by Jenni James
Quietly, I walked into the room and sat on my favorite overstuffed chair. This year it was upholstered in a wide cream-and-rose-striped fabric. I waited a moment to see if Mom was watching before I curled my feet—shoes and all—underneath me.
“Okay, Grace. I’ll let her know.” Mom smiled into the phone.
Grace? She’s talking to Mrs. Anderson. Hmm . . . I wonder what Taylor’s mom wants. I hadn’t seen Taylor since Thanksgiving. He’d been living in Arizona the past two years while he went to college. I wonder if he and Chloe are planning to get married or something. How long has he been going with that girl now? One year? No wait, it’s been two years, hasn’t it?
“Yes. Emmalee is right here. She’s going to be so happy. I can’t wait to tell her.” Mom smiled at me and then frowned with a pointed look at my feet.
Grudgingly, I rolled my eyes and brought my legs down to the floor. She’s such an Austenite!
“Thank you so much! Tell Lionel we said hello, okay? Yes. Yes. Thanks again. Buh-bye.” Mom set the phone in its cradle, her smile even more radiant than usual. “Guess what?” Her pedicured, sandaled feet gracefully slid to the floor as she sat up properly to talk to me.
I debated if I should really guess or if it was a rhetorical question.
“So are you going to guess?” Mom flashed her rings as she patted her knees.
Rhetorical question is out. “Taylor and Chloe Hart are finally getting married?”
“What? No, no.” Mom shook her head. “You can do better than that. Think, Emmalee.”
Something that will make me happy? “Can you give me a clue?”
“Fine, I’ll give you one. And I swear if you don’t figure it out, I may change my mind completely and not let you—”
No way! “Lady’s had her puppies!”
“Yes!” Mom laughed as I ran over and threw my arms around her.
“When did she have them? Can I see them?” I was so excited, I couldn’t help it. I’d been waiting for Georgia’s dog to deliver her puppies for forever now.
“Yes. You can go see them. The Andersons wanted you to have first pick.” Mom chuckled. “Now, let go before you strangle me.”
I let go but then threw my arms around her again. “Thank you, Mom!”
This time she removed my limbs and held my hands in front of her. I looked down into her cheerful brown eyes and watched as they saddened for a moment.
“No more moping around, okay?” she said.
I nodded my head like I was eight instead of my newly acquired eighteen.
“I can’t take it anymore. It’s the one reason Dad” —Mom always called my stepfather “Dad”— “and I agreed to allow you to have a puppy. We’re hoping you can be a little more pleasant around the house now that your best friend has left, too. It’s almost the end of September and already one full month into your senior year. I want you to make the most of it, okay?”
Again I nodded, then matched Mom’s rueful smile. “Sorry. Have I really been that bad?”
She grinned. “Maybe not that bad. Just not that good, either.”
“Okay. I promise to be happier,” I said. Then I added for good measure, “And I promise to find a new friend.”
It worked. Mom’s brilliant smile returned. “Good. You’re my princess. I want you to be happy.” She squeezed my hands. “So what are you waiting here for? Go pick out a puppy.”
“Yes!” After another exuberant hug and a thank you, I was out of the parlor and charging down the stairs. I turned left and jogged through the formal dining room into the breakfast room, then practically skidded through the large kitchen into the mud room. Soon I was out the back door and running through our half acre of flower gardens and pathways. I barely noticed Mom’s “romantic” white-trellised gazebo as I hurried to the back fence gate we shared with the Andersons.
I opened the gate and entered the splendor of the Andersons’ three acre sculpture garden. No backyard in all of Farmington, New Mexico, beat this one. It was absolutely stunning. I ran down the path past the manmade lake, which was probably the size of two football fields. I shook my head at the small paddleboat and fishing pole next to the dock. Mrs. Anderson will have a fit when she sees that. Paddleboats and fishing line do not mesh with gorgeous floral hedges and sculptures. It reminded me of all the times Taylor and my stepbrother Zack had gotten in trouble for leaving their stuff at the dock instead of putting it back in the shed.
