Harlequin Superromance May 2018 Box Set

by Amber Leigh Williams

  “I’m happy if it doesn’t come in a box,” Mrs. Logan said. “When can I see the babies? Seth says that’s what you call them.”

  “Right now. Bring your glass.”

  Emma picked up a bag of apple slices and led Mrs. Logan around the house to the kennel. In late afternoon and after their nap, the little skunks were searching for an overlooked caterpillar or beetle and trundled happily around their enclosure. Peony fell into the wading pool and had to squirm herself out.

  Mrs. Logan laughed. “They are precious! I’ve never been this close to a skunk before, but I’ve heard people make pets of them.”

  “After they’ve been neutered and had their scent glands removed,” Emma said. “I don’t think you’d want one in your house otherwise. But these, at least, are very loving to the people they know.”

  “Of whom I am not one. Am I standing too close?”

  “Not yet. They’re very straightforward about warning people away. First they bounce on their front paws and threaten you. If that doesn’t clue you in, they turn around and spray. Of course, they aren’t spraying yet, so you’re good however close you are. For the time being, at least. Here, toss them a few apple slices.” She held the door to the kennel open while Mrs. Logan tossed slices in. The skunks were off on the hunt immediately.

  “Seth says they’re supposed to be a secret,” Mrs. Logan said. “I’m surprised the news hasn’t leaked. He’s usually such a stickler for rules, but he’s always a pushover when it comes to the little ones. I never knew what I’d find in the carport or the kitchen when I got home from school in the afternoons.” She paused. “I used to be a teacher before I retired.”

  Barbara had mentioned this. Emma nodded, as Mrs. Logan threw the remaining apple slices into the kennel, far enough out so the skunks would have to chase them. The two women meandered back toward Emma’s front porch.

  “I finally had to draw the line when Seth came home after school and put a couple of water snakes in his wading pool. I do not like snakes, poisonous or nonpoisonous.” She sat on the porch swing, while Emma took one of the chairs across from her.

  “You have no idea how startling it is to discover a baby beaver in your bathtub at six in the morning. They can only poop in water. That’s when I changed to showers, although Seth was very good about scrubbing up after his menagerie.” She walked her feet back and forth so the swing moved gently.

  Emma wasn’t certain what she’d imagined Seth’s mother would be like. Her hair in a bun, glasses on a chain. Perhaps a little dumpling person in sensible shoes. Stereotype. Emma knew better than to expect stereotypes. Mrs. Logan’s startling white hair set off her blue eyes. Bluer than Seth’s, which were almost gray. She wore flat leather shoes, and her French manicure was immaculate. She made Emma as feel dowdy as she had at the café.

  “More wine, Mrs. Logan? I’m afraid I didn’t have time to bake any goodies, but I do have some bought’en Scotch shortbread.”

  “Yes to the wine, although this had better be my last glass. Having his mother up on DUI charges wouldn’t help Seth’s career. And I don’t usually eat between meals. I have never been able to understand how the British can stuff themselves with sugar at afternoon tea. Oh, and please call me Laila. Isn’t that the most awful name? Right out of the 1920s. It was my grandmother’s name, so I got stuck with it.” She wrinkled her nose. “Laila Logan. I’ve always hated it. Emma is a good, straightforward name.”

  “Also my grandmother’s name,” Emma said. She topped up Mrs. Logan’s wine. “I would’ve preferred something fancier. Sounds too Jane Austen.”

  “Bite your tongue. Nothing wrong with Jane Austen.”

  “You taught English?”

  “I taught eighth grade, which means I taught everything. Eighth-graders still tend to like their teachers, usually the last year they do. The school I taught in does not put up with rudeness or bad manners. Our students have to do the work or they don’t make the grades. We generally top the list in SAT scores in this area. It’s difficult to tell at that age which children will graduate, but three-quarters of mine went on to college.” She shrugged. “Half of them stayed to graduate from junior college at least, which is better than average. And, like Seth, a good many of them got free rides. He had both an academic scholarship and several offers of athletic scholarships.”

