Now She's Back

“Show me the balloon thing again.”

“I can get someone else.”

“I said I’d do it.” For a second Emma was tempted to shout that she’d stay and prove her fellow citizens were just killing time with soap operas about her life. But Marcy had skirted the truth, and Emma didn’t want to be part of those nearly true stories again. It didn’t mean she couldn’t act like any other Halloween-festival volunteer. A normal person who lived in Bliss, Tennessee.

Until Owen finished the work on Nan’s house.

Marcy showed her again before she went on to her more important errands. Emma had a few false starts, but she concentrated on her work and ignored any sign of curiosity from her former friends and neighbors.

She slipped an orange balloon over the nozzle on the tank. As she activated the pump, the balloon expanded, and a cat swelled to arching life on its side. The trick was getting the thing off and tying a ribbon around it. She had a pile of balloons to finish before Owen was ready to leave for his paying job. At her house.

Peter Franklin, toddler son of another volunteer, kept leaving the petting zoo set up on the courthouse lawn, to help Emma collect runaway balloons that popped off the nozzle before she could tie them. Emma wrestled the cat balloon into submission and started a black one decorated with a happy, non-threatening ghost.

She whipped it off the nozzle, held it to her stomach and roped it with a long length of ribbon.

“That ghost isn’t scary,” Peter said. “We aren’t babies, you know.”

“You have a baby sister,” Emma said. “Your mom told me so the last time she asked you to stay inside the petting zoo.”

He ignored her less than subtle reminder. While she wouldn’t let the little runaway escape, the last thing she needed was Peter’s mom accusing her of putting a kindergartner to work.

“My little sister has a ghost of her own. Mom pretends it’s an imaginary friend, but Becca and I talk to Sebastian all the time.” He scratched his nose. “Becca tells me what Sebastian says.”

“That’s pretty creepy. How many other Sebastians do you know?”

“Just Becca’s. He’s pretty bossy. Like you.” Peter offered her a purple ribbon as a shadow crossed her arm.

Emma turned and froze, but Peter held up his arms to Noah.

“Hey, kiddo.” Without so much as a glance at Emma, Noah scooped Peter up and deposited him inside the fence where a goat immediately took a gentle nibble of his hair. “Your mom says you love the goats and llamas.”

“Llamas spit.” Peter stopped and gathered some saliva in his mouth. “Like this,” he said with an impressive display. Emma barely kept herself from leaping out of the line of fire, but Noah stuck like glue to the tall, leaf-strewn grass, and Peter stuck out his chest. “My dad taught me.”

“Your dad?” Emma looked around for the missing father. So many new people had come to Bliss in the past few years.

“Ted Franklin. He’s deployed,” Noah said, “for the second time. He went first the week after Peter was born.”

“He isn’t home much,” Peter said, looking strong, sounding wistful.

“I say we have a spitting contest right here and now,” Emma said. “So you’ll be in practice when he gets home again.”

Peter’s tiny fist shot into the air as he yelled “Yes!”

Noah stared at Emma as if he’d never seen her before, but he offered Peter a fist bump. Emma considered him brave for touching the little guy’s hand if the boy practiced his spitting skills at all.

CHAPTER FOUR

“YOU HAVE HIDDEN skills,” Noah said as Emma watched Peter run off with his mom.

Emma had changed. He tried to imagine the young woman he’d known and deeply loved being carefree enough to throw herself into a spitting contest. He offered her a wet paper napkin he’d obtained from a wary volunteer, who’d avoided touching his hand.

“Oh, I could have won.” Emma wiped her face thoroughly, her smile a soft, sweet invitation to come closer. “I just wanted Peter to have good news for his dad when he comes home.”

Noah longed to ask how she’d learned such surprising playfulness, but the conversation and the afternoon had already revived feelings he didn’t want to feel. He’d never been enough for her. She’d never realized he was carrying his entire family on his back. She didn’t know he still awoke in the night, ducking his father’s fists.

Or that sometimes those fists were his in nightmares. When he was frustrated with the council. Or worried about Owen’s drinking, their younger sister, Celia, balancing between the next great party and the scholarship she couldn’t afford to lose, and finally, Chad, who confused the temper that eked out of him in his high school halls for the aggression on the field that made him a much-scouted football player.

Noah hadn’t been able to hide everything that happened at his house before, but he’d tried to protect Emma. He’d dreaded her pity more than anyone else’s. He still didn’t want to see that look in her lovely green eyes.

He focused, crawling out of his troubling thoughts. “You were in no danger of winning.”

She searched his face. “Noah, are you all right?” She touched his arm. Her hand was familiar, small but strong, her touch, less clinging, more comforting.

He nodded, not daring to speak for fear he’d expose how much she still affected him. She’d wanted him her way or no way at all. He had to keep reminding himself of that.

But no way had worked well enough for the past four years.

“We can be like this,” she said. “Instead of angry with each other or wary, we can be real friends.”

He stared at her hand. “So we don’t have to discuss anything else.”

“Like feelings,” she said with a wry laugh, and she turned back to her post at the helium tank, dismissing him.

