At Last

by Addison Fox

  When things came to their inevitable end—and Emma had accepted they would—she’d pull those memories out and remind herself of every carefree moment spent with Nick.

  But now, in addition to her memories, she had something tangible. A big green elephant to remind her that it had really and truly happened.

  Take the shot.

  His conversation with Emma had burrowed in his mind like a mental earworm, and Nick knew it was time to talk to Landon. He believed in giving his loved ones space, but something was up with L, and they’d passed the point where Nick was comfortable ignoring it.

  Juggling the goodies from Stewey’s into one hand, Nick pounded on his brother’s door. He took a step back when Landon opened it, disheveled and bleary-eyed.

  “Bender much?”

  “What?”

  Nick pushed his way through the door and kicked through a few pairs of sneakers blocking his way to the couch. He ripped open the bag and set up shop on the coffee table, then gestured for Landon to sit.

  “What happened to you?”

  “About two hours of sleep a night for the past three days.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Coding. Work’s been a zoo, and we need to get the new release out, and I had a breakthrough on the zombies.”

  “This isn’t liquor related?”

  “Hell no.” Landon reached like a drowning man for one of the coffees Nick had set out. “Although it’s very possible this cup of coffee may be the one to put me into cardiac arrest.”

  Nick eyed the offending cup for a moment, questioning his better judgment before going all in. He needed to talk to his brother, and he wasn’t opposed to guerilla warfare to get the job done.

  “Three days?”

  “Coming after two weeks that weren’t a picnic either.”

  “So this isn’t about Mom?”

  Nick waited to drop his question just as Landon took a big bite, and was rewarded with a dirty look. Those brownies weren’t for amateurs, and their thick richness gave Nick an opportunity to push a bit harder.

  “Other than the day in the hospital for Emma’s dad, you haven’t talked to Mom.”

  “Been . . . busy.” Landon swallowed his brownie before taking a big sip of coffee.

  “Okay. If you’re sure that’s all it is.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Good.” Nick reached for his coffee, then thought better of it and snagged a brownie. It was only when he had a big bite in his mouth that Landon asked a question of his own.

  “You still hanging out with Emma?”

  “Yeah.” The response came out garbled, but Landon didn’t seem stumped by his answer.

  “Where’s it going?”

  Nick tried to respond around the thick brownie, but his clever brother pushed harder. “She’s not a fling sort of woman. Or she certainly isn’t for long. You like her.”

  Nick swallowed hard, then jumped in to defend himself. “Of course I like her. Why else would I be spending so much time with her?”

  “You rescinding your bid?”

  “What? Why?”

  “You can’t be that dense.”

  Nick’s expectation of a good-natured ribbing for pushing the issue about their mother faded in his annoyance. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Same thing it’s meant from the beginning. Why won’t you back away from this thing?”

  “Peter Vandenburg wants to sell.”

  “Against his family’s wishes.” Landon picked up his coffee, his gaze considering, before he added clarity to his comment. “Against Emma’s wishes.”

  “Emma wasn’t here when her father started this process. The brewery’s in play.”

  “Then I’m forced to ask you again: What are you doing with her?”

  “I like her. And I like spending time with her.”

  “You’re head over heels for her and you damn well know it.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  The admission was out before he could hold it back. Knowing it was, Nick gave himself a moment to try it on, rolling the idea around in his mind. He cared for Emma. Far more and far faster than he’d ever expected to. So why did that have to be in conflict with what he wanted professionally?

  “Is that what it’s about?” Nick asked. “I have to give up something important to date someone?”

  “If the situation warrants, then yes.”

  “Why?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Oh, fuck it!” Nick leaped up from the couch and paced the room. “You’re as bad as Fender, tossing out riddles about what I should choose and how it should be easy to decide if I know my own feelings. It’s like I’m some sort of freaking thief in the night because I made a plan for myself and am trying to see it through.”

  “You’re not a thief. You’re just a stubborn bastard who wants your brownie and someone else’s.”

  The ire that made Nick leap off the couch dimmed. “Is the brownie some sort of euphemism for Emma’s more interesting parts? ’Cause if it is, I’m still not above taking a shot at your tired ass.”

  Landon smiled, the droop of his eyes no match for the lift of his eyebrows. “It wasn’t, but now that I have an image in my head . . .”

  “Forget I asked.”

  Landon squeezed his eyes shut before they popped back open. “Nope. Not yet.”

  “L—”

  “Think about it. Whatever business plan you’re building won’t fail if you back out of the deal because you have a thing going with Emma. Invest in her. Help them grow. You don’t have to be the owner to make an impact. And it takes the pressure off the two of you.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Nick, why is this so important to you?”

  “It just is.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  Words and thoughts and ideas Nick hadn’t fully realized he had exploded from him in a rush. “I’m not just a ball player! My life didn’t end the day I blew out my knee!”

  “No one said it did.”

