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“Which is why you get to throw them away. Not me.”
With a sigh strong enough to rustle the offending tissues, the child gathered them up, then stood and dumped them into her trash can, decorated with a big-eyed Disney princess. “Is the man gone?”
Apprehension curled in the pit of Emma’s stomach. Not eagerly anticipating the upcoming conversation, nope. “How’d you know about him?”
“Saw him out the window.” Blue eyes, no less sharp for their wateriness, shot to Emma’s. “Who is he?” she croaked, like a baby bullfrog.
“An old friend of your daddy’s. And keep your voice down, he’s right in the kitchen.”
“How come?”
“Because he and I have stuff to talk over. Grown-up stuff.”
Zoey sniffed out a put-upon sigh, a trait she’d perfected by two, before blowing her nose again. “He looks like that guy Daddy used to listen to all the time on the country music station.”
“That’s because he is.”
Eyes popped. “You serious?”
“Yes. And no, you can’t tell anybody.”
“Is he gonna stay?”
“Here? No, of course not. He’s got his own place.” Emma paused, briefly considering the weirdness that was Cash Cochran moving back to Tierra Rosa. “He used to live here. In this house, I mean.”
“No way!”
“Yep.”
Pale eyebrows pushed together. “He doesn’t want it back, does he?”
“I highly doubt it. And even if he did, it’s ours now. Nobody can take it from us.” At least, that was the plan. “You want more juice?”
“No, I’m good,” Zoey said, handing Emma her empty glass before flopping back onto her tummy on the rug, like she didn’t have a care in the world. Considering how attached Zoey’d been to her daddy, the child must’ve inherited Emma’s fake-it-till-you-make-it gene. However, her recent disposition to inviting in every cold virus that passed through town led Emma to suspect she wasn’t over her daddy’s death nearly as much as she let on.
“Hey,” Emma said. Zoey looked up. “Love you.”
That got a holey smile in response. “Love you, too, Mama.”
Releasing a breath, Emma tromped back down the hall to discover Cash—clearly not inclined to stay where he’d been put—standing in her tiny dining room, his fingers curled around a mug, staring at the sixteen-by-twenty J.C. Penney photo special taking up a good chunk of the paneled wall by the window.
“This is real nice,” he said, in the manner of somebody who realized he’d missed out on a thing or two.
Emma forced her eyes to the portrait, even though it made her heart ache. Lee’d gone on Weight Watchers the year before; he’d been so proud of how much he’d slimmed down he’d insisted they get their picture taken. Although slimmed was a relative term. For both of them. Now, though, she was glad she’d shoved her pride where the sun don’t shine and done what Lee’d wanted. Aside from their wedding album, it was the best picture she had of him. If she’d had any part in making him as happy as he seemed in that picture, she supposed she’d done okay.
Sure, she was ticked that Lee’d skirted the truth about what he’d told Cash, but no doubt he had his reasons. He always did. She sighed over the dull pang that became fuzzier around the edges every day. Heaven knew neither of them was perfect, but they’d been good together. Real good. The kind of good a smart woman knew better than to expect more than once in her lifetime—
“Your boy—he okay?”
Wrapped in his father’s arms from behind, Hunter beamed his customary infectious grin at the camera, his glasses crooked as usual. But how could she have forgotten, even for a moment, that the rest of the world saw “normal” through a completely different lens than she did? That to most people her boy’s slanted eyes and thick neck and fine hair defined him in a way that provoked either pity or discomfort, if not both. If Cash was feeling either of those things, though, she couldn’t tell.
Emma smiled. “He’s doing great. Nobody gets a bigger kick out of life than Hunter. A life that’s perfectly normal. For him. Us, too.”
When she turned, Cash’s eyes were fixed on her belly.
“Yeah, there’s another baby in there,” she said, going into the kitchen, where she finally unwound the scarf and draped it over the back of a kitchen chair before scooting across the floor toward the pie. At least, in her head she was scooting. In reality she felt like a hippopotamus slogging through hip-high mud.
