Home Again: A Whiskey Ridge Romance

by Rachel Hanna

  Now they were small talking. She knew this avoidance tactic very well.

  “So I’ll ask again… what am I right about?”

  Nash sat back against the sofa and took in a deep breath.

  “Look, I know that I haven’t dealt with a lot of things in my past that I need to. I feel this weight on me all the time, and I know my blood pressure was up at my last appointment. So I think you may be right that it’s hindering my progress.”

  “You’re still doing really good, Nash. Better than I expected. Your range of motion is…”

  “Em.”

  “What?”

  “Let me talk.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I really like my Dad’s fiancee. She’s nice, and she has changed him, I think. He’s softer. Kinder. More open to change.”

  “That’s good, I guess.” Emmy still had her own hard feelings against Brick, but she decided not to remind Nash of that right now.

  “There’s a lot I may need to talk out with someone… a professional, I guess.”

  “I know of a couple of great therapists at the hospital. Dr. Nance and Dr. Gable both come highly recommended…”

  “Thanks. I’ll look into both of them. But that’s not why I wanted to talk to you alone, Em.”

  “Oh?”

  “I think we both need to air out some things. Don’t you?”

  Emmy looked down at her hands. They’d never really talked about it once things ended so abruptly. There were no letters or phone calls. One day, it was just over. And there were plenty of feelings to go around. Abandonment. Sorrow. Confusion. Anger. Betrayal. So many emotions that it was hard to keep up with.

  But did she really want to open that can of worms? She was just starting to get used to being around Nash again. She was able to do her job and be cordial without strangling him or kissing him.

  “Do you really think it’s a good idea that we go down that road, Nash? It’s the past. Maybe it’s better that we leave it there.”

  “I would’ve said the same thing a few weeks ago. But when you almost die, it changes your perspective. And I know I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t say some things.”

  She swallowed hard and tried to ignore the fluttering heartbeat in her chest. This was a time of her life she hadn’t visited in awhile.

  “Okay.”

  Nash took another moment as if he was gathering his thoughts.

  “I was young and stupid. I was scared when you told me you were pregnant, and I made the worst mistake of my life in the way I reacted.”

  Emmy stared into space, unable to make eye contact. Finding out she was pregnant just before she turned eighteen years old hadn’t been in her longterm plans. She was ready to leave for college at the time, but instead found herself peeing on a stick in the drugstore bathroom.

  “I should’ve been more supportive, Em. I should have stopped the whole rodeo thing and told my Dad to back off.”

  Brick had gone ballistic when Nash told him Emmy was pregnant. He’d confronted Emmy himself one day when her mother wasn’t home. Of course, Emmy was still basically a kid, and that had rattled her in a big way at the time.

  Emmy still couldn’t speak. She didn’t know what to say. That it was okay? It wasn’t. That she forgave him? She wasn’t sure she did.

  “Your Dad told me to get an abortion, Nash. Told me that I was going to ruin your life,” she said softly.

  “I know. I’m so sorry, Emmy. He was so wrong, and I believe it’s why I still can’t connect with him no matter how hard I try. I’m still angry about it all.”

  “And then the day it happened… the day I lost our baby… you weren’t there. You had already taken off to Vegas. All I had was my mother to support me, and she isn’t exactly the best person to help in times of crisis.”

  “God, Emmy, I’m sorry.” He slid to the edge of the sofa and looked at her. “I’ve beat myself up a million times over not being there when you miscarried our baby. But you have to understand that I didn’t know about the miscarriage until weeks later, and by then I was afraid you wouldn’t take my calls…”

  “You didn’t even try, Nash. Not one letter or phone call. You just left me here to deal with all alone.”

  “I was an idiot at the time. And I was scared…”

  Emmy stood up, her face feeling flush and tears threatening to spill over. “You don’t think I was scared? I was terrified! My whole life was about to come to an end before it even started. I wasn’t ready to be a mother, but I was committed to it. You left thinking I was pregnant, and you didn’t have plans to come back and be a father!”

  Nash tried to stand, but fell back to the couch without his walker to use for assistance. He sighed and rubbed his eyes.

  “I did plan to come back. That’s how I found out about the miscarriage.”

  “Why did you leave me like that then? You said you loved me.”

  “I loved you more than anyone in this world, Em. You weren’t just some high school crush. Even then, I believed I’d spend the rest of my life with you. I just panicked.”

  “You panicked? Well, what do you think I was doing?”

  “No, you don’t understand. I wasn’t panicked about having a baby with you. I was excited about that.”

  “Then why were you panicked?” she asked, sitting back down.

  “Because I wanted to be able to provide for both of you. I wanted to buy you a ring… the kind you deserved. I wanted to buy everything our baby needed. And I knew my Dad would make my life, and yours, miserable if I worked for him. I was going to go to Vegas, make as much money as I could and be back before the baby was born with a big diamond ring in my hand. I knew if I told you why I was leaving that you’d say not to go, that we would make it work somehow. But I was a broke kid with no college education and no way to provide for you and the baby. So I took off thinking you’d understand once I got back, that you’d forgive me when you saw I was just trying to make money for us. But then my father called me and told me about the miscarriage. Apparently Pauline had confronted my Dad and told him off.”

