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She waited until her voice sounded steady. “Your girls are typical of that age. Let me show you what I’m thinking.” She leaned down to pull the sketches she’d made from her bag. “Their room is a good size. I love this arched window with the built-in seat, but in addition to more storage the twins will need a clear area for play.”
She let Melanie study the drawings.
When she’d finished Emma said, “You have a beautiful home. Together we can polish the girls’ room to perfection.” She added, “The first step will be sorting. One pile to keep, another to give away or donate to charity, a third to throw out.”
Melanie groaned. “I don’t think we can include the girls for that task. They’ll want to keep everything. I’ll warn you. There will be drama.”
Emma tried to smile. “Don’t I know. Grace was fourteen when I married Christian. And there’s still drama.”
Melanie grinned. “Oh, yes. Grace has always been a queen.”
Emma smiled at last. “It’s not easy to persuade people of any age to let go of...a lifetime’s accumulation of clutter.” She gave up trying to eat. “That’s all it is, really,” she said. “Emotional junk.”
“So we’re all like those people on Hoarders?” Melanie asked.
Emma nodded. “I tell my clients to photograph an object, instead, so they can keep the memories they associate with it. But why hang on to the actual Easter hat you wore ten years ago—or whenever people wore Easter hats? Or that shapeless sweater you bought for your first date with the man you married?” With Christian.
Melanie rolled her eyes. “Outdated pants, moldy teddy bears...”
Or sheer hypocrisy on Emma’s part? How could she even think about sorting someone else’s clothes when Owen’s toys and books were still in his room? She hadn’t gone inside since the day everything had changed and she’d wrapped her own guilt around her like a quilt.
Emma cleared her throat. “If people would get rid of one item before making room for something else—the ‘new one in, old one out’ rule—in no time clutter wouldn’t be a factor.”
“‘No More Clutter,’” Melanie said with a quick smile.
“That’s my goal.” She hesitated. “Still, it’s amazing how hard it can be to give up the past.”
Melanie studied the drawings again. When she glanced up, her smile was even wider.
“This is really cute, Emma. It has the style I want.” She turned the sketches so Emma could see. “I’m a little concerned, though, about where to put their clothes. The closet in that room is tiny.”
“So are their clothes,” Emma reminded her with an answering smile she couldn’t quite feel. Fake it till you make it. But she kept seeing the unfinished playroom in her own house, the bedroom where Owen’s clothes lay untouched in the drawers, his hamper still filled with dirty shirts and pants to be washed.
“What about an armoire here?” she asked. “You could get one with shelves above and below. There’d be space to hang dresses and so on in the middle. Dress-up hats, small purses, glittery shoes can go on the upper shelves. Which—I should point out—lets you keep some of that under control. No costume parties unless you give permission.”
Melanie picked at her crab salad. “But then the closet...?”
“You can use that to store winter coats and bulkier items, extra bed linens and blankets. Unused toys. Some parents like to rotate items so some of them always seem ‘fresh’ and appealing all over again.” She pointed on the drawing to the wall space on either side of the window seat. “Right here we could put bookshelves. The girls can show off their favorite toys or, later on, books, prom pictures...”
“What about beds?” Now Melanie was frowning. “I was thinking bunk beds to save room. So they’d have that extra floor space they need to play.”
“There’s enough right here and your girls are still little. Maybe twin beds with drawers beneath would be better for now? No climbing. When they’re bigger, we can rethink.” Assuming Melanie still wanted to work with her then. “With the right furniture this room can carry your girls straight through until college—unless they want separate rooms by then.”
“I doubt that will ever happen. They’re inseparable, which isn’t uncommon with twins. After all, they’ve been sharing from the very start.”
“Then the room will grow and change with them. I think you’ll like what our suppliers have to offer.”
They discussed the needed play space, a budget, and scheduled their next meeting, when Emma would present her formal bid. Then she held out her hand. She hoped Melanie didn’t notice she was shaking. Can I do this? I have to. “So. We’re in business?”
Melanie beamed. “Of course. I’m delighted.”
Emma let out a breath. Difficult. But done.
Or rather, just beginning.
* * *
STARTING A NEW PROJECT always recharged Emma’s batteries and this one was no different, even though it was fraught with feelings she didn’t want to face. By the time she parked in the lot at No More Clutter on Market Street, after first checking the progress at another job site, she was still riding high. Though she’d been nervous, her meeting with Melanie had gone well. She couldn’t wait to tell Grace.
“Guess what?” she said, opening the door to the shop. “Great news. Your mother has hired us to do part of her house!”
But as she entered the store, she remembered that it might not be hers for much longer. Grace didn’t answer and Emma saw her loading up her backpack. It was only three o’clock. This wasn’t the first time her new assistant had cut her hours short.
Watching her, Emma bit back a sigh. Until now, this had been one of her better days. Certainly she wasn’t in the mood to quarrel.
