by Addison Fox
Strong arms wrapped around her, so motherly that Emma fought the sudden tightening in her throat. When was the last time she’d sat through a family dinner?
Cole’s parents hadn’t lived any closer to them than her own parents, and as their marriage declined, they’d made fewer and fewer visits to see them in Phoenix. While she and her mother-in-law hadn’t developed a close relationship over the distance, they cared for each other, and Emma had always enjoyed the woman’s company.
Yet she’d lost that, too, as she and Cole divvied up the pieces of their lives.
For reasons that now seemed silly, she’d allowed her deteriorating marriage to influence every other relationship that mattered in her life. Was that the real reason she hadn’t come home during her mother’s illness? Had it been easier to blindly accept both her parents’ insistence that everything was well, all the while hiding from them what was really happening in her life?
She had told them about the miscarriage, of course, but had chosen to keep the details brusque and impersonal, as if keeping the facts at an emotional distance would make them hurt less. The dissolution of her marriage had received the same treatment.
“I’m glad you joined us tonight.” Louisa gave her one final squeeze. “Even if Emily’s invitation was a bit unorthodox.”
“I’m glad to be here.” The dour memories faded in the warmth of Louisa’s hug. She was glad to be here, grateful for the invitation and the warm welcome. She briefly wondered where Nick was, but the doorbell was already ringing to announce more guests. Jumping into action, Emma answered it, surprised to realize just how excited she was about a dinner invitation, the warm welcome, and the fried chicken that loomed in her very near future.
When Emily hollered from the kitchen that she needed help putting together the corn bread, Emma followed Louisa through those swinging doors and mentally added corn bread to the list of good things.
Chapter Eleven
Nick still sulked, a beer in hand, in the third-floor sitting room. Voices drifted up to him as his mother warmly greeted Emma, and still he stayed where he was. Once upon a time this had been Landon’s room, but his mother had turned it into a small den so she could watch TV at night closer to her bedroom.
The game watched just as good here as it did on the big screen downstairs, and besides, he wanted to see how the Mets’ new center fielder did on his next at bat. Which was a monumental load of bullshit, since he had to squint to see the box scores on the small pissant TV, but he’d deal.
That greasy layer of fear that something was physically wrong with his mother had faded, but he still couldn’t get past the idea she was hiding something. And he still had a major mad-on that his brother was acting like the fucking gossip queen of Park Heights.
“Beer?” Landon appeared in the doorway, two longnecks in hand.
“I’m good.”
“You sure?”
Nick said nothing, just watched as the Mets gave up a two-run lead. What was Landon doing up here, anyway? The game was on downstairs. The food was cooking down there, too. And since Landon had the mayor routine down pat, he could fucking well charm everyone two floors below.
“Fine. I’ll save it for Fender.”
“Asshole can drink it downstairs for all I care.”
“Excuse me?”
The same explosion that had propelled him from the kitchen to the den in the first place lit up once more, the smoldering flame all too easy to bring back to life. “Why don’t you go join him?”
“What’s your fucking problem?”
“At the moment? You.”
Landon made it halfway to the door before he stopped. “No you don’t. What’s going on?”
Nick hesitated, but he’d already pissed off his mother and still had to face down Fender. Perhaps he could work this to his advantage, and get an ally out of the deal. “Fender was over here this morning gossiping to Mom like a little girl.”
“So why didn’t you make it here for breakfast and do some damage control?”
“I wasn’t inv—” Nick broke off, remembering the text from the night before, which he’d never replied to. “I had a commitment at the Unity.”
“I call bullshit on the first. This is your house. You’re always invited.” Landon glanced toward the door as Fender’s voice drifted up the stairs. “And how do you know Mom didn’t pull it out of him?”
“Not her style.”
“It is when she’s trying to change the subject off of herself.”
Nick stilled, his beer halfway to his lips. “You think something’s wrong.”
“Hell yes. Don’t you?”
“She’s not sick. I asked her.”
“You thought she was sick?” The same swirl of fear riding Nick now seemed to expand to include Landon. “What’d she say?”
“That she’s absolutely fine and healthy.”
“So what is it?”
“I don’t know, but something’s going on.”
Fender barreled in, a beer already in hand. “There’s a gorgeous woman downstairs and you’re sitting up here?”
“I’ll leave you two to it.” Landon escaped before Nick could stop him, slipping past Fender at the door.
“I showered before I came over!” Fender hollered at Landon’s back, but when there wasn’t an answering insult, his eyes narrowed as he rubbed at his day-old beard. “I just didn’t shave.”
When Landon didn’t return, Fender’s green gaze landed squarely on Nick. “Hear you’re pissed at me.”
“More gossip with Mom?”
“What? No. Mrs. W., who practically chortled as she informed me you were up here when I stopped into the kitchen.” Fender dropped into the loveseat his mother had covered in roughly eight hundred throw pillows, tossing a handful of them on the floor to make room.
“She wasn’t even there, racing up to her apartment like hellhounds were on her tail.” Nick kicked a pillow with his toe. “Before. When I acted like an asshole to Mom.”
