Tennessee Rescue

by Carolyn McSparren

“Of course I want you back. Same money, same job description.”

  “More money, more responsibility. I’m worth it.”

  “This is not a conversation to have over the phone. When can you come to Memphis?”

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  “Can you get to my office by ten?”

  “Barring car trouble or a flat tire.”

  “See you then. Oh, and Emma...welcome back.”

  She called Andrea and asked for her old room for the night. “My town house is too dusty to sleep in.”

  “Sure. We’d all love to see you. Are you coming alone, or is your hunk coming with you?”

  “Alone. Definitely alone. I’ll be there in two hours.”

  “It’s late. Be careful driving. You know those semis are lunatics in the middle of the night.”

  Emma tossed toiletries and a change of clothes into her duffel. She had plenty of business clothes at her town house. She could stop by and dress there for her meeting with Nathan. If she left now, she could even get a few hours’ sleep before her appointment. As much as she liked her town house, she was in no mood to put fresh sheets on the bed and knock the top layer of dust off the kitchen counters before she went to sleep. For once she needed the feeling of being home where she grew up, in her own bed. Seth had made it perfectly clear that she was still an outsider in his life. That she wasn’t good enough. He was willing to let her in so far and no farther. Parts of him were always going to be off-limits.

  Seth’s house was completely dark when she drove out. Apparently he didn’t need her in bed with him to sleep soundly. She might never sleep again. She would not cry. She loved the man! Thought he loved her. How wrong could she be?

  She slowed down to exactly the speed limit. All she needed was a wreck or a speeding ticket.

  In Memphis in her parents’ house she found a note on her bedroom door from Andrea. “Go to bed. We’ll talk tomorrow if you want to. Love.”

  She thought she’d lie awake most of the night. Instead she was out the instant she pulled the familiar duvet over her.

  The next morning she avoided explaining anything either to Andrea or her father by taking a mug of coffee and a couple of sweet rolls with her and driving away before either of them intercepted her. She stopped by her town house on the way downtown to change into business clothes. She’d always been proud of the decorating she and Andrea had managed in a minimum of space, but now the little house seemed like a bad stage set and carried the dusty odor of unoccupied and unloved homes. She couldn’t wait to get away.

  She still had her parking pass for the garage at Nathan’s office, but after nine o’clock the lower floors were filled. She drove round and round searching for a place. She’d forgotten how tiring it was to fight traffic, fight to park, fight to drive out to an appointment during the day and fight for a parking place all over again when she got back.

  She’d also forgotten how much she hated four-inch heels, panty hose and skirts. Small annoyances, but still annoyances. The traffic noise seemed louder and more incessant, as well. Made the barking dogs and yowling cats at the clinic seem almost pleasant.

  Time to think positive. She’d loved the craziness of her job, her city life. She’d be happy to plunge back into the long nights, the endless sodas and coffee. Her friends. Her team. She’d be back in the swing in two days, tops. Or so she told herself.

  She arrived at the office for her meeting with Nathan ten minutes early. Her office mates might have avoided calling her while she was in Williamston, but they seemed delighted to see her back. Instead of the office pariah, she’d become the office hero. Nathan even came out of his office to hug her.

  “Grab some coffee and let’s go talk,” he said. He leaned against the receptionist’s desk. “Then I’ll take you to lunch at The Peabody.”

  At that moment Seth shoved through the glass doors from the foyer and strode over to Emma. He was wearing his full dress uniform.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. Every woman in the room went instantly on point. In his uniform, he looked so good, so strong—but still angry. Had he tracked her down here to yell at her some more?

  “Why didn’t you leave me a message to say where you were going?” he snapped. “Barbara was birthing a foal. She didn’t tell me you’d driven back to Memphis until this morning. When I couldn’t find you, I was one step away from putting out an APB on your car.”

  “It’s none of your business if I drive home to see my family. You made it quite clear yesterday that you don’t care whether you ever see my face again.”

  “Not see your face again? Why would I not want to see your face again? I love your face.”

  “Keep your hands off my life doesn’t sound like a mating call. It sounds like we’re over, we’re through and you leave me alone for the rest of our lives.”

  “I was mad. Okay, I was furious. The only way I’ve been able to deal with Sarah’s death was by ignoring it—digging down deep and burying it. You stuck your cute little hook in my soul and dragged it all to the surface where I had to stare at it.”

  “I didn’t mean to cause you pain.” She tried to sound very cool, but her voice was trembling. Everyone in the office was standing in doorways or sitting at their desks listening to the whole thing. Oh, who cared. Let ’em listen. They might learn how to lose a good man in ten easy steps. Or less.

  “Well, you did. Big-time pain. When I cooled off, I started thinking maybe you hadn’t done such a bad thing, after all. Like sticking a hot poker on a wound to cauterize it. Hurts like hell, but you don’t die of gangrene.”