“Didn’t know this one was coming until a couple of weeks after Lee died. It’s okay,” she said when Cash’s brows dipped, signaling the doubt demons to swarm, taunting her about all the responsibilities balanced on her not-quite-broad-enough shoulders. Sometimes she truly wondered how she wasn’t curled up in a fetal position herself, sucking her thumb. She flashed him a smile and scooped up the pie. “Everything’s under control. Really.”
And the sooner she did that tidying-up thing with Cash about his father, the sooner he’d be gone and she could get back to figuring out the rest of her life.
She turned, the pie cradled in her hands, catching the barely banked blend of disgust and horror on Cash’s face as he scanned the kitchen. Meaning, most likely, that a few coats of paint weren’t doing a blamed thing to eradicate the bad mojo that had not only sent Cash running but had kept him away for twenty years.
Somehow, she highly doubted the truth would, either.
Don’t remember this being part of the marriage vows, she thought, setting the pie on the table.
Chapter Two
At least the house smelled good. Damn good. Like strong coffee and baking and that flowery stuff women liked to keep around. But man, being here was doing a number on Cash’s head. In fact, as he watched Emma serve up a huge piece of pie, he felt like somebody with ADD was controlling the remote to his brain.
Cats lazed and groomed in the midmorning sunlight splashing across the dull butcherblock counters, the gouged tile floor—old, faded dreams struggling for purchase in a scary sea of color. Orange walls. Turquoise cabinets. Yellow curtains. Hell, even the table was fire-engine red—
“Bright colors help stimulate the brain,” Emma said quietly, setting a plate in front of him and licking her thumb. “We did it mainly for Hunter.”
“Did it help?”
Through the calm, Cash caught a glimpse of the worry that was most likely a constant companion. “I don’t think it hurt,” she said with a slight smile, and his heebie-jeebies about being in the house morphed to apprehension about what she wanted to tell him, which then slid into a skin-prickling, inexplicable awareness of the woman herself—
“Let me get you a refill,” she said, whisking away his mug.
—which in turn stirred up a whole mess of conflicting feelings, most of which he’d pretty much lost touch with over the years … none of which he was the least bit inclined to examine now. If ever. The weird, inexplicable spurt of protectiveness notwithstanding—even more weird since he doubted there was a woman on the face of the earth who needed protecting less than Emma Manning—he wasn’t the protective type.
More than one shrink had told Cash his self-centeredness was a direct outcome of the hell he’d been through, the old survival instinct clawing to the surface of the toxic swamp that had been his childhood. Although how that survival instinct jibed with an equally strong bent toward self-destruction—at least, early on—neither he nor the shrinks could figure out. Other terms got bandied about a lot, too. Trust issues and emotional barriers and such.
A highfalutin way of saying he sucked at relationships.
At least, that was how his last ex had put it, Cash pondered as he watched the dark, rich brew tumble into his mug, in the note she’d left on the custom-made glass-and-iron dining table in their ritzy Nashville condo eight years ago. Yeah, the tabloids had been all over that one.
The self-destructive tendencies, Cash had finally gotten a handle on. Mostly. The putting-himself-first thing, however … not so much.
Which was why it was taking everything he had in him not to bolt. From the house, the woman, whatever she had to tell him. But before he could, she slid into the seat across from him with a glass of milk. He met her frown with one of his own.
“Well?”
“Eat your pie first.” The brutal, midmorning light showcased the fine lines marring otherwise smooth skin, the faintly bruised pouches cushioning those odd-colored eyes. Not gray or blue or green but some combination of the three. “Cleaning up after my husband wasn’t exactly on my chore list this morning. So I’m working up to it. Besides, I don’t know you, Mr. Cochran. I have no idea how you’re going to react to what I’m about to tell you.”
“Sounds ominous.”
“It’s not that, it’s …” She sighed. “Eat. Please.”
So he took a bite of the still-warm pie, letting the smooth, tangy-sweet fruit and buttery crust melt in his mouth. “Damn, this is good.”
“Thanks.” After watching him for a second, she said, “It really doesn’t feel any different? Being here, I mean.”
“Looks different, sure,” Cash said, reaching for his coffee. “Feels different?” He shook his head. “My brain knows my father’s not here. That it’s been twenty years. But it’s like no time’s passed at all.”
