Surviving Emma

by Jen Atkinson

  His head lobbed my way, as if I were a pesky fly, just there to bother him. “Ain’t that a shocker. Nobody wants to hire the girl with no school’n and no skills.” He turned back to the television set, watching the man with his broad bare chest and his bright pink pants smile for the crowd.

  “Well, ain’t this a shocker—without a job, there ain’t no money. Without money, there ain’t no beer. That’s the last of the cold ones,” I said, pointing to the bottle in his hands. “Don’t you dare think I’ll buy you booze before Dakota gets to eat.”

  He set his bottle onto the TV tray in front of him and then turned his glare on me. “As long as you live in this house you’ll buy what I tell you to buy.”

  Chapter 6

  Emma

  I walked past the bottles at Superfoods, the purple and silver labels around the beer jugs stood out amongst the plainer brands. Taggart always did like the crappiest stuff out there. I’d tried Natural 30 the night I got pregnant with Dakota. A weird fact to remember, but I hadn’t even been drunk and I ralphed up my two swallows of the nasty junk. I wish I could say I had been a little tipsy when I let Keith Zaleski into my pants, but plain old dumb can’t be disguised as drunk. I thought I knew the meaning of love for about two seconds. I’m pretty sure Keith brought the alcohol hoping it would lower my inhibitions, but sadly, I didn’t need it.

  I kept walking, ignoring the ridiculous bottles. I told him I wouldn’t buy any. I didn’t care that he’d threatened a million things. Besides, I knew I’d get a bill from Twila’s. It’s not like he’d be totally deprived. I tossed in a bag of corn chips and ignored the Taggart like voices coming from the bottles, telling me Tag would make life unbearable if I didn’t put them in my cart. Stupid bottles. I’d buy them just to smash every one of ‘em, if I could afford the bill. My knuckles went tight around the shopping cart handle. I focused on the cheese dip at the end of the aisle and shoved my cart onward until it collided into another cart with a loud crunch!

  “Oh, excuse—you. Again?” Deputy Idiot’s cart pressed up against mine.

  I clung to my cart, my knuckles turning a stark white. “Was that supposed to be an apology?”

  He leaned over, his elbows on the handle of his cart, and his brows furrowed.“I’m sorry you ran into me? You realize that, right? You want me to apologize for your actions?”

  “Did you want to give me a ticket?” I stood tall. He wouldn’t look down on me. “Do I need to find my shopping cart license?”

  “You are an angry thing, aren’t you?” He retreated back into the aisle he’d come from, making his peanut butter and jelly jar combo roll to the back of the cart.

  “And you must be seven-years-old—too difficult to open up two bottles? You need that one jar combo, huh?”

  Carter walked around his shopping cart where he stood at the front, hiding the Goobers PB & J, as well as the microwavable popcorn sitting in his metal basket. “Laugh it up. Make fun of me all you want. Just don’t go around hurting other people.” He lowered his voice, his eyes narrowing as he pierced me with his gaze.

  “What does that mean?” I forced out a chuckle, not following the alley this conversation had turned down. “Did that bump loosen some marbles, Deputy?”

  “You know what you’ve done. I’m just saying, this is a small town, Emma Sunday. If I found out, others will too. She will.”

  My head hurt—this moronic day and this moronic man. He made me feel as if someone had stabbed a pencil through my eye. Stupid, clueless Deputy. “She?” I said with the same accusing tone that he’d used. I touched a hand to my head, making sure a pencil wasn’t actually there poking out of my eyeball and giving me this migraine. Nope. Just the idiot in front of me.

  He glowered, his eyes—blue or maybe gray—giving me the look of death. “Either you’re evil enough that you don’t know whom I mean or you’re more redneck than I thought.”

  I stepped out from behind my cart—I had no reason to hide behind it. I hadn’t done a darn thing and this idiot wouldn’t scare me. “Redneck and stupid are not the same, Carter. But I wouldn’t expect you to know that. I am neither.” I set my hands on my hips. “But I may be a little bit evil. So, I’d watch out if I were you.” I turned to leave, but his exasperated scoff stopped me.

