“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s just that you two work like a well-oiled machine. A real team. Seems a shame to break that up.”
His dad nodded. “I know you don’t want to hear it from me, son, but finding that person you sync with, even if it’s difficult to make it work all the time, is still a rare and precious thing.”
Snorting, Noah took his seat again, Gracie over his shoulder. “You’re right. I don’t want to hear it from you.”
“Look, Noah,” his dad said. “Walking out on you and your mom was the biggest mistake I ever made in my life. And believe me, I’ve made some doozies. But at the time, I thought I was doing the right thing. We fought all the time and that was no way to live. No way to raise a child. But over the years, I’ve learned that maybe my way isn’t always the best way and that compromise is worth it, if it means keeping someone special in your life.” He leaned over and kissed Noah’s mom on the temple. “Your mom and I met up again a few months ago and we just knew. We’ve mellowed over the years, and the things we used to fight about just aren’t as important anymore.”
“Not as important as love,” his mom said, kissing his father gently on the lips before turning to Noah again. “I’m not trying to tell you what to do with your life, but please don’t make the same mistakes we did. The past few weeks, you fought so hard to stay together. Why would you fight so hard now to stay apart? Especially with little Gracie to consider?”
Feeling cornered and caged in, Noah handed off his daughter to Serena and stood, needing some air and space to
breathe. “Excuse me a minute.”
He fled to the kitchen, only to find Levon there, leaning against the counter.
“Dude, you look like a dead man walking.”
“Gee, thanks.” Noah nudged him out of the way to pull a beer from the fridge. He twisted the cap off the bottle and took a long swig. “Man, we got any mission coming up on the other side of the world? ’Cause I could sure use an escape right about now.”
Levon snorted. “Nah. Nothing I know of. Besides, running gets you exactly nowhere. Trust me. I tried. All this BS with trying to blend work and relationships…it’s hard. No doubt. But getting a family at the end of it? That makes it all worth it.” He pushed away from the counter and slapped Noah on the shoulder. “You just need to find your balance, dude. That’s all.”
Noah watched his buddy walk away, his head still ringing with his mother’s words. A vision of Serena and Gracie gone from his life forever making him realize that maybe Levon was right and he’d been wrong all along.
21
After Noah’s parents left, Serena went back upstairs to finish packing up her stuff and Gracie’s while Noah watched the baby downstairs. She got everything into her bag and zipped it up, then turned to the closet to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. The only thing left to go through was the backpack she’d brought from the villa in St. Dourdane.
She had half a mind to just shove it inside her bigger bag and deal with it later, but there was stuff inside that belonged to Noah and he should have it back. With a sigh, she hauled the thing out and dumped the contents on the bed. There were some extra diapers, a couple of protein bars, one bottle of water and…
Serena ran her fingertips over the cover of Noah’s journal. It had fallen open to pages near the middle. Noah’s messy scrawl covered the sheets in blue ink. She’d forgotten about this thing until now. When they’d been on the run in St. Dourdane, she’d noticed him writing in it every day, but when she’d asked about it he’d always avoided telling her what was in it. She picked the thing up and glanced over her shoulder at the door. The best thing to do would be to close it and put it on top of his bag. It wasn’t her business. But when she started to do just that, a few words caught her eye. “Gratitude.” “Thankful.” “Blessings.”
Dammit.
It wasn’t really snooping. Not if the thing had fallen open to this page when she’d tossed it on the bed, right? Wasn’t her fault if she saw what was written there when she went to put it away, was it?
No. it wasn’t. At least that was the excuse she was going with. She started reading each line, her heart swelling with joy a little more with each sentence. This was a gratitude journal. Noah kept a gratitude journal. She wasn’t sure why that made her so happy, but it did.
On each page was the date and a list of five things that day that he was grateful for. She looked at the two pages in front of her, then flipped to the next ones and the next ones. All the days were the same, starting from the time he’d rescued her at the villa until today. The first thing he was grateful for was his life. The second was his health. The third was his family. And four and five? Her and Gracie.
Tears blurred her vision before she blinked them away.
That had to mean something, right? No matter if their arguments told her he didn’t care, Noah must love them, at least a little. A man didn’t profess his gratitude like this every day for things he didn’t care about a great deal.
Noah loved her. Noah loved Gracie. She refused to believe otherwise.
Serena sank down on the edge of the bed and held the closed journal in her hands. But if he loved her and the baby, and was still willing to let them go because of his job, what more could she do to change his mind?
Frowning, she tossed the journal back onto the bed and covered her face with her hands. She’d finally found The One, the guy who was perfect for her and the person she could see herself spending the rest of her life with, except he didn’t want the same with her. Because of his work.
The irony wasn’t lost on her. Up until the day she’d found out she was pregnant with Gracie, she’d never thought about settling down or putting her personal life before her professional duty. Even that night with Noah, as wonderful as it had been, had been a fling. Nothing permanent.
Now, though, all she wanted was forever with him—and he seemed to believe it was impossible because of their jobs.
Frustrated and restless, she finished cleaning out the old knapsack from the villa and set the journal atop Noah’s duffle bag before heading downstairs to set her bag and Gracie’s things by the door. She’d planned to call an Uber as soon as she was ready, but she decided she needed some air first.
She called down the hall toward the kitchen where Noah and the baby were, “Hey, I’m going to take a quick walk around the block. Be back in a few minutes.”
“Want me to come with you?” Noah yelled back. “If you just give me a few minutes…”