“You still have some serious issues, then?” When he looked over, she shrugged and swept a strand of hair off her face. “I’m not judging. Just trying to get a feel for where you’re coming from.”
Cash set down his mug. “How much did Lee tell you?”
“That your daddy got religion when you were little. The kind that gets hung up on the hellfire-and-brimstone stuff and kinda misses the memo about loving one another. That he took the ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’ thing a little too literally.”
Despite being oddly grateful for her directness, Cash had some trouble swallowing the last bite of pie. “He also mention how my father made sure I felt like a worthless piece of garbage?”
When Emma didn’t answer, he glanced up, seeing something in her eyes that could suck him right in. If he let it. “That, too.”
Sitting back, Cash released a breath. “God knows I’ve tried long and hard to let go of the bad feelings. But apparently the roots run too deep to dig ‘em out completely. Like that old yellow rosebush alongside the fence out front.”
Emma curved her hands around her glass, smiling slightly. A farmer’s hands, blunt-nailed and rough. Strong. An indentation marked where her wedding ring had been.
“Lord, I hate that thing. A thousand thorns to every bloom. Every year, I’m digging up runners, cussing it the entire time. But I swear nothing short of napalm’s gonna kill it.”
From the living room, Annie got after one of the cats. Her lips still curved, Emma shook her head, then sighed. “When you’re a kid, you assume everybody’s life is like yours. That since your parents are loving, everyone’s are—”
“Trust me, the opposite doesn’t hold true. I knew other kids didn’t have fathers whupping the ‘sin’ out of ‘em. Knew, because it hadn’t always been that way.” Cash paused, letting the wave of nausea play on through. “Worse though …” He swallowed, then met her eyes again. “Worse, was that I couldn’t understand why my mother never did anything to stop it. Eventually—when I got older, I mean—I realized she was scared to death of him. Of what he might do.”
Emma’s brow creased. “He abused her, too?”
“Enough.” As many times as he’d vomited the story to assorted therapists, you’d think it wouldn’t hurt anymore. Wrong. “I never told Lee that part, and he had no reason to guess since he never came over here. I had cause to hate my father, Emma. He was … obsessed, is the only way to put it. That everybody was a sinner and he was the instrument of God’s wrath.”
“So you ran away.”
“I stayed as long as I could, for Mama’s sake. But once she died, it was either leave or lose what little self-respect I had left. Not to mention my sanity. This house … it’s like you said. It was infected with his craziness. His meanness. I couldn’t … I couldn’t be good enough for him.”
Or for anybody, it turned out. Including himself.
Cash stood, carrying the plate and mug to the sink, noticing the full dish rack despite the dishwasher right under it. Taking his cue, he bumped up the faucet handle, squirted dish soap on the plate, into the mug. His throat clogged. “I’d loved him,” he said over the thrum of running water, “before the craziness started. And for a long time, all I wanted was for him to love me again. Until I realized that wasn’t ever gonna happen. Lee …”
The stab was quick, but for different reasons this time. Apparently regret hurt every bit as bad as self-righteousness. The dish and mug rinsed and in the rack, he faced Emma again.
“Lee was the only person who kept me going back then. Hell, Emma … leaving him and our friendship behind nearly killed me. I doubt …” He almost smiled. “I doubt he had any idea how much I worried about him those first few months. Then to find out—” His nostrils flaring, he shook his head. “I felt like I’d been sliced open with a dull knife. Especially since I couldn’t make head nor tail of it. Why Lee’d do that to me.”
“Then why didn’t you ask him?”
Beneath the calm, Cash heard the vexation bubble to the surface. The loyal wife defending her husband. Envy flashed, receded, replaced by anger of his own.
“Maybe I ran away, but the crap my father left in my head came right with me. That I was worthless, that I’d never amount to anything. I’d already been through hell and back by then, more times than I wanted to admit. How I even got a career going …” He punched out a breath. “Frankly, it was a damn miracle I didn’t end up dead in a ditch somewhere. Not sure anyone would’ve cared if I had. Except my manager, maybe.”
