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She didn’t kid herself. Emma had compulsive tendencies. But the habit had served her well as a professional organizer. Now such tiny routines held her together.
Emma reached for the detergent again, then stopped herself. She’d have to tell Christian what had happened at work.
When she heard his pickup in the driveway, she tensed. Before she could collect herself, he strode in, bringing the sharp, clean scent of outdoors and the smokier aroma of a neighbor’s fireplace burning sweet applewood.
Emma barely glanced at him. His dark hair, those gray-green eyes she’d fallen for the day they’d met...even the sight of him made her heart hurt. Months ago he would have come up behind her, nuzzled her neck and kissed her nape in greeting.
Slipping past her, looking tall and handsome in his pinstriped suit, he almost brushed Emma’s shoulder reaching around her for a glass in the cupboard. Not seeming to notice that she avoided his touch, he took a container of sweet tea from the fridge. “How was your day, Em?”
“Long. Frustrating,” she admitted.
“Mine, too.” He took a swallow of tea. “And I’ve got a gruesome meeting tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. Why does Dad have to be such an early riser? As if Mallory Trucking—and my monthly report—wouldn’t keep until nine o’clock. One more hour and I could make the drive into Chattanooga behind the rush.”
Another meeting, she thought, like the one he’d chosen to attend that day when he should have been at the barn.
“I’m not looking forward to tomorrow, either,” she said, knowing she was stalling. “Today Mrs. Belkin took one look at the walk-in closet we’ve done for her and changed the entire design.” Emma formed a pair of air quotes. “She’s not sure now that she should have chosen No More Clutter, after all.” Which, lately, was nothing new for Emma.
He toasted her with his glass. “Can’t be worth the money.”
“Not when I may have to eat the cost of redoing everything. But I need her business. I’ve already lost two more clients this month. And since I hired Grace I have to meet her salary, too.” Ever since the painful stories in the paper about the accident at the barn she’d been scrambling to keep her head above water. The local community had branded Emma then and people here didn’t forget.
He made a low sound of apparent empathy, then went into the great room to see Bob. “Hey, girl,” he murmured. “You know you’re not supposed to be on this sofa.” Thump, thump. The sound of tail wagging grew heavier. “I swear this dog understands English,” he said loud enough for Emma to hear.
“Of course she does,” Emma said, sighing when she realized she’d echoed Grace’s sentiment.
Emma might be a bit compulsive, but Christian was a creature of habit, too. She knew he was about to come back into the kitchen and stop by the built-in desk to punch Play on the answering machine, which she’d pointedly ignored on her way in.
Taking a breath, she opened the refrigerator door, putting up a barrier so the messages were only a soft rumble in her ears. Months ago, soon after the accident, she’d gotten some ugly threats.
“Emma.” Christian’s tone was soft but scolding. “Did you listen to this? Max Barrett called again.”
Her pulse leaped. Something else she’d dreaded about coming home tonight. It was a good thing Christian didn’t know about the other messages Max had left on her cell phone.
“Obviously you haven’t called him back,” he said.
Taking a package of chicken from the fridge, she shut the door in time to hear Max’s warm voice all too clearly.
Emma, it’s me—and there it was, that voice—again. Have a heart. You know how small my shop is and why I keep calling. Listen. I’ve been holding your beautiful carousel pony far too long. I need the space. I understand how you must feel but...
Emma sagged against the counter. Last December she would have welcomed his call. The day of the accident she’d hardly been able to keep the surprise to herself.
But the carousel pony, modeled after Christian’s horse, had turned out to be a terrible mistake. And heartbreaking. Emma wanted nothing to do with horses now, real ones or painted wooden models. She couldn’t bring herself to pick up the miniature version of the General and she might never be ready. Max Barrett could wait.
But his voice, with a hint of humor, went on. I don’t know what else to do except start charging that poor pony rent. You need to make some decision. Give me a call. Please.
The machine clicked off and the silence expanded.
