by Teresa Hill
"Hi," Rye said.
"Thanks for taking care of Emma."
"Sure."
"Guess I'll be seein' you around."
Rye nodded. Zach sauntered off into the midst of the chaos in the dining room, sliding up next to another overgrown boy with a big T-shirt with a peace symbol on the back of it, his hair mussed and sticking up every which way.
Rachel rolled her eyes and grinned. "I feel ancient these days. Emma and I went through boxes of things in the attic last year trying to find my old bell-bottoms and tie-dyed T-shirts. They're in again."
"Yeah, I noticed." Emma's generation was wearing them. If that was a subtle way of pointing out the age difference between them, Rye could tell her it wasn't necessary. He was very much aware of it.
The back door opened, and someone shrieked. He turned around to find his brother standing there with a little girl flung over his shoulders. She was laughing as he set her on her feet. Sam stood up straight, smiling. Rye hadn't seen him do that before.
"This is our daughter, Grace," Rachel said.
The girl leaned in close to Sam's side. Her cheeks were pink from the cold. She had the biggest blue eyes he'd ever seen, thick soot-colored lashes, and long, blonde hair. She had on a bright red sweater and a Santa hat, which she'd somehow managed to hang on to while she'd been hanging over Sam's shoulder.
Sam put an arm around her and said, "Grace, this is my brother."
"Hi." She beamed up at Rye.
"Hi," he said, deciding this must be like looking at Emma so long ago. He felt a little hitch in the region of his gut that he didn't like at all. Maybe Emma before all the bad things, or Emma if none of the bad things had ever happened.
What had she said? That her brother hardly remembered any of the bad times and her sister had escaped them altogether? Yeah, he could see that. There was an openness and a sheer joy to this girl he didn't think Emma had ever known, and he wished she had.
"We've been waiting for you," Grace confided.
"You have?"
"Yes. For the ornaments."
"Ornaments?"
"Tradition," Rachel said, taking him by the arm again. "You guys round everyone up for me, okay? We have to do this now, because Ellen and Bill have to get to Bill's parents' house soon."
"Do what?" Rye asked.
"Finish the tree."
She took him into the living room next to the big tree, where the decorations did seem a bit scarce. Still, it was nearly two o'clock Christmas day. It seemed a bit late to be decorating.
"Don't go anywhere," Rachel said. "I just need to make sure we have everyone."
Everyone turned out to be about fifty people who eventually gathered around the tree. Two older women pulled out stacks of thin, rectangular white boxes, which he thought he remembered from foraging in the basement himself.
"Hi." Emma came up beside him, slipped her hand through his, letting it rest in the crook of his elbow, and kissed his cheek. "Merry Christmas."
Rye looked up just in time to see Sam frown at them. He let himself glance at her ever so briefly, just long enough to take in the cream-colored sweater she wore and the tiny little skirt. He didn't dare so much as glance at the expanse of legs showing beneath it.
Maybe he really was a dirty old man in the making.
She had her hair pulled back in a neat little twist, diamond studs in her ears. Her bruises were all gone, and there was a hint of color in her cheeks, a pretty smile on her lips.
"Merry Christmas, Em," he said, knowing he shouldn't even be this close.
"Did you meet everybody?"
"How would you ever know in this crowd?" he asked.
"I know. It's crazy, even when it's just family. Did you meet Zach and Grace, at least? Zach's right there in the corner. The tall one. And Grace is right there." Emma pointed to the spot next to the fireplace, Grace sitting on the floor with her knees drawn up to her chest and giggling with another little girl about her age. "Isn't she beautiful?"
"She looks like you," Rye said, without even stopping to think that was a bad idea. But the child was beautiful, and Emma was, too.
Emma looked up at him, a faint sheen of tears in her eyes. "Thank you."
He didn't think she'd ever cried because she was happy, at least not around him, and hell, she had to know she was beautiful. No way she could be unaware of that. He was merely stating the obvious.
And this was all such a bad idea.
"Brace yourself," she said. "This always gets to me."
"What does?" he asked, as a man who looked to be in his sixties took center stage beside the tree, everyone gathering around him.
"You'll see," she said, still holding on to his arm, still too close.
The man turned out to be Rachel's father. Her aunts gathered around him holding the boxes, which contained the ornaments, three-dimensional stars made of beveled glass. He held the first one out to one of Rachel's aunts. It spun around on its string, the bevels in the glass catching the light from the candles, glints of light coming off the little star.
With great reverence, he called names one by one, family member after family member, each of them coming forward to put his or her ornament on the tree. There was laughter and lots of hugging going on, tears shed over family members who weren't with them and those who'd passed away.
Rye stood there with a huge lump in his throat as he watched Sam and Rachel put their ornaments on the tree, then Emma slipped away from him long enough to hang hers. Zach and Grace were next, and then Rachel's father looked at Rye and held out one to him.
He felt all eyes turn to him, couldn't have begun to figure out what the man said. Emma squeezed his arm, urging him on. He looked from Sam to her then back to his brother once again.
Sam took the little star himself and brought it to Rye. He turned it this way and that in his hand, seeing his name etched into the side.