“You don’t mean that—”
“I’d barely begun to get my head screwed on straight when I heard the old man’d died, that Lee’d inherited this place. What he’d done for that to happen. Guess I took it a little hard.”
Emma leaned back, rubbing her belly, and Cash thought with a start about that “And?” earlier, when she’d asked him if there was anything else in the letter. There was, but if she didn’t know he wasn’t about to tell her. Not yet, anyway. Not until he figured out what to do about it.
Obviously, though, she’d meant something else. Something Lee hadn’t seen fit to mention, would be his guess. Not that anything would change how he felt. Yeah, he’d come in search of explanations as part of some lamebrained attempt to make sense of his past. Hell, of his present, for that matter. But that was it. Some hatchets were too big to bury.
Emma had gotten up to cover the pie before a big gray tiger cat got to it. She stood still for a moment, then turned, her arms crossed over her bulging belly.
“Mr. Cochran, your father … he really was crazy.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“No, I mean, he was sick. Mentally ill. Some kind of chemical imbalance that made him act the way he did. Only nobody knew about his illness until a couple of years after you left.”
For the second time that day, Cash reeled, Emma’s words sparking off the wall of hurt and hate he’d kept in perfect repair for most of his life. “What are you talking about?”
“I wasn’t here yet—this was before I’d even met Lee—but apparently one Sunday Dwight came to town and kinda crashed the Baptists’ church service, ranting and raving and whatnot. I gather it got pretty ugly.”
Cash softly swore. “He hurt anybody?”
“No. Scared the bejeebers out of a lot of folks, though, if the way some still talk about it is any indication. Anyway, long story short, he ended up in a state facility. Lee said they tried to find you or your brothers, but it was like all three of you had vanished.”
“That was the idea,” he muttered. They were both gone now, but even before their deaths they hadn’t been close. Not when they’d saved their own butts but couldn’t see their way clear to save their baby brother’s. If he’d talked to either of ‘em more than a handful of times after they’d split, that was saying a lot.
“Once they got Dwight on the right meds,” Emma was saying, “he started acting as normal as you or me or anybody.” She paused. “When he did all those things to you, said all that stuff … that wasn’t your daddy talking. That was the sickness.”
“So, what?” he flung at her. “I’m supposed to just say, ‘I see,’ and forget it ever happened?”
“I’m only telling you what I know. What you do with it is your business.”
The rebuke hit its mark. Breathing hard, Cash turned away, grinding his fingers into the back of his neck.
“Anyway,” Emma continued, clearly unperturbed, “Lee and his folks were in the congregation that Sunday. In fact, Lee and his daddy helped the sheriff subdue Dwight, and Lee’s folks felt compelled to take responsibility. Because if they didn’t, who would?”
Yeah, Lee’s parents had definitely had a handle on the whole “Love thy neighbor” thing. Even neighbors nobody else wanted anything to do with.
“Lee’d started down at New Mexico State by that point,” Emma said. “And it was some months before the doctors felt Dwight was stable enough—and could be counted on to take his meds—to release him. So he came back here, even if there wasn’t a whole lot left to come home to by that point. Still, he needed looking after. Lee’s folks did it at first, but after they died, Lee and I took over. At least until Dwight went into a home a year or so later. Place down in Albuquerque. Nothing fancy, but Dwight seemed to like it well enough.”
Smoothing the wrinkled flannel shirt over her stomach, she said, “I assume your father left the house to us because we were the closest thing he had to family. But I had no idea Lee’d never told you what was going on.”
“Like I said, we weren’t in touch—”
“He could’ve gotten a message to you, if he’d wanted. Somehow. But it wasn’t until after Dwight’d left us the place that Lee finally admitted you didn’t know. We had words about that, believe you me.
“So, knowing the cat would be out of the bag once the lawyer contacted you, Lee asked him if he’d send along a note of explanation. Again, I assumed Lee had been forthcoming at that point. Clearly I was wrong.”
“Why?” Cash lashed out, not even fully understanding the pandemonium threatening to break loose inside him. “Why didn’t he just tell me the truth?”
