2.

The sky was clear, for a day in the middle of July when the weather forecast had announced an eighty percent rate of precipitation for today, but he didn't care about that right now. Noah Roberts just needed to get a cup or two of coffee into his system to start his day, before heading to the hospital. 

He had gracefully slept at home last night after his surgery had been canceled but it was scheduled for three o’clock this afternoon. 

As he parked his Chevrolet Silverado, he glanced up in the sky, and then around the street. The rain might pour, but the clear sky was deceiving. 

Shaking his head, he waved at the bakery owner on the other side of the street, before turning to go into the coffee shop. 

“Hey, Char.” He greeted as he saw his cousin's sister walk around the counter to assume her position as the barrister. She made amazing coffee with different designs. 

“Hey, cousin. You look well-rested today.” She said. 

"The usual, please." He said as he walked up to her. Before he could sit down on one of the high seats, he heard a car park outside and he looked at the black car and squinted his eyes, seeing as she had never seen it around before. 

He watched the car door open, and the woman with straight black hair climbed out. She was wearing a blue and pink sundress that reached the place above her knee, with sneakers on her feet. As she looked around the street, he watched her carefully, his eyes roaming over her figure. He had not seen her face yet, but it was as if he knew her, whatever the reason for feeling like that was. 

Sighing, he turned to face Charlotte. "You get customers like this, huh?” 

She grinned with a shake of her head. "Customers like what?" she asked. "If I didn't know any better, I would have sworn you like what you see.” She said. 

Noah thought about that, and then he realized that it might be true. It was a foreign thought and feeling, but it didn't feel weird. 

He drank the coffee that Charlotte placed in front of him in one go, feeling it go around his body, waking him extra. He stood up, seeing as he wouldn't need another cup, and then he asked. "Do you need me to grab out your trash?” he asked, and when she nodded, he walked to the back and out the door of the kitchen with the trash, his mind still thinking about the woman out front. 

Dusting his hands as soon as he dumped the trash in the huge can in the alley behind Charlotte’s shop, he decided to walk around the shop and get in from the front. Maybe he would catch the woman still out there. 

As he got back to the front of the shop, she was already inside the shop, but he saw her falling backward, right after a jump. 

Quickly, he moved forward and caught her wrist before she could meet with the floor in front of her, then something weird happened. 

He saw her froze, felt it too, and all he could do was frown. 

Noah had only thought to grab a cup of coffee before heading to work, but he never thought he would be rescuing a damsel in distress, or that the damsel would find him so frightening she would freeze like this. 

It took everything in him not to yank his hand away from her wrist because that would make her fall again, since she hadn't gained her stand. 

“Are you all right?” he asked, offering her a small smile to help her feel a little bit at ease. 

The woman looked at him over her shoulder, her green eyes popping out like the forests before the mountains that were sounding their town. He could tell she was from out of town, in fact, she had come a long way from out of town. 

Her eyes widened for a few seconds before she swallowed visibly. 

Noah wondered why she was acting that way, but then, he was a huge man, and very tall at six feet four, making him tower above her. Well, he towered above most women and men. 

The woman nodded her head slowly, biting her red cherry lips, calling his attention to her mouth. He was surprised yet again, the feeling that assaulted him. He didn't usually get that kind of feeling, and neither did he encouraged it, but here it was. Noah knew women always want his attention, but he had never given that to anyone. 

He just couldn't. 

He had been betrayed five years ago when his supposed fiancé had run off town with another man, right after Noah proposed to her with a forty five thousand dollar ring that had been passed down generations in his family. 

Must be the feeling he always had right after a shot of caffeine mixed in his bloodstream. That was all it could be. 

“Thank, you!” she said, yanking her wrist from his hand, before walking to Charlotte. 

Noah frowned again at her reaction, but he shrugged his shoulder. At least, she had the decency to appreciate what he did for her. Shaking his head, he gestured with his hand raised over his head at his cousin and mouthed that he had to leave. With her smile at him and a nod of her head, he walked out of the coffee shop.