Then she realized the waitress was standing there, plates in hand. Jenna leaned back, breaking the connection. They ate a few bites in silence. Then, “Thank you for sharing this with me, Noah.”
“You asked about my work and look where it took us.”
They did not speak again until their meals were finished. Then Jenna asked, easy as mentioning the weather, “Speaking of work. Does my profession bother you?”
“No.” Noah pushed his plate to one side. Clearing the decks. Almost like he had been waiting for the question. Or perhaps, he’d been thinking about that very thing. “On one level it unsettles me. Some.”
“There’s a difference?”
“Absolutely. For me, at least. The way you said it. Does it bother me? That sounded like I’m repelled. If that’s what you meant, then no, Jenna. Absolutely not.”
“But you’re unsettled.”
“What you see, the people you clearly care for, watching them and being with them right to that very last breath.” He shook his head. “Wow.”
She loved it. Just could not get enough of this. Being with this handsome, wounded man, surrounded by the clatter and chatter of a busy diner, lost in the moment. Together. “What, wow.”
“Am I allowed to say that would totally creep me out?”
“You can say whatever you want.” She found herself moving her own plate to one side. So she could lean closer. Watching as Noah did the same. “But you’re not, as you say, disturbed.”
“There is a depth to you, a calm. It has to come from your work. I think about that sometimes. You know . . .”
“Tell me.”
“At night. When I feel like the past starts to close in. I think about what I see in your eyes, Jenna. Like now.”
She felt herself clench slightly. It felt that good. She repeated, “Tell me.”
“It’s like staring into a bottomless pool of utterly calm water. Like I could just fall in and go deeper and deeper. Forever.”
She did her best to suppress a tight shiver. “Sometimes at night, you know, after I’m back home and recovering from another departure . . .”
When she went quiet, it was Noah’s turn to say, “Tell me.”
“I feel like this is what I was made for. Reaching out in ways that are uniquely mine. Soothing away the loneliness, the lack of control . . .”
This time, when she stopped and searched for the right word, it was Noah who said, “The terror.”
“That’s what I see sometimes. Yes. How did you know?”
“It’s what I feel, reliving my life coming apart. I’m left facing the empty black hour.”
“The empty black hour,” she repeated. Wow. “I feel like what I do is most special then. Being a friend to the end.”
“That’s how you described it when we were all eating together. I’ve thought a lot about that. What it must mean to, you know, your patients.”
“I don’t want them ever to feel alone.”
“A friend to the end.” Noah clenched down tight then. Almost like he was struggling not to weep. But he did not pull away. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded choked. “There’ve been times when I could have used that.”
She started to point out how many people were around him now. Sharing their few free hours with him and his boat. But she sensed they had gone as far as they needed to, or should. At least for now. Jenna smiled, leaned back, and merely said, “Perhaps we should go.”
CHAPTER19
They were midway back to the valley when Noah started in, his manner as easy as he’d been in the diner. “My stepmother was okay. We never really connected, you know, like what Ethan and Liam have. It’s great to see, but sometimes I wonder what life might have been like.”
“It’s alien to you,” Jenna said, scooting over so she could lean on the door and watch him. “What about your father?”
