After the Fall: An Inspirational Western Romance (Gold Valley Romance Book 2) Read online

  “Nope.”

  “Me either.”

  “I know,” Norah said. “I’ve been dusting your pictures for years. You were a cute kid.” Her smile infected him, and a layer of darkness lifted from his mind.

  “Cute.” He ate a few potato chips—surely Norah hadn’t made those—wondering if anyone would ever find him worth more than cute. He could barely put weight on his leg, and the angry, red scars proved he still had a long road ahead of him.

  “Anyway, I’ve got to get back to the girls. I just wanted to let you know that tomorrow we’re going cross country skiing in the morning,” Norah said. “We have skills in the afternoon, and we’ll come down for game night after dinner, but I’ll try to keep them as quiet as I can.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Sterling said, ducking his head so he wouldn’t have to look at her. “I kinda like having you here. The cabin doesn’t feel so…big.”

  Norah patted his forearm like he was an obedient dog and headed for the stairs. “See you later.”

  Sterling’s skin tingled where she’d touched it, and he trailed his fingers where hers had just been. “Hey, thanks for the food.” He watched her wave over her shoulder as she disappeared up the stairs, not quite sure why his stomach squeezed or why he wanted her to stay for a few more minutes. Maybe with his phone so silent, it simply felt good to talk to someone again.

  By the next evening, Sterling wanted to order pizza again. Norah was not the best of cooks, though she obviously tried hard. But the waffles she served him at breakfast tasted more like salt than anything else, and the soup she’d brought him for lunch was nothing more than water with noodles and overcooked carrots. And the bread? Well, Sterling didn’t think that was bread.

  Sterling took a bite or two before engaging her in whatever conversation he could. She only stayed for a few minutes anyway, as she couldn’t leave the girls for long. He’d raided the pantry, eaten all the stale peanut butter crackers his mom kept there, even went so far as to consider making a boxed dinner. He didn’t want to hurt Norah’s feelings, so he thumbed off his phone and laid it next to him on the couch.

  She brought down a pizza box with the girls, ushering them all into the game room while she approached with a literal slice of heaven. “Pizza tonight.”

  Sterling practically leapt off the couch to get to it. “Thanks, Norah.” He beamed at her, his mouth watering for cheese and pepperoni. “You guys have already eaten?” The box held half a pie.

  She giggled, the sound worming past his eardrums and accelerating his heartbeat. “Yeah. That’s all yours.”

  He put his hand on her shoulder, realizing too late the effect that would have on his already fragile emotions. She startled under the weight of his touch, and when their eyes met, something passed between them.

  Sterling almost sensed that Norah was as lonely as he was. Impossible, he told himself. She had a job surrounded by people. A family who she spent every evening with. Still, with the moments stretching between them, and his stupid hand still on her shoulder, Sterling felt something stir within him.

  He cleared his throat and settled his weight away from her. She fell back two steps, her hands sliding up her arms from elbow to shoulder, as if cold. “Okay, well, we’ll be down here for a few hours. Hope we don’t bother you.”

  Sterling couldn’t quite get his voice to tell her that she certainly didn’t bother him. Instead, he lifted a piece of pizza from the box and waved at her. With food in his stomach, he didn’t feel so jumpy, but he still wanted to join Norah in the game room and find out everything about her.

  Sunday morning, she skipped downstairs to ask him if he wanted to go to church with her and the girls. Sterling hadn’t quite known how to answer. His family was religious—the many and varied decorations around the house testified of that. He walked past a picture of Jesus every morning on the way to the bathroom, and a huge glass vase next to the hearth boasted the word “Faith” down the front.

  In the end, he’d said no and retreated to his bedroom, where another television and another cooking show held his attention until he heard the girls leave.

  Religion was just another way Sterling had rebelled from the perfect, educated, spiritually powerful Maughan family. As he waited for Norah to return, he couldn’t help wondering if he would’ve been spared from the accident had he been more concerned with what God thought about him than what the country thought.

