Surviving Emma

by Jen Atkinson

  Surviving Emma

  Copyright © 2020 by Jen Atkinson

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Printed in the USA.

  First Paperback Edition: 2020

  Cover Design: Steven Novak

  Editors: Heidi Shuler, Samantha Conover

  ISBN-9798614387600

  1. Romance—Fiction2. Contemporary Romance—Fiction3. Clean Romance—Fiction4. Wyoming (State)—Fiction

  For Jeff

  Because you always know when to make dinner.

  XOXOXO

  Surviving Emma

  Jen Atkinson

  Contents

  1. Chapter 1

  2. Chapter 2

  3. Chapter 3

  4. Chapter 4

  5. Chapter 5

  6. Chapter 6

  7. Chapter 7

  8. Chapter 8

  9. Chapter 9

  10. Chapter 10

  11. Chapter 11

  12. Chapter 12

  13. Chapter 13

  14. Chapter 14

  15. Chapter 15

  16. Chapter 16

  17. Chapter 17

  18. Chapter 18

  19. Chapter 19

  20. Chapter 20

  21. Chapter 21

  22. Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Jen Atkinson

  Chapter 1

  Emma

  Red and blue lights whirled behind me.

  “You’re kidding. You have got to be kidding me. Son of a—” I slammed my hands against the steering wheel of the car and drove another half a block before pulling over. Ice scraped from my ’98 Volkswagen pane as the glass chugged out of sight.

  “Can I see your license and registration, miss?” The collar on the deputy’s tan Carhartt coat framed his rosy cheeks.

  “No. You cannot see my license. You can tell me why, for the love of all that is holy, you would stop me?”

  He scoffed and crossed his arms. “You didn’t stop—”

  “In this?” I threw my arms out to indicate the below zero weather and hills of snow and ice.

  His gloved hand rested on my window seal as he bent to peer in at me. He pulled off his sunglasses, his long lashes framing his blue eyes. “Well miss, you—”

  “I am gonna be late now. And you, well you’ll be lucky if you can get yourself out of that mess.” I motioned to the heap of snow the police car sat in. “Didn’t anyone tell you? You’re in Wyoming. Learn how to drive.”

  He pulled back, but his eyes narrowed in on me. “Stay,” he said, his voice low and gruff.

  I lay my head back, smashing my brown bun into the headrest. I checked the clock. I still had to go home and change. At least I’d gotten Dakota off to school. Still, this moron had the gall to ruin my morning—guess he didn’t realize that job was already taken. Why did Andy always have to hire idiots? The minute I saw that sheriff I would be telling him.

  He trudged through the snow hills back to my car and handed me a slip of paper. The name space had been left blank, but my license plate number, along with car make and model were scribbled into their spaces. He wanted to charge me a fifty dollar fee for running a stop sign.

  Laughing, I held the ticket out the window to him. “I’m not taking this.”

  “Yes, you are. And you’re lucky I don’t give you a ticket for harassing an officer.” He crossed his arms. “Now, can I see your license?”

  All of my nose hairs had frozen and my knees knocked together. I wished I’d worn long pants. I sniffed and gripped both of my hands onto the steering wheel, the stupid ticket burning a prideful hole in my right fist. I’d show him—it’d be worth being late. “No, but you can meet me at the Sheriff’s station.” A devilish grin overcame me as I peered back at his vehicle. “At least you can try to.”

  The snow beneath my tires crackled with my car’s movement. Deputy Idiot stumbled backwards with my movement and I waved as I pulled away.

  It would be worth Jodi’s wrath to tell Andy what a grand job he’d done in his hiring—again. With my stride long and irritable, I walked into the station, looking for Dubois’s long standing Sheriff. “Andy!”

  His salt and pepper head popped out of the office filing room. “Emma?”

  “Andy, your deputy is an idiot!”

  Emma

  My long, bare legs stretch out, resting my snow boots on Deputy Idiot’s desk. I glanced at the clock—yep, I was sure to be late. I still had to go home and change. But seeing that man’s face would be priceless.

  “What’s tak’n him so long?” Andy studied the clock too.

  “I told you, I left him stuck in the snow.”

  Andy shook his head. “How Christian of you, Emma Sunday.” But he didn’t run out to save Deputy Idiot, either.

  This town had a church for every finger—every finger on one hand, anyway, and Andy’s wife had tried them all—dragging his big behind along with her. But he never joined any of them. He’d converted to raspberry filled jelly donuts—and seeing how he had a brand new box on his desk, he was only Christian enough to pay his mind to the white powder and artificially flavored goo.

  The clock ticked on and I drummed my fingers on the desk. “Where did you find this guy, anyhow?”

  Andy stepped out of the office, red jelly on his cheek, his hands on his oversized hips. “Emma, don’t you have somewhere to be? You’re still working for a living, right? Last time I checked Taggart didn’t have a job, just an expensive habit.”