  “To play football?”

  Laila laughed. “He’s so big that coaches would take one look at him and try to turn him into a linebacker. Then they discovered he hated hitting people.”

  “So he went the academic route?”

  “He always planned to go into veterinary medicine after he graduated. He’d already been accepted to the vet school at the University of Tennessee.” She shook her head. “Unfortunately, he got married instead. Making a living had to take precedence. I hoped he’d go back to it, but I think he really likes his job now.”

  Uh-oh. So Mrs. Logan had not approved of Seth’s marriage. Because the ex was the wrong woman, or because any woman who stood between Seth and what Laila wanted for him was the wrong woman? Andrea had warned her a long time ago that mothers of sons could be peculiar when it came to the women their sons married. “With luck I’ll like Patrick’s wife,” Andrea had said. “Or I’ll learn to suck it up and put up with her for the sake of the grandchildren they had better give me.”

  “Patrick, my half brother, has never been serious about any girl,” Emma said. “He’s seventeen and so handsome and sweet-natured they chase him constantly. Thank goodness he doesn’t have a clue. We all pray he’ll finish college and get a decent job before he falls in love.”

  “Doesn’t necessarily happen that way, I’m afraid. Not that I think those two were ever truly in love. Clare was in love with the idea of being married to Seth. He was the best prospect around. I have always wondered if she convinced Seth she was pregnant. He would’ve done the gentlemanly thing. They had a very small wedding—not what Clare envisioned at all. When she married that dentist in Nashville, she wore the big white dress and everything. Tacky for a second wedding, but she must’ve felt she’d missed out with Seth and decided to remedy the situation.”

  “So she wasn’t pregnant?”

  “Apparently not, thank God. There was no sign she’d had a miscarriage. At least after they married they put off having children. I have always believed in divorcing young, if you’re going to divorce at all. No property to argue over, no children to cause nasty custody battles. Both partners can get on with their lives.” She drained her wineglass. “Clare certainly has.”

  So as much as Laila wanted grandchildren, she was willing to forgo them if they had Clare for their mother.

  “Tell me about your family, dear,” Laila said.

  Uh-oh, here it comes. Emma had her family statistics down pat after all the social interrogations she’d endured. She delivered them expertly.

  “You’ve never married?” Laila asked.

  “Not yet,” Emma said.

  “But you do want a husband and children?”

  “If possible. I have—had—a job I liked. I hope I can get another that’s just as good.” She tried to keep the challenge out of her voice.

  “I spent thirty years in the school system before I retired. I believe that every woman should have her own career and her own money. Women should never rely totally on a man.” Laila ran her fingers through her white hair. “For one thing, you can’t. Most of them don’t seem to be reliable. My husband, Everett, certainly wasn’t.”

  “We ran into Everett after dinner the other night,” Emma said. And speaking of unreliable husbands, how’s that for an unfortunate segue? Laila didn’t seem to notice.

  “That was the night Seth hung up on me.” Laila laughed, but there was no amusement in it. “Poor man.”

  “Seth or your ex-husband?”

  “Both. You know that old saw about emotion turning your hair whit
e? It happens. I had auburn hair until my daughter drowned. Six months later it was white. I colored it for years, but when I retired I decided I’d let it go natural.”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “Makes me look old, but then, I am old. Well, oldish. I keep hoping Seth will forgive his father.”

  “You seem to have.”

  “I had help. Years of grief counseling. Seth would never talk to a counselor, never go to any of the grief groups. He said he wanted to forget it, but of course you can’t, can you? If he could forgive himself, he might be able to at least tolerate his father. He refuses to admit Everett suffered, too.”

  “Guilt that he survived? That wasn’t Seth’s fault.”

  “Seth was supposed to go fishing with Everett and Sarah that morning. He was thirteen. That was the last thing he wanted to do on a Saturday. He took his bike and snuck off to town to play video games with his friends, but Everett made Sarah go. Because he was angry at Seth for avoiding him, I suspect. Everett tended to throw his weight around.