They were welcoming him into the family.
He felt his throat close up, felt like he couldn't breathe.
"Go on." Emma squeezed his arm. "Put it on the tree."
He did it, somehow without dropping the thing and breaking it, somehow hanging on to the merest threads of his composure. No one had welcomed him anywhere in the longest of times. He'd never expected this here. Not now. Not once they all knew...
Surely they knew. It was a small town. No way to keep anything quiet, especially a thing so public as what had happened to Emma. Hell, they'd thanked him for taking care of her. They knew.
Rachel gave him another hug, beaming at him. Her father shook his hand. Her aunts hugged him. For a while, they passed him down a line of waiting relatives, smiling, hugging, kissing, slapping him on the back.
Grace was at the end of the line. She tugged on his hand until he leaned down far enough that she could give him a little butterfly kiss, so light it felt like a whisper against his cheek.
When he stood up, Emma was standing in front of him, tears streaming down her cheeks.
"She always cries when we do this," Grace confided, slipping her hand into Rye's and looking up at the tree. "Isn't it beautiful?"
Rye nodded.
If he could have moved a muscle, he'd have fled long ago. But they'd floored him with this. He fought for every breath he took, his chest all tight, and he looked at Emma, begging her with his eyes to save him.
She took him by his other hand, telling Grace, "Can I borrow him for a minute? I need to show him something outside."
"Okay." Grace frowned but let him go.
He let Emma lead him through the crowd, desperate to get away. They went through the kitchen and into a little utility room where there were dozens of coats piled on the washer and dryer.
"Just grab one," she said. "We'll come back in a minute."
He did, shoving his arms into a dark blue coat.
She opened up the door, and he followed her outside to the porch, where he leaned against one of the support columns and took in great gulps of the crisp, cold air.
&
nbsp; Jesus, what was that?
What did they think they were doing?
He'd had this, years ago, had a family that looked much like this. Except it had all been an illusion, blown away like so much dust on a hot summer's day. He fished in his pocket for his keys, thinking he'd just get in his truck and go. But this wasn't his coat, dammit, and he didn't have his keys.
Emma slipped her hand into the pocket, her fingers curling around his, her touch calming him down a little bit, making him not so desperate to run.
"I remember the first year we came here," she said, wiping away tears with her other hand. "It was Christmas, seemed like ages since I'd seen my mother, and I'd told myself if we could just hang on until Christmas day, she'd be back. I was counting on a Christmas miracle."
"And you found her, right?" he said.
"Sam found her, just not quite the way we expected. She was dying. She didn't tell us until a week later, but I knew it when I saw her that Christmas day. I think I knew it before we even came here. There's an ornament on the tree for her. We put it up on Christmas Eve, when it's just the five of us, so it's like she's here in a way, and she knows Zach and Grace and I are fine. I believe that."
"No doubts?" Rye asked, amazed at that kind of faith.
"None, but I had a lot that first Christmas. It wasn't until late in the afternoon that they found her. Christmas Eve, Christmas morning, most of the day, I spent thinking that was it. If she wasn't back by then, she wasn't coming back. I didn't know what would happen to us. Sam and Rachel said we could stay with them for as long as it took, but we really didn't know them, and it was hard to believe after everything we'd been through that anything could ever work out for us."
"What happened, Emma?"
"We had a Christmas like this, in this house, decked out in all twelve boxes of decorations, just for the outside, and as many or more for the inside. It smelled like Christmas and looked like Christmas. We were warm and had plenty to eat and were safe. They had piles of presents under the tree, and all these people. I was starting to think this might be okay, and then they pulled out those ornaments, sprung them on us just like they sprung them on you."
"And what did you do?" She would have faced this at twelve. Even then, she'd probably handled it better than he had.
"I just wanted to run away, as far and as fast as I could. Because I knew what it meant. They'd already opened up their home to us, and now they were making us a part of them in a way we'd never been a part of anything before. I wanted that almost as much as I wanted my mother back. But when security is something you've never had, it's hard to trust that anything will ever really last."
Yeah, she knows all right.
"Part of me wanted them to grab me and hold on to me until I felt safe again, and part of me just wanted to run. I wanted to yell at them, to tell them they'd better not offer me anything unless they were sure they meant it. That they'd better not ever try to take it back, because I'd lost too much already. I didn't think I could stand to lose one more thing."
She still had tears in her eyes. They were running down her cheeks. He turned to her and brushed them away. "Emma."
"They mean it. You're one of them now. They're not going to forget. They're not going to change their minds, and you can't run away, Rye. Sam couldn't stand that."
"Sam's not too happy with me right now," he said.
"Because of me. I know, and I'm sorry. I know he told you to stay away from me-—"
"Wait a minute. I don't need Sam to tell me what I already know, Emma. I know what's right and what's wrong, even if I don't always do the right thing. And this is wrong."
"Is it? What's age anyway? It's a number, that's all."
"No, it's years and years of living," he said, drawing away from her. "Damn, I don't want to do this. Not today. Not when you've been... Emma..." She truly was amazing, and she did understand him, maybe better than anyone ever had. What was he supposed to do about that?
But he knew. Dammit, he knew.