I rushed up the rise that led to the large, white plantation-style home. Even from the back, the mansion was simply breathtaking. I weaved around the last of the sculptures near the covered veranda and over to the side door. I rang the doorbell and then wiped my feet while I waited for the Andersons’ maid, Mrs. Little, to answer.
“Emmalee Bradford? Is that you?”
The deep voice above my head was most decidedly not Mrs. Little. In fact it could only belong to one person and one person only—my knight in shining armor. I jerked my head up, grinning. “Chase!” In less than a second I was wrapped in the best bear hug a girl could ever ask for.
Taylor’s older brother had been gone too long. The whole summer. The last time I had seen him was over three months ago, right before he’d headed off to Spain. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed him until now. We were family—or as close to family as two neighbors who grew up together can be.
His tan face lit up with a grin. “So did you survive the summer without me rescuing you?”
I laughed and shook my head as I pulled out of his arms and stepped into his family’s mud room. “Excuse me. I will have you know I am eighteen now and an adult. I’m fully capable of—”
Chase snorted and mumbled something under his breath before he said, “Really? An adult? Is that why you were tearing through the garden like a kid just a couple of minutes ago?”
What? My cheeks grew red as I sat down on the small bench and began removing my shoes. “So, I can see Spain didn’t change you one bit,” I said. “You’re the same as you always were. I take it that’s your paddle boat and fishing rod out there on the lake?”
“Dang! I forgot. Thanks.” His smile grew. “Guess I need saving now, huh?”
“Probably.” I rolled my eyes. “When did you get back?”
“Yesterday.”
“What? Yesterday? And nobody told me?” I couldn’t hide my disappointment as I stood up.
He chuckled and brought his finger up under my chin, then gently turned my face from side to side.
I giggled. “What?”
He looked baffled. “It’s funny I’ve never noticed how much you look like your mom.”
“Really?” I beamed.
“Wow! Especially that smile. Yep. Definitely just like your mom.”
“Thanks.”
I watched his sky blue eyes glitter for a second before he lowered his lashes. When he looked back at me, it was with his normal happy gleam. “So you’re saying someone should’ve woke you up at nine last night and told you I had just gotten home?”
I started to laugh. “First off, Chase Anderson, I am almost eighteen, not twelve. I think the last time I went to bed at nine was when I went to Ashley Dixon’s sleepover and finally zonked out at nine the next morning. Second, you left us three months ago, buddy. I wouldn’t have cared if it was two o’clock in the morning, I would’ve expected a phone call. So, in answer to your question, yes. Come on. You’re my knight. I will always be happy to see you, no matter what time it is.”
“You remember that? Really?” He leaned his shoulder against the wall.
“Excuse me, but a girl does not forget the only guy who would ruin his brand-new shoes and leather coat to come save her.”
“But you were ten.”
“A very terrified ten-year-old girl, who Zack and Taylor refused to help and would only laugh at. Had you not come when you did—and as quickly, too—I might have drowned!”
“Well, I’m sure you remember the almost-drowning part,” he teased. Then he added in a serious tone,
“I don’t think that is something any of us will ever forget.” He grinned again. “I’m just surprised you remembered it was me who rescued you—and the nickname I made you call me.”
“You made me?”
“Aha! Something you don’t remember. It was the only thing I could think of to get you to stop crying. You were such a princess then. All girlie-girl, so I told you I was your knight coming to rescue you.”
I couldn’t remember, but I could imagine. Mostly I could imagine it working.
“So, I take it you didn’t run all the way up here to tell me the boat was in the lake, did you?”
“No. Lady had puppies and I was coming over to see them.”
“Lady? You mean Georgia’s dog? Yeah, they’re up in her room. Do you want me to take you up there? I’m trying to spend as much time with her as possible.”
“With Lady?”
“No.” He grinned again. “With Georgia. Since I’ve been in Spain, I have a whole summer’s worth of catching up to do.”
“Oh. Well, don’t worry about me. I know the way.”
“In that case, let me get the fishing stuff put up and then I’ll see you in a minute. Georgia’s not the only one I need to catch up with.” He wiggled his eyebrows as he moved past me. In a heartbeat he had stepped out the open door, turned the corner, and was gone.
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