3
Two days after the disastrous visit from his neighbors, Noah wrapped his narration at midnight. Much later than usual.
Noah paid little attention to time. His day was done when his to-do list was completed. He stayed on task. Without his sight, there was no real watching the clock.
Today, it'd taken him forever to get into his normal rhythm.
He'd missed two lines because he'd been distracted. He'd recorded most of chapter seventeen with his gain at the wrong setting. He'd had to re-record it. He hated redoing work.
And it was all Jilly's fault.
He couldn't stop thinking about her.
He hadn't treated her any differently than anyone else. He didn't want to deal with neighbors. He didn't even want to talk to acquaintances.
But, for the first time, he felt uncomfortable about how things had gone down.
Yesterday, as they'd gone through notes in the morning, Aiden had let it slip that the doorbell camera had recorded the whole thing, and that he hadn't cut the recording before he'd heard all of it. Noah had a witness to his interaction with his neighbors.
Aiden hadn't criticized him outright, but his thoughts on the matter had been implied by his cool tone of voice and clipped words.
So what? Aiden was Noah's employee.
And Noah didn't have to care about his neighbor. Or her kids.
I'm fostering them.
What kind of person took on a challenge like three kids old enough to get into mischief?
The Jilly he remembered had been heading to college. Now, he couldn't remember which one. Had she finished her degree? If so, how had she ended up back in Sutter's Hollow? Her dad lived here, or had at least until last year when he'd retired as town mayor.
Why wasn't she married? Okay, she hadn't actually said she was single. But the tension in her voice as she'd dealt with the boys had been real. If she was married, where was her husband?
If she was single, she'd bitten off more than she could chew.
It took time for him to learn a new voice. He couldn't see a person’s anxiety by the tightening of lips, their exhaustion by the droop of their shoulders. But he could hear the nuance of each note, if he listened closely. If he knew them.
The older boy, Casey, was easy to read. He'd made no effort to hide his sarcasm and bad attitude. The middle one, the other boy, was harder to read. He'd been stubbornly silent at first, but when he'd spoken, Noah had sensed sincerity in his voice. He hadn’t known whether the little girl was there or not. If she was, she’d never spoken.
As far as Noah was concerned, it was three against one. Jilly didn't stand a chance.
Except he could still hear the snap in her voice.They aren't.Troublemakers, she'd meant.They've had a rough time.Jilly was a staunch defender. Maybe she'd overcome the odds and change the kids' lives.
Still, he was angry that she'd forced him to open the door. Angry that she was in his head.
She was the cause of the sense of unease that had plagued him all afternoon and into the night. Like a dull throb beneath his skin.
He needed sleep. Needed to forget.
He powered down his microphone and computer and stood from his desk chair, his knees popping. He wasn't as young as he used to be.
As he moved through the house in his bare feet, he could feel the hints of cold air at the edges of the room. The weatherman had predicted a cold front moving in. Looks like he'd been right.
He'd make a cup of tea and then go to bed. The slippery elm mix soothed his throat, and maybe its warmth would help soothe his tension.
He filled the teapot from the tap and flipped on the front burner of the stove. He pulled a spoon from the silverware drawer and lined it up on the counter next to his mug. Then came the bear-shaped honey jar from the pantry. Last of all, he took a tea bag from the small basket he kept on the countertop.
He walked the small envelope between his fingers. Thanksgiving was in two and a half weeks. He would wrap production on this audiobook just in time for the December first deadline. And once he got the new contract for Ms. McDane, he'd be able to pay off the mountain of medical bills that had buried him after the accident.
