The hardening of Lyda's expression told Gen she hadn't heard those specifics. Anger flooded her as well. Seeing it in their faces, Dot nodded, her jaw firming.
"Any other man would have simply walked out, not let his father keep hammering at him like that, but Noah doesn't leave a conversation until he's excused. Especially from someone he deems as being in authority, no matter how that person is treating him. So he just sat there, my daughter on the sidelines, while Art raged at him. And when Noah didn't respond, he started hitting him, trying to get him to act like a man. Noah never raised a hand in his own defense, not even to ward him off." She met Lyda's gaze. "You know some of that."
Lyda shook her head. "Not those details. I knew his father rejected him."
"That bastard." Dorothy's eyes went cold as ice. "Noah took care of me when I broke my hip. Lifted this fat body of mine more times than I could count, handled everything around the house. Boy's lean, but strong as an ox. And most don't know this, but he can fight. He has a rage button when you hit it, and while he'll never turn his fists on a living thing, I've seen him take it out with an axe and firewood, or punch a bag I put in the backyard for him for just that purpose. From the way he hit it, I knew somewhere along the way, someone taught him how to fight. He could have put Art on his ass at any time, but in Noah's mind, that's not what being a man's about."
"It's about taking care of the one who loves you," Lyda said quietly.
"Exactly." Dorothy inclined her head. "So however long you decide to be with him, I hope you'll remember what a treasure he is."
She didn't assume forever. Apparently his grandmother was a realist about her grandson and knew his relationships didn't last. When footsteps heralded Noah's return, Dorothy's face smoothed out. She gave Gen a wink, Lyda another direct look. "I'm blunt and up front, because I could die in my sleep. I don't believe in putting off what needs to be said. I also don't need a lot of time to see the forest for the trees. You two are the first he's ever brought to meet me, so I know you're important. Pivotal."
After that astounding statement, which had Gen and Lyda exchanging a look, Dot tilted her head, raised her voice. "Did you put one of those little umbrellas in it?"
"Of course I did. It's like a fully stocked tiki bar in there." Noah emerged from the house. Flipping a tray from beneath the arm of her wheelchair, he tightened it into position, putting the drink where she could lean forward and sip through the straw. "I gave Mona her mojito. And a cup of Cheese Nips." When he grimaced, Dorothy bumped his hip with her gnarled fist.
"It's no different at the end than it is at the beginning. You're back to diapers, and your taste buds want what's good, not the damn food pyramid. Why don't I have any Cheese Nips? And a Twinkie. The yellow kind, not the chocolate."
"Good God," he said. Noah handed Lyda's wine to her, the red cherry a cheerful accent to the white-gold color. He looked at Gen. "I'm bringing yours next."
"I wouldn't mind a handful of Cheese Nips if there's enough to go around. Have to keep myself soft, you know."
His eyes sparked humor at her, and Lyda tugged her hair. "Ow," Gen admonished. Dorothy gazed at them as Noah went back inside.
"I want to like you two," she decided. "I hope you won't give me reasons not to."
"I wouldn't hurt Noah for the world," Gen said. If Dot and Lyda were going to be blunt, she was going to join the party. Marguerite wasn't one to beat around the bush, after all, and--Lord in heaven--Chloe mowed right through. When Dot did come to Tea Leaves, she and the irrepressible girl would be fast friends in a heartbeat.
"You haven't been together long enough to know for certain, no matter what you tell me, but do you think you're in love with him?"
Those Cheese Nips hadn't taken very long. About the time Dot asked the question, Noah returned with two snack cups of the bright orange crackers and a Twinkie in hand, as well as Gen's drink. He'd given her a paper umbrella too. As he put Dot's snacks on her tray, he shot Gen a look that told her he was accustomed to his grandmother's lack of social restraint and he'd rescue her with a tactful comment if necessary. His mouth was opening, probably to do just that.
"Yes," she said. "I am."
Those expressive eyes locked onto her face. She hadn't planned on saying it here, like this, but it had come out, just like that. What concerned her wasn't the environment, however, but his transfixed reaction. Had no one ever told him...
Oh God. No one ever had.
