasn’t dying, but he wasn’t exactly in optimal health, either.
“Okay, forget that,” Gene said, and Roxie puffed out a sigh of relief, only to nearly choke when he said, “I’m gonna say my piece, anyway. If anybody could help that boy get his head on straight, it’s you. He needs you, honey. Even if he’s too mule-headed to see it, I do.”
“Gene—”
“I know, I know…his past doesn’t exactly speak in his favor. But he’s right on the cusp of changing, I can feel it. And I believe that’s because of you. So if you could find it in your heart to give him a little encouragement…?”
The privacy curtain yanked back. “Okay, Mr. Garrett,” said the broad-hipped, broadly smiling nurse. “We don’t want you overexerting yourself now, do we?”
“But we weren’t finished—”
“And there’s no hurry, honey, I promise. Everything’s looking good. No reason on earth why you can’t continue this tomorrow when you’re feeling stronger.” She smiled down at Roxie. “You got a problem with waiting?”
“Me?” She practically shot to her feet. “Not at all. You have a nice, quiet night, Gene,” she said, leaning over to kiss his forehead, “and…I’ll see you soon, how’s that—?”
He clasped her hand. “You’ll think about what I said?”
As if she was going to be able to think about anything else. “I will. I promise.”
“And you won’t say anything to Noah?”
“He knows you asked to see me. Don’t you think he’s going to be the tiniest bit curious as to why?”
The nurse shot her a let’s-not-upset-the-cardiac-patient-okay? look, and Roxie sighed. “I promise, I won’t say anything to Noah. Do you want me to send Donna or the boys back in?”
“Donna. Please.”
Naturally, Noah immediately jerked to attention when she came out of the room. Her brain going a mile a minute, Roxie delivered the message to Donna, then walked a little apart from the others, figuring Noah would follow.
“The nurse shooed me out before he could say very much. And he wasn’t making a whole lot of sense, really.” Which was true enough. “Although…” She looked up at him. “I think maybe this experience has made him think differently about you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? And why tell you?”
“I have no idea, and I don’t think this is the best time to look for logic.”
He exhaled. “No. I guess not.”
Searching for an excuse to leave, to give herself space to figure out what the heck to do about this responsibility Gene had dumped on her, Roxie spotted her uncle and Eden. “I hate to do this, but there’s no real reason for Charley and Eden to stay, and I drove them here. So if it’s all the same to you…”
“No, no, that’s okay. We’re going to try to get Mom to go home in a little while,” Noah said with a small, tired smile, “although nobody’s holding their breath on how well that’s gonna work. But thanks for coming. I’m sure it meant a lot to Dad.” He rubbed his mouth, then crossed his arms. “And to me.”
Roxie stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, breathing in his scent, which ignited a sweet ohmigod-I-wanna-make-babies-with-this-man ache in the center of her chest, and she thought, Biology blows. “Tell your mom if she needs anything, anything at all, I’m right across the street.” For now, at least. “And call me when you get home. Anytime, even if it’s late,” she said.
He said, “Okay,” even though she knew he wouldn’t.
“Nothing more to do here, let’s go home,” she said, waving Eden and Charley over, ignoring their puzzled expressions as best she could as she said goodbye to the rest of the Garretts and started down the hall toward the elevators, Noah’s questioning gaze burning a hole in her back the entire way.
Fortunately—deliberately?—once back in the car, Eden dragged Charley into a conversation about old movies Roxie couldn’t even begin to take part in, followed by her uncle’s dozing off almost immediately after they dropped Eden back at her place.
Leaving Roxie with nothing but tacky arrangements of Christmas carols on the car radio and her own thoughts to keep her company as she drove. Blech.
“Charley? Charley!” she said after pulling up into his driveway some time later.
“Wh— Huh?” Her uncle jerked awake, blinking like a sedated owl.
“We’re home.”
Well, he was anyway, Roxie mused as she pulled her phone out of her purse, halfheartedly checking her Facebook page while keeping an eye on her drowsy uncle as they climbed the steps. Because hell if she knew where her home was.
Oh, joy, a friend request. Probably some friend of a friend of a friend she’d never met in her life. Yawning, she clicked on the icon, only to let out a shriek of delight when a very familiar face popped up on the tiny screen.
It was well after midnight before Noah and his brothers finally convinced their mother to go home, get some rest, they’d bring her back as early as she wanted in the morning. Meaning, by that point, he wasn’t about to call Roxie. A good thing, all told, since he wanted to hear her voice way too much.
By the next morning, though, when they’d all trooped into Dad’s room to find him sitting up and eating oatmeal and fake eggs—and moaning and groaning about it the entire time—yesterday’s scare already felt like a bad dream…leaving a new reality in its wake. Because even if Dad took care of himself, lost some weight, exercised more, he couldn’t keep driving himself the way he’d been.
Amazingly, Gene was the first one to admit that life as they’d all known it was never going to be the same. “I’m glad you’re all here, because we need to talk about the future—”
“Dad,” Silas said, his eyes bleary behind his glasses. “This can wait for five minutes.”
