Be My Texas Valentine (39 page)

My JoEmma?
She could be. The kiss had told him that he wanted her to be. If he could only encourage her to believe that whatever she really wanted, he would help her get it. If he could somehow urge her to open up to him about what was so important to her that she intentionally denied herself better health, then he might find a way to make it all possible. Noah dwelled on the wisdom of his father’s words. The answer to everything seemed to lie in getting JoEmma to speak up.

He had to thank his father, not only for finally coming to visit but for being truthful about JoEmma and confiding in him. It was the finest conversation they’d shared since his youth. “I appreciate you talking about her with me, Dad. It means a lot.” Noah dared to share something more with his father. “
She
means a lot to me.”

“Good.” Approval echoed in Thurgood’s tone. “That’s what I came to hear. Hannah told me that she heard wedding bells in your future. I didn’t believe her. I wanted to see for myself if you really were starry-eyed or if it was just a figment of her matchmaking imagination. I can see Hannah has diagnosed the situation correctly. The woman can be hardheaded at times about things she wants. She knew I wouldn’t ask her to marry me and she wouldn’t accept until we were both sure you had someone to really take care of you, not just your office.”

Thurgood wiped the coffee from his mustache and looked sternly at his son. “You rely too much on Hannah, son. And frankly, I’m not getting any younger waiting on you to get smart enough to realize that you need more than a profession to make life worth living.”

“So, that’s why she’s being so stubborn this time.” Noah saw it all more clearly now. “She’s in a hurry to be a bride herself.”

“And she wants what she wants when she wants it.”

For the first time in a very long time, he saw that Thurgood Powell was a man who had been bested ... by love. “And we both know what she wants most.”

“
Her
way,” they echoed in unison.

The two shared their first laugh as grown men together.

Years of loneliness washed away in that moment of sharing. Noah felt pounds lighter as if a burden had been lifted from his shoulders and the love he’d always felt for his father formed a lump in his throat as he tried to swallow it back, afraid it might make him cry the tears he had refused to shed all those years after his mother’s death and his father’s estrangement.

He wanted the air between them to be pure once again, needing to put to rest the foul stench of the last words they’d shared four years ago before they had treated each other with silent indifference. Though he didn’t want to lose the sudden camaraderie between them, he had to make things right again. “Dad, I want you to know I’m sorry that I didn’t come to you in time to save Cousin Jenny. I honestly tried to persuade her to let me bring you in but she begged me—”

“You don’t have to say anything more, son. I know. When I visited your cousins after I retired, they told me that you did everything possible for Jenny. They also told me that Jenny made you swear on your mother’s grave not to leave her, even if it meant coming to fetch me. Betsy and Will insisted that they were too scared to come get me themselves for fear that they wouldn’t see their daughter alive again if they did. And they were right. You all were right for staying there and being there with Jenny in her last moments. I simply overreacted with grief of not knowing that I had been needed. Of not being able to say good-bye to that precious girl. Of having more grief added on to the other grief that I still wasn’t coping with well.”

His hand reached out and patted Noah’s shoulder. “I said some cruel things to you the day you came home from Jenny’s. I thought you were so upset with me about going into myself and leaving you all alone since your mother’s death that you had deliberately not consulted me about your cousin. That you were too afraid to talk to me about her or anything else, for that matter. After all, I was. Angry at my life as it was. Angry at death for taking your mother away from me. Angry at myself, Noah, because if you had been able to come to me, I wouldn’t have been there to hear you. And even though I knew I was the one at fault, I wasn’t man enough to admit I was wrong. Instead, I took it out on you and drove us even farther away from each other than before. You did right by staying with Jenny and doing what you could to comfort her going.”

His eyes met Noah’s and held them intently. “I want you to know I’m sorry, son. Sorry that I wasn’t there for you when your mother died. Sorry that you felt you couldn’t talk to me because you thought I didn’t have time for you anymore. Sorry that I’ve made you think that I consider you anything but the wonderful doctor, man, and son who others have had to tell me you are. I could have been, and should have been, learning that on my own. I’m most sorry for the years we’ve spent apart.” His voice broke as he added, “L-look at the time I’ve lost with you.”