  “No one had to.” Nick dropped back onto the couch, the thick cushions absorbing his fall. “You think I don’t know what people said about me when I came home? After the surgery. I was still limping around town, the poor hometown hero without a future. You all saw it.”

  “Of course we saw it. And we knew you’d overcome it. There was never any doubt.”

  “Yeah, but I doubted. I figured I’d used up every good thing I had and that was the end of it.”

  “So what changed?”

  “Chili Samuels and his damn wily ways, offering me something I didn’t know I needed, yet couldn’t refuse.”

  “So you got back on your feet and found a new dream. A new life. One just as good and just as valuable.”

  “And now it’s like I need to give up the forward momentum. That’s what you’re all really saying underneath the riddles and the ribbing.”

  Landon picked up the rest of his brownie, considering the large slab of chocolatey cake for a moment. “A brownie, you say?”

  “Landon—”

  His brother grinned, his bloodshot gaze steady when he lifted his eyes. “Nobody’s asking you to give up your forward momentum. Sometimes a lateral route nets you more yardage than trying to barrel straight ahead.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The summons came bright and early, barely past six o’clock. The number wasn’t familiar, but Nick had answered the call anyway.

  And in less than an hour stood next to Peter Vandenburg’s hospital bed.

  “I might be in here, but I still hear the gossip. You dating my daughter?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” The very fact Peter could ask that question caught Nick off guard, but he made a quick recovery. “Because she’s wonderful. She’s smart and brilliant and beautiful.”

  “She’s her mother.”

  In the quiet morning light, Nick saw a stubborn set to Peter’s jaw—one he’d already seen on Emma’s. Nick wasn�
�t entirely sure of the truth of that statement, but he sensed there was no room for argument. Just like he sensed a very real pride in Peter that Emma was like her mother.

  “You still want to buy my company?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You want her and you want her company? Something of a problem for you?”

  “It’s been pointed out by many that my decisions are conflicting, yes.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “Same thing I’d always planned to do. Buy the Unity if you give me the chance.”

  “And Emma?”

  “I’d like to keep seeing her.”

  “And if she doesn’t want to see you?”

  At Peter’s question, wholly unwelcome thoughts filled Nick’s mind with all the force of gunshots. What would he do if Emma didn’t want to see him any longer? If there were no more moments together, from the casual, to the intimate, to the simple and easy?

  In Emma he’d found a woman whose company he enjoyed and who he wanted to talk to and share all the things in his mind. The things that excited him as well as the experiences of his life he still struggled to overcome.

  Despite his weakened and tired state, Peter waited for an answer, his eyes sharp as ever.

  “That would be difficult, but I’d understand. I’d also like to keep her on as brewmaster. Her depth of knowledge is amazing.”

  That stubborn set was back to Peter’s jaw. “She just got her degree.”

  “After spending most of her life learning the business in real-world conditions.”

  “Ten years in Chicago is hardly learning the business.”

  And wasn’t that the heart of the matter? “That still pisses you off, doesn’t it? That Emma up and left.”

  “Never saw why she had to leave.”

  “I was under the impression it was a decision she and her husband made.”

  “Fat lot of good that did.”

  Nick had managed to avoid quiet, intimate conversations for the majority of his life, and in a matter of weeks suddenly seemed to be having them with everyone.

  Might as well go for broke.

  “She didn’t leave you.”

  “Damn well felt like it. Left Marcy and I to go off and play house. Didn’t even come home when Marcy was sick.”

  “Because you told me she was fine.” Emma’s voice rang out, strong and true, from the doorway. “You told me there was nothing to come home for. So I believed you and went about focusing on keeping my marriage together.”

  “She was sick.”

  “And you let me believe she was fine!”

  All the anguish and pain both of them carried seemed to fill the room like an invisible smoke, choking everyone in its path. Nick wanted to help her—wanted to give Emma support—even as he sensed she had to handle this on her own. Had to use the moment to finally and fully stand up to her father.

  On her own terms.

  Nick stared at her, willing her to understand that. But when she came into the room, she ignored him, her focus on her father.

  “You’re entertaining early.”

  Before Peter could reply, Emma whirled on him. “And what have we here? Sneaking into my father’s sickroom, Nick?” The words hit, heavy as a slap. “Trying to work a deal on the side?”

  “No.”

  “Right. So you just woke up and decided to come visit my father.”

  The accusations irritated him, even as he tried to look at it from her perspective. Tried—and failed. “He called me. Said we needed to talk.”

  Emma’s gaze flicked to her father, her comments as much for Peter as for him. “So he could go around me.”

  “I wanted to know what Kelley’s intentions are,” Peter bellowed at her, his ire stymied by the thickness that still painted his words as he healed.

  Her dark eyes were bleak as hurricane clouds hovering over the Atlantic when she finally spoke. “Nick’s made his intentions more than clear. He wants the Unity.”

  Like those great, gaping maws of Landon’s zombies, something shifted in that moment, clutching him in scrabbling claws with the intent of consuming him whole.

  He loved her.