  “How nice to know I’ve saved you from gangrene. Just what every woman wants to hear.”

  “You want this job back?” he asked. “Go back to being a city mouse?”

  “I’m good at it. I’m lousy in your world. I keep messing up your life and everyone else’s.”

  “Fine. If that’s what you want, then I better start trying to find a desk job in Memphis or close enough to commute. God only knows what I’ll do for a living, but I’ll have to be a city mouse, if that’s what you’re going to be.”

  For the first time she smiled. “You’re too big to be a city mouse. More like a city rat.”

  “Whatever. I have some connections with the local government people. Money might even be better, if I work it right. Maybe go with one of the security firms.”

  “You’d hate it. Why would you do that?”

  “Because I love you, you mutton-headed chump. I want to marry you, and if you want town, I’ll take town, so long as I get you with it.”

  “Even though I messed around in your relationship with your father?”

  “That’s what families do. It’s one of the problems you’ll have to deal with if you take me on.”

  “Sort of like skunks?”

  This time he grinned. “Exactly like skunks.”

  “Can I be a country mouse instead?”

  “So you’ll marry me?”

  The office erupted around her, male and female. Above the din, Ashley, one of the assistants who’d worked closely with Emma before she lost her job, called from her office door, “Marry him, Emma! He’s gorgeous!”

  EPILOGUE

  “WEDDINGS ARE SUPPOSED to be insane,” Andrea said. “That’s so the bride and groom will be so glad it’s over they’ll have a blissful honeymoon away from it.”

  “That’s one I’ve never heard,” Emma said. “Isn’t there supposed to be a limit to the madness?”

  “This has actually been relatively calm. Most weddings take up to a year to plan. We’ve done this one in two months.”

  “Only because you’re amazing. I haven’t been much help. I’m juggling the wedding with my part-time job with Barbara and the rehabilitation classes and Nathan’s projects. Somewhere in there Seth and I have to find time for each other.”


  “You’ve done everything I asked you to do,” Andrea said. “Thank heaven for cell phones and the internet. Now we can relax.”

  “This is relaxing?” Emma laughed. “Barbara is off collecting a hawk with a broken leg and probably won’t be here. Earl and Janeen almost didn’t find an overnight babysitter for their monsters. They’re good kids, but they don’t belong at the ceremony. Nor, heaven help us, at the reception. It would not have been fun if Earl and Janeen had been forced to bring them. The steeple on top of the church might not have survived. We have no idea whether Seth’s father, Everett, will turn up, and if so, what state he’ll be in. Laila swears he’s sober again, but that could change with one drink. Catherine is having a meltdown because she hates the way the salon did her hair. Patrick wants to wear jeans to the ceremony—not going to happen.”

  “I’m still sane,” Andrea said, “although I can’t vouch for your father. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him as nervous, not even at our wedding.”

  “I hated you at first, you know,” Emma said. “I wanted to run away from home so Daddy would be sorry he married you.”

  “I knew that. I didn’t like you either.” Andrea slipped off her celadon satin pumps. “That jeans thing of Patrick’s seems like a great idea after thirty minutes in these shoes.”

  “You do know I love you now, don’t you?” Emma asked.

  “Likewise. If you and I could get to this point, there’s at least a faint chance that someday Everett Logan may shape up enough so he and Seth will be able to tolerate each other.”

  “I doubt that, but it would make Laila so happy. Seth just wishes his father would move to the Mojave Desert or American Samoa.”

  “Speaking of which, where are you going on your honeymoon?”

  “To Laila’s cabin. We can’t take time off right now. Seth has summertime crazy people to save, rescue or arrest, and Nathan wants me on call to drive into town for meetings at least once a week.”

  “So you are going to keep working for him?”

  “Under contract for special projects only. I can do most everything from home on my computer, except meet clients face-to-face. The money he’s offering is too good to pass up. Besides, I loved my job, and I want to keep my hand in.

  “Plus we have to clear out my town house to sell, and find some way to integrate Seth’s household goods with mine. Not that he has much. Clare took most of it. I still think it would’ve been easier just to cohabit, but Daddy would have keeled over in horror. He kept worrying that I’m pregnant. I’m not.”

  “Yet,” Andrea said. They both jumped when someone knocked on the vestry door.

  “Emma, Andrea, it’s time.” Laila stuck her head in. She wore a teal silk suit that contrasted beautifully with her white hair. “Oh, Emma, you look lovely! I’m so glad you decided to have a real wedding, even if it is the middle of July.”

  “And a reception in air-conditioned comfort in the parish hall,” Andrea added. “I’ve never believed in weddings and receptions out of doors. Too many miserable things can happen.”

  “Emma,” Laila said, “I brought you something. It’s a very old tradition. A sixpence to put in your shoe for good luck. Maybe if I’d used one, Everett and I would have made a better marriage. Oh, dear, I’m going to cry.”