He had to make it clear to her that he didn't want anything to do with her. Otherwise, she'd keep hoping. She'd keep putting her hands on him and kissing him and understanding way too much about him. Sam would be furious and Rye would be tempted, even knowing how young she was.
So this had to stop.
If it hurt for now, it just had to hurt. At least it would be over.
"Emma, I don't know how I would have gotten through today or any day since I came here without you, and I mean that. I'm grateful for it. You're sweet and so kind, but... Emma"—he looked her right in the eye—"You're just a kid."
She blinked up at him, seeming frozen in time for a moment. She cocked her head to the right. Her mouth came open, but she didn't say anything, just looked at him, those old eyes of hers getting bigger and bigger, then flooding with tears.
"You don't mean that," she said.
"I do. You just got out of high school, Emma. You just went to the prom. I guess you've gotten some crazy idea that it doesn't matter, but it does. I don't run around with teenage girls."
"No, it's Sam. Sam made you say that."
"Sam doesn't tell me what to do. I'm a grown man. Nobody tells me what to do," he said, then thought to add, "except my parole officer."
"Don't be like this," she begged.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I really don't want to hurt you. But you've got to see the truth in this. It's part of growing up, Emma, and you've got a lot of growing up ahead of you."
"Me?" she scoffed. "Who do you think you're talking to? I've never been young. I never had the chance until I came here, and by then, honestly, it was just too late. I'm the oldest eighteen-year-old you'll ever meet."
"Maybe so. But you want things from me. I know you do. You've got this crazy idea that you and me... Emma, girls your age fall in love once a week. Believe me, you'll get over it."
She gaped at him. "And you don't feel anything for me?"
"I told you." He gritted his teeth and kept going. "You're a sweet kid."
She closed her eyes and hung her head for a moment. He heard her take one long, ragged breath, and when she lifted her head she somehow managed not to cry. He felt like he'd drop-kicked a kitten, and it had come running back to him, dammit, like it just hadn't understood the first time.
Well, he couldn't do it again.
"Emma, I never wanted to hurt you."
"Really?"
"No, I didn't."
She looked at him, her shoulders heaving, her expression crumbling for a moment before she took off through the backyard. He thought of going after her, thought of begging her to forgive him, even if that would just make things worse. But he had to tell her these things. It was the right damned thing to do.
So why did he feel like the lowest creature on earth?
* * *
Emma hid in her room. Sometimes she cried. Sometimes she stared at the ceiling. Sometimes she dreamed. Mark was back, swinging the shovel at her. Except in her dream, nobody stopped him. The shovel crashed into the side of her face. She fell to the floor, and when she looked up Rye was standing over her saying, "You're a sweet kid, Emma."
After days of this, she was disgusted with herself. Life went on, after all, and she was alive, though one would hardly know that by how she'd spent the past few days.
She went downstairs, congratulating herself for that monumental move from one floor of her own home to another, not looking at the living room, where it had happened. Not looking at the front door, because it made her think of going outside, which she did not want to do. How long could she stay inside before someone noticed and carted her off to a shrink? she wondered.
She looked out the front window. It wasn't quite daybreak and there looked to be a crisp, clear one on the way. She wandered through the downstairs, startled at first to hear voices coming from the kitchen. Really, it was ridiculous how much that scared her.
But it was just Sam and Rachel. Both of them were early risers.
She was afraid they m
ight be talking about her, so she didn't say anything at first. Then she realized they were talking about Rye. She eavesdropped shamelessly.
"Did you ask him?" Rachel said.
"Yeah. He turned me down again."
"Keep after him. He'll come around."
"I hope so," Sam said.
So he was keeping himself away because she was here.
Emma stood there, slumped against the wall, her head leaning back against it. All he'd wanted when he came here was to find Sam, and she'd messed that all up. He might stay away as long as things were awkward between them, and she didn't see it getting better anytime soon.
Which meant this was her mess to fix once again.
It was time for her to get her life back together, time to start acting like the woman she was, not this scared, spineless mess she'd become.
She'd make a list. She was so good at that.
A Get Emma Out of This Mess List. Get on with her life. Grow up. That's what he'd said she had to do.
It really wasn't hard, now that she'd become so disgusted with her own behavior. Especially not since she knew what she had to do. Get her life back. Get out of the way of Sam and Rye. She made a list and started crossing things off one by one. By the next afternoon, things were falling into place in a way that told her she'd done the right thing, that this was all meant to be. There was only one more thing to take care of—facing him.
She had enough pride left that she dressed for the event, fussed with her hair, put on a short skirt that rode low on her waist and a skinny sweater that left a solid inch and a half of her midriff bare.
Let him think of her as a sweet kid, if he could.
She added her favorite boots that gave her an extra two-and-a-half inches, the pretty diamond earrings Sam and Rachel had given her for graduation, and told herself no one would guess that she spent the better part of three days crying in her room.
Fifteen minutes later, she was knocking on Rye's door.
He frowned when he opened it and found her there.
"Are you going to let me in? Or should I stand here a little bit longer until someone sees me going into your apartment?" she asked, not in the mood to have to argue about getting in the door.
