Come Together by Marie Force

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Sadness flies away on the wings of time.”

—Jean de La Fontaine

Long moments passed while Brianna stood out on the edge of a cliff all by herself, taking a gigantic leap forward that neither of them was ready to make. But there they were, on the cliff, teetering.

“I’m not fit for company, Bri.”

That he called her by her nickname was somehow comforting. “That’s okay. I’ll just be here if you need me.”

She took off her coat and brought it with her to the bed, where she sat on the mattress, still holding her coat. That wouldn’t do. She looked like she was ready to leave at a moment’s notice, and she wasn’t going anywhere. Rising, she put the coat on an upholstered chair in the corner of the room and returned to the bed.

Was she prepared to stay there all night? If necessary. The room was chilly, and it didn’t take long for her to be uncomfortably cold, so she got under the covers and sat propped against the pillows, watching over Noah, who never moved from his post by the window.

She had no idea how long they stayed like that, silent and separate, until he stood up a little straighter and cleared his throat.

“You know what I’d like to know?”

“What’s that?” Brianna asked, relieved to hear him say something, anything.

“When did we go from ‘I’ll love you forever’ to her sleeping with my best friend and giving birth to my kid and keeping that from me for years? When did that happen? Where was I the day it all changed? What was I doing? What did I miss that I should’ve seen?”

Brianna was up and out of the bed before he finished talking. She wrapped her arms around him from behind and held on tightly. “You didn’t miss anything, Noah, because she kept it from you. She didn’t want you to know things had changed.”

“Why? Why would she do this to me? And to our child?”

“I don’t know. We may never know why. But now you know your son is out there, and he’s yours, and you can be part of his life.”

“I’ll be a stranger to him.”

“At first, but over time, it won’t be like that.”

“I’m so fucking angry. I’ve never been this angry, even the day I caught her with Miguel. That was nothing compared to this.”

“I can’t begin to know how you must feel.”

“I’m filled with rage. It’s like a wildfire that wants to consume me.”

“Don’t let it, Noah. Fight it back. The rage won’t help anything. It’ll only make a difficult situation more so. I learned that lesson the hard way. Your only thought should be for your son and asserting your parental rights where he’s concerned. She’s nothing to you, except your soon-to-be ex-wife and your son’s mother.”

He took a deep breath and let it out. “I wanted them to suffer for what they did to me, and instead, they’re out there living like a happy little family with my son. He’s mine.”

“Yes, he is, and he’s going to know who his father is, Noah. He’ll know that. Kids don’t remember the first few years of their lives. You’ll be such a big part of his life that he’ll never know anything other than you as his father.”

“I want custody of him.”

“Let’s see what Gray says about that.”

“It’s too much to ask of you, Brianna, especially when you have your own stuff going on.”

“It’s not too much.”

“I wouldn’t blame you if…”

“What? If I cut and run? That’s not happening, Noah, so don’t try to push me away. I’m not going anywhere. Did you hear what I said to you before? I love you. I didn’t intend to love you when I first met you, and you drove me crazy every minute of every day, but that was so two weeks ago. And now…”

“What?” he asked gruffly.

“Now you’re all I think about. You’re all I want and need, and I already love your son because he’s part of you. It’s not too much.”

With a moan that sounded an awful lot like surrender, Noah turned to her, enveloping her in his strong arms and burying his face in her hair, seeming to breathe her in. “I love you, too. How could I not? You’re so sweet and smart and sexy and perfect for me because you understand my pain and would never cause me more of it—and vice versa. I’d never hurt you.”

“That’s about the best guarantee any girl with a recovering broken heart could hope to receive.”

“We’ve both had enough of the bad stuff.”

“Yes, we have.”

“This thing with my son is apt to get ugly. I’ll do my best to protect you from that.”

“No, Noah, I’ll do my best to protect you from that. We’re going to get through all this shit and figure it out together. I promise.”

“I’m afraid all this external crap will mess things up for us.”

“It won’t. We won’t let it.” She took him by the hand and led him to the bed, encouraging him to sit. Crouching in front of him, she untied his boots and removed them, tossing them aside. “Get under the covers.”

“Are you coming with me?”

“You know it.”

She went around the bed and got in next to him, snuggling up to him.

His arm came around her, and she rested her head on his chest.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about the restoration idea,” she said.

“Have you?”

“Uh-huh, and the more I think about it, the more interested I am.”

“Really?”

“Yep. Do you have some properties identified yet?”

“I’ve found ten that interest me.”

“That’s so exciting.”

“Um, Brianna?”

“Yes, Noah?”

“You do realize if you stay up here and become my partner in the restoration business, that means you’ll live in Butler, Vermont, with no cell service and nine months a year of cold. You don’t like being cold.”

