“You following me?” I try not to sound too accusatory, but me not returning her phone calls should have been enough of a clue that I didn’t want to hear from her.
“Should I lie and say no?” Madison remains self-assured as she eyes me.
“What is it you want then? You obviously didn’t come all the way out here for nothing.”
“I came to check up on you.” She reaches out and toys with one of the buttons on my shirt.
“Doing fine.” I gently remove her hand from me. “Seriously, if there’s something that you need to hear from me that I haven’t already said about us, then let me know, because I’ve tried to be as honest as I can with you, Madison.”
“I’m not here for that,” she says. “I realize you think our relationship has expired, and while I’m prone to disagree, I thought you should know a little something about that girlfriend of yours.”
I let out an exasperated breath. “And what is that, Madison?”
“I’m not sure it’s my place to tell you everything, but let’s just say that Emma isn’t this innocent little thing I’m guessing she’s been portraying herself as.”
I close my eyes for a moment, knowing Madison is capable of being more mature than this, though she’s obviously choosing not to display that now. “Really, Madison? You came all the way down here to tell me Emma might have a past. Need I remind you I have one of those too?”
“Yes, but your past is a private one, John. Hers?—not so much.”
I cross my arms, angered at Madison but also somewhat curious about what exactly it is she thinks Emma is hiding. “The past is exactly that… the past. And I’m still going to love her no matter what bombshell you think you’re going to drop.”
“I don’t know,” she says like she’s hitting a nerve. “This happened to you once before, getting all tied up with the wrong girl. I helped sweep up that mess, didn’t I?”
“Sure, Madison. You barreled into my life and set me on the straight and narrow. I wouldn’t be surprised if my parents paid you to do it.”
A smile creeps across her face that makes me wonder if I’m right about that last bit.
“Nope, the only payment I required was helping mold you into the best man you could be. And you’re dangerously close to throwing all of that away,” she says, looking at me like I’m some wayward disciple.
“You should have been in public relations when you were fifteen, Madison. Really, I think I was your first project.”
“I have a special touch,” she says with that same smile, not appearing to take offense. “And as long as you don’t wait forever, I’ll pick those pieces up again when you need me.”
“I won’t.”
“You’re going to when Emma’s secrets come out. I’m just offering you a fair warning.”
“Take care, Madison,” I say, hoisting my messenger bag over my shoulder, hoping she doesn’t see the slight, though very real concern she’s managed to put on my face.
She doesn’t say a word as I walk away.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
EMMA
Time passes like the blink of an eye. It’s now two weeks since the conversation with my dad, and he’s managed to keep his word. We’ve been texting back and forth every few days, and we’ve met one other time for a dinner that wasn’t interrupted or cancelled due to some emergency.
I hadn’t pushed the issue of seeing Morgan and Chad. I figured there would be time for that eventually. For now, Dad and I were just working on rebuilding what we’d lost, and being more open in discussing the past.
“I do feel guilt about not being a better dad, that you turned to your teacher instead of to me or Mom,” he’d said during one really good conversation. “I think maybe that’s why I’ve been so damn distant with you. I can’t really look at you without having to face that I’d screwed up. Bottom line is I didn’t deal with things as well as I could have.”
“But now you are,” I’d said. “You’re here now, and that’s all that counts.”
John had been supportive of this renewed relationship with my father, and he was still excited at the prospect of meeting him. But before he could do that, before he could get any deeper into his relationship with me, I wanted to be as truthful as I could with him.
“I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages,” John says, picking me up downtown after a shift at Patrice’s.
Fall is upon us, but the evening is still warm enough for me to take off the black sweater I’d been wearing inside.
“I just saw you yesterday morning, silly.” I give him a long, luscious kiss that is only interrupted by the car horn of someone who wants him to move out of the loading zone he’s parked in.
“A day is like an eternity,” he says, taking a brief moment to enjoy the after effects of our kiss before he politely waves at the truck behind us and pulls out into traffic. “Seriously, when you spend the night at your Mom’s, I go into major withdrawals.”
“I do too,” I admit. “But Mom and I got some more things packed up for Goodwill. She’s really been hammering away at the hoard, and I finally dusted off my sewing machine.”
“That’s great! You can bring it along when we get our own place.” He sends an animated smile my way.
“So, Stephen is really selling the house?” I ask, loving the idea he’s proposed of a place for just he and I but also worried we’re moving too fast.
“He seems pretty serious about it. Denny is trying to talk him into waiting ‘til spring. But that doesn’t mean we can’t get a jump on him.” He looks at me with wide, expectant eyes, like he’s waiting for me to give him a firm yes.
“I’d like to, John, but with school and everything, I’m just not sure about splitting the rent.”
“I told you I’d cover it,” he assures me, like I’d be crazy to think otherwise. “And it would just be something small and simple. I don’t think we need a lot of space.”
All I can do is smile at him and hope he’ll move on to a different topic. “Where are you taking me exactly?” I ask as he heads north through downtown.