  “Seth is certain that if he’d been there, Sarah would be alive today. There’s no way of knowing, of course, but it’s what bedevils him. He thinks he has to hate Everett. Otherwise, he’d have to acknowledge that he feels responsible for Sarah’s death.”

  “You seem to have a good handle on the situation.”

  “I had professional help. Lots of it. I could talk about my own guilt. Sometimes it seemed that’s all I did over and over—talk about my guilt.”

  “What could you possibly feel guilty about?”

  “I knew Everett drank. We fought about it constantly. I knew he was demanding and controlling and wanted his own way. It was easier to do what he wanted and ignore the rest. I spent my time with my teaching, or trying to stand between the children and their father.

  “That morning I had shopping to do. I always did after teaching all week. I left before Everett discovered Seth was nowhere to be found. All I knew when I left the house was that the three of them were going fishing in our little lake. Everett promised he’d never drink in the bass boat. I’ve never known to this day whether he was drinking that morning or not, but he did admit he stashed the life jackets in the locker in the cockpit. Sarah was a good swimmer, but she knew she was supposed to wear a life jacket any time she was on the boat.

  “That morning, she was so annoyed at being forced to go with her father that she didn’t put one on. The lake was calm. Why bother?

  “That lake is treacherous. It’s small, but it drains into the Tennessee River. When the wind comes up, you can get whitecaps and straight-line winds and bad thunderstorms in ten minutes. You have to pay attention. Apparently Everett wanted to drive the boat down to one of his favorite fishing spots close to where the lake drains into the river. Several witnesses said he was driving the boat too fast for the conditions. When the storm came up, he didn’t slow down. Then someone cut across his path. He swerved just as Sarah started down into the little cuddy cabin for a soda. She lost her balance and fell overboard. Everett swears he tossed her a life jacket, but by then she was gone. All the boats searched for her, but she never surfaced. When they found her body two days later, she had a gash on her forehead. The medical examiner thought she must have hit her head on her way over the side and knocked herself out long enough for her lungs to fill with water.”

  Emma saw that the hand holding Laila’s wineglass was threatening to break the stem. She gently took it out of Laila’s fingers.

  “Oh, sorry,” Laila said in surprise. “I’ve told that story so many times it’s become a kind of myth. I think my grief is so deeply hidden now I can’t actually touch it. I’ve walled it off. Otherwise, I don’t think I could go on living, counselors or no counselors. Having Seth helps, of course. If only I could help him. I doubt he’ll ever be free until he can deal with his feelings about his father. Deep down he either loves him, or he wishes there was something there to love but knows there isn’t.”

  “How soon did you get a divorce?” Emma asked.

  “The marriage was doomed the day Sarah drowned, but we held on for almost six months. Everett told me he’d stopped drinking, but I discovered he’d secretly started again. When I confronted him, he said he needed the alcohol to dull the pain.” She shrugged. “The rest of us were in pain, too, but Everett only thought of his own. Statistics say that most marriages don’t survive the death of a child. Each parent thinks the other parent isn’t grieving as much, doesn’t miss the child as much, doesn’t hurt as badly. Kind of an I’m-sadder-than-you thing. When Everett went back to drinking, I kicked him out. He’s been trying to get back in ever since.”

  “Seth is worried it might happen,” Emma said.

  “He needn’t be. I feel sorry for Everett, and I can be civil in a social situation, but I still can’t stand to be in the same room with him for more than ten minutes at a time.”

  “Even though he says he’s been sober for two years?”

  “There is such a thing as a dry drunk,” Laila said. “I think that’s what Everett is, until and unless he can admit his responsibility for Sarah’s death. He’s always blamed the storm, or her lack of balance, or any other excuse he can come up with, including that it was all Seth’s fault for not coming along.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I wish I were. I warned him that if he ever so much as hinted anything like that, I’d make his life hell.” She glanced down. “Oh, look at the time! I’m so sorry to have dumped all this on you. Seth said you were a good listener.”