“No, I don’t, but you bought me that jazzy long underwear that’ll keep me warm, and I’ll probably spend most of my time in our home office doing design work while you manage the construction. Would you build me a fire before you left for the day?”

“I’d build you the biggest fire ever so it would keep you toasty all day.”

“And when you got home from work, would you snuggle with me in front of the fire and let me warm you up?”

“I would, and I’d keep you warm all night in bed.”

“Then I suppose fall, winter and spring in Vermont would be more than tolerable.”

“Are you serious about this?”

“If our life looked like the one we just discussed, then yes, I’m serious.”

“You’d want to live with me?”

“Since we’ll be together all the time, or at least I think we would be, it’d be dumb to pay for two places when we only need one.”

“That’s true.”

“And PS, yes, I want to live with you and be with you all the time. But only if you want that, too.”

“A few weeks ago, I would’ve said no way, but I’ve been dreading the end of the job at the inn and you going back to Boston.”

“You didn’t tell me that.”

“I didn’t want to make you feel bad about going back to your life there.”

“I have no life there. Not anymore. All I do is work for three men I can’t stand and then go home alone. Even my closest friends got tired of me being such a sad sack and stopped asking me to do stuff I didn’t want to do anyway. It wasn’t until I came up here and got away from everything that I realized my life there was nothing but a giant rut. Even before this happened with you, I knew I needed to make some changes. And the kind of changes we’re talking about make me excited about the future for the first time in a very long time. I’ll have to find another job until our business becomes profitable. I’m still paying off the debt that Rem left me.”

“Work with me. I need so much help. I’m always a month behind on everything. I can pay you enough to cover any bills you have until the new business starts making money.”

“You’re not creating a job for me, are you?”

“It’s something I’ve needed for a long time. Your project management skills will be a huge help to me.”

“Then I accept your kind offer.”

“I could be looking at an extended battle over my son.”

“That’s okay. We’ll do whatever it takes to bring him into your life. Our life.”

Noah was quiet for a long time, even as he ran his hand up and down her arm. “When I came here with Gray, I was a mess. I was so spun up and enraged and sad. I was so fucking sad. But then you came bombing into the room, and that’s all it took for me to feel better. Just knowing you were here.”

“Then you know how it is for me when I’m spinning, and you tell me it’s all going to be okay.”

Noah shifted them so he was on his side, facing her. “If you want that life you described for us, then I’m in.”

“I want it. And you. And your son. And your wonderful family and this adorable town and your gigantic moose and nine months a year of cold. I want it all. But more than anything, I want you.”

“Then how about we make that happen?”

“Let’s do it.”

* * *

Noah was awake all night,thinking about Brianna and how she’d pulled him back from the edge of disaster he’d been on when she arrived at Grayson’s and how she’d forced him to let her be there for him. Not that he’d taken much convincing. At some point, she’d become necessary to him, and leaning on her felt natural, like loving her was something he’d been born to do.

He was sitting at the table in Gray’s kitchen nursing a second cup of coffee when his brother came in, dressed in gray pants and a navy V-neck sweater over a dress shirt.

“You’re all turned out for a Saturday,” Noah said.

Gray poured himself a cup of coffee. “I’m going to Burlington.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“Nope.” Gray brought creamer with him when he sat at the table. “You’re staying right here until I sort this out. The last thing we need is you storming in there hot.”

“I’d let you do the talking.”

“No, Noah. You’re going to stay here, spend the day with Brianna and let me do what I do. That’s what is in your best interest. Trust me.”

“Now that I know about him, I don’t want to wait another day to see him.”

“I completely understand that—”

“Do you? Do you really? Did you just find out that your cheating bitch of an ex-wife hid your child from you for more than two fucking years?”

“No, I didn’t, and I can only imagine how you must feel.”

Noah exhaled a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to take it out on you. I know you’re trying to help.”

“We’re going to figure this out, and we’re going to get your son into your life as soon as we possibly can. But we need to be careful about how we approach it. The last thing we want to do is cause her to take the child and run.”

The thought of that sent fear rippling through him, especially knowing that was what’d happened to Cabot with Mia. No, he didn’t want that. “What’s the plan?”

“I’m going to go there, knock on her door, tell her we’re aware there’s a child, ask for a paternity test and a divorce. I’m going to tell her that unless she fails to cooperate, we have no intention of making a federal case out of the fact that she denied you your child for all this time. And I’ll put her on notice that should the DNA prove the child is yours, you fully intend to file for joint custody.”

“Why not full custody? That’d be a slam dunk after she hid him from me for all this time.”

“Because that’s not in his best interest. You’d be bringing him to live with people who are strangers to him.”

“I’ll never forgive her for this.”

“And you don’t have to, but you need to think of what’s best for him and not what’s best for you.”