Thurgood pulled Noah to him. Noah’s arm reached up slowly to wrap itself around his father’s shoulder. He closed his eyes and breathed in the essence of the man who had always been his own personal hero, the man he’d modeled his own life after, the man he had wanted to make so proud of him.

Thurgood began patting Noah’s back and saying, “I love you, Noah. Please forgive me. I’m so very sorry for hurting you.”

Noah’s other arm went up to complete the hug. Tears that had lain deep in his heart for seventeen years rushed up to spill from his eyes onto shoulders not as physically broad as Noah once remembered, but strong enough to make amends.

A twelve-year-old voice quivered in the throat of a twenty-nine-year-old man as Noah found the best words of forgiveness he could offer his father. “I love you, too, Dad.”

Chapter 9

“Good grief, how long is this going to take?” Angelina sat down on Noah’s bed in exasperation and held the soiled paper away from her body as if it were a rattlesnake ready to strike. “I thought you said there was nothing to it.”

“You’re the one who told Noah that Gabby was yours and you would help take care of her.” JoEmma ignored her sister’s look of exasperation and turned to spread fresh paper inside the bottom of the cage. “It takes however long it takes.”

“But I thought he would be in here with us,” she whispered even though the door was closed to his bedroom and they couldn’t be heard, “and I don’t like having to deal with bird droppings.”

“Nobody does. That’s just part of what you’ve got to do if you’re going to keep them healthy. And Noah’s with his dad for the first time in years. Let him be.”

“What do I do with this?” Angelina rattled the paper. “It stinks.”

“Put it in that basket next to the bed. I’ll take it out when I’m done with everything else.” JoEmma had expected Angelina to eventually tire of coming with her to take care of the birds but not on the first day. Her sister had been prepared to make a great show of effort if Noah had stayed to watch, but with him out of their presence, Angelina was already back to her usual practice of letting someone else take care of the actual work.

Not that JoEmma really minded. At least she knew the cleaning was being done right and Gabby and Amigo wouldn’t suffer from Angie’s lackluster efforts.

“Look at them. Aren’t they cute together?” She watched as the lovebirds flitted about the room, one spotting a new place to roost and calling the other over to investigate its comfort while JoEmma changed out the cage lining. “They’re showing each other their new surroundings.”

“Not much to it.” Criticism filled Angelina’s tone behind her. “I thought a bachelor’s private quarters would be more ... interesting. A bed, a pole, and a trash basket? There’s not a place to hang your corset even if you had a mind to let him woo it off of you.”

“What kind of man do you take Noah for?” JoEmma finished putting in the clean trays and filling one with a scoop of sunflower seeds, the other with some water from the ewer balanced beside her in the wheelchair. She was surprised that Angelina might consider him one of those fancy gambler sorts who traveled through town and stayed long enough to make his next stash and woo a new female conquest with his flashy clothes and the dexterity of his fingers. That kind of man held a particular fascination for her sister, but JoEmma considered his sort a walking woman-trap. Not Noah. He didn’t have it in him to be anything but forthright.

No, what he had in him was a certain way with a soul-searing kiss. “Noah’s not home enough to need more than this,” she defended his practicality.

“Dr. Powell is male enough, don’t fool yourself, Sister.” Angelina deposited the paper in the basket. “But I’m beginning to think that after the Valentine’s dance, I should start setting my cap elsewhere.”

Full-blown anger fired through JoEmma, making her swing around to face her sister. “Make up your mind, Angelina. Either go after him as your beau or don’t. But don’t accept his offer to escort you, then dishonor him by trying to charm someone else there. I won’t have it. I’m tired of you thinking you can have anyone you bat your eyelashes at, then tire of them and move on. I won’t allow you to do it to Noah. Not now. Not ever.”

“Whoa!” Angelina held her hands up to ward off her sister’s attack, her slippers shifting suddenly to tuck themselves beneath the folds of her skirt. JoEmma had rolled the chair so close that the wheels pinned the hem of Angelina’s skirt and wouldn’t let her move any farther backward.

“Owww!” Angelina yelped, her hands flying to the top of her head as a flutter of rainbow-colored wings flashed by her blond hair and flew somewhere behind the bird’s true owner. “That hat decoration plucked my hair!”

