Amos smiled. “Well, all right then.”
“Are you laughing at me?”
“Not a chance in the whole wide world.” He turned to Ethan. “What about you folks?”
“We’re in for the long haul,” Ryan said. “Right, hon?”
“Absolutely.”
Amos turned back to his brother. “Why don’t you start at the top and tell us what you know about this new money guy?”
CHAPTER34
The next morning, Jenna woke with the sense that a band of tension and fear had become wrapped around her body during the night. It was still there when she parked in front of Noah’s farmhouse at a quarter past six. Not a dominating force. But strong enough to drive a wedge between her and the man who smiled as he approached.
Noah must have noticed her distance, for he stowed his smile away and simply asked if she wanted a coffee for the road. When she declined, he held the door to his pickup, slipped behind the wheel, started south, and did not speak again until they joined the interstate below San Lu. And then it was only to ask if everything was okay.
She did not like how the tension seemed in control of both her and the pickup’s atmosphere. She leaned against the door, trying to come to terms with her internal state, asking herself repeatedly the same question she had woken to repeatedly during the night: What did she actually want?
The answer was clear enough, though it frightened her to state it, even mentally. She wanted to love this man.
And she wanted to do so safely.
She wasn’t after some sort of fairy-tale perfection. She simply wanted to know one thing. Could she rely on Noah not to run away again, give in to his own night terrors and break things off?
“Jenna?”
She knew it was time to speak, and said the first thing that came to mind. “I was thinking about Dino. You remember what my patients often said about time?”
“Sure. They thought they’d have more of it. I can’t tell you how often I’ve circled back to that.”
“Dino put it differently. The one occasion I pressed him about keeping his family outside the gates, he told me that time is a currency you’ve got stashed in a secret account. You can only spend it once. When it’s gone, it’s gone and it’s never coming back. Your only choice is, how to spend it well.”
Noah drove almost twenty miles down the freeway before responding. “I like the man’s thought process. I’m not able to agree with his actions. How often was the guy married?”
“Just the one time, according to Zia’s contact with the FBI. Dino arrived here with a wife and young daughter. A year or so later, she died in childbirth. He never remarried.”
“So, just the two daughters. And their children. From them, there’s not a single relative who loved him. Who wants to be with him for any other reason than to grab their share of his loot.”
She nodded. “Exactly what I thought. And didn’t say.”
“That’s sad.” Another five miles, ten, the only sound coming from the wheels drumming along the highway. Then, “He needed secrecy to stay safe. But it’s hard not to think this same attitude kept his family from ever getting close. I wonder if he was even aware of this.”
“I wondered too.”
“And?”
“I think he was proud of his secrets. Not just proud of staying safe. Proud of being his own man. He was the most fiercely independent person I’ve ever known. I liked him. But being his friend meant accepting him for who he was.”
“Secrecy was what made him who he was.” Noah’s voice dropped a solemn octave. “For better or worse.”
“Why does that make you sad?”
“Not sad. Not really. More ashamed.” He glanced over. “I wasn’t aware of what I let dominate my internal state. I ran away from knowing. I’m sorry it hurt you.”
Jenna found the knot of tension tying her to the side door gradually beginning to unravel. “What’s going to keep you from doing it again?”
She actually saw him shudder. “That frightens me. And worries me. So much.”