  He banished the reminders of Amber, determined not to relive the things she’d said, the way her infidelity had been discovered on live TV because she forgot to remove her mic before meeting up with her secret boyfriend.

  Monday, Norah brought down a steaming bowl of spaghetti and a slice of homemade bread for lunch. “Not sure on the bread,” she said. “The girls made it—it’s part of their treatment. They have to learn new skills to replace their bad habits. Genn made this, and well, she thinks she may have forgotten something.”

  Sterling eyed the bread, remembering the earlier disaster he’d tasted. Maybe he’d judged Norah prematurely. “Did one of the girls make that bread on Saturday?”

  “No, that was my demo loaf. They made theirs today.”

  Sterling’s appetite vanished. If these girls had Norah for a culinary instructor, he didn’t hold much hope for this round of bread. “Well, it looks right.”

  “Well, salt looks like sugar, too.” Norah giggled, and Sterling jerked his hand away from the bread.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I honestly don’t know.” Norah smiled, a warm, happy grin that made Sterling want to figure out if she always felt as joyful as she looked.

  “You leaving today?”

  “I’m taking the girls back in a few minutes,” Norah said. “They have a group therapy session this afternoon. While they’re doing that, I’ll come back here to clean up.”

  Sterling’s heart pounced against his ribs, for no reason he could name. “I’m probably going to take another nap.” He gave her a half-smile, pleased when she rolled her eyes.

  “Don’t you have physical therapy or something?”

  “Yeah,” Sterling said. “I do the exercises the doctor told me to.” Only for the past three days, but Norah didn’t need to know that. “I have to go to Missoula next week for a check-up. Make sure everything’s healing right. Whatever.” He waved his fork in the air like a magic wand and twirled it in the spaghetti.

  Norah put her hand on his shoulder as she stood. He froze, every nerve ending suddenly firing on all cylinders.

  She yanked her hand back as if she could feel the increased energy coursing through him. “I hope your recovery continues to go well.” She glanced around, her eyes sweeping over surfaces, decorations, and his open bedroom door. “Seems like things have gotten better around here.” She spoke like she knew that until she showed up, he hadn’t showered in days, hadn’t gotten off the couch, hadn’t been doing his physical therapy.

  “Norah,” he said, his voice a tick too thick. “Thank you for this weekend.” His stomach might not be so grateful, but his psyche certainly was.

  She stared at him, mouth slightly open, those beautiful brown eyes blinking and blinking and blinking. “You’re welcome?”

  He chuckled, though he wondered why her statement sounded like a question. “I mean it. It’s been…nice having you here. So, you know, thanks.”

  “No problem.” She stepped away, and Sterling racked his brain for another topic of conversation. With his mind blank, he flashed her a tight smile and took a bite of the bread—Norah could take lessons from Genn on how to get dough to rise properly.

  An hour later, he completed part of his physical therapy as he paced from the huge wall of windows in the living room, through the kitchen, down a hall, and to the game room door and back. He heard the distinct rhythm of wheeled suitcases rolling across the tile upstairs. Out into the garage. The slam of a door, and then silence.

  He was alone in the house. Again.

  A heaviness descende
d upon him, one he’d only hinted at before. He hadn’t truly understood why talking to Norah meant so much to him, why having her there hadn’t been as hard as he’d originally thought.

  With everyone gone again, he realized he hated being alone, more than he hated Amber for cheating on him, more than he hated wearing his leg brace.

  “Sterling.”

  He woke to the sound of an angel’s voice. An angel with dark, curly hair. Full lips. Worried eyes.

  “Norah.” He sat up, glad he’d left on the light in the kitchen but noting the pain in his leg and the darkness beyond the blinds he’d opened. “What time is it?”

  “About six.” She wrung her hands together as Sterling ran his through his hair. “I came back up to clean, and it started snowing. I don’t think I can get back down the mountain tonight.”

  A chill radiated through the room, causing Sterling to rub his hands along his arms. “Why is it so cold?”