  I stiffened at the mention of my dad. My feet in their clunky snow boots stomped to the ground. I must have really ticked Andy off for him to bring up my father. Breathing in, I tried not to let him see that it bothered me. I willed my face to return to its normal shade of pink. I lifted my legs back to Deputy Idiot’s desk and tapped my cheek with my finger. “You’ve got a little something.”

  Andy reached for the goo with his tongue.

  I cringed watching him and glimpsed back to the clock. Jodi would cream me if I were much later.“Didn’t you teach Deputy Idiot how to drive in the snow? Seriously, where’s he from?”

  “Florida.” The answer came, but Andy didn’t give it. Deputy Idiot held the door open, his uniform blotched with water stains. He tromped in, wet up past his knee caps, his chestnut brown hair disheveled and his cheeks a bright cold red. “I’m from Florida.” He trudged to his desk, glaring at me.

  I covered my mouth, trying not to laugh—not yet.

  “And it’s Deputy Carter.”

  I picked up the wrinkled ticket from his desk and waved it at him. It had ripped on the lower side and I slapped the thing into his palm, causing more damage to the offensive piece of paper. “Here you go, Deputy Carter. You really shouldn’t litter.”

  His wet coat appeared to be weighing him down, but he didn’t take it off. He unzipped it and pulled a pen from his inner pocket. Carter shivered, his
red, stiff hands ready to take down my information. “Name? Or you could just turn in your license.”

  “Carter,” Andy pulled at his belt, raising his drooping pants. “We ain’t gonna give her a ticket, son.”

  “She ran a stop sign.” Carter pointed at me with his pen, still waiting for me to volunteer my information. “Not to mention disrespected an officer of the law.”

  “It’s just not worth the paperwork.” Andy put a hand on his shoulder—consoling Carter with the bad news. “Besides, had she stopped, you would have been digging her out.”

  I threw my head back and laughed. I couldn’t hold it in any longer. My loose bun fell from its one-bobby-pin hold and my long, unwashed, brown hair trickled over my shoulders.

  My legs had warmed during my rest at the station. I stood—bragging with my body that I could move without the cold rigidity that limited Carter’s movements—and shoved my hands into the small sheaths of my cutoff jean pockets. “I’m late, Andy. Teach Florida a thing or two about Wyoming before you let him outside again.”

  “Emma, that’s not—”

  “Me?” Carter scoffed. “You’re the one wearing daisy dukes and no coat in the middle of winter.” Carter shrugged off Andy’s arm and followed after me. “And I’m the one who needs a lesson?”

  My heels dug into the ground as I spun around to face him and zeroed in on his stupid face. “Yes, you are. I’m not the one who parked in a snow drift and is wet to my skivvies.” I whipped around, making sure the long strings of my fallen hair would fling in his face. “Three months, Andy! I give him three months.”

  Chapter 2

  Carter

  I’d already been here three months—and if it weren’t for certain circumstances back home, there’s a very good chance I would have already left. How had I gone three months in Dubois without running into… that? She was horrible.

  “What’s her name, Andy?”

  He scrunched his face. “Eh, does it matter? We aren’t writing that ticket.”

  “You know if our system weren’t always down, I’d just be able to look her up, right?”

  “I know. I know.” Andy shuffled his feet over to the standing coffee pot and poured himself a Styrofoam cup of what was sure to be the hottest coffee known to man. Andy didn’t like it hot, he liked it scalding. “But it is down and that means doing all the work by hand and—”

  “And what? Isn’t that our job?” What else did we have to do in this tiny town where nothing happened? When I interviewed for this job, attempting to get away from things back home, they’d told me—Dubois is the most remote place in the United States. I’d actually found that appealing. However, with three months of seclusion, no gym, no Starbucks, and a population just under a thousand people, I could have gone mad.

  “But you’ll be writing a lot of tickets if you write everyone up who doesn’t come to a full stop in this deep snow. You can write tickets and dig em’ out. Or you can understand that slowing down at a stop sign is enough sometimes.”

  I sighed. Maybe I didn’t have a lot of experience driving in the snow, but the law deserved some respect. I straightened out the crumpled ticket and set it on the corner of my desk.

  I wasn’t through with it.

  Emma

  “Tag, will you be here when Dakota gets home?” Bending over, my size four skinny jeans cut into my gut, but I couldn’t afford a new pair. I ignored the pinch and stuffed my scrub top into my oversized purple purse.

  His head swayed over the TV tray, his eyes on the nineteen inch television set while his spoon, filled with frosty flakes, hung in the air, milk dripping back into the bowl.

  “Tag!” I yelled, waving my hand in front of his face.

  His spoon fell from his hand, splashing into the bowl, sending milk spatters onto his face and shirt. “What!” Like a horror film, he swiveled his head away from the TV to fix his stare on me, his eyes still bloodshot from the night before.

  “Da-ko-ta. You know, the little blonde that calls you Grandpa? Will you be here when she gets home?” I placed my hands on my hips, looking down at him like I would a misbehaving child.

