Surviving Emma

by Jen Atkinson

  “Sit?”

  “And talk.” Talk? I had lost my mind. Not one topic of discussion came into my head. Maybe if I kissed him, we wouldn’t have to talk.

  “Okay.” His brow furrowed as if he suspected me of something. Still, he sat at the table and waited for me to join him. But I stood right in front of him, my straight-shot view just over his head.

  My eyes darted from his gaze to his mouth. I didn’t even know how to go about this. Every time I’d kissed him before I hadn’t thought one wink about it—it had just sort of happened. And now, here I stood, only thinking about kissing him. Sure, mostly so I wouldn’t have to speak to him, but still. But my brain couldn’t figure out how to do it.

  “Are you—” he started, but I threw myself at him and planted a hard kiss on his mouth, colliding our noses and shutting him up. “Ouch,” he murmurred beneath my mouth.

  I backed up, a tremor running through my body and my face heating up as if my kitchen were a scorching sauna. My own nose ached and the forced pressure of his mouth on mine left a strange uninvited sensation. “I’m going back to bed.” Maybe if he thought I slept, he wouldn’t leave Dakota alone with Taggart.

  “Whoa,” he said, reaching out and wrangling me by the waist. With one hand on each of my hips, he sat me into a kitchen chair.

  I wanted to climb under the table. Why had I thought that would work? The mental and physical exhaustion of the last twenty-four hours had turned me into a crazy person.

  “What was that?”

  I could cover my face and act stupid and embarrassed or I could lie my feelings away and yell at him. “What? Now, you don’t like it when I kiss you?”

  “Ah—I didn’t—no. That’s not what I said.”

  “I wouldn’t blame you. You do still have hang ups on what’s-her-name.”

  “I’m not hung up on Tess.”

  “You are.” I crossed my legs. “Not that it matters. A kiss isn’t a commitment.” I believed those words. Carter didn’t owe me anything. And yet I had come to expect certain things from him, to rely on him. Yes, I believed those words—a kiss wasn’t a commitment—but somewhere deep down in my subconscious I knew I didn’t like those words.

  “I’m just confused. You wanted to talk and then you head butt me and now I’m getting lectured. Geez Emma, you’re really hard to help sometimes.”

  The volume on the television set in the living room was suddenly louder. Taggart. I’d only been able to pick up that old fart because Carter had stayed with Dakota. She’d slept, unafraid and safe, because of Carter.

  I crammed my eyes shut, not wanting to see him as I spoke. He always asked to stay—but admitting I wanted him to became a whole new level of vulnerability. A level I wouldn’t go to. “It’s just been a long day. I hate that idiot in my living room. He brings out the worst in me.” Though, I’m sure many wondered if I had another side to me. Jodi thought I was softening up. But I didn’t know how to be soft or happy or totally honest with myself, let alone another person.

  “Sure,” he said, and laid a hand over top of mine.

  “And Keith is coming.”

  Carter’s right eye twitched, and he held his mouth purposely closed.

  “What?” I asked, seeing he had some opinion to share. “Just say it.”

  “Is that really so terrible?”

  I pulled my hand from beneath his and crossed my arms. He was so stupid. All men were. “It might be,” I snapped, “if he shows up and Taggart’s drunk and there’s nothing in my fridge to offer him to drink except Taggart’s Natural 30.”

  “Emma, are you afraid Keith will want to take Kotes with him?”

  I didn’t say anything, I couldn’t. I couldn’t say those words out loud. But I exhaled and the breath left my throat in a shaky, haggard puff.

  “Em,” he said in that half whine, half pitying tone of his. He reached for my hand, and when I didn’t offer it to him, he pulled it from its tight fold and laced his fingers through mine. He felt foreign and right all at the same time—not forced like that disaster of a kiss. “That isn’t going to happen.”

  How did he know that? I wanted to ask, but tears were close, and I would not cry twice today.

  Chapter 30

  Carter

  Dakota deserved a dad. This would be good. He could not take her away—he hadn’t spent more than a handful of afternoons with her in her entire life. He didn’t pay child support. He would not want custody.

