by Anna Adams
Taken aback, DeeAnn nodded. “I can’t really believe that. Your dad won’t like to hear it’s that close.”
“We had a contest. I beat her, Mom.” He pointed at Noah. “And him, too.”
“Oh, great.”
Noah found the woman’s obvious unease oddly uncomfortable. Was she thinking of the rumors about Emma and his father? From four years ago? Emma was right about one thing. No one let go of a good piece of scandal in this town. Hadn’t he spent his whole life here trying to clean his own family name?
“If there is ever a national spitting competition, Peter’s taking gold,” he said.
“To think I was hateful to Jeff for teaching him,” DeeAnn said.
“We should get this little guy taken care of. See you later, Emma.” Noah started toward his office door, and DeeAnn followed, while Emma trudged toward the library.
A little while later, Noah was seated in a pancake restaurant with DeeAnn and Peter. “Are you sure I can’t have a cast?” Peter poked Noah in the chest with a tiny finger and then peered around his shoulder. “I think a big cast would make me feel so much better. And some ice cream, Mom.”
“No ice cream. Pancakes,” DeeAnn said. “Noah, how is Emma? I heard she’d come back to renovate her grandmother’s house.”
“That’s what I hear, too.”
“She left after you all broke up, didn’t she? You were engaged.”
“That’s all in the past,” he said over Peter’s head.
“You worry about her, though. I see that on your face.”
“DeeAnn—”
“It’s none of my business. I know that.” She slid her hand through Peter’s curls. “But sometimes, when Ted’s home, I push him away because having him near makes me think how bad I’d feel if I lost him.”
“That’s not what I’m feeling.”
“I wasn’t just talking about you.”
He glanced back. Pamela Candler was reading a book over a drink and sandwiches in the shop’s screened porch. It wasn’t that big a coincidence. Pamela ate alone in a lot of the best restaurants in town.
But seeing Pamela, his thoughts went naturally to her daughter. Even if Emma and he wondered about what might have been, they both knew there was no going back. He’d made himself part of Bliss’s everyday life. He provided care, and he was learning to give without fearing he’d be slapped back because of his name. Emma was on her guard coming back, expecting the worst from everyone. She had no happiness here. She wouldn’t be staying.
* * *
“MOTHER.” EMMA TWISTED her hands in one of Nan’s hand-embroidered dish towels. Her mother waited behind the screen door, the darkness like a frame around her. “What do you want?”
“To see you. What do you think?”
“Do you need something from the house?” After the Thanksgiving debacle, Nan had changed her will. She’d passed over her own child to leave her home to Emma.
“If you’d read my emails, you might have known the house was looking run-down, but no, I didn’t come because I want my childhood back from you.” Pamela, in a beautiful red shift that set off her pale blond hair and bright red lips, looked at least ten years younger than her nearly fifty years.
“I told you to take anything you wanted.”
“Why don’t you let me in?”
Emma twisted the old-fashioned door handle and left the screen gaping as she marched back to the kitchen. “It wasn’t locked.”
“Why are you still angry with me?”
Emma’s mouth tightened. She’d never understood that phrase when she’d read it in books, but she felt it now.
“Emma.”
She turned toward the sink and continued scouring a cooking-scarred casserole dish. “You left a trail of men in your path,” Emma said. “You slept with my fiancé’s father. My father and I could never trust a word you said. Do you need more?”
Pamela came around the island, forcing herself into Emma’s line of sight. She twisted the strap of her brown satchel purse. “Those are things I did to your dad, not you.”
“We were a family. You may not have noticed, but Dad and I were a family, and we wanted you to be part of us.”
“I am sorry. I told you I was sorry then.”
“I don’t believe you.” Emma waved a soapy hand, splashing the wide window in front of her with a line of bubbles. “Take what you want, Mother, and leave me alone.”
“You’re planning to stay?”
“Not a chance. I’m just cleaning Nan’s things. She wouldn’t like that they’re not in good shape.”
“I should help you.” Pamela set her purse on the island. “I used that casserole dish to make macaroni.”
Oh, macaroni, golden and bubbling, a taste Emma had never enjoyed since the last time her mother had made it.
“You sneaked in here to cook?” Emma lifted the heavy, old dish. “I knew Nan would never leave food baked on a dish.” Then Emma was reminded of the last time she’d known her mother had sneaked into Nan’s house. “Who came with you when you trespassed this time?”
“I had no place to go.” Pamela reached for a dish towel and tried to tuck it into her thin, silver belt. “It happened after your father threw me out, and Mom was in Knoxville, looking for you.”
“Knoxville?”
“Apparently, you called her from there to say goodbye. I had a key. She wouldn’t have minded.” She put her hand on Emma’s wrist. “I shoved that dish in the back of the cupboard, hoping she wouldn’t find it.”
“Certainly easier than cleaning it to her standards. Leave the key when you go—as Nan asked you to.” Emma turned to her. “You should know I understand that story is a manipulation, and I want you to leave.”
“You’re hard, Emma.”