Max’s calls unnerved her, but she couldn’t seem to do anything about them. At first they’d been infrequent, then, over the months, they’d become more regular. Waiting for Christian to say something more, she followed his glance toward the ceiling and the abandoned playroom. The pony was to have been the final touch—a Christmas gift for Owen—but there was no way she could bring it home now.
The click of the dog’s nails on the floor sounded like rescue on the way. At six o’clock each night Bob left the living room, where she’d slept all afternoon, and ambled into the kitchen to sit by her dish.
Putting the chicken package by the sink, Emma washed her hands, then bent down to pat Bob’s dark, silky head as if to say, for both of them, It will be all right. But Max’s latest call and her day at work made that seem impossible. Straightening, she opened a cabinet and dipped a plastic measuring cup into the bag of kibble. She poured the food into Bob’s bowl and heard, Let me do it, Mama.
Aware of Christian standing behind her, she briefly closed her eyes. She couldn’t turn to look at him. That direct, steady gaze, the implied strength in it, had drawn her to him at first. When he put his hands on her shoulders, she eased out from under them.
After long moments, he said simply, “Em,” in that weary tone she heard too often now. “What’s wrong? I know there’s something else.”
Emma had been dreading this moment most of all. “I had some bad news today.” She took a big breath. “My landlord won’t renew my lease for the shop. Or rather, he’s raising my rent and I’ve had a hard enough time meeting the rent this year. I was late last month—and the month before that.”
He frowned. “Then what will you do?”
“Look for space elsewhere, I guess,” she said with a shrug. “The rents are impossible downtown anyway.” She paused. “And frankly, business isn’t very good. I might try for something near the Hamilton Place mall. There’s more customer traffic there.”
“Maybe instead, it’s time to sell.”
“Are you serious? After the years I’ve invested in No More Clutter?”
“The business isn’t growing any longer, and there are several other places in town that do household organization. One of them may want to expand.”
“I want to expand,” she said, finally turning to face him.
“Apparently that’s not happening, Emma.”
She glanced away. He’d never shared her enthusiasm for the store, especially after Owen was born. They had a young child who needed her attention—he’d said that how many times? Why be surprised that he wouldn’t support her need to keep on with her business? After all, the accident had happened while Emma was on a call with a client.
Still, Christian was partly to blame, too. “You expect me to sell my business—when you won’t even discuss selling the General? And that horse is just standing around in his stall, eating up money every single day—after what he did to my family? No, Christian.”
His mouth tightened, but it seemed he knew better than to pursue that subject.
“In any case, while I look for new space,” she said, “I may have to start packing up downtown, bringing a few files home—”
“No.”
Her tone hardened to match his. “What do you mean, no?”
But he’d already turned his back and was leaving the room.
* * *
LATER THAT NIGHT, Christian gazed out the bedroom window and thought—as he did, over and over—of the accident that had taken his son’s life. He could only guess how that loss had affected Emma.
He shouldn’t blame her for wanting to repair her business, but he did. Just as he resented her for that remark about the General. He shouldn’t blame her for not wanting to talk about anything more meaningful than the day’s happenings—which, today, had been critical for her.
With an arm braced against the window frame, he envisioned Emma months ago when everything had still been good between them. In his mind he saw her rushing around after work to fix dinner. He watched her hand Owen another green pepper stick so he wouldn’t get too hungry before their meal was ready. He saw her face light up as it used to do whenever he’d walked in the door to find her waiting for his light kiss.
But he’d had plenty of practice in reading her new body language. He saw her back stiffen every time he used the shortened version of her name, as if they were now two different people—which he guessed they were—and he had no right to even that small, familiar intimacy. Em. He was the only one who’d ever called her that.
He hated the rift between them. It had become as deep and wide as the Chesney Rim, which, farther up their road, carved Sequoia Mountain into two distinct halves.
