Emotion burned the back of Elisa’s throat. “He didn’t like outbursts. Or any strong emotion. I think when Mama died, he’d had enough of all that for a lifetime. He needed calm.”
Cooking for Dad, serving him coffee, bringing him his favorite book when he got home from work…those were the times he responded to Elisa with positivity. When she held it together, kept calm, she earned his approval.
The rest of the time, he either stared into space or fussed at her for being emotional.
“Answer this.” Delia let go of her hand. “Do you feel like you did anything wrong by spending time with Noah yesterday?”
Not this time around. Elisa swallowed. “No. We were just having a good time celebrating the first clue. It had been tough—much tougher than we expected. We were caught up in the moment.” She shrugged. “But now we’re stuck again, so I don’t know if any of it matters.”
“You’re not going to get anywhere if you don’t talk.” Delia tapped the table with one finger. “And that applies to both of these men in your life.”
“Noah isn’tin my life.” Elisa began twisting the straw wrapper into another knot. “We’re in a truce. Temporarily working together.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I mean, for a minute, sure, I wondered if we could be friends again.”
Delia’s brow arched. “Friends?”
Heat crawled up Elisa’s throat. “Friends that kiss.”
Delia pursed her lips but, to her credit, stayed silent.
“I should have known better than to get close. Chemistry dies hard, apparently.”
“Sometimes it doesn’t die at all.” Delia nodded. “But why do you even need to kill it? Noah’s a nice guy.”
He had some redeeming qualities, but not enough to erase time. “Because our families hate each other.” Elisa unknotted the paper wrapper. “Not to mention our personal history outside the feud. We’ve got more baggage than an airport. Maybe my dad did me a favor by showing up like that.”
Delia let out a noncommittal grunt.
“If we had kissed, it’d be like opening Pandora’s box. No way to stuff everything back inside once it got loose.”
Delia leveled her with a look. “You already stuff more than you should.” She paused. “You know the right man will love you for who you are…not the image you present.”
The words touched a deep ache, one she’d locked up for a long time. A knot formed in Elisa’s throat and she swallowed against it. “Who said anything about love?”
“That’s what you want, isn’t it? From your dad. And from the right man, one day.”
She snorted. “Let me guess. You think Noah is that man for me?”
“I know it wasn’t that snake of a man you dated in culinary school.” She scrunched her nose. “What was his name? Taylor? Trevor?”
“Trey.”
“Tell me, hon. Were you ever up front about what you felt when you were with Trey?”
“Probably not like you’re meaning. But I made my feelings pretty clear when I stopped by his apartment to surprise him with a baked apple loaf and caught him with one of our classmates.” Even now, the memory chafed like a pair of denim shorts after the log ride at the boardwalk. She’d always had a feeling about him and Sarah, but had denied the obvious far too long.
Delia narrowed her eyes. “If that apple loaf ended up anywhere other than smashed over his head, you weren’t up front.”
“I wish I had smashed it. Instead, I calmly placed it, and the bracelet he’d given me on our three-month anniversary, on the table and let myself out.”
Delia muttered ahumph. “See? Even in that situation you didn’t think you could be yourself. Show your real feelings.”
“I was trying to take the high road. Then to add insult to injury, Trey bad-mouthed me to the head teacher and took my job recommendation.” Elisa swallowed. “Man, I know how to pick ’em.”
“You picked a bad apple, hon. That’s all.”
