Her admission that she’d suffered hardships of her own wasn’t a surprise. Based on the stories she’d told him about her past, he knew she had a tendency to push men away, or more accurately, she would hold them at arm’s length and dump them when things bordered on serious. In retrospect, it wasn’t surprising she’d stayed with Mitch for so long. He was totally different from her usual type—good-looking, emotionally distant, somewhat narcissistic bad boys.
In a nutshell, guys like Noah.
But there had to be some reason she would consistently pick men who were destined to never last more than a few weeks, and he suspected it had something to do with her cougar mother and her absent father.
Noah only wished his admission had triggered Libby to open up. But it had the opposite effect: she clammed up for over an hour after that, only talking again when they stopped for her to pee while he got gas, about an hour outside of Hoover Dam. The glances she gave him let him know that she was wrestling her own demons. His confession had stirred them up.
She started to warm up as the dam got closer. “I want to park in that area where Salma Hayek is sitting when Matthew Perry finds her.”
“You’re not planning to sit on that ledge, are you?” he asked in alarm. “That’s a several-hundred-foot drop.”
She shrugged, wearing a faint grin. “Maybe.”
He wasn’t sure he could stand back and watch her do that, and he was once again surprised by his protective instincts. Noah McMillan was a self-centered man. He was fully aware of it. It had ruled his life for nearly fifteen years. If he let his instincts toward Libby take full rein, what would happen to him? Would he lose himself entirely? But given the life he’d lived, was that really a bad thing?
“They would have never worked out in real life,” she said.
He blinked, realizing he’d missed part of what she’d said. “Salma and Matt? Why? What Hollywood gossip do you know?”
“Not the actors, the couple in the movie. Isabel and Alex. They were just too different.”
His heart lightened. “So if too different is bad, then similar is good?”
“Yeah.” She looked confused. “Maybe.”
He let it drop because a sign for the dam appeared and Libby perked up and begged him for a coin.
“I want to throw it over the side when we reach the middle of the dam. Just like in the movie.”
Grinning, Noah dug out a quarter and handed it to her. He would have given her a twenty-dollar bill to toss out the window if he’d thought it would bring her out of her sullen mood.
But when they pulled into the entrance of the dam, Libby’s enthusiasm waned when she realized they couldn’t drive over the dam.
“National security,” a security officer who guarded the entrance told her when she asked. “You can thank 9/11 for that.”
She was quiet when they walked out of the parking garage and toward the blocked-off road.
“It’s okay, Lib. It’s only slightly different. You can stand in the middle of the dam and toss it over.”
She nodded, still lost in herself.
He wrapped an arm around her back, pulling her to his side as they walked. When they reached the middle, she stopped and looked over the edge.
“The water’s a lot lower than in the movie.”
“Drought,” Noah said. “I’ve heard the lake is at a record low.”
“So nothing’s as I expected.”
To anyone else, Libby would appear to be sulking over something trivial, but he knew how her mind worked. This was connected to something bigger and he suspected it had to do with her aborted wedding. “Sometimes that’s not a bad thing.”
She looked up at him, her eyes filled with sadness.
He wasn’t used to seeing her so down. That was one thing he loved about her, her ability to find the good in the bad. He just needed to remind her of it now. “You know that whole saying about God closing a door and opening a window. Or is it closing a window and opening a door?” He tilted his head and raised his eyebrows playfully. “Or maybe it’s like Alice jumping down the hole to Wonderland.”
She grinned. “I get what you’re saying. But I’m turning thirty tomorrow and look at my life.”
He put his hands on her shoulders. “Yeah, look at it. You have two great childhood friends who love you enough to hunt me down and skin me alive.”
“Who were completely oblivious to the fact I didn’t love Mitch.” He’d give her that. It had ticked him off too.
“Okay, so they’ve been a bit self-centered and clueless lately. But you have a career you love.”
“Which doesn’t pay shit and interferes with the whole responsible adult gig.”
“Hey, I saved the best for last. You have me.”
A strange look filled her eyes, and for a second he thought she was going to reach up and kiss him. Instead she wrapped her arms around his back and pressed her cheek to his chest. “Yeah, I have you.”
“Libby, you know you can talk to me. I know something’s bothering you.”
“It’s my birthday. I had . . . a wish I was sure would come true, but it didn’t. Now I’m questioning everything.”
“Sometimes questioning everything is good. It puts you on the right track.” Didn’t he know that firsthand? Meeting her was what had made him question everything, and he didn’t want to go back.
“Look at you.” She lifted her head and grinned up at him. “Noah McMillan: life coach.”