  “So why didn’t you call? Why didn’t you come home then?”

  “I was a coward. By then, I was already getting a name for myself in Vegas. I knew my Dad was angry at me for leaving his business. I knew you probably hated me. I just stayed away hoping you could go on with your life.”

  Emmy allowed a stray tear to run down her cheek. “I needed you,” she whispered.

  Nash reached across and tried to take her hand, but Emmy stood up.

  “Please don’t do that,” she said, rubbing her hand on the front of her pants.

  “I don’t know how else to make amends, Em.”

  “Honestly, I’m not sure it’s possible.”

  Nash cleared his throat. “Fair enough. But I hope maybe someday we can at least be friends.”

  Emmy didn’t speak. “I have to get back to work.”

  “Of course.”

  Emmy retrieved his walker and slid it in front of him before asking if he needed a ride back home.

  “Nah, it’s only a few blocks and I need the exercise if I want to…”

  “Get back to your real life?” she said, finishing his sentence.

  “Yeah. I think that will be better for both of us.”

  “I’ll see you Monday,” Emmy said as she walked him to the door.

  “Look, if you’re not comfortable working with me, I can find…”

  “No. As I told you before, I’m a professional. I don’t quit on people.”

  A silence hung in the air as Nash seemed to get her double meaning. He walked out and down the sidewalk without looking back.

  Chapter 9

  Emmy spent the weekend thinking about Nash and all that he’d said. Could she ever forgive him? Did she even need to?

  After all, they weren’t dating, and they didn’t need to be friends. He was her patient, simple as that. She wanted to believe that, but her heart wouldn’t let her.

  The reality wa
s that when she looked at him, she saw her whole life and where it had gone off track all those years ago. She’d never imagined a future without Nash in it. If she was being honest with herself, she’d always had him in the back of her mind, even when she was married.

  “I know there was something else we needed…” Emmy muttered to herself as she sat at the kitchen table with her grocery shopping list. “I have eggs, milk, ketchup…”

  “We need fabric softener. But remember to get the kind with the little bear and not the kind with the big purple flower. That stuff smells like a whorehouse,” Pauline said, never looking up from her crossword puzzle. For as long as Emmy could remember, her mother always spent Sunday evenings at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and her beloved crossword puzzle.

  “I know there was something else…”

  “Toilet paper. But get the double ply kind. You’ve got to stop trying to save a buck. That last stuff you got was worse than truckstop bathroom toilet paper.”

  Emmy stopped writing and looked at her mother. How was she remembering this stuff? It dawned on her that the B12 shots must be working because her mother could never remember stuff like that.

  “Mom, do you remember when my dental appointment is, by chance?”

  Pauline chuckled as she filled in the blanks, a look of satisfaction on her face. “The third of next month. Maybe you need some of those shots, Em.”

  Emmy smiled to herself as she finished her list. Maybe things were looking up after all. If her mother was able to care for herself, she could go home to Atlanta sooner than she thought. Only Atlanta just didn’t feel like home anymore.

  “I have to say I’m impressed, Nash. Your range of motion is really improving,” Emmy said as she finished their exercises for the day. “Look how far you can lift that arm now.”

  Nash smiled half heartedly. “Yeah, it’s definitely better.”

  “What’s wrong now?”

  “I just want to get back to normal life.”

  “Vegas?”

  Nash chuckled. “Actually, no. I just want to be able to do normal things. Take a walk or a hike. Spend time in nature. Take a shower without holding onto something.”

  Emmy cocked her head and thought for a moment. “I can help with some of that.”

  Nash grinned. “Okay, please follow me over this way toward the shower,” he said, playfully waving his hand sideways like a game show model.

  “Ha ha, very funny. You have some time right now?”

  “Well, I can fit you in between my conference call and meeting with my financial adviser.”

  Emmy stared at him for a moment before realizing he was joking.

  “Right. Okay. Come on. I want to take you somewhere.”

  Nash was maneuvering his walker so well that sometimes he could get by with just a cane. They loaded his walker into her car, just in case, but when they arrived a few miles away at their destination, he only brought his cane with him.

  “Where are we going?” he asked as they got out at a nondescript parking lot and headed toward a wooded path.

  “You don’t know where you are?” Emmy asked, a surprised look on her face.

  “Well, I haven’t been to Whiskey Ridge in years, and this parking lot wasn’t here when I left.”

  “I’ve been gone a long time too, but I can’t believe you’d ever forget this place…” She smiled before turning and heading toward the path.

  Nash followed slowly behind her, but they weren’t very far into the path before he tripped on a small root and bumped into her back.

  “Oh, man… Sorry,” he said, holding onto her for dear life as she leaned over and retrieved his cane from the ground. “Maybe this isn’t a good idea.”

  Emmy looked up at him. “You can do this. I should’ve supported you better. Sorry I walked ahead of you. Here, hold onto this arm.” She held her upper arm out toward him, and he slowly took hold of it for more support. “It’s not a long walk, I promise.”

  They walked along together, mostly quiet, with Nash concentrating on where he was walking.