You’d think by now he would have developed better tools to cope, as their once-upon-a-time counselor had advised. He’d tried. But, always, there was the memory of Owen.
He felt helpless, unable to understand that loss or how to reach Emma. He kept wanting to do something, make something good, or at least better, come from their tragedy so it wouldn’t seem so senseless. But what had he done tonight? He’d made her feel worse than she already did.
“Christian,” she said into the darkness, as if they hadn’t quarreled earlier and this was just like any other night. “Come to bed.”
He didn’t answer. How did she manage to shut out the remembered sounds of baby steps, a first complete sentence, the joyous shout of a toddler’s laughter?
His mother never hesitated to move on. She still managed her life as she always had—with crisp efficiency. She’d promptly packed away every sign of her only grandson, or for all Christian knew she’d donated everything to one of her charities. Not a picture remained on the mantel in her home in Lookout Mountain. Where the oil painting of Owen had once hung in the hall—his mother called it the gallery—there was only a glaring white rectangle. He’d grown up in that house, where only pleasant conversation was allowed, and he didn’t want that in his own marriage.
“Be right there,” he told Emma. Bob was already on the bed, lightly snoring on top of the covers. Like the sofa, their bed had once been strictly taboo. But that rule was from the days when the dog slept with Owen, the two of them tangled together in the covers.
“I’m falling asleep,” Emma murmured. “Before I do, a couple of things—first, don’t forget we have that reception tomorrow night at Coolidge Park.”
He wanted to groan. Tomorrow was shaping up to be just too much fun. And there it was, the subject he’d hoped to avoid, another slot in a schedule. Another lockstep appearance he didn’t want to make, like going in to work every morning.
“We have to go?” He didn’t wait for the answer he knew would come. “Let me guess. My mother is the chairperson. It’s not one of those monkey-suit things, is it?”
“You’ll be fine. Or wear your charcoal-gray suit instead.”
“I didn’t know I owned a charcoal-gray suit.”
“And a black one.” He knew exactly when he’d worn that one. Her voice trembled so he guessed Emma didn’t need the reminder, either. “If you keep moving, Frankie might not notice it isn’t a tuxedo.”
Like that would ever happen. His mother had eyes like an eagle. He turned to see Emma propped on an elbow in bed. In the dim light of the moon her blond hair looked darker and so did her ocean-blue eyes, almost black. She seemed like a total stranger.
Christian sent her a grim smile. “I’ll give Mom one hour. Write a check for the cause, whatever. Make conversation with all those ‘important people’ she hangs out with—even take part in another of those endless silent auctions—then we’re out of there.”
Her tone was light. “You sound like an eighth grader at a grown-up party.”
“Thanks,” Christian said drily.
He allowed himself a brief moment of pretending this was just any night, not even a year ago, their quiet time together at the end of a busy day. Maybe Emma was pretending, too.
“You’re already squirming,” she said with a little smile in her voice, “but you know we have to do this.”
“My mother...”
But that was tomorrow. He’d have time to prepare himself for the usual prying questions, the intolerable sympathy from people he barely knew. And, somehow worse, from those he did. The words never sounded genuine.
“...speaking of Frankie,” Emma murmured. “My second issue. Christian, I had a call today from your father. It’s their anniversary soon and he’d like to throw a big party. He wants me to do the planning—”
“Trust me. Mom doesn’t want a party.” Neither did he.
“Could you talk to her?”
For another few seconds he peered into the darkness, at the patch of driveway in front of the garage doors. “I can try,” he finally said when what he really wanted was for the whole world to stop.
No, he wanted time to move backward like a videotape running in reverse until the accident hadn’t happened at all. Until they were still a happy family with a grown daughter and a sweet little boy. The child Christian had yearned for yet, after his divorce, never expected to have until he met Emma.
