Page 3 of Husband Missing

He paused, grinning wickedly, and looked pointedly at her ass. “Because the view from down here is so much better.”

She didn’t even care about the primer dripping from the end of her brush all over the ladder. “Is it really?”

Noah laughed, coating the roller brush again, and covering more of the green. “Stop looking at me like that. We don’t have any clean drop cloths left.”

Josie arched a brow. “Whose fault is that?”

Noah shook his head, but a playful smile remained on his lips as he moved further down the wall, rapidly covering the old color. “Not mine,” he said, feigning innocence. “I was just minding my business, trying to finish the last wall. Now I’ve got primer in…places.”

So did Josie but she wasn’t complaining.

From the doorway, their Boston terrier, Trout, whined mournfully. They’d borrowed an old baby gate from their friend, Misty Derossi, to keep him out of the room while they worked. It wasn’t going over well. He always wanted to be wherever they were and as close to one or both of them as physically possible. The hall wasn’t cutting it. Even though he’d been staring at them intently without blinking for hours, Trout was having major FOMO.

“We’re in the home stretch,” Noah reminded her. “Let’s get this finished.”

Josie didn’t protest. This guest room had already taken far too long to prime thanks to their inability to focus on anything but one another. They hadn’t even picked out a color yet. Josie had bought the house several years ago, when she separated from her first husband, the late Ray Quinn, and she’d never bothered to paint the guest rooms, which was why this one was still green. Even after Noah moved in, there hadn’t really been a reason to redecorate the rooms they barely used, but now, they were planning to adopt a baby.

A new song from Josie’s playlist came on. Noah didn’t know the lyrics. “I’m still thinking beige.”

“Boring,” said Josie.

“We agreed neutral,” he said. “Since we won’t know if our baby is a boy or a girl.”

“Yeah, but there has to be something better than beige.”

After a grueling, months-long application and vetting process, they’d finally been approved to adopt. Two months ago, they’d completed their adoptive parent profile and now, it was just a matter of waiting for the call from the agency that a birth mother had reviewed their file and was willing to give them her child to raise. This particular part of the adoption journey was both exhilarating and nerve-racking. They were as close as they’d ever been to having a child and yet, there was no guarantee that a birth mother would choose them.

They both worked for their city police department as part of its four-person investigative team. Josie was a detective and Noah was a lieutenant. They often worked long, unpredictable hours and danger was built into their jobs. The small city of Denton was located in central Pennsylvania. It was an idyllic college town that sat on the banks of one of the branches of the Susquehanna River. The city limits stretched far into the surrounding mountains. Its scenic views were in stark contrast to some of the crimes that occurred within its confines, especially as the population grew year after year. On more than one occasion, said crimes had personally affected them both in the most tragic of ways.

Josie sometimes wondered at the wisdom of trying to adopt a child while they were employed by the Denton PD, but Noah always said there would never be a right time to become parents. Plenty of couples who both had full-time jobs made it work and being in law enforcement had never stopped anyone from having children before. Whenever she worried, he reminded her that if they had to make adjustments when the baby came, they would. Josie wasn’t keen on figuring it out as they went but there was no choice. The call that they’d matched with a child couldcome in the next five minutes or it could come in the next five years.

“What if we did some kind of theme?” she suggested.

“Like what?”

Carefully, she stepped down off the ladder and moved it a few feet over, then climbed back up. “I don’t know. Animals. Like a zoo or a farm. Maybe a forest or something underwater with colorful fish and sea creatures. Or hot-air balloons. Each wall could be a mural painted in that theme.”

From the hallway, Trout gave a heavy sigh. He was probably team beige, too. Anything to get them back to his very strict routine of snuggles, walks, Kong-throwing, and over-snacking.

Noah followed the ladder with his roller. “Hmmm. I like the idea of hot-air balloons and the sea creature thing, but Josie, who’s going to paint these murals?”

Shit. Neither one of them was particularly artistic. They drew about as well as they cooked, which was to say badly. Sure, Misty had been giving them cooking lessons in anticipation of them adopting a baby—and they had improved—but drawing and painting weren’t the same as making a meal. The kind of artistic ability that Josie envisioned gracing the walls of their future child’s bedroom wasn’t something that could be taught.

She finished cutting in and brought the brush and can of primer down the ladder with her, only splashing a few more drops on her already splattered purple T-shirt. Then she got the ladder out of the way so Noah could complete the final wall. She racked her brain, trying to think of anyone in their lives who might be up to the task.

“How do we not know a single person with artistic skills?”

Noah gave a half-shrug as he primed over more patches of green. “Maybe we should ask around. Someone might know someone.”

The next selection on her playlist began. As the first strains of their wedding song filled the room, Noah went rigid. Slowly, he set the roller onto the floor. Without a word, he went to the windowsill and picked up her phone. The music cut off as his fingers flew across the screen. Seconds later, Coldplay’s “All My Love” started to play.

“What are you doing?” Josie asked.

Instead of answering, he walked over and pulled her to him. A gasp escaped her lips. One of his large hands splayed across her lower back, while the other brought her sticky palm to his chest. She let him lead, looping her free arm around his neck as they swayed to the soft notes. After all this time, his hazel eyes still had the power to make her heart race.

Trout gave a loud, indignant cry of protest. When neither of them looked his way, he huffed for good measure.

“You love this song, right?” said Noah.

---