  “Did you bring the stuff?” Kotes asked, Keith yipping at her heels.

  “I’ve got it,” I said, holding up the sack from Superfoods with a chocolate cake mix and a can of chocolate frosting inside.

  Dakota jumped, the heels of her feet hitting her backside. “Yes!”

  “Quiet down!” Taggart hollered from his old recliner.

  “Carter and I are making Dad a welcome back cake!”

  “I don’t care. I said to shut it.” Taggart had become more hostile than normal, sitting in his chair five days straight with nothing to do but click his remote control and yell at Emma.

  “Simmer down,” I barked.

  “You don’t have a badge on right now, Deputy.”

  “I always have a badge on, Taggart.” My jaw set and I glared at him. I wasn’t sure he’d bathed yet this week. Dakota tugged on my hand. “Okay.” I peered down at her. “Let’s go.”

  “I’ll save you a slice,” Dakota said to her grandpa, who didn’t bother to acknowledge her.

  Dakota could follow a recipe better than any seven-year-old should be able to. I pretty much supervised and slid the cake into the hot oven. I just set the timer when the front door opened. Emma.

  “I told you I wanted to eat early. Benson is picking me up in five minutes.”

  “You know what time I get home from work.”

  Taggart scoffed, and I could just imagine his face in a scowl. “I can see how hard you been working. You working the streets now?”

  “Whoa.” I held a hand out to Dakota sitting at the table. Stay. “Hey!” I growled, bustling out to the living room. Dakota had stayed, but Keith followed after me. “I told you, you can’t talk to her like that.” I stopped short when I saw her. Her hair fell in waves down her back and it sparkled with a lighter hew—or it seemed lighter. I may have been caught off guard, but I quickly focused back on Emma’s father. Keith growled—the first angry noise I’d ever heard from the pup.

  He chuckled at my scolding, and hobbling, stood to reach his crutches. “Benson’s here. You may want to find out what she charges hourly, Deputy.”

  As if it had a mind of its own, my arm pulled back and my fist snapped, popping him in the jaw. He fell back into his chair, the recliner rocking with his weight. His feet flew out and he spat blood from his mouth.

  Air blew from my nose like an ox. I grabbed him by the arm and stood him back up. Emma stumbled back a little but didn’t speak. “Benson’s here,” I said, shoving his crutch beneath his arm. My hand still tight around his bicep, I pulled him to the door and yanked it open.

  Taggart rubbed his jaw, smearing blood from his mouth to his cheek. He moved his chin back and forth, then sniffed. “You better hope you have a job come Monday, Deputy. I’ll be talking to Andy.” He staggered out the door to drink himself into a stupor, and I slammed it behind him.

  Keith—the dad—not the dog would be here in less than an hour. He wanted to take Emma and Dakota to dinner. Hopefully, Taggart wouldn’t be back when they returned for cake. Emma’s nightmare come to life—the one I promised her wouldn’t happen.

  I turned to Emma who looked pale—pale and beautiful. “You shouldn’t have done that,” she said.

  “You have to move out.”

  She rolled her eyes—her mascara covered lashes fluttering. Emma didn’t need mascara, she already had dark long lashes. When did I start noticing her lashes? Maybe when I started kissing her?

  “I’m serious,” I said, trying to ignore the lashes, hair, and overall strangeness of Emma.


  “We’ve had this conversation. Moving requires money. Money that I don’t have.”

  I’d heard this same story a dozen times. Something had to change—or nothing would. “I think this is worth going into debt.”

  “Sure,” she put a hand on her popped hip, “Mastercard and Visa are lining up to loan me money. Oh, wait…”

  “Okay, but—”

  “What is that smell?” she turned her whole body toward the kitchen.

  “Dakota and I are making a cake.”

  “A cake? What for?”

  I sighed, she’d mastered changing the subject. “For Keith.”

  Emma looked down at the drooling mutt sitting right at her feet.

  “Her dad.”

  The sweet look on her face soured as she wrinkled her nose. “Oh.” Leaning down, she patted the top of Keith’s white speckled head. “I’d rather make a cake for you.”