“I said it was a surprise when I called you about it this morning, and it will continue to be a surprise until we get there.”
“So secretive.” I grip his thigh, glad that I won’t have to spend the night at Mom’s again. I’d missed him so much.
When he takes the exit into Magnolia, a road sign points toward Discovery Park. I don’t ask for clarity but just sort of revel in the idea of that being our destination, one of my favorite places made better when the man I love is there with me. The sweet smile on his face, a face that is brightened by the rays of the setting sun, tells me he probably knows I know just where we’re going.
“Here we are,” he says, parking in the lot closest to the meadow we’d spent that August afternoon on, side by side, looking up at the clouds. When we get out, he pops the back of the SUV and produces a wicker basket with a blanket, two glasses and some sparkling cider. “Discovery Park at sunset.”
“I love your for this.” I latch onto his arm as we walk through some trees and up a pathway, eventually diverting onto some grass so we can get close to an old chapel built during World War II. It’s one of the buildings Paige and I used to play around, agreeing that it was one of the most important buildings in our kingdom.
“I love you more,” he says, kissing me on my cheek before we cross the road by the chapel and enter into the vast meadow.
When we sit on the blanket he laid out for us, and he pops open the cider, I’m grateful for what I anticipate to be a magical evening. But I also consider that I don’t need sunsets or picnics or weekend getaways to the Oregon Coast—all I really need is John.
“I wish you’d do one of those cartwheels for me you said you used to do here.”
“I’d have to not be in heels for that.” I laugh, imagining I probably shouldn’t be wearing a dress either if I didn’t want to show my panties off to everyone on the meadow. “But one of these days when I’m more prepared,
I’ll be happy to impress you with my cartwheeling abilities.”
“Is that a promise?” He wraps his arms around me and gives me a quick tickle to my sides.
“It is if you promise to stop tickling me!” I shout between my tickle-induced laughter.
“But the tickle monster must be fed,” he says, going for me again.
“Let him be fed later!” I reply, jumping up to my feet and looking down at him with a very stern expression, one that is of course completely put on because I adore him embracing his inner child.
“Just stay there.” He looks up at me with the sweetest smile I think I’ve ever seen on him.
“I will… to avoid being tickled to death.”
It looks like John is about to get up, but he pauses, pulling a small box out of his pocket and getting on one knee.
Throwing my hand to my mouth is the only thing I can think of doing. My heart rate speeds up and I get this strange, butterfly-like feeling in my belly because I know exactly what he’s about to do.
“Emma Chambers,” he says, looking at me adoringly with those blue-gray eyes of his. “I know it’s only been a couple of months that you and I have been together, but they have been months filled with some of the best moments of my life.” He stops, swallowing back some emotion and opening the small box that I know won’t be earrings or a necklace but is instead a beautifully simple diamond ring.
“John…” I say, my hand sliding down my chin, feeling as though I need to stop him, need to tell him it’s too soon, but I can’t.
“Emma… I love you as much today as I loved you yesterday, as much I know I’ll love you tomorrow and every day after that…” He takes a breath. “Man, I wasn’t sure I was going to get that part out.”
I laugh at how adorable he is, just as I fight back the emotion that’s coming to the surface.
“But what I mean… what really matters is that I love you and I want you to be my wife. Please, Emma, will you do the honor of marrying me and making me even happier than I am now?”
I want to nod, to say yes to his expectant expression, to cry it out at the top of my lungs and let him slip that beautiful ring on my finger. But I can’t.
“John… I need to…” It’s as if it’s all too much for me, and I turn away from him, embarrassed that I can’t offer him the answer he deserves.
JOHN
I hadn’t anticipated a refusal. I’d imagined Emma throwing her arms around me, after which I’d pick her up and twirl her around and kiss her like I’d never kissed her before. But as I’m still on one knee, just having asked her to marry me in a way I’d not wanted to be too little or too much, she’s turned away from me with her arms crossed over her chest.
When I stand, I notice some people that had been watching us, maybe seeing me get down on one knee, awaiting a romantic scene, a young couple in love and at the beginning of their life together. But now they quickly turn away, disappointed and embarrassed for what has to look like a rejection. I consider getting out of here, just walking away and leaving her. How can I get back into my SUV and have to be that close to her when she’s busted my heart open by turning me down? My only protection from a black emptiness is the sudden numbness that is coming over me, the thing that won’t let me think too much into the future and imagine what it will be like to wake up without her tomorrow or next week or next year.
“Is it just too soon?” I ask after I finally decide to stand up, allowing a small amount of hope to creep back into me that perhaps she is only rejecting the time frame and not me.
“No, it’s not that,” she says.
“Then what is it?” I persist, anger pushing back against the numbness.
She turns to me and throws her hands around my neck, which is almost as unexpected as her obvious declining of my proposal.
“I want to say yes to you,” she whispers, “but I have to be honest with you first.”
I’m optimistic at her choice of words. “Then just say yes. I don’t care what you did in your past, Emma. All I care about is now.”