  “You really don’t know what I mean?” His cheeks had gone red. He ran a hand down the length of his face and took one step toward me, away from his cart. “Shirley Bear is a kind woman. Who are you to wreck her home?”

  He really had me confused now. I might be the only reason Shirley Bear and her three daughters had just about everything they ever wanted. Shirley should have loved me. “You have gone crazy.” I circled back to my cart front, ignoring the eyes of customers in ear shot around us. “Scratch that—I don’t think you ever were sane. You’re as good at making sense as you are at driving in the snow.”

  “You can make your little snippy remarks all you want, we both know what you’ve done.”

  Then like a bat to the brain it hit me all at once, what this idiot thought I’d done. All those drive-by’s he’d made, calling me a home-wrecker, and defending Shirley like an innocent lamb. He didn’t know Shirley that well, did he?

  People were gawking now, stopping and staring. Did they understand what he accused me of? My hands wrung around the cart handle, the blood draining from my face. “You!” I yelled. “You are such an idiot!” I pulled back my shopping cart, only to ram it as hard as I could into the side of Carters. This piece of work had cost me my job, and now he threatened what remained of my reputation.

  “Ho, ho.” Steve Higgens waved his hands at us. He’d owned our little Superfoods for the past dozen years and prided himself on the cleanliness and quiet of the store. Here I stood, causing a scene. “Emma. Emma,” he said—not an actual sentence escaping his mouth. His bald head had gone red and he wiped the sweat pooling there. “Let’s—we don’t—I think you—” His eyes zeroed in on me.

  I pointed at Deputy Idiot. “Me? What about him? He ran into me first! He’s the one in here assuming the worst about people and spreading rumors.”

  “He’s our deputy,” Steve said, glancing back at Carter.

  Aiden Carter had been in this town a whole four months and Steve was going to trust him over me—I’d lived in Dubois my entire life. “Oh, he’s the deputy?” I said, my volume rising. “So, that means he can’t possibly be a complete idiot, who can’t drive in the snow, and gets all his facts wrong?” I yanked my cart away from Carter’s and started in the opposite direction. Virgie would be in fits if I didn’t make it home with her Pepsi. “Let’s pray we never have a real doozy of a crime in Dubois or Deputy Idiot will start blaming whoever happens to be seated next to him!”

  Emma

  Two days later as Mr. Bear undressed in my bathroom, I tried to forget what Deputy Idiot had accused me of. I wouldn’t be telling Corbin a thing. I couldn’t afford for him to stop our standing Thursday appointments.

  I bit down on my thumbnail, not focused enough to get my space ready. I’d at least thrown my scrub top on, but I hadn’t bothered to dim the lights, find the instrumental playlist on my phone, or even bring out the eucalyptus oil. I paced in worry, wondering if Mr. Bear already heard Carter’s assumptions, when someone knocked at my door. Who on earth? The only person to ever knock at my door currently stood in my bathroom. Even Virgie wouldn’t have knocked—no—she would have called and then had me come to her.

  The knock sounded again and my feet moved of their own accord. I twisted the knob and opened to a scowling Aiden Carter, arms crossed over his chest, his shiny brown deputies coat bulging where his arms met his torso.

  “What are you doing here?” I tried to shut the door, but Carter’s foot wedged between the cabin’s front step and the wintery outdoors.

  “I’m here to...” he searched the ground, then looked up to meet my eyes. “You called me a liar.”

  “I called you an idiot.” Idiot. He was a liar, but I hadn’t called him one.
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  “Well, I’m here to prove you wrong and stop your misdemeanor.”

  I held tight to my front door, blocking his entrance. “I don’t think so.” Idiot.

  “Emma, did I leave my watch here last week, I forgot to—” Mr. Bear’s words broke off at my opened door.

  “Shut up, Corbin,” I hissed, calling the man by his given name for the first time in my life. I waved a hand at him, standing there in only a towel, signaling for him to hide. This didn’t look good.

  Carter pushed his way past me, the front door to my house banging closed behind him. He waved an I-told-you-so at the man in my living room. “Sure—naked Mr. Bear, but I’m the lying idiot.”

  “You are the lying idiot!”

  “Hey there, Deputy,” Mr. Bear smiled and leaned against my massage table.