* * *

SHE SHOULD HAVE known Noah was only pretending for Peter.

When they’d been engaged, she could have been his support, his helpmate. She would have listened to all the situations he kept bottled up, if only he’d shared them.

But he’d been closed off, unable to share happiness or pain. She’d lingered at the edges of his love, until those little tastes of happiness had left her starved.

“Hey,” Owen said behind her. “I saw Noah. Was he harassing you?”

“Never,” she said. “Can you drop me off at home? I think it’s too late for any more work on the house tonight.”

“Yeah, sure.”

As soon as she was back inside her house, she locked the door behind her. She leaned her head against the thick, solid oak.

She was safe. Here, where Nan’s love still lingered, warming the corners and the open spaces, safety waited for her to call upon it. She dropped her things on the tufted bench and scurried to the kitchen to plug in the tea thing and start dinner.

She had Nan’s tomato soup in the freezer. All these years, and Emma still didn’t know how to divide the components to cook for one. Nan’s recipes were built to feed a family.

She set the dining-room table for one and chose a bottle of wine from the creepy basement where Nan had installed shelves along one stone wall.

It was like sitting down to eat with her grandmother. Except when she poured one glass, she had no one to toast; no one to tell she was glad to be home, but was afraid coming home had been a mistake. Owen could have done the work and reported his progress to her father.

A knock at the door startled her out of her thoughts. Clutching her napkin, she went to answer it. She was so in tune with every memory of Noah and each new thing she’d learned about him, she recognized his navy-suited arm in the window beside the door.

On the one hand, she couldn’t face any more of his bewildering memories of their past, or his refusal to discuss it. On the other hand, she didn’t want to talk any more about the things they couldn’t fix.

She simply didn’t understand the emotions that racked her from just being in this town.

She opened the door. “Noah? Something wrong?”

He looked her up and down. “Owen told me I’d treated you badly, and I should apologize.”

“Since when does he tell you what to do?”

“Since I’ve assumed he might be right.”

“Maybe we are incapable of sorting out what’s always been wrong between us. Maybe we don’t need to.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you.”

“Let’s celebrate your absolutely correct decision with a bowl of soup and some wine. I could even dig up a grilled cheese if you want.”

“Why are you here in Bliss, when being here makes you unhappy?”

“Why have you stayed in Bliss when staying tortures you?”

He bent his fingers and scraped his nails over his forehead. She wanted to grab his hand and make him stop hurting himself.

Finally, he dropped both hands to his sides, flexing them into fists. “You’re the first person who’s noticed.”

“Because I spent so much time trying to figure you out.”

“I was always exactly what I said, torn between wanting to be with you and trying to look after my family.”

Emma turned toward the kitchen. “I was never used to trusting anyone. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t tell truth from a story I thought you’d just made up.”

“So you believe me now?”

She looked back at him, shrugging out of his jacket. His face, in rest, was still taut. His eyes kept secrets.

“No,” she said.

“Talking really makes things better between us.”

“Nothing has to get better because I’m only here until your brother makes my house all better. Do you want a sandwich?”

“Yes, please.”

He came with her and opened the fridge, taking cheese from the deli bin. As Emma warmed the soup, Noah sliced cheese. She took bread from a tin decorated with a couple in WWII-era sailor suits.

“Let me do this,” he said. “Your soup is getting cold.”

Nan had never possessed a microwave, so he’d have to use the stove, but Noah could take care of himself. “Fine,” she said.

Another knock at the door caught her before she reached the dining room. “This will be Owen,” she said, “unless he called my father.”

“You’re good,” he said. “I’m betting on Owen. He wouldn’t rat me out to your dad for bothering his little girl.”

She grimaced, opening the door.

“Just making sure you two aren’t at each other’s throats.” Owen came inside without asking. “Something smells good.”

“Owen needs a sandwich and some soup, Noah.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Are you really okay?” Owen asked in a lowered tone.

“Fine. He won’t talk about anything that’s real. I’m fed up with begging. Situation normal. Come on through to the dining room.”

Noah stepped into the hall. “Owen,” he said, “everything okay?”

“I’m still sober.” Owen grinned at them both, remarkably content. “Just like old times, isn’t it?”

Emma walked toward the dining room. Noah went back to the kitchen.

“I’m the only one who likes some of the old times,” Owen said, left on his own.

Emma slipped through the darkened living room to take the wine back into the kitchen. Noah looked up.

“Why are you doing that?”

“I don’t want to tempt him.”

“He has to learn to live in the world.”

She wanted to snap, “You never have,” because he was so content to hide out on a mountain in Tennessee. But that would have been lashing out with a temper she wanted to control. Her desire for such a petty attack disappointed her. She’d hoped to come home and be normal.

“Owen?” she asked, raising her voice. “Do you want water? Soda? Tea?”

“Water’s fine, but you can bring back that wine bottle.”

“We’ll all have water.”

“And avoid the problem?” Noah asked. “Owen can’t.”

“It is like old times. You’re still taking care of your little brother.”

“I notice you are, too,” Noah said. “What’s up with that?”