She pulls away just as I’m ready to embrace her, shaking her head. “No, it’s not that simple. I have to tell you this, John. I’ve wanted to for a while, but I was afraid…”
“That I’d judge you?” I can’t deny that assumption is hurtful. I’ve done everything in my power to let her know I’d never do that.
“John, you’re a wonderful man, and I don’t think you’d judge me or want to love me less, but maybe deep down you’d be disturbed by what I have to say.”
“Okay, fine then… try me. Tell me what awful things you’ve done, Emma. I doubt that they’re any worse than anything that I have.”
She nods her head and takes a deep breath. “Can we sit down?”
“Yeah, of course.” We’re both back on the blanket, facing out toward the long slope of the meadow and the trees that are congregated near the water below.
“When I was sixteen,” she begins with resolution, “my mother was drinking a lot, and my dad was busy with his new wife and trying to start their own family, and he just didn’t have a lot of time for me. I really hated it… I mean, I had friends, some really good ones actually, but it didn’t feel like any of them could understand how I felt, and maybe I just didn’t want to burden them with it.”
I risk putting my hand on her shoulder, scooting closer and then wrapping my arm around her back. She doesn’t push me away and offers a slight smile.
“Anyway, I was just starting the tenth grade, and we had this teacher, Mr. Thatcher, who was so funny and seemed to get us, you know, like he understood people our age?”
“Sure,” I say. “I’ve had a few like that.”
“Well, we didn’t… not at our high school. He was like a diamond in the rough. The boys all liked him, and I think all the girls had crushes on him.”
I have an inkling of where this story might be leading, but I’m not sure I want to go there in my mind quite yet.
“I’d fallen behind with some assignments,” she says, her voice suddenly quieter, “and I’d talked to him about it, and he offered to help, offered to listen to anything that was upsetting me.” She looks over at me quickly like she’s trying to gauge my response and bites her lip. “And, umm… well, you can imagine where it went, can’t you?”
“I think so,” I say, wondering if my brain is taking it too far or if it’s much more innocent than what I imagine she’s alluding to.
“I slept with him,” she whispers, looking down toward the place where the hem of her dress nearly meets her knees.
“Okay,” I say, still holding my arm around her but getting that numb feeling inside again. “That’s illegal… on his part, right?”
With her hands folded perfectly in her lap, she says, “Yes, it was. I mean, I was sixteen, which is actually the age of consent, but he was much older… and my teacher… so, he went to jail.”
“Good,” I say. “He deserves it.”
“Well, he’s about to get out.”
“Hmm… yeah, well that sucks, and I’m sorry it happened to you.” I’m more surprised than maybe I should be, not sure how you respond to something like that. When I think of girls having sex with their teachers, I’m not sure what I imagine. Certainly she was a victim. He should have known better.
“It didn’t just happen to me,” she says, her voice stronger now. “I participated. I… well, I loved him, or I thought I did. But he did something without my knowledge—he recorded us.” She pauses. “He recorded us together, and I couldn’t forgive him for that.”
Oh man.
This is a lot.
“So, you loved a guy,” I say, working it out in my own mind as I’m talking. “And he hurt you, did something he didn’t deserve to be forgiven for. Whether he was your teacher or a classmate or whoever, it was still just a guy, Emma, and I can’t judge you for that. You don’t still love him, do you?”
She looks up at me, hopeful, and I love that I’ve been able to inspire that trust in her.
“There is still a connection,” she confesses, and my heart dips a level or two, “but it’s not what you think, John. I couldn’t process it when I was sixteen, but I’m doing that now, or at least I’m trying to.”
“But there isn’t a chance you’d go back with him, is there?” I know I have to ask the question and am slightly frightened at what the response could be.
“God, no,” she says. “I love you, John, so very much. But I had to tell you this—you had to know. And I hope we can work through this together because it hurts even to imagine that you wouldn’t still want to be with me.”
“Oh, I do,” I say, finally releasing a breath I’d been holding in and drawing her body close to mine. “And if you feel better now, I’ve still got this ring that would look a lot nicer on your finger than pressed up into my sweaty hand.”
Emma starts to cry, but I sense they are tears of joy. “I will marry you, John Mercer. Gladly.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
EMMA
I was like one of those girls I used to hate, the ones who can’t shut up about being engaged, the girls you want to punch in the face because they’re so happy and you’re just not. But I was at least aware of my behavior, which meant that I’d only been annoying for a day and mostly just in the presence of Burk.
“Oh, I just knew it!” he’d said when I walked into work the next day wearing the ring John gave me. “And it’s princess cut! Just as I’d imagined it would be.”
In the week following that, I’d attempted to be more demure and dignified about being nineteen and engaged to a gorgeous guy who was going to be a lawyer someday.
“I’m truly and deeply jealous,” Jennifer says once we’re finally able to meet up for coffee after a very busy school week. “It almost makes me want to fly my ass down to Sacramento and demand Langston get down on one knee too!”
Broken by Love (The Basin Lake Series Book 2) Page 17
