Unexpected Hero by Barbara Ankrum

Author:Barbara Ankrum [Ankrum, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance
ISBN: 9781949068214
Publisher: Tule Publishing
Published: 2018-06-07T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Noah saw the flickering campfire before he’d even reached Trey’s house along with the silhouettes of a half-dozen people sitting around the fire. He parked his rental in the driveway and walked over to join them.

The sweet smell of wood smoke took him back to days when his parents had sent him to summer sleepaway camp, and set off to travel the world, childless. Camp had set him on a path in his life that had led directly to the military years later, but the smell of wood smoke reminded him how much he’d loved those summers as a boy. Without his parents overseeing his every move. That had all been before his sister disappeared of course. Everything about his life had changed then.

Mick stood as he walked up to the fire. “Hey! There you are. Where the hell have you been all day?”

“Here and there. I was with Gemma.”

“That’s what we figured. Goin’ well?”

“That’s a good question,” he replied with a frown. “I’m having a hard time reading her.”

“Welcome to the club.” He shoved a long stick into Noah’s hand. “Roast some marshmallows, man. It’ll make you feel better.”

He skewered one onto his stick and shoved the contraption above the flickering orange-and-blue flame. “How about you?” he asked Mick. “Any headway on the woman you mentioned before? Emma, was it?”

He shook his head. “Not a glimpse. But she and her father are invited to the wedding. Maybe I’ll see them there.” Carefully, he assembled his own s’more with a square of chocolate and some graham crackers. “Is Gemma coming?”

Noah allowed a cautious grin.

Mick waggled his brows. “Like that, is it? You gonna see her after you get home? Long-distance romance?”

“We’ll see.” If he could work out how to come clean to her. Not likely.

“Why the hell not? We’re livin’ in the age of airplanes. Ever heard of ’em?” Mick scrubbed a hand through his too-long blond hair. “I hear they even serve alcohol.”

“Day-umm,” said Jase, appearing beside him at the fire. “Is the Viking giving you the third degree on the new girl?” He sent Mick a mock censuring glare. “Since we’ve all been wondering…”

Paul, Trey and Holly razzed him from across the fire with laughter. The warm kind of laughter he knew came from their affection for him. A big extended family kind of teasing he’d never known growing up. God, he was going to miss them.

What a coward he was. Choosing absence over honesty. For years he’d rehearsed his confessions while driving alone or shaving in the mirror. Somewhere along the line, he’d given up on confessing, knowing the truth sounded ridiculous. Damning. Not the truth, per se, but the cover-up he’d inflicted on them. That was his real sin.

Holly and Trey were sitting side by side, hands threaded together, looking permanent. He wondered if there was anything to Gemma’s claim that there was something in the water here, seeing Trey and Holly pair up. Mick, sniffing after some girl he couldn’t seem to forget. Cowboy,

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