“Better her than me,” JoEmma warned, wanting to yank out wads of her sister’s hair for being so knuckle-brained about Noah. “Maybe it’s best you don’t come here anymore, Angie. You don’t want to deal with the birds. Gabby has plans to use your hair for her nest. And after you win your stupid bet, I don’t want you hanging around Noah or his place ever again unless you are in dire need of a doctor. Do you understand?”

“Roll back,” Angelina said quietly.

“Why?” JoEmma had expected a full verbal assault, not something so calmly spoken from her sister.

“I said, roll off of my hem so I can leave. Your chair is holding me down.”

JoEmma rolled back, the anger slowing from its rapid course through her veins.

“All you had to do was tell me you were really in love with him.” Angelina rose and shook the hem of her skirt to straighten it. “I would have never made the bet nor agreed to him escorting us both. I would have stepped aside.”

“Of course you wouldn’t have.” JoEmma didn’t believe her.

“Whether you believe it or not, I wouldn’t offend you deliberately.” Angelina grabbed her bonnet where she’d placed it on the bed when they first entered the bedroom. “I thought you showed interest in him because you know how competitive I am and that I would try to win his favor for that reason. I thought you were playing matchmaker, like Hannah has been these past two years. Trying to see me married so that we don’t run out of the trust fund money and I won’t have to take employment doing God knows what to earn my keep. I don’t have all your many talents, you know. I’m just pretty and that gets me only so far.”

“When I asked you to draw the hearts fairly and not match yourself up purposefully with him, you thought I was
competing
with you? That doesn’t make sense.” JoEmma never quite understood Angelina’s way of thinking, but then they were two totally different types of women.

“I’m stubborn. You know that. If you tell me what to do, then I intend to do quite the opposite. Perfectly logical reasoning.”

I was born different
, JoEmma decided, once again realizing that if such reasoning was logical, then it had to be something not within her makeup. “I guess I’m different from you. I mean what I say,” she told her sister.

“Yes, you do. You just don’t speak up for yourself enough. Not to me. Not to others. Certainly not to Dr. Powell.”

“It’s none of your business,” JoEmma argued.

“No-ah-Pow. No-ah-Pow. Smch-smch-smch,” the two lovebirds chirped simultaneously.

“It’s apparently everybody’s business.” Angelina’s gaze slanted to the birds. “Even they know how you truly feel about him. You’ve fooled nobody but yourself and apparently me, for a while. Now that I know, I insist that you do something about it. Let me help you do something about it. You just might find yourself spoken for by Valentine’s Day.”

“I won’t play games with Noah, and don’t act like you really care.” JoEmma couldn’t deal with her sister’s sudden concern. It hurt badly enough that pursuing any feelings she had for Noah would come across as competition with Angie. That was the last thing it would ever be. “No one’s watching and you won’t get anything out of saying you’ll help. He’s not a prize to be won. Leave me alone. Leave him alone.”

Something dulled Angelina’s eyes for a moment before they suddenly shimmered with tears. “I’ll get something I’ve wanted for a long time, Jo. I’ll see you well and happy. Believe it or not, I’m telling you the truth now. I want nothing more than I want that at the moment.”

Sister eyed sister in silent regard. JoEmma’s heart clenched as she realized she’d been too hard on Angelina. Maybe too critical for too long. Her elder sister was being sincere at the moment. JoEmma felt it to the bone, to the depths of her damaged heart. She’d hurt Angie deeply by accusing her of wanting to take rather than give something to her.

Sadness had caused the tears welling in her sister’s eyes. Sadness that the bond that had once been strong between them had been frayed by envy and mistrust. JoEmma recognized that sadness, for she had it every time she ever wanted Angelina to show how much she loved and cared for her. Angie had simply done things her own way and her way wasn’t JoEmma’s. That didn’t make her any less of a sister. It just made her different.

JoEmma was wrong this time and admitted it. “I’m sorry, Ang. I’m silly and do stupid things sometimes. Maybe I’m even just a little jealous of you.”

“You have reason to be, you know.” Angelina’s chin tilted at a haughty angle and her eyes twinkled amid the shimmer of tears.