After Midnight (23 page)

“Yeah, right.” When he remained silent, she turned back to face him. His eyes caught and held hers. “You’re serious.”

“Very.”

“I couldn’t.” But it was tempting. So very tempting. “You’ll have to find a way around the record company. I’m sure they’d make allowances for something like this.”

“Isabeau” His expressive face changed, became almost somber. “We’re under the wire here. We meet with the record company in a matter of weeks to show them what we can do. If we aren’t ready by then—”

“You’ll be ready.”

“This record is our last hurrah, our last chance to show we still have what it takes. If we muck this up—”

“The death of a loved one, they couldn’t possibly—”

“They can. They will. Noah won’t accept that, you know he won’t. Getting this right means everything to him. All of us.”

She did know. Noah would stand alone, before he’d risk the record. He’d probably told Dom as much—to remain behind and continue working on the demo.

“You could go,” he repeated.

A war of emotions waged within her. “Just hop on a plane? Then what, knock on his door?”

“You could.”

Of course, she couldn’t. “And say what?”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too, sweetheart, but we’re not talking about us.”

“Funny.” His eyes narrowed as he focused on her so intently that she felt like she stood spotlighted onstage. “You’re scared.”

“Of course I am,” she admitted softly. Searching for a plausible explanation, she grabbed at the first one that came to her. “I hate to fly.”

His eyes softened but he did not comment.

She couldn’t believe she was actually considering his suggestion. But the lure of seeing Noah, of being there for him during his grief was strong. “What if I get there, and I’m the last person he wants to see?”

“Not going to happen, luv.”

“You don’t know that.”

Arching a brow, he leaned back against the cooler.

“I can’t believe I’m considering this. I don’t even know where to find him. What am I supposed to do, stop someone on the street and ask directions?”

He gave her a smile that was all charm and confidence. Reaching out, he snagged a napkin from the stack near her elbow, and the pen that lay next to the cash register. “I’ll give you the address.”

Her eyes were intent on his hands as he began to write. “And if he sends me packing?”

“He won’t.”

“He could.” She rubbed her raw palm over the knotted muscles in the back of her neck. “This is different from jogging across town to the funeral home to show my support. This is…” Her words trailed off as he handed her the napkin. She focused on his chicken scrawl. “This has crazed stalker written all over it.”

“What about Noah, spending all that time sitting in the back corner? All those nights he spent watching you, that didn’t?” He rested his hand on the bar and leaned closer. “You do realize that was about you and not alcohol, don’t you?”

“Wanting someone in your bed and wanting them at your side for a funeral are not at all alike.”

Perfect. She’d just said that out loud.

“Go to him, Isabeau. He won’t turn you away, I know he won’t.”

She hesitated, torn by conflicting emotions.

“Aren’t you the one who told me ‘love is worth the risk’?”

“I did. And I see you took my advice to heart. You haven’t even called her have you? Dom, Becca deserves to know you love her. What she does with that knowledge is up to her.”

“Noah deserves—”

“Noah knows how I feel about him.”

He frowned. His frown deepened when she pushed the napkin back across the bar in his direction.

Regret filled her. She ruthlessly pushed it aside in the same way she pushed her hands into her front pockets. “This insanity is over. If Noah wanted me with him, he would call and ask me to come.”

“You’re right,” he replied, straightening.

A small clutch of pain tightened her stomach.

“You are, because dropping everything, closing your business for a few days so you can jump on a plane and hop the Atlantic, that’s not too much to ask.” He pushed the napkin back in her direction. “Is it, Isabeau?”

She winced. “He won’t call me, will he?”

“Noah has fears, the same as you and me. No one’s immune to them.”

“He must know I would…” That’s when it hit her. Hard. Right between the eyes.

How could Noah know the impact he’d made on her life if she’d only just realized it herself? Right that moment—when she made the decision to face crushing rejection by settling into a little metal box that could fall out of the sky and plummet into the ocean, so that she could be with him.

Dominic gave the napkin one final shove in her direction. “Ring me when you get to London, let me know your flight went well.”

She swallowed hard, but the lump of emotion remained lodged in her throat. “I don’t much care for airplanes.”

“I know, luv.”

Chapter Eleven

Isabeau’s gaze moved between the numbers on the front of the house before her and the numbers on the napkin. Then, for the third time since watching the taxi driver pull away without a backward glance, she checked the street for a road sign. For something, anything that would assure her she was deciphering Dominic’s scrawl correctly. It was bad enough she’d failed to have him verbalize the address, but then she’d been so afraid she’d misplace the damn thing, she’d clutched it in her hand the entire flight. As a result the napkin was wrinkled and smudged, and half the ink now colored the palm of her left hand.

This was not her best moment.