Lyda had said no one had ever fallen in love with Noah. Gen had assumed that meant there'd been those who'd said it to him but, like her first two husbands, they hadn't really known what that meant. Or lived up to what it was supposed to mean. Apparently she was the first person who'd ever said it, outside of family.
Dorothy touched him gently. "She's waiting for her drink, boy."
He started as if out of a sleep. Gen took the glass from him, along with the Cheese Nips. Regardless of their audience, she touched his face. She gave him a searching look. "It's okay," she mouthed, because his body blocked her from Dot. Lyda touched his other arm. He looked between them.
"Sit down next to your grandmother," Lyda said in a quiet, firm tone.
The command seemed to knock him back on his axis, but as he sank down on the ramp next to Dot, his gaze remained on Gen, his thoughts obviously a confused snarl. Dot laid a deformed hand on his shoulder, stroked the hair at his temple.
"You keep hanging out with them," she said. "I think they're pretty good for you."
*
They left Dorothy with plans to meet the following night for the walk Noah had warned them about. As they walked down the hill, Noah was quiet. So was Gen.
His reaction to her declaration had shifted things off the third member of their relationship, such that Lyda had never been required to answer the same question. But Lyda kept her own counsel on emotions that strong, and wasn't likely to be called out on them until she was good and ready. Gen wasn't sure if Lyda was the type of person who would say it at all. If she felt it, she'd probably express it a different way.
Would she be the type to show a permanent commitment with a collar? The way he'd reacted to Gen saying she was in love with him made her wonder if a gesture like that from Lyda might help resolve some of Noah's "choice" issues. Lyda had made it clear she preferred action to words, and that probably applied to symbols as well. But Noah might be worth a different strategy, right? Or Gen could be using pop psychology on a deeply rooted psychosis, a recipe for disaster.
"Chairlift," Lyda said, pointing at it. "We'll have dinner afterward."
Gen tuned in to the distant contraption. Wires strung between towering poles funneled the colorful chairs up and down the mountain backdrop for the town. When they'd been sitting with Dorothy, they'd watched the continuous loop, people carried up to the overlook and down again.
"Um...I'm not great with heights."
"You'll be with us, rabbit," Lyda said, unconcerned. "You'll be fine."
"So when the cable snaps, you'll use your super-Domme powers to fly us out of harm's way. Or Noah will parasail us safely to the ground with his shirt."
"Absolutely," Lyda responded. "Don't be such a girl."
"I am a girl. So are you."
"Thank God," Noah said. Gen glanced his way. It was his first attempt at levity since they'd left Dot's. Meeting Lyda's gaze, Gen saw the veiled message there. We need to loosen him up a little.
Fine. But a chairlift? She'd said she was in love with him. She wasn't sure if she was that in love with him.
"I'll do it if you both hold my hand the whole way. That includes you," she said to Lyda. "No playing the Domme card."
"Pussy."
"Yeah, I have one. You seem to like it."
Noah snorted. Lyda narrowed her eyes, though Gen saw her lips quiver. "Watch yourself. That cable isn't the only thing that can snap on your ass."
They returned to their cottage, retrieved the car and drove down the hill, working through the main strip traffic to get to
a parking area for the ride, which Noah pointed out was called Sky Lift. Gen found she preferred the generic term of chairlift, since "Sky Lift" only emphasized she was leaving solid earth to ride it.
After they paid for their ride, they hit another snag. "Only two adults per chair," the operator said, with apologetic courtesy.
Standing at the base, staring up the side of the mountain, Gen was all for using that as her escape card, letting Lyda and Noah go without her. She'd provide moral support with her feet on the ground. Lyda slid her arm through Noah's. "Can't you tell he's our child? His ass, superior though it is, probably isn't wider than a twelve-year-old's."
The operator gave a nervous chuckle, as flustered by Lyda's beauty as anything else with testosterone, but shook his head. "As much as I'd like to let you all go up all together, logistically it doesn't work. I can put one of you in the chair right ahead or behind, though. Whichever you prefer."
"All right," Lyda said. "The two of them will go up in one."