“No, it can’t. Because if you all want me to rest easy, then I need to have this settled in my head.” As Donna, seated beside the bed, wrapped her hand around their father’s, his eyes landed on Noah. “Well, son…you wanted more responsibility? You got it. From here on out, you’re in charge.”
Noah flinched. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. You’re the boss.”
“What? No…the doctor said you’d probably be back at work in a week—”
“I know. But I made a promise to your mother, even after the docs give me the all clear, to cut my involvement way back. Oh, I’ll still keep a hand in, retirement would drive me insane—and her, too, even if she won’t admit it—but I’m turning the day-to-day stuff over to you.”
Stunned, Noah looked at Eli and Jesse, standing in almost identical, arms-crossed poses at the foot of the bed. “But you guys—”
“Come January, I’m going back to school, remember?” Jesse said, his pushed-up hoodie sleeves revealing almost solidly tattooed arms. “So I’ll only be around part-time.”
“And with the baby,” Eli said, “I’m already behind in furniture orders as it is. I can’t possibly catch up and oversee everything else.”
“Besides,” Gene put in, “you’re right. Nobody knows the business like you do. So—it’s yours. Since we’re closed until Monday, anyway, we can work out the details after I get home.”
Noah could imagine what some of those “details” might be. “That’s…it?” he asked. Prodding. “No stipulations?”
His father regarded him in silence for a moment, then said, “Only that you remember whose standard you’re bearing. And that I have the right to change my mind at any time.”
“Like hell,” their mother muttered, earning her a chorus of soft laughs.
“I won’t let you down,” Noah said.
“And I’m counting on you to keep that promise,” Gene said, and Noah could still see flickers of doubt in his eyes, that while Noah may have been his only choice, he still wasn’t necessarily his best.
Then his brothers said their goodbyes, with promises to stop by later, before easing back into their own lives. Their own brands of crazy. Noah was the last to give hugs, the last out of the room. And as he stopped by a water fountain to get a drink, he wondered…what did he have, besides new, hard-won responsibilities that came with enough entailments to sink a battleship? A sink devoid of female clutter? Nights uninterrupted by an infant’s cry? The satisfaction of knowing that when he sat down to watch a movie he’d actually get to finish it?
That so-called “freedom?”
At which point, a thought that had been poking and prodding and trying to find a way into his brain showed its face in a dingy window, waving like mad to get his attention, its voice faint but insistent.
“Hey, bro,” Silas said as they all piled into the elevator. “You okay?”
“Yeah, of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
Silas and Eli exchanged a glance before Eli said, “You don’t exactly look happy about that conversation. Even though you’ve been after Dad for years to give you more authority.”
“Because I’d always pictured that happening because he wanted to,” he ground out. “Not because he didn’t have a choice!”
The conversation died a quick death when a yakking family of five piled onto the elevator on the next floor…and when they all got off Noah strode away from his brothers, hopefully sending a clear message that he was in no mood to pick it up again. Not that they wouldn’t at some point, but right now all he wanted was to be by himself.
Which wasn’t exactly true, he thought, as he started back to Tierra Rosa. Right now, all he wanted was to hang out with Roxie. To somehow absorb some of that level-headedness, to hear her laughter. So when he noticed her car clinging like a mountain goat to Charley’s steep driveway as he drove past, a nice little inner battle ensued as he reminded himself that what he wanted wasn’t fair to her, that it was self-centered and childish.
And that he was better than that.
Except no sooner had he passed than he remembered it was the day after Thanksgiving. Meaning, in Garrettville, the day the Christmas decorations went up—his mom decked the halls from top to bottom, while his dad set up an outside display easily rivaling the Chevy Chase Christmas Vacation movie. Which, Noah thought as his eyes stung, along with Muppets’ Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life, they’d all watched every year.
His gut clenched. Because suddenly, he felt like a planet jettisoned from orbit, flung far, far away from its solar system.
Like hell, he thought, the brakes squealing as he made a U-turn and returned to his parents. Twenty minutes later, a good two dozen boxes marked “Christmas —outside” sat on the porch or in the yard, along with an untold number of heavy-duty extension cords and plugs-on-a-stick.
Take that, world, he thought as he dumped out enough icicle lights to doll up the Empire State Building.
“What on earth is the boy doing?”
Taking a moment to let the buzzing in her brain subside, Roxie broke her gaze from her phone to see Charley standing at the brand-new, double-paned window. Around which hung motionless draperies, praise be. Eden, who’d arrived with her dog before Roxie was even up, was in the kitchen—which she’d declared “a miracle”—chopping vegetables and whatnot for stew. And singing a tune from Oklahoma! Things would most definitely never be the same.
In many ways.
As if in a dream, Roxie got up to peer out the window. Across the street, Noah looked like a fly caught in a web of icicle lights, desperately struggling to break free—a sight that tickled her almost as much as it made her want to weep.
“It would appear he’s putting up Christmas decorations,” she said. “Trying to, anyway.”