  “That’s why I woke you up,” she said. “I think the furnace went out.”

  He noticed Norah wore her winter coat, her gloves, and a scarf. He stood, testing his weight on his injured leg though he wore his brace. He’d finally started doing the exercises his doctor wanted, but it only seemed to enflame the pain.

  “I tried to relight the pilot on the furnace, but couldn’t.” Norah looked at him, her eyes asking him for another idea.

  “Let’s build a fire then.” He honestly had no idea where the furnace was located in the cabin and was impressed she did. There were probably two, and he’d have to text his dad to find out where they were.

  Satisfied he wouldn’t fall, he hobbled over to the wood closet behind the fireplace. “There’s matches in the kitchen,” he said. “They’re in the cupboard above the microwave. Grab ’em, will you?”

  Her footsteps scuffled away while he heaved a couple pieces of wood into his arms. “Oh, and there’s some lunch bags in the pantry. Grab those too.” Thankfully, his mother kept everything stocked even when the house wasn’t being used. He’d made enough peanut butter sandwiches for his nieces and nephews to know about the brown bags.

  She collected the matches and the paper sacks while he bit back a groan of pain as he knelt to construct a lean-to in the fireplace. He needed a painkiller, fast, but pushed past the stiffness and pain, hoping Norah hadn’t noticed.

  He crumpled a few bags, stuffing them into the spaces beneath the wood. A few match strikes later, and smoke began to rise from the wood. But it didn’t go up the chimney; it started to fill the room.

  He mumbled under his breath as Norah coughed and he fumbled to locate the flue. He pulled the lever, and a few minutes later, the smoke had dispersed as the flames built and roared and crackled with heavy amounts of heat.

  “There,” he said, satisfied that he’d done something. “We can stay warm right here.”

  Norah’s panicked gaze flew to his. “We?”

  He took a few steps to the windows and looked out at the thick blanket of white obscuring the sky. “It’s coming down hard. No way you can drive in that. Unless you have a truck?”

  One glance in her direction, and he knew she didn’t. Probably a little four-door sedan that weighed less than he did.

  “I have some leftover soup upstairs,” Norah said, practically running for the stairs.

  “Okay.” Sterling watched her go, wondering why she was so nervous. A tremor of excitement stirred inside him—maybe a bit of dread at having to choke down that bland soup.

  But now that Norah couldn’t leave—now that she couldn’t retreat to the unheated upper floors—he could learn more about her.

  3

  Norah fisted her hands and stuck them in her pockets while she stood in front of the fridge in the upstairs kitchen. The cold descending on the house made her teeth chatter, but the handsome man downstairs was really the reason her insides quaked.

  The man who’d just built a fire and invited her to stay in the basement with him.

  Pipes, ran through her mind. Didn’t he need to fix the furnace so the pipes didn’t freeze? Maybe people like the Maughans didn’t care about that. Maybe they just forked over thousands of dollars to fix broken pipes and iced furnaces.

  Norah finally reached for the bowl of leftover soup and pulled out the half-loaf of bread the girls hadn’t eaten. When she’d realized how cold the house was, she’d left her bags by the garage door and stopped packing the food and supplies.

  The snow falling outside the windows made for zero visibility. She’d driven in dozens of storms, but nothing this dense. Snow like this kept everyone off the roads, indoors with generators at the ready, and Norah had never felt so trapped before.

  As she thought about spending this storm with Sterling, the two feet of snow suddenly seemed magical, looked soft as it swirled to the ground like fairy wings. Norah took a deep breath and activated her phone so she could call home.

  After explaining about the weather to Javier, she put in a call to Silver Creek, where the night manager told her to stay safe and get down the mountain when she could.

  With nothing keeping her upstairs, Norah had no choice but to go down. The heat licking up the stairs bathed her face in warmth, and she sighed despite the tight knot her stomach had become.

  “Soup,” she announced as she stepped into the room. Sterling had closed all the blinds, but she didn’t see him in the living room or kitchen. His scuffled steps came from the other side of the house, near the game room. A door closed. Scuffle-step. Scuffle-step. Another door closed.