"You promised," Gen said. It was irrational, since she understood what the operator was saying, but she truly was afraid of heights. What she'd been able to joke about on the walk to the cottage was no longer amusing as she looked up the steep reality of the mountain, the tiny size of the chairlift all the way at the top. The idea of getting in one of the chairs without Lyda's commanding presence was a deal-breaker.
She winced, braced for Lyda to give her that "suck it up and don't be a pussy" look. The woman had no phobias at all, though family meets were clearly a weak point.
Lyda didn't react as she feared. Which was a shame, because if her Mistress had been catty or cruel, Gen could have said piss off and escaped death-by-plummet.
"Yes, I did." Lyda took her hand. "I'm going to hold it until I put you on the lift, and then Noah's going to take over. I'll be right behind you. On the way back down, I'll switch and ride with you. Noah wants to ride with you first."
Noah would never assert his will over Lyda's, but apparently they'd worked it out while Gen had been pondering whether whining like a four-year-old would help. Stepping closer, he slid an arm around Gen's waist, giving her the look that made her happy butterflies start competing with the other more fearful kind.
"And when you ride with me, you'll hold my hand." She wasn't letting Lyda out of that. She didn't care how petulant she sounded.
"I said I would."
Gen's further protests were overridden as her two companions nudged her in line to catch the next seat of the continuously in motion ride. When the operator warned them it was time for Noah and Gen to step onto the platform, Lyda kissed Gen warmly, right there in front of an astounded operator and watching families. She ignored the fact that one set of parents turned their children away as if they'd done something obscene, her gaze staying on Gen's face. "Right behind you. The three of us together, we can handle anything. Right?"
When Gen nodded, Lyda turned her attention to Noah. "You take care of her."
"Always, Mistress. I'll always take care of both of you."
"I'm going to hold you to that." Lyda brushed his jaw with intimate fingers, increasing the vertical lift of the operator's brows.
"They're going to flip right over his head and get lost down the back collar of his shirt," Lyda whispered in Gen's ear. She let out a startled giggle as Lyda released her hand, pushing her forward. Noah tugged Gen onto the platform. She had the oh shit, I'm not doing this moment, then they were sitting down, the chair rocking as they started upward. Gen's head was on a swivel, pressing her chin into Noah's shoulder to see Lyda take the chair a few feet behind them.
She closed her eyes, trying to enjoy the sensation of Noah's throat against her cheek and temple, trying to pretend she wasn't getting further from the ground. Trying to ignore all the vibrations and jerks of the creaky chair. He tapped her cheek. "Hey. Look at me."
She cracked an eye. His hand was tangled with hers on her thigh. "Okay?" he said.
"Okay." Good God, her voice quavered. "She's right. I'm such a wimp."
"You work for Marguerite. Plus I've seen you stand up to Lyda. You're no such thing. Jesus, your fingers are like ice." He rubbed them. "You really don't get too high above the ground. You're going up the side of a mountain, you know. And there's a great view at the top. Will you say it again?"
She gasped, clamping his arm in a death grip as the chair jolted, passing beneath a pole. "Really normal," he promised her. "See up there? There's a piece of metal that holds the lines taut, so when the chair rolls over that metal, it makes things get a little more bumpy. That's all."
She forced herself to look at it, then rolled her eyes downward to focus on the view. It was pretty, Gatlinburg at twilight, the sunlight soft on the trees. "On the way down, if it's dark, all the lights are really gorgeous," he added.
"What did you ask me?"
He looked straight ahead. "Nothing."
"Noah." She summoned enough bravery to detach her fingers and touch the firm line of his mouth. "I'm in love with you. With each of you and both of you. And I'm so glad you wanted me to say it again." She paused when he said nothing, just kept looking straight ahead. "Is it okay that I'm in love with you?"
He gave a precise nod, a movement as careful as she'd be if she thought a single twitch would drop the bottom out of the chairlift. She jerked as they passed under another pole, the ride rocking. His gaze returned to her, both hands covering hers on his knee. "It's all right," he said. "Have you told Lyda? That you're in love with her too?"
"You're great at distracting conversation topics," she said, and earned a smile. "I'm too chicken," she admitted. "I'm not sure if it's something she wants or needs to hear."
"But you thought it was something I might want or need to hear?"