Why had she listened to Dominic? She would have been better off getting a telephone number from him and calling Noah. But no, she’d made arrangements for the bar to be closed for a few days, cancelled deliveries and called employees. Then she’d tossed clothes into her carry-on luggage and boarded a plane.

A chill walked down her spine. The greasy ball of fear remained in her belly even though the flight was over. Flying. What could be worse?

Oh, yeah. How about standing before two similar yet detached three-story brick homes on a London street, unable to tell whether the last digit of the address was a four or a nine? To say that she was suddenly questioning the intelligence of her rash decision and last-minute trip would be an understatement.

With a sigh, she carried her luggage to the front step of the house whose street number ended in a nine and reached for the brass knocker centered in the oak paneled door. Before her fingers curled around the knocker, the door swung open.

She stepped back reflexively, knocking over her suitcase in her haste. “Hello, um, I’m looking for the Clark home.”

The woman who stepped outside looked to be in her early sixties. Her gray hair in curlers, she scrutinized Isabeau from head to toe and back again in the amount of time it took her to pull the door mostly closed behind her. “Are you expected?”

She did her best not to squirm. “Actually, no. My name is Isabeau Montgomery. I know you don’t know me, but I’m looking for Noah.” She was stammering, but couldn’t seem to stop the flow of words once they started. “Dom wrote out the address for me, but I can’t quite make out this last part.”

The woman was watching her carefully. Isabeau held out the napkin. “Can you tell me if I’m in the right general area?”

Honestly, she expected the woman to step back into the house and close the door in her face. It was early yet, the sunlight just beginning to rise over the houses at her back and slant across the doorstep. Instead, the woman settled her hand on Isabeau’s wrist. “You know Dominic?”

She wasn’t used to strangers touching her. She stood there, absorbing the shock and the surprising comfort in the woman’s touch. The knot in her stomach loosened a fraction. “Yes. I don’t mean to intrude, I—”

“Your hands are like ice, dear. Are you all right?”

“She doesn’t like to fly.”

The deep, masculine voice drew Isabeau’s attention up and over the woman’s shoulder. The door remained open a scant four inches. Centered in an archway between the entryway of the house and what appeared to be a formal dining room stood Noah. His gaze locked on her, expression neutral.

“It’s more like I’m terrified of flying,” she admitted softly. He looked worn-out, his eyes slightly bloodshot and shadowed enough to indicate he hadn’t slept much in the few days he’d been gone. The stubble along his jaw remained, thickened now but still unable to disguise the lines of exhaustion at the corners of his unsmiling mouth.

Anxiety warred with an intense relief that she was at the right house.

“Yet you obviously spent the better part of nine hours on a plane,” he replied evenly.

Oh God, she wished she could gauge his reaction to her sudden arrival. But his expression gave nothing away.

“About ten actually.” There was that hour her plane sat on the runway waiting to take off, while every horrible thing she could imagine going wrong danced through her mind like an in-flight movie. “I had this crazy idea that you might need a friend right about now.”

“Did you?”

He didn’t tell her she was mistaken. He just looked at her some more.

Her right hand clenched around the strap of her tote, her fingers dug into the supple leather.

“Mum, are you going to let Isabeau in, or did you plan on making her stand out on the street all day?”

Relief filled her. She didn’t have to return to the airport. Long Island City. Alone.

Noah’s mom blinked, took a quick look at her son. “Isabeau, you say?” She looked back at Isabeau, the most peculiar expression on her face. “You’re a friend of Noah’s?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I see.” Was that amusement shining in her gaze? “Come inside dear, let me take that bag for you. I’ll place it in the other room.”

“Thank you, Mrs.—”

“Call me Emily, dear, everyone does.” Smiling broadly, she picked up Isabeau’s carry-on and walked off, leaving her and Noah standing silently across the entryway from each other.

The silence stretched, grew. Unable to take it any longer, Isabeau spoke. “Your mom seems nice.”

Noah stood in the archway and drank in the sight of her. He’d been thinking about her all morning, and here she was. In the flesh. In his parent’s home. Flustered and so damn radiant in her simple white cotton dress that he damn near cried.

He managed to save himself from that humiliation. Barely. “You’re…” He struggled to rein in his scattered thoughts. A part of him wondered if she was truly there, or a figment of his exhausted mind. “You got on a plane? For me?”

“The guys couldn’t be here for you. I could.”

His eyes began to burn. Damn it. He was going to humiliate himself after all. “What about the bar?”

“I couldn’t get hold of Clint before I left, so I closed it.” Her fingers clenched and unclenched. As the leather tote she carried slipped off her shoulder, she eased it to the floor near her feet. “Look, if I was too presumptuous, I can leave. Tell me to go.”