“Did you believe her?” Adam wanted to know.
“Not one word,” Noah assured his brothers. He knew how cruel and spoiled Cora was. She knew more than she would admit to. “I have Drake watching her.”
“If he is in Red Hook, he had to have contacted her. Who else knows him, and why would he even show up here if it wasn’t to see Cora?”
“You think she is hiding him?” Liam asked, looking angry.
“I wouldn’t be surprised. Cora is full of herself and spoiled. She would hate to lose.” Adam answered, looking disgusted with all the recent events.
Noah spoke up with determination and anger. “I can’t prove it, and I don’t see her confessing, but my gut tells me yes, she is behind all this. I will find proof, and her ass will be rotting in a jail cell next to her cousin Jeremy.” Noah looked down the dark hallway that led to his bedroom. “I hate having to tell her this. It’s going to hurt her.”
“She is strong, Noah. She survived the attack, and now she has you and us to protect her,” Adam assured him.
Liam promised to lock up, so Noah headed to his room, anxious to hold Alana. He never thought he would see the day when just holding a woman in his arms touched his heart and swelled it
to twice its size. He hoped it wasn’t the last time.
Alana lay under the covers with her eyes closed. Noah took off his clothes and slipped into bed. He pulled her nude body next to him and sighed when she snuggled into his side. She was naked, just how he liked her to be. Now he felt his tension leave him. Her breath tickled his throat, and he thought of all the lonely nights he lay here wishing Alana was with him. She could have died and all because of a vain, selfish bitch he had bedded. He never once told Cora he had feelings for her. He had picked her up in a bar, and they had a one-night stand. Months later he had hooked up with her one more time and decided he’d had enough of her clinginess. He was consumed with guilt. His mistakes had caused all of this. How could she forgive him?
“I love you, Alana.” He needed her to believe that. If she never spoke to him again, he needed her to know his love was real.
“I know,” she whispered, sounding so sleepy. “I love you, too. I need your arms around me so I can feel secure.”
His chest swelled at her words. He hadn’t been needed in so long. He liked that she needed him as much as he needed her. This was love, a love to last through thick and thin—and hopefully a psychotic woman he had hooked up with. What he had felt for Kari was only infatuation for her good looks, because inside she was cold and selfish. Even if she had stuck around, they would never have been happy. He could see that now.
He hated ruining what they were just starting to build. “Alana, I have something to tell you. It’s going to be hard to hear.”
He felt her body tense in expectation of bad news. “Did he hurt someone else?”
“No. We haven’t found him, but we will.” He took a deep breath and explained about how he found out Slate was related to Cora.
Alana was quiet and still even after he was done talking. He expected her to yell, call him names, or even slap the shit out of him. He had already called himself every name in the book.
“I don’t understand why,” she cried, sitting up. She held the sheet over her bare skin. She looked so bewildered that it broke his heart. He truly hated Cora for putting Alana through this stress.
“She won. She broke us up.”
“She didn’t win. She lost. When I confronted her about what she did at that restaurant, we had an awful fight. I told her I wouldn’t touch her if she was the last woman on earth. I had no idea she would stoop so low to hurt you,” Noah explained, trying to sound calm when all he wanted to do was punch something. “She claims she has no idea why Jeremy stabbed you or why he is here in town. I don’t believe her, and Drake is watching her. My hope is that she will lead us to Jeremy. She has to be running scared, and she will want to warn him to get out of town.”
“I know she is vain and spoiled, but to hate me so much? I can’t comprehend all these new facts you are telling me, Noah. I almost died, and to think she was behind it makes me feel more scared than I was before.”
Noah held her as she sobbed into his chest. Truth was he wanted to join her, but he vowed to be strong for her, to comfort her.
When she stopped crying, he kissed the top of her head. “I am so sorry. This is all my fault, and if you want me to take you back to your parents’, house I will. If you never speak to me again, I will understand.”
“This isn’t your fault, Noah.” She sniffed, looking straight into his eyes. “This is Cora’s fault. I knew she was jealous of me, but I had no idea how deep her hatred for me was.”
“I didn’t either. I should have seen a sign of what she was capable of. I wrote her off as a spoiled, vain woman but not dangerous.”
The moonlight shined its light into the window and onto her face. She was beautiful and warm and sweet. Her eyes were puffy from crying, but it didn’t detract from her beauty.
“I don’t blame you, Noah. You had no idea she would do this. If she did this.” Her voice was raspy from crying.
Noah tightened his hand into a fist. He gripped the cover tightly. He felt the regret rise up inside of him.
“My instincts tell me she knows something. She knows he is here in town and where he is. I am so ashamed I even slept with her.”
“Don’t do this, Noah. Cora is guilty, not you. Did you think I would blame you?” She gave him a loving smile that went straight to his heart and his cock. He felt it come to attention. She reached out and caressed his cheek. “All that happened these last few weeks did bring us back together. Let’s focus on that. You can’t control what that bitch does, but we can control how we deal with it. Ups and downs, no matter what, we deal with it together.”