“Not as hard as I was. I’m sure you’ve used the key whenever you wanted, and if I’d known you were staying here, maybe I would have had you prosecuted for trespassing. Now, I just want you to leave me in peace.”
“I can do that.” Pamela tugged gently at the towel, her every movement elegant in a way Emma would never be. “But I saw Noah in town. He was talking to you and some woman, and then you walked away.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It made you sad, and he was unhappy, too. I stayed to hear what came next because how can anyone trust a Gage?”
“Mother, you—I hate gossip.”
“She said that sometimes when her husband is home, she pushes him away because she’s so afraid of losing him.”
“I don’t want to know about Noah’s conversation. I don’t want you to tell me anything he didn’t mean for me to hear.”
“I don’t care about what he said,” Pamela insisted. “I listened because I wanted to know about you. Are you all right? Has he hurt you again?”
Emma breathed a sigh of relief. She wouldn’t eavesdrop on Noah under any circumstance. “The next time I care for any man, I’ll have some hope of him sharing my feelings. I’m fine.”
“I made you this way. Hard. Unforgiving.”
“Am I unforgiving?” Emma hated the tears that sprang into her eyes. “I don’t mean to be. I don’t want to be.”
“Then promise me I can come back.”
Pamela was in no position to bargain, but because she was standing so close, Emma could smell her expensive cologne, a fragrance that took her back to mountain drives and late evenings, waiting outside the bank for her dad—and that brawl on the stairs four years ago. “Did you ever stand up for me, Mother? Did you ever tell anyone I didn’t push Odell?”
“I told him if he lied about you again, I’d give him more to worry about than a drunken fall, and I’ve never taken a sip of anything stronger than tea or coffee since that morning. If I could change it...”
Emma gripp
ed the porcelain sink. She looked down at her hands, in suds, like Nan’s, like her mother’s. They all had the same shape, the same way of flexing their thumbs and bending their other fingers at exactly the same angle to hold on.
“You can come back,” she said, stopping to swallow. “As long as you call first.”
“Give you a little warning? Sure.” Pamela moved toward Emma as if she were going to hug her.
Emma backed away without thinking. Pamela stopped, her face pinched.
“I’ll see you sometime,” Emma said.
Her mother struggled to remove the house key from a ring of keys she’d always had. After she got the key off, she dangled the ring by its braided-leather strand, wrapped around the metal circle. “Remember this?”
Emma did. She even remembered her frantic excitement as she’d carried it up the stairs to her mother’s bedroom after her father had picked her up. “I made it in after-school care. Did you know Nan helped me?”
Nan had helped out with after-school care long before Emma ever attended. Pamela never eased off her pose as the lady of the local manor, but Nan never cared about appearances. She’d helped distribute milk and snacks, and she’d taught Emma how to bend the pieces of leather so that the braid laid flat.
“I forgot she volunteered at your school.” Pamela’s mouth twisted at one corner. She closed her fingers around the leather. “I still use it.”
She dropped the key Emma wanted, which landed with a plink on the island.
As if that changed anything.
“Maybe you should look around before you go. This time you can take what you want without breaking in.”
Pamela turned away, her laughter tight and unnatural as if memories made her miss Nan with the kind of ache Emma knew. As Emma watched her mother sashay down the hall, she was willing to consider that her mother’s feelings might be real.
Having such a hard time with change herself, Emma found change in other people difficult to believe in, and she would not settle for pretend love from anyone. She got back to the mindless job of cleaning Nan’s dish. Her dish.
* * *
“NOAH, OWEN IS still at home. I haven’t heard his car go by this morning. Could you come check on him?”
Noah stared at the notes on his desk. “Maybe he’s sick, Mom.” Owen lived in the little cabin beside the unused barn on their property.
“All the more reason. Please, son?”
“You have to stop calling me when you lose sight of him. We both have to give Owen the benefit of the doubt.” Uncomfortably, he remembered the connection he’d witnessed between Emma and Owen. They had fun together, without recrimination or doubt.
It was as if Noah hadn’t spoken. “He’ll be furious if I go, because I’ve been to see him more than once when I was worried.”
“He’s an adult. He’ll never make it if we don’t stop shadowing him.”
And then he had a disquieting thought. What if Owen was more motivated to stay sober because he was developing serious feelings for Emma? And she for him? Was it possible? Yes, said a suspicious voice inside him. They’d both learned a kind of acceptance that escaped him. It might draw them together. He shook off the thought. Crazy.
“I have to go,” Noah said. “I have work to do.”
“Noah, don’t hang up. Let me tell you this. You’ve been all right because you’re as tight as a spring. You’re hyperaware of any small flaw that might mean you’re like your father, and that fear keeps you safe. I’m not saying that’s healthier than Owen’s way, but I know he used to drink and drive. I don’t want him to wake up, realize he’s late for work, and jump in his car.”
“So you think I should unwind myself far enough to reach Owen’s barn and deliver one more lecture he’s going to hate? I don’t try to blame you for the way you and Dad were with us, but I’d like a normal relationship with my brother.”