“Is it normal to feel like you’re coming out of your skin when you hear something like this?”

“Absolutely. But keeping a calm head will make a big difference. I’ve got you covered, and I’m going to handle it. If you give me Brianna’s cell phone number, I can text you the minute I know anything. I figure hers is charged, and yours probably isn’t.”

“You figure correctly.”

“She’ll have to keep her phone logged in to Wi-Fi to get the message.”

“I’ll make sure she does.” Noah retrieved his wallet from his back pocket and got out the scrap of napkin bearing Brianna’s numbers.

Gray put the cell number into his phone. “Got it.”

“Thank you for this and everything you do for our family. I know it seems like we take you and all you do for us for granted—”

Grayson laid his hand on Noah’s arm. “I never think that, and you know I’d do anything for you.”

Damn if his brother wasn’t going to make him bawl like a baby.

“Before all this happened last night,” Gray said, “I was going to tell you that Dad called me to ask how Izzy’s doing.”

“I thought he was going to come to see her?”

“His doctor told him not to go to the hospital. He’s still immunocompromised after the transplant. He said he’s going to call her now that she’s home and see if there’s a time he can come by.”

“Well, that’s something anyway. So, the remission is holding?”

“That’s what he said.”

“That’s good.”

“Yep.”

Nothing had changed between Mike Coleman and his eight children. He would always be the man who’d abandoned them and their mother.

“What he did… It makes it worse for me that I have a son out there I didn’t know about. I never wanted to be the kind of father he was.”

“Come on, Noah, there’s no comparing what he did with this. You didn’t know the child existed. He left eight children who not only knew him but loved him. This is in no way the same thing.”

“Just the thought of my kid out there, not even knowing me… And being raised by the two people who betrayed me. It makes me sick.”

“What she did is monstrous, and she knows it as well as we do.”

“I want to see him. As soon as possible.”

“I’ll do everything I can to make that happen.” Gray drank the last of his coffee. “I’m going to go so I can get there early before they leave for the day or whatever.”

“And you’ll text me the minute you know anything?”

“I will.” He glanced toward the doorway. “Is Brianna still here?”

Noah nodded. “She stayed.”

“She seems to care about you.”

“She does.”

“Are you letting her? Care, that is…”

“Yeah,” Noah said with the first hint of a smile. “I’m letting her.”

“I know that’s a big deal for you.”

“It is for her, too.”

“You two are just what the other needs.”

“That’s how it’s starting to seem. We’re making some plans.”

“That’s good. I’m happy for you both.”

“Thanks.”

“Let me go see what I can do to resolve this situation in Burlington. It’ll be four hours or so before I have any news. Take Brianna out to do something fun today to keep yourself busy.”

“I will. Emma knows we’re here, right?”

“She does and said to make yourselves at home.”

“Thanks again, you know, for everything.”

“No worries.”

Grayson got himself together and departed a few minutes later, leaving Noah alone to contemplate how this day would transpire. What if she was hostile? What if she wouldn’t even talk to Gray? What if he had to go through a protracted legal battle to see his child? Any of those possibilities was enough to make him feel exhausted and overwhelmed.

Just as he was on the verge of spinning himself up with worst-case scenarios, Brianna came shuffling into the kitchen. She looked adorably rumpled and sleepy. “I woke up and couldn’t figure out where I was.”

Noah held out his arms to her, and she came to him, settling on his lap as if she belonged there, which she did.

She caressed his face. “Did you sleep?”

“Not much. Gray just left to go to Burlington to talk to her.”

“Oh, wow. Well… How’re you feeling?”

“Resigned to a very long morning waiting to hear how it goes. I gave Gray your cell number. He said if you keep it logged in to Wi-Fi, he’ll message us as soon as he talks to her.”

“I’ll keep it logged in. In the meantime, we’ll have to find something to do.”

“I thought we could stop by my aunt and uncle’s so I can show you the incredible home they created from a falling-down barn.”

“I’d love to see it—and meet them.”

“And I thought you might like to meet the baby moose my cousin Hannah is raising.”

“Is he as huge as Fred?”

“Nah, he’s a little guy. Hannah babies him, so he’s like a puppy.”

“A puppy moose. Sounds like something I need to see. Whatever you want to do today, that’s what we’ll do.”

“I don’t want my thing to overtake your thing.”

“My thing was shock at receiving the news and being questioned by cops. Now that I’ve processed it, I’m better. I’m sad for him and the people who loved him, but I’ve moved on from him. I refuse to let his death cause a massive setback for me. I’ve come too far to let that happen.”

“I’m proud of you for being so strong.”

“It took me a very long time to get to this place.” She kissed his neck, his cheek and then his lips. “And I like it here.”

“We like you here, too.”