  She patted Emma on the shoulder of her white silk gown. Andrea winked at Emma and slipped out into the narthex of the little church. She waited to walk down the aisle and take her place up front as Emma’s matron of honor. In the meantime she attempted to calm David French’s jitters before he walked down the aisle with his daughter.

  “I’m so glad you’re marrying Seth,” Laila said with a sniffle. “I knew it was the wrong bride the last time. I know it’s the right one this time.”

  Emma hugged her. “Thank you. Now, let’s do this thing.”

  Emma had nixed the twelve bridesmaids and dozen groomsmen, although Seth’s warden buddies would have enjoyed showing up in their dress uniforms. They came in civilian clothes as guests instead. Emma’s simple, classic white silk gown didn’t have a train or ruffles or a hoop, nor was her veil French lace. She’d never been a ruffles kind of woman.

  As the organ began playing the Purcell wedding music, Laila walked down the aisle on Patrick’s arm. He was already taller than his father.

  “We can still call this off,” David French whispered as Emma took his arm. “It’s not too late.”

  “It was too late the first time Seth opened his front door and found me on his doorstep.”

  “If you’re sure...”

  “Sure and unafraid. That’s a first for me.”

  The doors opened. Standing in a ray of sunlight by the altar was Earl, handsome in his gray morning suit, dwarfed by Seth, who stood beside him looking incredibly handsome. How could she ever have thought he wasn’t?

  Andrea walked to the front and took her place as matron of honor.

  After Andrea was seated, Emma held her father’s arm and went joyously to her beloved.

  She had a crazy thought as she took her first step. Could she and Seth possibly find where her babies were nesting? They’d adore the wedding cake.

  * * * * *

  Look for the next book in the

  WILLIAMSTON WILDLIFE RESCUE series,

  available from

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  Keep reading for an excerpt from BRINGING EMMA HOME by Stella MacLean.

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  Bringing Emma Home

  by Stella MacLean

  CHAPTER ONE

  GRACE FELLOWES REMEMBERED the exact moment her life changed forever. She’d been sitting in her high-school math class trying to work on a calculus problem when Aidan Fellowes slid into the desk next to her and smiled that smile of his that made her heart lift and turn over in her chest. She remembered feeling light-headed and dizzy, his smile fueling her breathlessness.

  She tried not to blush—not a cool thing to do. Yet every bone in her body, every part of her being was alive to him, to the way his eyes focused on her and the way her body warmed, despite the fact he hadn’t touched her.

  She remembered when their eyes met, when he took the pencil from her fingers and showed her how to solve the problem. She remembered the fall leaves raining down around them, offering a crackling melody under their feet as they crossed the school parking lot to his Jeep. As they reached his vehicle, he took her hand, and from that moment, there was no one else for her but him.

  Now, sitt
ing in their bedroom in a solitary wingback chair, with the beginning tendrils of early light slipping around the bedroom drapes, her love for her husband was even stronger than it had been eighteen years ago when they first met. Glancing across the room to where Aidan lay sprawled on the bed, her gaze followed the line of his cheek as he slept, the easy movement of his chest as he breathed deeply, and she considered climbing back into bed with him.

  Her fingers trembled as they traced the edge of her wedding band and diamond solitaire while the anxious ache brought on by the past held her in the chair, unable to go to him. They had been married for ten years and really focused on getting pregnant for nearly seven years, which meant that Aidan had left a lot of the out-of-town travel to visit clients to her brother, Lucas Barton. They were partners in a computer engineering firm they’d started when they’d both graduated from university.

  Yet despite the sacrifices, despite how hard she and Aidan had tried, how much testing they’d gone through, she had to face the fact that she would not give birth to a baby she could hold and love with all her heart.

  As their last failed chance to have a baby of their own crushed her dream of becoming pregnant, she finally decided to broach the topic of adopting a baby. Last night she’d cooked Aidan’s favorite meal—shrimp and grits—and made his favorite dessert, chocolate cake. She’d spent days preparing the meal and rehearsing what she’d say.

  She’d been so excited after dinner, unable to stop repeating the story of Cecilia and Dave, her friends, and their new baby boy, James Patrick Adair. When she mentioned that she’d put a call in to the same adoption lawyer their friends used, she’d waited for Aidan to respond, to say anything that gave her hope he might be willing to adopt. He hadn’t.

  Later, when they’d gone to bed, Aidan had turned away from her, leaving her disappointed and feeling completely alone. More than anything, she’d wanted him to hold her, to tell her that they would see the lawyer about an adoption as soon as his schedule allowed. She would have gladly accepted his need to put off that appointment for a bit because of his busy work life. She would even have accepted his asking to think about it awhile, plan for the changes adoption might mean. Anything to feel that there was still a chance for a baby to complete their life together.