At last he crossed the room to slip between the sheets. Bob was twitching in her sleep and one rear leg jabbed him in his side, but Emma had said no more and neither would he. Instead, he lay there thinking about tomorrow’s fund-raiser at Coolidge Park. The certain run-in with his mother about the anniversary party. The shattered moments of his and Emma’s lives.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_c42b52db-81fa-5011-af8e-f0cb65a13936)
“I THOUGHT YOU’D be here sooner.”
Emma had just stepped into Coolidge Park’s Walker Pavilion when Frankie—wearing an ivory gown and pearls—spotted her. On a drift of Chanel perfume, she gave Emma an air kiss on each cheek. “I wondered if you’d decided not to come.”
Ah, but your wish is my command.
Emma was wearing a sparkly, floor-length bronze dress for tonight’s fund-raiser. She’d even had her hair done today, sandwiching the appointment between a trip to Signal Mountain to begin redoing Mrs. Belkin’s closet, another tense phone call with her landlord and a quick dash home to shower then change.
“Business,” she told Frankie. “Sorry.”
Instantly Emma wished she’d said something else. Work was never a valid excuse for Frankie, whose daily life centered on her charitable activities.
Despite Emma’s insistence that she and Christian come tonight, the event set her teeth on edge. This part of the city’s North Shore was now the place to see and be seen. That wasn’t a factor for Emma, who had few social pretensions. But she’d spent many afternoons here at the nearby carousel with Owen and didn’t need the reminder of happier times.
“Is Christian here yet?” she asked.
Frankie tilted her head toward a group of men, including her husband, in the far corner of the crowded pavilion. Emma easily picked out Christian. He stood taller than the rest, his dark hair, gray suit and white shirt like the beacon of a familiar lighthouse in some stormy harbor. He and Lanier were talking, but Christian looked tense. Emma recognized his I’m-with-my-father-and-I’m-not-myself-at-the-moment laugh.
Frankie sensed trouble. “You didn’t drive in together? I assumed you were in the ladies’ room to freshen up.”
Emma bit back a sigh. “Christian was tied up at the office all day. We missed each other at home. I had no choice but to drive my own car—being already late,” she couldn’t help adding. “He looks trapped. Excuse me.” With Frankie’s gaze following her, she crossed the room on high-heeled sandals.
“Hey, good-looking,” she said, reaching Christian’s side, then flushed. The teasing words had come without thinking, as they might have less than a year ago. After their quarrel last night they sounded false.
Yet his eyes warmed for a second. He turned to his father and the other men in the group, his tone a shade too hearty. “Am I a lucky man, or what?”
Southern gentlemen to the core, they all politely agreed. She gave her father-in-law a quick kiss on the cheek, then slid her hand into Christian’s. “We need to circulate.”
“Emma,” Lanier called her back. “We’ll talk about the party.”
“Whenever you like,” she said.
She and Christian continued across the room, greeting people here and there until an older woman swooped down on them in a flash of blue organza. Emma couldn’t remember her name, but she was one of Frankie’s charity friends.
She hugged Christian, then cast a glance at Emma’s dress. “Lovely, my dear,” she said. “And how brave of you to come.” She patted Emma’s bare shoulder. “In your place I wouldn’t be able to leave the house.”
Christian squeezed Emma’s hand. “We’re doing fine,” he said, then kept walking until another woman stopped them.
“Emma. Frankie said you’d be here but I wasn’t sure...”
“We wouldn’t miss it,” she murmured, her throat closing on the words.
Grateful for his solid presence, Emma gripped Christian’s hand as he led her away. She spied Grace and Rafael Ramirez standing by the bar. Grace had married the barn’s trainer this past summer, much to Christian’s dismay. He still thought Grace, at twenty, was too young, and she’d quit college, rather than choose a major and then finish her degree, to become Rafe’s wife.
Emma waved at them but they seemed to be in a deep discussion and didn’t respond. She glanced away—and there was Max Barrett. Her pulse skipped a beat. Later she’d have to apologize to him about the carousel horse. I don’t know what else to do except to start charging that poor pony rent.