  What should have been the most powerful moment of his life was ruined by her lack of faith. Had she been so betrayed in her past she assumed he would betray her, too? That he’d go behind her back and take this from her, like a thief?

  He’d made no secret of how much he wanted the Unity. Whatever he was, he wasn’t dishonest. Or grasping. Or unwilling to have the hard conversations.

  But in the swirling storm of Emma’s anger and pain, he saw his future slipping away. He loved her. And he wanted to be with her.

  And she didn’t have enough faith in him to even hear him out. Standing, Nick nodded to Peter before shifting his attention fully to Emma.

  “I don’t want the Unity anymore. It’s yours.”

  Unwilling to spend another moment in her presence, Nick walked away.

  From everything.

  Emma walked the brewery floor, the past year playing through her mind like a ghost that trod beside her. Cole’s decision to leave. The day she graduated from Siebel. The afternoon she signed her divorce papers.

  Events that had seemed so monumental and earth-shattering at the time faded in the power of the past month with Nick.

  She’d entered a relationship knowing the risks, but had focused only on the rewards, the chance to spend time together far too enticing to resist. Even with all she’d learned—about herself, about Nick and about how good they were together—when it came to crunch time, she’d assumed the worst.

  And Nick knew it.

  The proud set of his shoulders as he walked away told her all she needed to know.

  It had been three days since then, and his parting words still packed as big a punch as they did in her father’s sickroom.

  I don’t want the Unity anymore. It’s yours.

  How did she fix this? Could she? She needed to talk to him, yet something held her back—some base understanding that words wouldn’t be enough.

  The heavy noise of the production line rang in her ears as she stopped and watched the final step of bringing beer to the masses. Her life’s work flowed through that machinery, ensuring her future. Something she’d been so determined to nail down now seemed empty and hollow. A future without Nick.

  A text buzzed from her pocket and she pulled out her phone, grateful for the distraction. When she realized it was from her father, her focus shifted to the words.

  COME NOW.

  Emma raced through the rehab facility, her focus on getting to her father. She’d tried calling him and texting him, but had gotten nothing but silence for her trouble.

  If something were really wrong the facility would have called her, right? But even with that low level of reassurance, she imagined any number of horrible scenarios.

  She rounded the last corner and shot down his corridor, only to walk into his room and find him propped up in bed, an open box of donuts on his lap.

  “Dad?”

  “Hm?” He was focused on the TV, wrapped up in some news program full of screaming, shouting talking heads.

  “Dad!”

  “What?”

  “You texted me.” When she only got confusion in return, Emma added, “Before. I came right over.”

  “Oh. Right. I wanted to talk to you about the doctors. I don’t think they’re very good. I’m still here.”

  “The doctors are perfectly good. We discussed this yesterday. The reason you’re still here—” She broke off, her attention shifting to his lap.

  “What is this?” She snagged the box of donuts, pulling them away. “Where’d you get these?”

  “Someone.”

  “Who?”

  “Just someone.”

  She fought for patience as she eyed the three greasy spots where donuts had been. “You’re not allowed to have these.”

  “I’m an adult. I’ll have whatever I damn well wa
nt.”

  Something dark and horrible bubbled in her gut, a witch’s cauldron of anger and pain and loss. The urge to throw the box across the room was strong, but instead she marched to the trash can and dumped them in.

  “Hey! Those are mine!”

  “They’re a death sentence.” She used his distraction to cross to the TV and flip it off, the absence of sound momentarily deafening. When he reached for the remote, she snagged that from his hand as well.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you?”

  “We’re going to talk. About you. And about getting better.”

  “I am getting better,” he grumbled, wiping his hands on his blanket. “That’s why I had that damn surgery.”

  “Well, it was a lot of time, pain, effort, and expense to ruin it all with the same old bad habits.”

  “It’s a fucking donut!”

  His words echoed off the walls, his eyes going round in his face with the outburst. Whatever else her father was, he’d always been exceedingly polite in his speech. He didn’t use profanity as a general rule, and certainly never around her. So when the moment broke wide open, Emma took a seat beside him and took his hand. “This isn’t about a donut.”

  The eyes so like her own closed, tears forming in the corners as his face warmed with pain. Before she could say anything else, great, huge sobs heaved from his throat, the words spilling out in a hard, sobbing rush. “She’s never coming back.”

  “No, she’s not.”

  Whether it was the acknowledgment or simply the physical closeness, Emma didn’t know, but the thick sobs quieted to a steady flow of tears.

  “I miss her.”

  “Me, too.”

  They sat like that for several minutes, both lost in the shared moment of grief. She’d shed so many tears for her mother—grieving her loss in so many ways—Emma marveled there was still yet another way to mourn.

  To so keenly feel that deep loss.

  Yet with her father’s hand in hers, his own world so filled with pain and misery, Emma realized there were endless ways to feel sorrow. And a deep comfort in sharing the moment with someone else.

  His hand tightened on hers, his gaze watery. “She didn’t want you to know.”