“Mrs. W.’s psychic, you know that as well as I do.”
“She’s half deaf.”
“Which means she’s still got a good ear to get the job done.” Fender shoved at Nick’s knee with a toe. “What crawled up your ass?”
“You. And your big reveal on the fight last night on the great lawn during your fucking coffee klatch with Mom.”
“She was going to hear about it. Figured it went down better with an eyewitness report from me than through the neighborhood.”
Nick wanted to argue—nearly had another pissy retort ready to fire at his brother—but like about everything else screwing his mood tonight, someone else was right.
“I kept the part about Emma to myself.” Fender took a drag on his beer, his gaze assessing.
“What part?”
“Whatever went down in your office, which anyone with half an imagination can figure out.”
“Don’t go there.”
Fender shook his head. “But you did go there. And now here she is, making salad in our kitchen.”
“Mrs. W. invited her. We ran into them at lunch.”
“That’s quite a run. What are you up to, now? Breakfast, lunch, and dinner with the attractive Mrs. Bradley.”
“The Mrs. is past tense.”
“But your hitting on her is very much in the present.”
Fender had always seen more than he let on, and the dig proved it. “You trying to piss me off again?”
“No, I’m asking what you’re doing with her.”
“I want the Unity.”
“By romancing it out of her?”
“No.” Nick shook his head, the feel of her body beneath his hands nearly curling his fingers. “Of course not. I mean I’m spending time with her to learn the business. It’s one of the conditions of the sale.”
“And learning the business involves private meetings in your office at ten o’clock on a weeknight?”
“What are you driving at?”
“She’s vulnerable
. And was legitimately a Mrs. not too long ago.” Fender slapped him on the knee and stood to leave. “Playing her is only going to end badly.”
Early evening sun streamed through the windows, painting the room with a warm glow as Fender walked through the slash of light and out into the hall. The announcer’s voice still thrummed through the small TV, but no amount of noise could drown out Fender’s parting shot.
“I’m not playing her.” Nick whispered the words, meant only for himself to hear. But it was the small voice in his head that supplied a ready response. If he wasn’t playing Emma, then what the hell was he about?
Emma pulled the heavy cast-iron skillet of corn bread from the oven, the scent wafting over her with a mix of anticipation and the warmest comfort. A home-cooked meal. Full of fat, carbs, and a great deal of affection, if the byplay she’d already observed in the kitchen was any indication.
Landon had continued the charm routine, returning to the kitchen after his mysterious disappearance upstairs. At his whispered greeting to his mother, Emma had discovered a visit with Nick had been his destination, and she fought almost overwhelming curiosity at Nick’s absence. Since that way lay madness, she refocused on her task and continued to tear up salad as instructed by dinner drill-sergeant, Emily Weston.
And if she was slightly pissed off he’d gone M.I.A., leaving her to the barrage of questions from the petite drill sergeant, well, she was only human.
Damn the man. It was his family. His childhood home. What the hell was she doing in it if he wasn’t going to be here? She was quite sure the invitation hadn’t been extended as a simple welcome to the neighborhood.
“How long have you been back in Park Heights, Emma?” Mrs. W. peeled carrots, the task obviously so natural, Emma wasn’t able to escape the woman’s close scrutiny.
“A little over a month.”
“Happy to be back?”
“It’s home.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Emma shrugged, unwilling to go down that path. “Doesn’t make it any less true.”
“I suppose.” Mrs. W. shuffled closer so she could shred the peeled carrots straight into the salad bowl. “I miss your mother. I miss seeing her around town.”
“I miss her, too.”
The words came quickly, and Emma marveled at their ease. She hadn’t been able to talk about her mother without a well of tears or a sizeable lump in her chest, and it was gratifying to feel neither.
“She and I used to grab coffee after the Town Council meetings. Marcy was so proud of you, living your life in Chicago.”
She was?
“She talked all the time about you and your handsome husband, and your beautiful home. She was so happy you were living your life.”
While she’d never doubted her mother’s support, the news had a lump forming, square in the center of her chest. “Oh.”
Whatever her mother might have felt then, Emma hardly believed she would have been proud now. To have her only child slink home, tail between her legs, a failed marriage in her wake. Yep, every mother’s dream.
Landon stepped in between them, his hand stilling Mrs. W.’s and the rising heap of carrots. “Mrs. W. I need to show you that new level in Zombie Apocalypse. I need your thoughts on the design.”
“Now?”
“If I don’t show you now, Fender’ll be all over it and we’ll never get the computer back.”
Mrs. W. sighed, but dropped the half-scalped carrot in the bowl. “Fine. I still say I’ll beat that boy’s ass once we can play head-to-head.”
“I’m counting on it.”
The door had barely swung closed when Louisa moved up beside Emma. “She means well.”
“Of course.”
“I’d like to say it’s a lack of filter as she’s aging, but Emily Weston has always spoken her mind.”
Out of the depths of her memory, Emma remembered a story her mother had recounted years ago. Emily Weston, chasing a half-drunk Santa Claus through the Park Heights business district. The woman had taken him to task, then did her level best to railroad him out of town. The story had made the rounds in the neighborhood, but it had been her mother’s laughter, peppered through the telling, that had stuck with Emma all these years.