She nodded at Grace’s bulging bag. “Business slow this afternoon?”
Her eyes, the same gray-green as Christian’s, didn’t meet Emma’s. “The only person who came in was Mrs. Turner. She doesn’t care for the drawer pulls she picked out after all. I showed her some other samples and a few catalogs.” She stuffed a cardigan sweater into her bag.
“Grace, we have several hours before closing. Two people have promised to stop by late this afternoon. What did you plan to do, put the closed sign on the door and walk away?”
Grace looked down at the pad of paper on her desk. Emma saw a few scribbles there. “I was going to leave a note.”
Not good enough. “What if I’d gotten tied up? And one of those people turned up at four thirty wanting to ask about a whole house makeover?”
“They could call tomorrow.”
This time, Emma did sigh. Their relationship was generally good, but there was always some underlying tension between them. After all, Emma had partly taken the place of Grace’s mother.
“This is the third time, Grace. You can’t just pick up and go. I understood the first time because you had a dental appointment. And the second you had to change and meet Rafe before dinner with friends, but this can’t continue.”
“Hey, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth—so to speak,” Grace said.
“If you’re going to tell me again that you’re practically free labor, please don’t.” Emma counted to ten. “I’m paying you a decent wage, the most I can afford right now. You know business has been off—”
Grace’s mouth tightened. “Which is exactly why I was leaving.”
“—but unless we maintain certain standards here, it will fall off even more.” Emma wanted to groan. The rosy glow from her lunch with Melanie had vanished. “Let’s face it, no one really needs us. We’re a luxury product. That’s why we have to up our game, offer things no one can resist.”
She knew she sounded stiff, and didn’t mean to, but Grace didn’t seem to have a strong work ethic. Maybe Emma couldn’t blame her for that. Had she and Christian spoiled her? Right along with Melanie?
And now there was Rafe, who also tended to indulge her. At thirty, he was ten years older than Grace and although he might’ve been ready for marriage, Grace hadn’t been—that’s what Christian said, anyway. They’d eloped in July, little more than six months after the accident, breaking Christian’s heart all over again.
Grace continued to pack her bag, her long, light brown hair—like Melanie’s—swinging. She crumpled the half-written note, then threw it at the wastebasket beside her desk. She missed and the wad of paper fell to the floor. Emma wasn’t surprised when she didn’t bend to pick it up. Grace would fit right in with Melanie’s twins.
“If you need to get home early, Grace, maybe we should officially cut your hours—and your pay. I love you,” Emma said, “but when we’re in this store I’m not your stepmother. I’m a business owner and I can’t afford to be lenient. If you don’t want to work, that’s fine. But I won’t make an exception, even in your case, for whatever whim has you cutting out now.”
“It’s not a whim.”
“Then is there some good reason why you need to leave early today?”
“Rafe just called. Someone wants to see his—I mean our—condo today. He can’t get away from the barn right now.”
The excuse sounded real enough, and she knew the couple had put their unit on the market a week ago, but Emma was tired of excuses.
“Can’t you reschedule this showing? I know how important it is to sell the condo but—”
“If I don’t work full-time, how can Rafe and I afford to buy a house?”
“Money is tight for all of us right now, but if we don’t do more to keep this business going, there won’t be a paycheck at all. For either of us.” She told Grace about the lease that would expire at the end of the year.
Grace made no comment.
Was Emma being unfair? While searching for the right words, she riffled through the phone messages on her desk. She stared down at a number and the letters, ASAP.
“I see we heard from Sally Stackworth today. What’s her problem?”
“She doesn’t like the laundry room cabinets we ordered.”
“Drawer pulls, cabinets...is anyone happy today?” Melanie Simmons, thank goodness, was happy so far.
“Not at the moment,” Grace said.
Emma took a closer look at her stepdaughter. She walked toward her for a quick hug, but Grace moved aside and headed for the door. “Please don’t go yet, Grace. We need to settle this.”
“Well,” Grace said, her back to Emma as she twisted the doorknob, “at least you’re willing to deal with something.”
Before Emma could open her mouth again, Grace had left the shop. In the parking lot her hybrid car started up, and she pulled out without even a glance in Emma’s direction.
Emma stood in the doorway, watching the car turn onto the street, seeing Grace’s stony profile at the wheel. So much for her success in getting Melanie as a new client—assuming she liked Emma’s final bid. One wouldn’t be nearly enough, and now Emma would have to stay late to put out the newest fires with Sally Stackworth and Mrs. Turner. And hope the other two potential customers actually showed up. She’d have to rethink her talk with Grace—and try to figure out where they’d gone wrong.
Am I doing anything right?
* * *
IT WAS ALMOST dusk when Christian turned into the driveway at Mountain View Farm. The green-and-white sign by the gate proclaimed it was home to Tennessee’s finest, and famed, Walking Horses.
He hadn’t intended to stop, had in fact been on his way to see his mother, as Emma had asked, but in the end he couldn’t avoid the detour. He had another reason for this visit.