  “Don’t say hello to him!” I barked, treading into the middle of the room, hands on my hips. “He’s trying to prove that we’re having an affair.”

  “An affair?” Mr. Bear’s beer belly started to shake and he held to the hairy front of his chest while a low giggle bubbled up through his lips. “Well, now, Aiden, you give me more credit than I deserve. An affair with a twenty-year-old girl.” He moaned with the thought, his laughing growing louder until tears leaked from his eyes and the noise fizzled out altogether.

  “I am twenty-three, and you won’t be laughing if Shirley believes the absurd rumor he’s spreading.” Nope, he’d be in a world of pain and Dakota and I would be stuck eating mush for every meal.

  “Oh, Shirley knows better.” He popped a bare leg from the slit of his towel up onto the couch and wiped another tear from his eye. “Sorry for the confusion, son. My wife knows what happens here.”

  I stood a little taller, hands on the hips of my cut off shorts, and twirled until I faced Deputy Idiot. Brows raised, I watched him really take in the scene. It would have been more effective had I been prepared with my oil and music, though. Still, I wore my scrub top and Corbin stood next to my massage table.

  “So, you’re not having—”

  I shook my head, stopping the word from leaving his mouth.

  “You’re…”

  “I am a masseuse. You remember?” I gave a curt grin, widening my eyes.

  Carter shuffled back and forth in his boots. His mouth opened to form the “yeah”, but no sound left his mouth. His eyes fluttered as if he couldn’t quite look at me. “But then, why not just go to Jodi’s?”

  Corbin stood straight and chuckled again as if my getting fired was a joke to tell. “She can’t be—”

  “Because I can’t.” I glared at Mr. Bear. “That’s none of your business, Deputy. Last time I checked, I didn’t have to report my daily happenings to you.”

  The door Carter stood just in front of swung open and smacked him in the back. “Mom?” Dakota stepped into the house, her indigo eyes wide.

  “Kotes, what are you doing here?”

  “The police are here. Virgie said I better make sure you weren’t getting arrested.”

  I ground my teeth together. How sweet of Virgie to send over my six year old when she thinks I’m getting hauled away.

  Carter stared, eyes ogling, at Dakota. “You have a kid?”

  “Are you arresting my mother? It’s not illegal in Dubois to hold business services from your place of residence.”

  His eyebrows knit together at her words. “You’re a funny kid.”

  “She is not a funny kid.” I reached out for her hand and she gave me hers. “She is brilliant. But then that would be a confusing concept for you—Deputy.” Man, he made it difficult leaving off the Idiot title he so deserved.

  A grin spread across Dakota’s little face. “Ohhh, you’re Deputy Id—”

  I squeezed her little fingers in mine and pulled until she stumbled up against me, cutting off her words. He didn’t need to hold a grudge against Kotes, too. What would he do? Start driving by her school, wanting to know why she hadn’t gone home yet? “Yes, baby girl, this is Andy’s new deputy.” I brushed a long blonde wave from her face and looked into her eyes. My child. The only good thing I’d ever truly made. “Go back to Virgie’s. Mr. Bear hasn’t had his massage yet. Let her know the deputy just stopped by… as a courtesy call.”

  “Yes, Mama.” She took her hand from mine and disappeared behind the door. “So long, Mr. Bear. Bye, Deputy.”

  A breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding fell from my chest. “If you’re done making incorrect assumptions and scaring my child, will you go?”

  “I can’t believe you have a kid,” he said. But he reached for the door handle, so I let the fire in my gut fade to embers until he’d left my house.

  “Dang it, Corbin. Lay down!”

  Chapter 7

  Carter

  I adjusted the five-point star on my coat, leaving Emma Sunday’s home, too baffled by the fact that she had a child to feel embarrassed for my very wrong assumption. She was a cute kid, too. And bright. Who used the term place of residence at five—er four—six maybe?

  “Excuse me?”

  A small voice brought me out of my trance. The world around me came back into focus. I didn’t normally do that—I served the people. I stayed alert. But Emma Sunday—a mother—that more than freaked me out.

