Can't Stop Loving You by Janelle Taylor

Author:Janelle Taylor [Janelle Taylor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781420127294
Publisher: Kensington

“Nicole doesn’t come on until six o’clock—she’s closing tonight,” the uniformed, college-aged girl behind the counter told Noah and Mariel, pausing in her rigorous scooping from a tub of fudge ice cream.

Noah turned to Mariel. “That’s more than two hours away,” he said, checking his watch. “What do you want to do?”

“Have some ice cream, before anything else,” she replied, watching the girl ladle hot fudge onto the ice cream she had just piled in a paper bowl. “Then I have to find a phone and reschedule my flight.”

“Ice cream sounds good to me,” Noah said, realizing he hadn’t eaten anything yet today. He hadn’t had an appetite until now. First the discussion with the private investigator, then with Mrs. Gray—and through it all, his growing worry about Amber laced with uneasiness about being with Mariel.

It was almost enough to make him wish he had never come here, that he had never heard from Mariel again or known that their daughter had disappeared. There was something appealing, in retrospect, about the limbo he had endured for all these years. Then he had been insulated from the emotions that battered him now, growing more intense with every moment that ticked by.

“How long are you going to stay?” he asked Mariel, as they studied the flavor board above the counter.

“Maybe through the weekend,” she said. “Or maybe, since I wasn’t planning to be here longer than a few days, I should fly home on Wednesday and make sure everything is okay at home. Then I can fly back here again for a longer stay.”

“Why wouldn’t everything be okay at home?”

She rolled her eyes. “My sister is in a tizzy because she’s getting married, and I’m more or less playing the mother-of-the-bride role. And my dad—well, I just worry about him. Leslie’s got her hands full with her wedding, and somebody needs to make sure he’s doing all right.”

“Doesn’t he live on his own in Florida?”

“He lives in a retirement community. It’s assisted living, more or less. And he has a bunch of cronies. They all look out for each other. When he’s up north, it’s up to Leslie and me.”

“Does he spend his summers back in Missouri, then?”

“This year he’s been there from the middle of May, and he’s not going back until after Leslie’s wedding in July.”

“Excuse me, can I help you?” a voice cut in.

“I’ll have a triple scoop—rum raisin, butter pecan and toffee crunch in a waffle cone,” Mariel told the girl behind the counter. “With sprinkles.”

“And what about you, sir?” the girl asked Noah.

“Triple scoop of vanilla,” he said. “No sprinkles.”

“Vanilla?” Mariel echoed as the girl stooped toward the glass-fronted freezer bin again, silver scoop in hand. “And no sprinkles? That’s no fun.”

“What can I say? I’m just not a fun guy,” Noah said, throwing up his hands as if to say, What are you gonna do?

“Come on, Noah.” She poked him playfully in the arm. “Live a little. At least get chocolate or rainbow sherbet or something.”

He pretended to be hurt.

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