The heat had been slowly draining from her face, but now it was back and blazing hotter than ever. Noah had called the sherifffirst? What kind of person did that, instead of trying to solve a simple prank in a neighborly way?
"Mr. Miller just wants to be left alone."
Aiden's simple, firm statement left no room for argument.
It also drew a memory, unbidden, from the depths of her memory bank. Two days after high school graduation. Two days after the auto accident and the surgery that had saved Noah’s life but hadn’t been able to restore his sight, she’d called his cell phone. Even though they hadn’t been close, she’d wanted to visit him at the hospital. The call had connected and she’d heard the murmur of his mother’s voice in the background. And then Noah’s angry exclamation just before the call had disconnected.
He hadn’t answered any of her calls after that.
Over ten years later, Noah still wanted to be left alone.
She hung up the phone and walked back to the living room doorway. This time, she saw Casey's furtive glance and how PJ looked guilty as he flipped the spiral notebook closed.
Walking stick.Zombie.
Suddenly, the binoculars and the boys' secrecy made a sick kind of sense. They'd been spying on Noah. And playing a prank on him.
She felt suddenly exhausted, weighted down by disappointment and knowing she still had a hard discussion and some kind of punishment ahead of her tonight.
It didn't change how she felt about them. She'd known from extensive discussions with the kids' social worker and some reading she'd done in preparation that their transition into her household wasn't going to be easy. But she'd loved them from that first night together. When she'd shown the boys their room upstairs, she'd seen the vulnerability they worked to hide as they remained tight-lipped and quiet.
It was her job to love them. And part of loving them was helping them grow into good citizens, men who could face their mistakes and apologize when they'd done wrong.
But Aiden had insisted that Noah didn't want an in-person apology. Should she respect his decision, even if it wasn't neighborly?
