She read the sign next to the display and cringed. “They used to carry this through the town in parades?”
He crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. “So it claims.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“You love every minute of it.”
She grinned up at him. “I do.”
“Then you’ll love why I really brought you here.” The museum was small, but it took him a moment to find the purpose of their visit, a brown ball nearly the size of a basketball that sat on a table. He swept his arm in an arc, pointing to the sphere. “This is it.”
Her eyes widened as she read the sign. “The world’s largest hairball?” She looked up at him. “Is this a Guinness World Records tour?”
He grinned and lifted his shoulder into a half-shrug. She read parts of the sign out loud. It been removed from a cow’s stomach, and had originally weighed over fifty pounds instead of its current twenty pounds.
“I’d like to remind you,” he teased, pointing to the bottom line of the sign, “that you are not to play with the giant hairball.”
“Ewww. Disgusting.”
She cringed and giggled at the same time and Noah felt a fizzy happiness float through him. He’d been with literally countless women, but while those easy dalliances had been fun, they’d left him feeling empty and unfulfilled, ready to look for the next bright young thing. He’d only ever felt this . . . contentment with her.
“How did you find this place?”
Her question pulled him back into the moment. He unfolded his arms and let them hang at his sides. “The Internet. You can find anything there.”
They parted ways and wandered around the museum. Noah was checking out an exhibit about some old cowboy at one side of the museum, while Libby was squatting in front of the skeleton again. A young woman approached Libby with an apologetic grimace. “I’m so sorry. My associate should have told you that we’re closing soon. You and your husband will need to leave in ten minutes when we close.”
Libby stood. “That’s okay. We’re almost done.”
The woman leaned closer and winked. “Your husband is really hot,” she said in an undertone he could just barely hear.
Libby’s face reddened. “Oh, he’s not my husband. He’s just a friend.”
The museum employee looked stricken. “Is he gay?”
Libby laughed. “No. Definitely not. But Noah . . . he’s not husband material . . . if you know what I mean.”
The woman nodded. “Too many of them aren’t nowadays.”
Libby flashed him a smile before returning her attention to the skeleton, but Noah was too caught up in her words to even pretend to pay attention to anything else.
Not husband material.
Somehow it was worse that she hadn’t hesitated to say it in front of him. Well, it was sort of true, wasn’t it? Up until recently, that’s exactly how he’d wanted it. Unencumbered. Unattached.
Unloved.
How come he’d never realized he was lonely? Libby was like a warm ray of sunlight, and he wanted nothing more than to bask in it. He wanted more than one-night stand after one-night stand, but he didn’t want just anyone. He wanted Libby. He just had to prove to her that he was suitable, that he was the type of man who could be her partner.
But first he had to get his job back. Even if it meant crawling back to his brother with a peace offering.
The Abrahams account.
He pulled out his phone and responded to Tiffany’s Facebook message.
I hear your boss is on a work trip this week. Any hint where he might be?
She responded within seconds.
Las Vegas. At that stupid machine convention. I’m going with him. We arrive Monday afternoon.
Noah knew exactly where they were going next.
Vegas.
Chapter Ten
“Las Vegas?” she grumbled in disgust. “Why are we going to Vegas?”
He shrugged as they pulled onto the highway. “It sounds like fun.”
“You told me you hate Vegas as much as I do.”
He grimaced. “I thought we could see Hoover Dam. Remember we watched When Fools Rush In, that stupid movie with the guy from Friends? You said you wanted to see the dam after that.”
“True . . .” But that wasn’t why he really wanted to go to Vegas. She had no idea how he’d managed to snow so many women. She found him so transparent. He was up to something else, she just didn’t know what yet.
“It’ll be fun.”
“If you say so.” But she had to admit that anything with Noah was fun. If he wanted to go to Las Vegas, she was willing to give it a shot.
They stopped for the night in Liberal, Kansas, only an hour away. She suggested they continue driving, but Noah said he needed to plan out the next day’s adventures.
“I thought it was Vegas,” she said over dinner at a barbeque restaurant.
“That’s the final destination,” he said, typing into his phone. “We can still have an adventure on the way.”
He’d spent more time on his phone in the last fifteen minutes than she’d seen him do in the five months she’d known him. That was one of his appealing traits. She’d gone through a ton of men who seemed more attached to their phones than they were to her. Noah was always totally engaged with her. Except tonight. Then the obvious reason hit her square in the face. He didn’t want to be there.
“You don’t have to do this, you know,” she said without accusation. “You can take me home. Or even put me on a bus.”