  Emma followed her to her car.

  Laila turned on her ignition, then lowered the window. “Best of luck with your babies. Let me know when you release them.”

  Emma watched as she drove away. That was an interesting encounter. There was no reason Laila should have opened up that way unless she was asking for Emma’s help.

  Maybe it was time for Emma to be the rescuer. Could she be the “fixer” that would broker a truce between Seth and his father?

  * * *

  SETH FOUND EMMA scrubbing her pantry with disinfectant and spraying it with air freshener.

  “You missed your mother by ten minutes,” she said. She rocked back on her heels and brushed her damp hair out of her eyes.

  “I stopped her on the road. She said she had a good visit.”

  “She’s a lovely lady. With her white hair, she’s like Martha Washington in jeans.”

  He laughed. “I’ll tell her you said that. How are the skunks?”

  “Digging anywhere they even dream there might be something to eat.”

  “They’re pretty self-sufficient. We should be able to release them in a couple of days.”

  She came to her feet. “But they don’t skunk yet.”

  “Close. Unless you want to pay someone to fumigate your house.”

  “Not if I can help it. How far does their spray reach?”

  “Far enough. There are some great new shampoos that get rid of the odor on dogs. They work on humans, too. Better than tomato juice, which used to be the standard treatment for a skunked dog. That kind of shampoo isn’t the kind of stuff you get at your local hair salon. Barbara keeps it in stock, but you don’t want to use it unless you have to. Which reminds me, how’s your job going at the clinic?”

  “It’s crazy, but I enjoy it. She’s a good vet. She badly needs a partner, though. It’s too much for one person. There’s a new class graduating from UT vet school in June. She’s going to set up some interviews to find a newly fledged vet to work with her. I’ve persuaded her to put an ad in the ‘help wanted’ section of the paper for a full-time vet tech. The girl she has coming in to clean in the afternoons can’t give her any more hours, and I can’t afford to work full-time for her. I have to concentrate on getting a real job that will pay my bills.” She scrubbed the pantry door. “There, that should do it,” she said.

&nb
sp; That was as close as Emma had ever come to talking about her finances. She’d obviously been well paid in Memphis. Seth couldn’t think of any jobs in Williamston or the surrounding towns that would come close. If she wanted to maintain her lifestyle, which no doubt she did, she’d look farther afield. Farther away from her little house. From him.

  So why didn’t he simply sweep her up in his arms and carry her off like in one of those old Westerns? Or The Taming of the Shrew? The problem with that particular play was that if the audience didn’t know instantly that these two people were nuts about each other, it became a play about spousal abuse. He knew he was nuts about her, but he still didn’t know how she felt.

  There ought to be some way to get them both away from the continual demands that seemed to intrude every time they were alone.

  Maybe tonight over Chinese food.

  What he’d just said in his mind, he would never have said out loud. Not an option.

  Watching Emma put away her cleaning supplies, he wondered what she’d do if he ran away with her. He chortled at the very thought.

  “What?” she asked as she brushed her hair off her forehead. It was a gesture he’d grown fond of. He was fond of everything about her.

  “Just picturing you as a Sabine woman.”

  “Where on earth did that come from? I can tell you right now, I would have removed the head from whoever was trying to abscond with me, and I’d have made his life hell until he took me home to my parents.”

  “I’ll bet you would. How about if I bribe you instead? I picked up Chinese food on my way home.”

  “Goody. I never seem to get to the grocery store since I started working for Barbara. But I can’t continue to rely on you to feed me.”

  “You can rely on me for anything you like.” He’d feed her for the rest of their lives if she’d be a part of his. He’d faced down an angry black bear sow without turning a hair, but he couldn’t tell this woman how he felt about her.

  There were still the same problems. Emma was no less on the rebound. He was no better able to give her the life she deserved up here in the woods. Skunks were all well and good, but the symphony ball would appeal to her more. He didn’t even own a tux, and he didn’t think the rental places carried tuxes big enough for him.