“I heard what you said about your care as a child at that meeting the other night.”
He heard the accusation in her voice. “Sorry. It was a moment. I needed to make a point, and do you think anyone in this town doesn’t know what happened back then?”
“No. Your father and I made sure of that. He was drunk, and I wore my bruises like a badge, instead of getting us out of his grasp. I waited for someone else to help me, just like now.”
“Don’t go over there. Leave him alone.” Suddenly he didn’t want his mother to find Owen’s cabin empty. He didn’t want her to call Emma, looking for him.
“I have to know. What if he’s hurt? You didn’t see how he was while you were at school.”
“If you honestly believe he might need help, I’ll go.” He’d seen enough alcoholics to understand her fear.
“I promise, if he’s all right, I’ll never ask you again.”
“Bargaining doesn’t make this right. We need to give him trust.”
“Noah.”
He stood, closing his laptop. “I’m going, but I’m as tired of this way of living as Owen is, Mom. I can’t continue being his father.”
“Is this because Emma’s home? Has she finally persuaded you that family doesn’t matter?”
“Family matters to her, too. Don’t start on her just because I’m not jumping to maintain our status quo. You’re overreacting, and Owen probably just drove by while you were busy doing something more useful than watching for his car.”
“Will you stop here on your way home?”
His frustration was twisted in empathy for her situation. She cared too much in this time when most mothers of adult children stepped back. “I’ll stop.”
He closed his office. His receptionist, Lynsay, was off that day. He could only afford her three days a week. His car practically drove itself out to the small cabin that had stood empty his whole childhood. Owen’s car was parked diagonally on the red clay driveway.
Noah knocked on the door.
“What?” Owen sounded as angry as he had a right to be.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah. What is it with you?”
He only wished he could say. “You don’t sound all right.”
Owen came to the door and opened it, walking away before he even looked at Noah. “You won’t believe me, but I have a migraine.”
Noah followed him inside. The cabin was as tidy as if Owen cleaned it nonstop. The only thing out of place in the small, square living room was a quilt on the leather sofa.
“You’re sleeping out here?”
“I can keep the light out better than in my bedroom. Shut that door, will you?”
Maybe it wasn’t a hangover. Noah closed the front door. “Do you have any ibuprofen? Have you eaten anything?”
“I can’t eat, and I’m not taking anything.” Owen lay down, pushing only his feet under the quilt, and covering his eyes with his hand.
Noah crossed into the small kitchen area. “I have to turn on the light for a second. You don’t have ibuprofen?”
“There’s a bottle in the corner cabinet.”
He found it and checked the expiration date. “This will help you, and you can’t get addicted to it.”
Owen muttered something unintelligible.
“What?”
“I live on the edge of a particularly slippery slope,” Owen said. “If I make myself feel better with one thing that comes out of a bottle...”
“Give yourself a break.”
“Like you and Mom do?”
“I can’t argue that.” Noah got him a glass of water, turned off the light in the kitchen and took him two pills.
Owen stared at them as they lay in his palm.
“Take them.” Noah went back to the kitchen, found a thin dish towel and wet it. He put it in Owen’s microwave to warm it, tested it to make sure it wasn’t too hot and
took it back to his brother. Owen looked up and finally swallowed the pills with the water.
“How often do you have migraines?” Noah asked.
“A few a year. More now that I don’t drink.”
“Put this across your eyes and forehead.”
Owen eased back and settled the compress. After a few seconds, he sighed. “That is better.”
“You can ask for help, you know.”
“Don’t need any.”
“Everyone needs help, Owen.”
“When was the last time you asked for help?”
“A few nights ago, when I had that meeting at the library.”
Owen pulled the compress down. “You know I’ll help with any contracting work you need when you finally get the place?”
Owen’s faith that he would persuade the council was a gift. Noah swallowed over an unexpected lump in his throat.
“I didn’t know. Thanks.” Noah pushed his hands into his pockets. “Is the ibuprofen working?”
“It will, but this hot towel thing is amazing.”
“If it stops working, see your physician. You might need something specifically for migraines.”
“Thanks.” Owen put the compress back over his eyes. “Tell Mom hey.”
Noah didn’t even care that he’d been dismissed. He just felt a strange relief at not finding Emma with his brother. Emma, who needed a friend as much as Owen did.
There it was again. That unwanted suspicion. And why would he even care? He and Emma were through.
“And I know I should call Emma myself, but my head throbs when I try to use my phone. Will you call and let her know I’m not going to make it today?”
CHAPTER FIVE
“WELL, THANK YOU for calling, Noah, but why didn’t Owen call me himself?” Obviously, Noah couldn’t help it, she thought. Still looking after his brother. She found his inability to stop irritating. When would he ever live a life of his own? “It’s Owen’s job.”
“He wouldn’t take anything for the pain, and it just got worse. By the time I saw him, he couldn’t stand the light on the phone when he was dialing.”
“He refused to take anything? He must be terrified of drinking again.”