His hands shook as he unlatched the gate. He slapped them against his thighs, got back in his car and drove through. Then he relatched the gate behind him, and strained for a glimpse of the General.
Christian parked near the main doors of the barn. He got out, shrugged off his suit jacket, rolled up his shirtsleeves and left everything in the truck along with his tie.
On his way into the stable he skirted a wheelbarrow full of steaming horse manure. In the soft, late-afternoon air he caught its pungent scent. To true horse people, even that strong aroma was like perfume and Christian had been used to it since his early teens, when he started riding. Nearby, as he passed the indoor arena, he glimpsed several girls, also boarders, on their horses, but Rafe wasn’t there to give a lesson. He must have left work for the day.
So much for asking him to exercise the General more. Christian himself hadn’t been on the horse in almost a year.
Halfway down the aisle he halted, hearing the occasional stamp of a hoof, a sudden snort from other stalls, the far-off munching of grain. He inhaled the smells that had once made his heart glad. Fine leather and saddle soap. He’d loved each one, separate or mingled, since his first time on a horse. Still, the barn reminded him with crystal clarity of that fateful day.
So many times he’d come here with Owen, bringing carrots and gummy bears. He heard a familiar whicker and his spirit warmed in spite of what had happened and the lingering regret for his harsh words to Emma the other night, his harsh thoughts.
Still, for another second, he hesitated. He stood outside the General’s stall, his pulse beating harder, his hand lingering over the brass nameplate beside the door. It had come just to the level of Owen’s head then. He could still see in his mind’s eye the mounting stool lying in the aisle, the half-open stall door his child had slipped through, intent upon feeding gummy bears up close—too close, it turned out—to Christian’s horse.
Now the General stood at the open window of his stall, gazing out toward the pastures, as if ever hopeful of seeing the mare from the next farm, but at his approach the gelding swung his head around.
Was Christian imagining things? Or had the General glanced down, as if hoping to see Owen there? All at once he could hardly see the beautiful black-and-white horse for the sudden blur in his vision.
Emma hated the General. With good reason, but Christian had owned him for years, ridden him too long. Grace had, too, until she started college and married Rafe. They knew the General didn’t have a mean bone in his body. He’d always taken care of Owen...until that last time.
It was this place, not his horse, that Christian found hard to face.
His throat tightened. “Hey, boy.” The General ambled over to the stall door and, making the snuffling sound Christian viewed as his personal greeting, stretched his neck out to accept a pat on the sleek column of warm muscle.
Christian offered him a carrot from the bag he kept in his truck. The horse chewed, steadily sucking its length into his mouth like an efficient vacuum cleaner. His dark brown eyes seemed to glow with pleasure.
“Glutton.”
What was it Emma had said? That horse is just standing around in his stall, eating up money. After what he did to my family.
Christian grabbed a brush from his trunk in the tack room, unlatched the stall door, stepped inside and nudged the General back. The horse had gained a few pounds, which only made Christian feel more guilty for neglecting him.
“Okay, fatso. I want this coat to shine like a mirror.”
As he worked, he heard giggles coming from the indoor ring, and he felt a part of this place again. As if he really could turn back time. Those girls were novices, but they acted as if they were preparing for a big show in Madison Square Garden.
He envisioned the General not that long ago, getting ready to strut his stuff in some local ring, lifting each leg high in the “big lick” that was the Walking Horse’s learned signature gait as well as the slow, rolling natural gait that had covered ground so comfortably for many long-ago plantation owners. Riding him was like sitting in a rocking chair.
Christian leaned against the General’s side and let the brush drop to the sawdust-covered floor. There would be no more gaited shows, no competitions, no red or blue ribbons to hang in the tack room, no shot at a national championship. No more.
It was dark by the time he stroked the General’s velvety nose one last time, then latched the door shut and said good-night. Maybe he should take Emma’s advice to sell. Yet he couldn’t seem to.
Looking over his shoulder once, then again, he hurried down the long aisle to the open barn doors, out into the parking lot. He rolled down his sleeves, slipped into his jacket and got into his truck. He was already late.
As he drove away he could see the girls from the ring leading their horses back to their stalls, laughing and calling to each other. Christian headed for his mother’s house.
He wouldn’t come here again.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_1049d580-7259-53e0-81f3-c154fabe1d18)
FRANKIE OWEN MALLORY stood in the parlor of her home on East Brow Road, waiting for Christian. He was an hour late. On the mantel the clock chimed seven times. She was already tired, still exhausted from the fund-raiser last night, and it had been a long day.
He was her son, she told herself. Her only son. She would be glad to see him. But like many Southern women she was no shrinking violet. She could handle him. Emma had already hinted about the anniversary party.
Forty-five years.
“Mom?” She heard Christian calling from the entry hall. At last.
“In here,” she answered, barely raising her voice.