“Sometimes I really hate you.”

Because despite everything, if she had feelings for a Gage brother, it was always going to be Noah. But he’d apparently be just as happy to foist her off on Owen.

* * *

“DR. GAGE, COULD YOU help us?” DeeAnn Franklin hurried up to him as he walked to his car on the evening after his dinner party with Owen and Emma. DeeAnn held her son, Peter, in her arms. “His ankle is swollen. He was climbing over that fence again.”

“Hey, Peter.” Noah took the boy from his mother’s arms and set him down on a bench just as the courthouse clock tolled five.

DeeAnn took off her son’s shoe and sock and rolled up his pant leg. Noah examined Peter’s ankle in the growing coolness as the sky darkened.

“No, don’t.” Peter pushed Noah’s hand away, tears leaking from his eyes.

“You’re fine, buddy.” Noah patted Peter’s leg. “I have a bandage in my car.” He glanced at DeeAnn. “Or the office, whichever you prefer.”

She looked doubtful. She waited tables at the pancake house out near one of the chalet lodges.

“My computer’s out.” Noah straightened. “I couldn’t bill you if I wanted to.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to pay you,” she said in a voice so sad her son looked up at her, puzzled.

Noah shook his head. “I’m the one with the problem. Why don’t we wrap this, and then I don’t know about the two of you, but I’m dying to have pancakes for dinner.”

“That I can take care of,” she said. “I happen to know a chef who’ll make you unbelievable pancakes.”

“We have a plan.” Noah scooped Peter up again and turned to find Emma climbing out of her own car in front of them at the curb.

Her face and throat were stained pink, as if seeing him made her feel self-conscious. He didn’t let himself consider why heat seemed to be crawling up his skin, too. The cool breeze blew Emma’s curls around her face, and the movement broke the invisible cord that bound them to each other across those few feet of ground.

“DeeAnn, you remember Emma?”

DeeAnn looked as if she wanted to be anywhere but there.

Emma thrust out her hand to shake. “We spoke yesterday, when Peter was at the petting zoo.”

“I didn’t recognize you then. Glad you’re home.” DeeAnn returned the shake briefly, then put her hand on her boy’s leg. “This is my son, Peter. Peter, this is Miss Emma.”

“I know her,” Peter said. “She spits almost as good as me.”

Taken aback, DeeAnn nodded. “I can’t really believe that. Your dad won’t like to hear it’s that close.”

“We had a contest. I beat her, Mom.” He pointed at Noah. “And him, too.”

“Oh, great.”

Noah found the woman’s obvious unease oddly uncomfortable. Was she thinking of the rumors about Emma and his father? From four years ago? Emma was right about one thing. No one let go of a good piece of scandal in this town. Hadn’t he spent his whole life here trying to clean his own family name?

“If there is ever a national spitting competition, Peter’s taking gold,” he said.

“To think I was hateful to Jeff for teaching him,” DeeAnn said.

“We should get this little guy taken care of. See you later, Emma.” Noah started toward his office door, and DeeAnn followed, while Emma trudged toward the library.

A little while later, Noah was seated in a pancake restaurant with DeeAnn and Peter. “Are you sure I can’t have a cast?” Peter poked Noah in the chest with a tiny finger and then peered around his shoulder. “I think a big cast would make me feel so much better. And some ice cream, Mom.”

“No ice cream. Pancakes,” DeeAnn said. “Noah, how is Emma? I heard she’d come back to renovate her grandmother’s house.”

“That’s what I hear, too.”

“She left after you all broke up, didn’t she? You were engaged.”

“That’s all in the past,” he said over Peter’s head.

“You worry about her, though. I see that on your face.”

“DeeAnn—”

“It’s none of my business. I know that.” She slid her hand through Peter’s curls. “But sometimes, when Ted’s home, I push him away because having him near makes me think how bad I’d feel if I lost him.”

“That’s not what I’m feeling.”

“I wasn’t just talking about you.”

He glanced back. Pamela Candler was reading a book over a drink and sandwiches in the shop’s screened porch. It wasn’t that big a coincidence. Pamela ate alone in a lot of the best restaurants in town.

But seeing Pamela, his thoughts went naturally to her daughter. Even if Emma and he wondered about what might have been, they both knew there was no going back. He’d made himself part of Bliss’s everyday life. He provided care, and he was learning to give without fearing he’d be slapped back because of his name. Emma was on her guard coming back, expecting the worst from everyone. She had no happiness here. She wouldn’t be staying.

* * *

“MOTHER.” EMMA TWISTED her hands in one of Nan’s hand-embroidered dish towels. Her mother waited behind the screen door, the darkness like a frame around her. “What do you want?”

“To see you. What do you think?”

“Do you need something from the house?” After the Thanksgiving debacle, Nan had changed her will. She’d passed over her own child to leave her home to Emma.

“If you’d read my emails, you might have known the house was looking run-down, but no, I didn’t come because I want my childhood back from you.” Pamela, in a beautiful red shift that set off her pale blond hair and bright red lips, looked at least ten years younger than her nearly fifty years.

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