  “Look at that,” she whispered as a deer crossed the path about twenty feet in front of them. It stared at them for a moment before slowly walking into the woods. “I forgot how peaceful this place could be.”

  “Yeah, well to be fair, we were kids back then. We weren’t exactly looking for peace, were we?”

  She laughed. “I guess you’re right. We were looking for adventure. Remember when we all jumped off Cherokee Cliff? That lake was freezing!”

  “If I remember correctly, you tried to do a flip and did a belly flop instead,” Nash said with a laugh.

  “That hurt for a week! I didn’t have as much padding around my midsection as I do now.”

  Nash cut his eyes over at her and smiled, his dimples on full display. “Well, Doc, I don’t see anything wrong with your figure.”

  “Nash…” she chided.

  “Hey, I might have a bum arm and leg, but I can still appreciate beauty when I see it.”

  “Yes, and this forest is beautiful,” she said, staring straight ahead and trying to change the subject.

  “You know, I remember the day I first saw you. You were standing outside that ring, and I was so distracted I’m surprised I didn’t get hurt that day too.”

  Emmy stopped and looked at him. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea to walk down memory lane, Nash.”

  He sighed. “Why wouldn’t it be a good idea to remember good things?”

  Emmy turned and started walking again. “Fine. But only good things. No potentially upsetting or anger producing topics.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said with a smile. Gosh, his smiles were deadly. He’d gotten away with everything as a teenage boy simply because of that smile. And that thick, wavy head of hair. And those broad shoulders and muscular arms…

  “Remember when we TP’d the school senior year?”

  “Um, that was you and the McAllister boys. I was at home being a good girl!”

  “Yeah, right. When we met up in my truck that night, you were certainly not being a good girl. I remember getting in all kinds of hot water over that hicky you put on my neck!”

  Emmy had to laugh. Those were the good days. When there were no bills, no ex husbands, no life altering decisions.

  Truth be told, she remembered the day she met Nash like it was yesterday. Watching him work with the horses and bulls gave her feelings that she didn’t even understand at the time.

  He’d been hot as a teenager, but even as a somewhat maimed grown man, he was even hotter now. His jawline was more square and grown up. His hair seemed thicker, but with flecks of silver starting to peek through here and there. His eyes seemed more tired, though, and that made her sad. Sometimes life takes its toll.

  “Oh wow. I think I know where you’re taking me. The question is, why?”

  Emmy simply smiled and kept walking. The woods were her happy place. Even as a kid, she’d loved sneaking away to read under the shade of one of the massive oak trees that dotted the mountains around her hometown. Until now, she hadn’t realized how much she’d missed the landscape. There were no honking car horns or massive glass-faced buildings. Instead, she could only hear the crunching of the leaves beneath their feet and the occasional bird tweeting.

  “Follow me,” she said as they turned down a path to the right. “Be careful of these tree roots.”

  Nash looked down as the descended the pathway, tripping a bit as he diverted his attention. Emmy grabbed his good arm before he could do much damage.

  “Thanks,” he said softly. They froze for a moment, looking at each other, before Emmy let go and turned back toward the path.

  “Can you hear that?” she asked, a smile spreading across her face.

  Nash smiled too, recognizing where they were headed. “I knew it.”

  They walked down the path a bit further and came to a clearing where there was nothing but a mixture of jagged and smooth rocks, steep cliffs and raging water with
side pools of completely calm water.

  “I can’t believe you brought me back to this place,” Nash said as he looked side to side, taking in all of the scenery. His face showed what was going on inside his head; memories were raging past just like the water in front of him.

  “Come on,” Emmy said, reaching out her hand to help him onto a large rock that sat next to the water. He took her hand and their eyes met for a long moment until Emmy broke their gaze and pulled him along with her.

  For a moment, she was back in high school. She’d held his hand many times walking to this same rock. In fact, many things had happened near these waters all those years ago.

  Nash struggled up onto the rock and sat down. He was out of breath which was hard for Emmy to see. His injuries had really taken a toll on him.

  “It’s been forever since I came out here,” Emmy said as they sat there looking at the water move past them.

  “Me too,” Nash said before he started laughing.

  “What?”

  “I remember this one time, me and Billy came out here because he was convinced he could jump from that rock over there to this one. I knew he couldn’t do it, especially without falling on his ass. But he bet me ten bucks, and I hadn’t gotten my allowance that week because my Dad said I didn’t cut the grass the right way.”

  “Ugh. Your father is…”

  “Em. Let’s not go there.”

  “Right.”

  “Anyway, Billy gets up on that rock and pounds his chest like Tarzan before taking this running leap. A group of our buddies and their girlfriends were out here too. I think you were working or something. Anyway, he runs but slips at the end of the rock and slides down the face of it. What he didn’t count on was this jagged piece on the face of the rock that caught the edge of his swim trunks. When he finally got loose, he was naked as a jaybird holding onto the side of that rock for dear life while we all laughed and made fun of any body parts we saw.”

  Emmy laughed hard. She could just imagine Billy doing a thing like that, and it brought back fond memories of better times.

  “Billy was a nut back then,” she said.

  “Billy is still a nut.”