  “Can we please talk about this?” I ran a hand through my hair. “The moving, not the cake.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about. What is confusing to you?” She walked away, Keith and I following after her. “Hey baby,” she said in the kitchen and Dakota flew into her arms. “Did you have a good day?”

  “Great. Mrs. Olson used my poem as a class example, and Carter and I baked a cake for Dad.”

  “Nice,” she said, caressing Dakota’s cheek and kissing the spot where she rubbed.

  “Wow, Mama, you have fancy hair. It’s kind of golden or—”

  “Oh,” Emma held up a strand of her freshly dyed locks, “Jodi’s been practicing on me.”

  Dakota giggled. “You look,” she studied her mom another minute, “like…” her smile grew, “like Carolina Sanchez from Casa de Amor.”

  Emma sighed and teasingly pinched Dakota’s sides. “I don’t know who that is, but I’m sorry that you do. That reminds me, I owe Virgie Pepsi.”

  “I brought her a twelve pack.”

  She looked at me with a mixture of gratitude and irritation. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “I know. I happened to have a case with me when I picked Dakota up today.”

  Her stare told me she didn’t believe me—and it may not have been completely true. I didn’t drink the stuff.

  “Dad will be here in thirty minutes and I want to look as pretty as you, Mama.”

  “Kotes, you’re gorgeous.”

  Dakota ran from the kitchen, only to run back. “I’m going to wear that sparkly shirt with a unicorn on it that Carter bought me.” She took three bouncing steps toward the hall only to look back again. “Carter, did you buy Mom a shirt with sparkles?”

  “Ah…” I couldn’t remember, but I highly doubted it—Emma and sequins didn’t really go together. Maybe Emma and army boots or Emma and brass knuckles—those were shiny, right?

  “I think we should leave the sparkles to you. Keith might not recognize me if I wore sparkles.”

  Dakota giggled and then scampered down the hall once more.

  “She’s excited.” I leaned against the counter, wondering what Emma would change into. Maybe Keith would see her and Kotes and not be a complete moron. Maybe he’d realize what he’d been missing and want them back.

  “Yeah.” She shut her eyes, but then popped them open and walked over to the oven I’d only seen her use for frozen pizza. She laid a hand on the door and I sat up from my slouch.

  “Don’t open that.”

  “I just want to peek.” She opened the oven door an inch.

  “It’ll fall, don’t.” I slid my hand on the handle beside hers and shut the oven door. She peered at me with irritated, curious eyes. “There’s ten minutes left on our timer. If you open the oven too soon the cake will fall.”

  “You’re so sexy when you talk cake.” She stared up at me, the mascara framing her eyes caused the green in her hazel to stand out even more.

  I knew her words dripped with sarcasm. I knew in less than thirty minutes she’d leave with the man she thought she once loved—that she’d had a child with. I knew I had no right to want her—not with my nest egg and Tess-plan, even if I hadn’t thought about that plan in weeks.

  “Guess I’ll go change,” she said, taking her hand from the oven handle.

  But I couldn’t let her leave the room—not yet. “Why do you need to change?”

  She tugged at her scrub top but didn’t say anything—I guess she thought that answered my question.

  “Did you dye your hair for Keith?” I hadn’t planned to ask that. But she’d made herself up and she did look beautiful. I wanted to know why.

  “No,” she spat, her forehead wrinkling. “Did you hit Taggart to prove you’re strong?”

  I didn’t care that she yelled at me or that she called me out on the dumb choices I made—hitting an invalid wasn’t exactly something to be proud of. I just wanted to touch her. I cupped my hand over her cheek and leaned in to her. She made an angry huff, but didn’t pull away. “Maybe,” I whispered, my lips centimeters from hers.

  She closed the gap between us, snaking her arms up around my neck. I held her close to me, the warm oven heating up my backside.

  The bang of Dakota’s door opening and hitting the wall made Emma pull her lips from mine. Her body stayed snug against me and she searched my face—for something, I didn’t know what—before letting her arms fall.