  “That depends—”

  I groaned, closing my eyes and trying to muster some patience. But why not treat him like a misbehaving child?—that’s how he acted. “When I took this job, you told me that you could be home when Dakota got out of school. Remember?”

  He didn’t answer but picked his spoon back up. “What time?”

  “Ugh.” I threw my purse handle over my shoulder and checked the clock. Between Taggart the drunk and Deputy Idiot, I was going to get reamed by Jodi. “Four-thirty. The bus will bring her by at four-thirty.”

  “Four-thirty? That’s when I head to Twila’s.”

  “Tag! Someone has to be here, she’s six years old. She can’t be here by herself. I’m working. You like to eat, right? You’ll have to wait until five to go to Twila’s.” I spat the words, wishing each syllable could cut him like a knife. I pulled in a breath. The book on CD from the library said, count to ten, breathe—don’t kill your overgrown, selfish, waste of space father!

  “Why is a six-year-old at school for so long?” His red face wrinkled and milk droplets clung to his week long set of whiskers.

  “The after school program—remember? So she’ll be ready for second grade.”

  “She skipped kindergarten, now you’re trying to skip the rest of first. Why can’t you leave well-enough alone? You were always—”

  “Even if she got home at three, someone would have to be here with her until five, Tag.” I blew out an impatient breath and stomped towards the front door. “That someone is you.”

  “Oh, I see,” he said, his eyes back on the screen. Bright lights flashed off his face from the day-time talk show he watched. “You want to get her graduated before she gets knocked up.” He laughed like he’d given the old joke a new flair—as if he hadn’t said those exact words a thousand times before.

  “Just be here!” I slammed my fist on the living room wall, knocking off the bunny ears on the TV and making Taggart’s screen turn to fuzz.

  “Emma!” He screamed as I pulled the door shut.

  I ignored his rant—it wasn’t anything new. I hurried out to the old red beater I drove and headed for Do or Dye, Jodi’s salon. With bobby-pins between my lips, I pulled my hair back into its sloppy bun as I walked into the shop.

  “Forty-two minutes, Emma!” Jodi raked her brush through Mrs. Colson’s hair, yanking on the old gal’s head until it popped back in place like a slinky. “Mr. Bear has been in there forty-two minutes!”

  My feet tap-tapped on the tiled ground, keeping my pace steady. I held to the straps of my purple bag, passing Jodi and Mrs. Colson’s huge eyes. “I’m sorry, Jodi. I had car-weatherish trouble. Really, I did. Ask Andy.”

  “Well, you better make it right. Mr. Bear’s your best customer.”

  I reached for the back door leading to my therapy station and sighed.

  “I already told him it’d be half off today.”

  I dropped my bag and spun around to kill her with my glare. “Half off? Jodi, I barely scrape by after I pay you rent for the space.” Half off? Dang it, Jodi!

  “Hey,” she said, pointing at me, her pink and platinum curls piled in a stack on top of her head. “Forty-two! Now git!”

  I scrunched up my face, mimicking her gripes in a whiny sing song voice. Opening the door to the small dim room, I saw Mr. Bear lying on his back on my masseuse table, naked except for the white blanket he’d covered himself with. Gray and white wiry hairs curled out from his arms, legs, and chest. He hummed, his ankles crossed and his toes tapping to the music he made.

  I opened the locker at the back of the room and threw my coat inside. Next, I yanked my scrub top over my T-shirt and tossed my bag into the locker as well. “Half off. Doesn’t she know I’m raising a genius and taking care of a schmuck who both need to eat?”

  “Hard day, Ems?” Mr. Bear kept his eyes closed, his toes twitchi
ng to the tune he’d been humming.

  “Just a regular ol’ stupid day. Nothing to concern yourself with.” I shook out my hands, then cleared my throat, attempting to change my tone. “I am very sorry to have kept you waiting.” Warm water ran over my hands as I scrubbed each finger. Deep breath. Count to—half off! Argh! I pulled the biotone and eucalyptus oils from the cabinet above the sink and attempted another deep breath. “How was your day, Mr. Bear?” I said, keeping my tone as pleasant as possible. It was fake, but at least I wasn’t yelling at him.

  “Aw fine. No trouble in paradise today.”

  I rubbed biotone oil onto my hands and Mr. Bear flipped to his stomach, keeping the sheet in place over his bottom. I closed my eyes, picturing a beach where waves lulled girls to sleep and where men were never allowed to trod. I could find my zen. I puffed out a sigh and set my hands on the older man’s back. “That’s great, Mr. Bear. Glad to hear it.”

  “Emma,” he said, face down, “call me Corbin. You’ve seen me naked more than my own wife.”

  My eyes popped open, my pretty picture obliterated. “Oh, Mr. Bear, I sure hope that isn’t true.”

  Emma

  I had one other client and then my janitorial duties for the salon. Massage therapy wasn’t exactly a booming business for Dubois, population nine hundred ninety-eight, but I could either do that or tend bar—and I wouldn’t be the one to feed Taggart’s addiction.