The neutral note made her draw back. "If you don't want me to say something like that..."
"Do you really feel that way?" His eyes were everywhere but on her face.
"Noah, I need you to look at me. Don't leave me alone up here."
His gaze snapped back to her in an instant. "You're not. I'm right here. It's okay."
It was amazing, how he could be so uncertain of one part of his head, and yet one hundred percent in tune with it when it came to caring for her. As Lyda had said, it was a heartrending dilemma for someone who loved him. Yet it made her answer to his question easy.
"I wouldn't have said it if I didn't. It's been a long time since I've said it to anyone."
He considered that, his visage troubled. "Yet you said it to me, even knowing I can't...that I'm not...that it doesn't work for me that way."
"Doesn't it?" For a brief moment, her conviction on that was important enough to forget her fear of heights, to make her touch his face again. "I don't believe that, Noah. I don't care what anyone has said to me about it, even you. Just because it might feel or look a different way, doesn't mean it isn't the same thing."
Noah didn't say anything to that, but he did stretch his arm across the back of her chair and take a firmer grip on her hand. Completely in the now and wholly protective, the Noah she knew...and loved.
"Okay," he said at last, so quiet she almost missed the word. "I don't know about that, but I do know you should tell her, Gen. You're the bravest of the three of us."
If he'd told her she had horns sprouting out of her head, she couldn't have been more stunned. Then they went under another of those damn poles. She could swear the chair shuddered more ominously.
"Do you know they have synchronous lightning bug displays around here?"
She choked on a laugh, both sets of fingers clamped around his while he slid his arm off the back of the seat onto her shoulders. "You made that up."
"I did not. The Tennessee synchronous lightning bugs are world famous. This is only one of two places in the whole world you can see it happen."
"So what do they do? Flash 'buzz off, tourists' in Morse code?"
"No." He grinned, appreciating her. "During their mating season, bunches of them congregate ne
arby, in Elkmont. The males fly around and flash, and the females watch and respond by blinking back. Sometimes the males all flash at once, sometimes it's in wave patterns, sometimes they don't synchronize at all. It's like watching those programmable Christmas lights, in a way. RVs have to reserve camping passes during that time of year, it's so popular.
"Why do they do it? The bugs."
"Competition between the males is the theory. They figure if they all flash together, a girl bug can compare flashes and decide who she likes."
"So for lightning bug males, it's the size of the flash, for human males..."
"Kind of cuts down on the whole human superiority thing when you figure out most species are the same about things," he said, eyes twinkling. "And the bugs have never divulged whether it's the size of the flash. It could be how many times they can flash, stamina, rhythmic ability, that kind of thing."
She chuckled and managed to bite back the whimper, mostly, when the wire vibrated because the two teenage idiots in the lift ahead rocked their car. On purpose.
She looked back to verify Lyda's presence. While Lyda was taking time to enjoy the view, their Mistress met Gen's gaze, showing she was keeping an eye on her. Had Lyda put Noah and Gen together first to clear the air? Like most things Lyda proposed, it had worked. Noah's acceptance of the truth Gen had spoken in front of his grandmother was settling into a quiet, powerful thing between them, something that altered how he acted toward her. Since it was new for him, that difference was tentative, exploratory. But it was a good thing. She felt it in the clasp of his hand, his bemused looks at her.
Gen now knew the unsettling truth that Lyda could put her into an eager submissive role with a look or a word, yet it was a state that made Gen want to call Lyda hers right back, a two-way street. Surely Noah had that desire somewhere deep down inside, buried by the horrible behavior of his family. Everyone wanted someone who belonged to them, in all the ways that comforted in the middle of the night, that made the yawn of the future not so lonely or frightening. Someone with whom to share experiences, successes and failures, tears and laughter.
Once on the overlook, the three of them pressed hip to hip, Lyda on one side of Gen, Noah on the other, as they took turns peering through the viewfinders. Her fear of heights had to do with dangling at a high elevation, not standing on terra firma looking down the mountain, so as they walked along the deck, Gen enjoyed seeing Gatlinburg transform from garish saloon girl into a mysterious beauty. The buildings softened into silhouettes, lights twinkling across them like a carpet of stars.