“She’s a character.”
“That she is.” Louisa picked up the carrot and efficiently finished the last of the garnish before turning to Emma. “I hope you don’t make the next few months easy on my son.”
“Easy?” Relief at the change in topic mixed with confusion that they’d jumped to an even more challenging one. Emma hesitated briefly before picking up the olive branch. “Why would I do that?”
“I’m not sure. But see that you don’t. You’ve got as much right to that brewery as he does, so don’t go thinking this is a done deal.”
“You’re not on his side?”
“I’m always on his side. But I want what’s right for him. What’s meant. If that brewery is meant for you—and I’m not above thinking it’s not—then Nicky will need to find something else.”
“It matters to him.”
“It matters to you, too.” Louisa finished off the carrot and turned to face Emma, her warm blue eyes filled with a compassion Emma hadn’t seen in far too long.
The wisdom of a mother.
“So make him work for it. You both might be surprised by what happens.”
Emma had believed she already knew what would happen. Nick would learn the ropes, her father would get his way, and she’d be out looking for a job. While that nightmare had consumed her thoughts, something in Louisa’s words punctured that image ever-so-slightly.
“You sound like you speak from experience.” The question bordered on impertinent, but something about the moment—the sheer honesty of it—had Emma asking anyway.
“I learned a long time ago: Making plans is the quickest way to seeing them ruined.”
Emma couldn’t stop the wry smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth. “That’s not overly cheerful.”
“Maybe not.” A warm hand settled on her back. “But one thing I’ve learned, over and over. We can plan, but life has other plans. And the outcome is often way better than we ever could have imagined.”
The flowers sat proudly on the dining room sideboard, their bright blooms winking at the room. The chocolate chips had been a big hit as well, evidenced by the lone remaining cookie in a sea of crumbs on a plate that sat in the middle of the table. Emma had been a gracious guest, a ready helper in meal prep and kitchen cleanup, and a sparkling conversationalist.
So why did she feel as if she’d failed? Miserably?
Emma avoided looking at her watch, mentally counting down the moments to escape. Even with the dining room table now sporting empty dessert plates and half-drunk cups of coffee, she estimated she was still a good fifteen minutes from a clean getaway.
She’d been welcomed, there was no question about it. And Louisa had even suggested Emma had every right to fight for her birthright.
So why did she feel so off? So ready to escape?
One glance at Nick across the table had her answering her own questions: The engaging companion who’d asked her endless questions as they traipsed through Brooklyn on one sales call after another had vanished. That gregarious partner had been replaced with a hyper clown who seemed determined to keep the conversation floating around the table in such a way that nothing serious ever landed.
In addition to Emily Weston, a few neighbors had joined the family for the evening. Emma met the next door neighbor, Dave Maxwell, and remembered Emily’s oldest daughter, who used to teach at the junior high. Both obviously spent a lot of time there; their conversation flowing easily around Nick’s stand-up routine.
Yet that strange sense that something lurked just below the surface had grown more urgent—more insistent—as the conversation ebbed and flowed around the table. Twice, Louisa’s boys had brought up the borough presidency, and twice Louisa had shut the topic down with tense effic
iency.
And then there had been the Unity.
The subject of how she and Nick had spent their week was a hot topic, and he joked his way through a story about their sales calls to a competitor’s bar. The owner’s panic at seeing Nick inside his establishment and peddling some marketing materials for one of the Unity’s summer promotions had resulted in an odd conversation. At the point when the man had begged Nick to let him stay in business or risk not even being able to feed his kids McDonald’s, Emma had gently moved them on, promising his regular salesperson would follow up later in the week.
“He actually said that? About Happy Meals?” Dave asked, refilling Louisa’s glass before refilling his own.
“’Fraid so.” Nick nodded.
Fender had taken over after that, gently shifting the conversation off Emma and Nick and onto some funny stories about his auto-body shop. Of particular note and excitement, one of his techs had discovered a rather racy lingerie set wrapped around a brake pedal.
Emma was grateful for the diversion, but no amount of laughs could change the situation between her and Nick. A situation that sat, clunky and unwieldy, in the middle of the table. One of them was going to win and one would lose, and no amount of funny banter or warm welcomes would change that.
Allowing her thoughts to drift, she took in the length of the long table. Nick and Fender sat across, opposite her and Landon. Louisa and Emily had been given the heads, while Dave and Emily’s daughter filled in the remaining seats on opposite sides of Louisa. Emma wondered about that as well.
Three grown men, established in their lives, yet deeply respectful of their mother and her place in the family. That they then extended the same courtesy to Mrs. Weston was yet another example of their deep sense of equality.
Had she ever experienced the same? Worse—when had she stopped expecting it?
“Scarlett, the woman who runs the Kings stadium, invited us all to the owner’s box on Thursday night.”
“How’d you swing that one?” Fender asked, his gaze on the last cookie.
“She seems interested in talking about a partnership. And who am I to complain about a night in the box?”