  I peered down, the girl stared up at me, blinking in the sun. What had Emma called her? Coats? Poor kid. Lame name—but then, her mother had a few screws loose. “Hi, there.”

  “You really should be nicer to her.”

  “Who?”

  “Emma, of course. She works real hard.”

  “Does she?” I’d never seen her work—just yell at people and wander around Dubois.

  “She does. And half the time she doesn’t get paid because lots of the work is just searching ever since you came along.” Her blonde hair flew back, waving in the wind like a flag. She shoved her little hands into her pockets.

  I pressed an open hand to my torso. “Me? How’s that?” Searching for what? Despite the fact that this little girl belonged to Emma Sunday, I couldn’t help but like her.

  “Well, you got her fired, of course.” She pulled a hand from her pocket and waved it at the cabin behind me. “Now, Mr. Bear gets his rub down here.” She sighed as if this were a big inconvenience to her.

  “Fired?” My arms dropped to my sides. Searching… for a job. A heavy pang of guilt swam over me. I may not like Emma, but my mother at least made sure I had a conscience.

  “Well, I’ve got to go. El Corazón de la Casa is about to start and Virgie needs me to tell her what they’re saying.”

  “Heart of the home? What’s that?”

  “You know Spanish?” She smiled and her little face seemed to glow.

  For the millionth time I wondered how Tess couldn’t want children. We were great together in every way—except that one little disagreement. “Um, yeah. Well, un poco.” I held up my fingers, signing with the inch I showed her—just a little.

  Her head tilted to the side and Emma seeped through the little girls eyes—yep, this was her child—and then she smiled again and all of Emma disappeared. “Maybe you aren’t an idiot.” She waved. “See ya, Deputy. Come visit again!” She ran, leaving tracks in the snow to the neighbor’s house just yards away.

  Before she could totally disappear though, I held a hand out. “Hey, um, Coats?”

  “It’s Dakota. My mom named me after the place where my great-grandma grew up. It’s a piece of her I take with me. She’s dead now, so it’s special.”

  I stare, forgetting what I’d meant to say. “Dakota.”

  She nodded. “See you!” Then she opened the wooden door in front of her and bellowed, “Estoy aquí!” before her blonde bobbing head disappeared into the house.

  Dakota. Why did the kid make my chest all warm? I felt sorry for her—growing up with that for a mother. I started for my car but looked back at the house Dakota had run into. How could Tess never want that running around? Wasn’t the man supposed to resist children? Why
hadn’t she ever caught baby fever? Mom told me she’d get it one day. I waited two years for her to get it—certain that her thirtieth birthday would kick her biological clock into ticking. In the end neither of us changed our minds, at least about kids.

  Tess had a business mind, though. I’d been a poor officer back in Cedar Key. Poor, but saving every penny. Still, maybe her internal family fever couldn’t kick in thinking we wouldn’t be able to support a family. One day I’d tell her—I had twenty-four K in the bank, for her, for us, for a family. Dubois may be small and definitely wanting, but the deputy job increased my pay a bunch. My rent wasn’t much. I saved all I could, and my savings had grown immensely in the last few months. Soon, we’d have the perfect nest egg. When the time was right, I’d tell her.

  Carter

  “Hey, Andy,” I said, finishing up my paperwork for the day. “What’s the deal with Emma Sunday?”

  “What do you mean?” Andy scribbled on his own sheet of paper, but I knew it wasn’t official Sheriff’s business. He’d been working on song lyrics all afternoon. I’d never heard the man sing, but I couldn’t imagine anything beautiful coming out of those two-hundred-fifty pounds and that mousy mug of his.

  “Emma has a kid?”

  “Sure does.”

  “And?”

  “And what?” Andy looked up from his notes. “Do you want the birds and the bees talk, son?” He laughed and a button on his shirt front popped open. Andy didn’t notice. He put his pen back to his paper but said, “Emma was the smartest girl in school.”

  I couldn’t help the snort that escaped me. Dubois high school educated fifty-three students—that’s not a lot of competition.

  “She may not seem all that bright,” he said, reading my scoff incorrectly. Still, I couldn’t imagine Emma as anything but angry. “But she had a great mind. So did Keith. That’s where Dakota gets it.”