“That’s Gene’s job…oh. Right.” Charley paused. “I’m gonna guess he has no clue what he’s doing.”
Roxie laughed, despite the weird, tight feeling in her chest. “I think that’s a safe bet,” she said, heading to the closet for her heaviest sweater-coat.
“Where you going?”
“To help. Wanna come?”
“Not on your life. Although I might dig out the Christmas wreath if the mood strikes.” Her uncle settled into his overstuffed chair, grabbing his glasses and half-read mystery off the table beside it. Then he looked over the glasses at Roxie. “You gonna tell him?”
“I don’t know. Because it’s not settled yet,” she said to Charley’s raised brows.
“Sounded pretty settled to me, from what I just heard.”
“Then not settled in my head. I need some time to get used to the idea myself, before I go blabbing about it to all and sundry.”
“Noah’s hardly all and sundry. And that didn’t keep you from telling anyone who’d stand still long enough about the Atlanta thing—”
“I am capable of learning from my mistakes,” Roxie said, grabbing her mittens off the table by the front door and heading out into the cold, crisp morning, where all those mistakes she’d declared herself so capable of learning from taunted her mercilessly from the sidelines. Creeps.
Noah glanced over the minute the front door closed irrevocably behind her, and she wondered how it was possible to be this conflicted and still function.
“You look like you could use some extra hands,” she called as she trooped down the steps.
He grinned the grin of the completely beleaguered, and her stomach went all disco fever on her. “Only if they’re yours.”
Now across the street, she forced herself to traverse his lawn, the dry, brown grass crunching underfoot as she came closer, telling herself turning tail right now would be totally lame. “How’s your dad?”
“Doing pretty good, thanks. Should be home tomorrow, in fact. But…” Noah’s gaze swept the house. “But ever since I can remember, the decorations went up without fail the day after Thanksgiving. And since Dad can’t…” Noah cleared his throat, then looked at Roxie again, one side of his mouth lifted. “Do you remember what the yard looked like? When you were here in high school?”
“Like the mother ship had landed,” she said, hating the gentleness in his voice, her susceptibility to it, as she bent over to open one of the boxes. “Wow. Inflatables?”
Noah chuckled. “We’d gone to Wal-Mart a few years back to get some replacement bulbs. I still remember the look on Dad’s face when we walked through the door and spotted the display. Like a little kid, I swear. I also remember the look on Mom’s face when we came home with not, one, not two, but three of the damn things. There’s also a lit-up train that goes around the whole yard. On tracks.”
“Ohmigosh,” Roxie said on another laugh. “You’re kidding? No wonder he starts so early—it must take a week to get it all done!”
“Something like that, yeah. Depending on how many of us he can strong-arm into helping him.” He scanned the yard, as though envisioning the scene. “Dad gets a real kick out of watching the kids when they come to see it all,” he said before his eyes touched hers again. “And I know he’d be disappointed if they showed up and there was nothing to see. Here. Take this end.”
He handed Roxie the plug end of the lights, slowly walking backward, patiently untangling as he went, just as he patiently dealt with his father’s foibles every day…and she understood. Why he was out here freezing his butt off, why he put up with Gene’s nagging, all of it. Because for all their differences, their bond was indissoluble. Although to be honest, it almost made her mad, that someone so obviously devoted to his family couldn’t see his way clear to start one of his own.
“This is definitely much easier with two people,” Noah said, the recalcitrant lights yielding far more quickly with four hands prying them apart.
“Most things are,” she said.
His eyes cut to hers, then away. “Dad put me in charge of the business.”
“Really?” He nodded. “Temporarily, or…?”
“He said from now on, but who knows?” That strand set to rights, Noah carefully laid it on the porch and dumped the next one out of its box. “Except I can tell he had…reservations. That if he hadn’t had that heart attack he never would have handed over the reins, unless…” He yanked too hard on the strand. “Unless I’d met his conditions.”
“The same ones from before?”
“I imagine so. And you know what?” he said on a frosted breath. “It sucks that I’m nearly thirty and still feel like I have to fight for my father’s approval. That no matter what, I still come up short in his eyes. Why the hell should it even matter?”
Okay, so maybe not that patient. Not that she didn’t understand that, too. The closer the relationship, the more tangled it was likely to be. Like the lights.
“It matters because you love him,” she said gently, even as her stomach sank, remembering what Gene had asked of her the day before. “Everybody wants their parents to be proud of them.” His only reply was a grunt. “What are you going to do?”
“Work my butt off. Make sure I don’t give him any reason to regret his decision. And maybe…” His eyes swung to hers, and electricity shot through her.
“What?”
He gave her a long, hard look that sent another hundred megawatts or so crackling along her skin. But instead of finishing his thought, he handed her the strand of lights. “Hang on to this while I get the ladder?”
He’d barely gotten ten feet before she blurted out, “I got a job offer.”
And when he whipped around, she saw in his eyes exactly what she’d suspected he’d stopped himself from saying.
Not funny, God, she thought. Not funny at all.