  Norah put the soup in the microwave and pressed a button. She turned and saw the small army of pill bottles. She recognized some of the names, but one in particular caught her eye. Just one of those pills would give her so much relief—an hour of bliss, free from worry, from her constant struggles. Sterling would never miss just one.

  “I closed all the doors down here to keep the heat contained.” Sterling came around the corner, his square jaw and strong shoulders reminding Norah why she’d enjoyed seeing him snowboard during the Olympics, why she’d unconsciously smile at his picture when she dusted, why she’d patiently endured sitting with Javier as he watched Sterling’s recorded interviews late at night after Mama had gone to bed.

  Her fingers twitched toward the bottle, and she consciously fisted them to keep them away from the painkillers.

  “I left the bathroom door open so we won’t freeze in there, and checked the furnace in the game room. You’re right. Pilot light won’t light.” Sterling glanced over his shoulder toward the bathroom closest to the living room. “My dad said to call someone in the morning.” A flash of pain stole across his face, but he wiped it away quickly.

  “Great.” Norah sliced the bread so she wouldn’t have to look at Sterling—or the pill bottle. But that only took five seconds, and she found her gaze wandering back to his. He couldn’t seem to look away from her either, and something charged passed between them. That same something that leapt from his body to hers earlier when she’d touched his shoulder.

  Something Norah couldn’t have identified even if she tried. She hadn’t dated in years—since Mama’s diagnosis. She simply didn’t have time, didn’t want to talk about herself or her family or her past. She didn’t want the bother.

  But for Sterling Maughan, Norah wondered if the trouble might be worth the prize.

  He cleared his throat, and she dropped her eyes to the knife she still held.

  “I got out a bunch of blankets.” He gestured toward the large, sectional couch, giving her somewhere safe to look. “My mom keeps quite the movie collection here at the cabin. And we have more than enough wood to get through the night.” He indicated the closet around the corner, behind the fireplace, which had overflowed with timber when he’d opened it earlier. “We’ll survive. We might just have to…conserve body heat.”

  A blush flamed in Norah’s face, and she spun back to the microwave. “And I have soup and bread.” She pasted on a smile before she twisted to face him. She could p
lay the non-awkward part to near perfection. Over the years, she’d had a lot of practice with Mama’s boyfriends.

  He moved to the couch and sat way down on one end. She handed him a bowl of soup and turned to the TV. “What should we watch?”

  “Whatever you want.”

  She looked through the titles in the built-in drawer, seeing her usual favorites—romantic comedies. No way was she watching one of those with such athletic male perfection perched nearby. She chose an action superhero flick and slid the disc into the player.

  Sterling manned the remotes while Norah sat on the opposite end of the L-shaped couch. Her back faced the windows, and a chill swept across her neck though she was positioned closest to the fire, which put out plenty of heat.

  She kept the chill at bay while she sipped the soup, but once she finished, the cold penetrated her defenses. She rose and moved to the middle of the couch, directly in front of the fire and just one place away from Sterling.

  “It’s cold over there,” she murmured by way of explanation, feeling the weight of Sterling’s gaze on her face. She turned and met his eyes, so full of questions and something else…something that looked like emotion. What kind of emotion, Norah couldn’t name.

  “Can you hand me one of those blankets?” he asked, his arms crossed stiffly across his chest and light from the movie flickering on his face.

  “Sure.” She reached for one of the quilts he’d stacked in the corner of the couch. She spread the blanket over him, their hands brushing as she did. She felt the solidness of his shoulder, his arm, and his leg as she carefully tucked the blanket around his brace.

  “There.”

  “Thank you,” he said, those two words painting glorious pictures in her mind. Very few people expressed thanks to her—especially not someone like Sterling. She eyed him, wondering what other surprises he had to give, wondering what kind of man he really was.

  He watched the movie for a couple of minutes before he said, “There’s hot chocolate in the pantry.”