  “What do you think?” Dakota said, standing in the doorway in her pink tie dyed shirt that sported a sequined faced unicorn in the center.

  My arms stayed wrapped around Emma, keeping her close. I waited for the slug at my chest—her pushing me away—but it didn’t come.

  Her cheeks flushed crimson and she blinked a few times before grinning at Dakota. “Beautiful, baby.”

  Dakota clapped, posed, and then ran down the hall, yelling, “I’m going to put my shoes on!”

  Emma didn’t frown or smile, but her eyes purposefully found mine. She looked me over once more before reaching back and gently unlacing my fingers from around her. “I have to go change.”

  I sighed, letting my hands flop to my sides.

  She left and the room cooled, despite the cake baking in the hot oven. I never knew what Emma and I were doing. We’d kiss. We’d fight. We didn’t go out on dates—not really. But we spent a lot of time together. She was probably my best friend in Dubois. Sure, we didn’t have had a normal friendship, but we had... something. I couldn’t explain what—but I realized in that moment, like a grand epiphany slapping me in the face, that I’d begun to fall for Emma Sunday.

  Chapter 31

  Emma

  I hadn’t seen Keith Zalenski in over a year. I didn’t like him, I certainly didn’t love him, so why did I give a wit about his opinion? Why did I allow his actions to affect my life? That’s what Virgie asked anyway. She should have been right—except that my child loved him. And his actions affected her. The fear that Keith might be the one person on the planet who had the power to take Dakota away from me gnawed away at me whenever he made contact.

  I pulled the price tags from my shirt and slipped my arms through the soft material. Carter had bought me the sleeveless turquoise button up a couple weeks ago. It had a collar, so it felt sort of dressy, but the lack of sleeves made sure my body would be able to breathe. I paired it with some black skinny jeans he’d bought that same shopping trip. I stood barefoot in front of my mirror and thought for the first time in years I didn’t look like a two dollar bill—not worthless, but nothing significant, either. I looked nice—sort of, especially since Jodi had insisted on doing my hair. She said you can’t meet up with an ex without doing your roots first. But I didn’t have roots. My hair was the same mousy brown it had been in high school, root to tip.

  “That isn’t sparkly, but it’s pretty.” Dakota’s brows lowered and she gave me a funny grin. “You’re hair—it’s just different.”

  Keith snorted and stirred, laying on top of my bed, sound asleep. The noise he made almost declared that he agreed with her.

  I puf
fed out a laugh. They weren’t wrong. I did look different. “Let’s comb yours.”

  “I did already.” With Dakota’s curls, it didn’t look too bad. “Can I bring a book?”

  “I guess, but aren’t you going to be busy talking to your dad?”

  “Yeah.” She grinned. She really did love him. How? She hardly knew the man. “I just wanted to show him how fat the book I’m reading is.”

  “Okay.”

  The doorbell rang and I felt a pang of gratitude toward Benson for taking Taggart away, as well as for Sal for providing a reason he’d leave. I’d done some light cleaning the night before, and, thanks to Carter, my house smelled divine. Dakota raced out, eight steps ahead of me. She reached the door, just before Carter opened it.

  “I got it! I got it!” She cracked it open. For all her energy, I expected her to fling herself into Keith’s arms, but it had been a long while since she last saw him. She stood before him, small and sweet in her carefully chosen outfit and her chocolate cake wafting in the background, but speechless.

  “Hey, kiddo.” Keith scanned his gaze up from Dakota to Carter behind her.

  “Hi, Dad.” She practically sang the word—dad—it wasn’t often she got to use it.

  “Who’s this?” He pointed at Carter and stepped uninvited into my home.

  “That’s Deputy Carter,” Dakota said.

  “Aiden’s fine.” Carter put a hand out to Keith and they shook.

  Keith’s carefully styled blond hair hung to his shoulders. He stood tall, with his shoulders back, his six feet and one inch allowing him to out-height Carter by a smidgen. “Are you here on business?”

  “No,” I said from the hall doorway. Idiot. “He’s a friend.” He’d been here one minute and already Keith judged me by asking if the local police were after me.