by Kait Nolan
“Right, so he was in love with her since basically forever, but they were just friends. Sad! And then Maggie totally fell out at work out in California because she’d been working herself too hard for, like, years, and had to take a forced break, so she came home and he finally did something about it. Now she’s a recovering attorney and they have baby Faith.
“And my parents were maybe the best story of the bunch—not that I’m biased—”
“Oh, not at all,” Pru agreed with a laugh.
“Well, we all know if you hadn’t faked that whole engagement because of my social worker, you probably wouldn’t have married Dad, you wouldn’t have Bailey, and I’d be changing a lot fewer diapers.”
“Fake engagement?” Emerson asked with interest.
“It’s a long, complicated story,” Flynn admitted.
“With a happy ending.” Ari folded her hands under her chin and batted her eyes. “Me.”
Caleb laughed. “Oh, Fiona would really like you.”
“And Fiona is…?”
Emerson relaxed at the question. “My daughter. She’s a few years older than you. A freshman at Belmont.”
He could see Ari doing the math, wondering about the ages, but she didn’t ask. Her own mother was young to have a teenager. Instead, she propped her chin in one hand. “Your turn! How did you two meet?”
The shift in energy was palpable in Emerson’s sharp intake of breath. The kid had no way of knowing theirs wasn’t a fun, romantic story.
Caleb reached for her hand and opened his mouth to say that they’d been friends for a long time, but Emerson spoke first.
“He saved me.”
“Wait…what?”
She cut a glance toward him, squeezing his hand before continuing. “My daughter is actually my best friend’s daughter. Several years ago, the two of them were in a car accident. Caleb was first on the scene and got Fiona out. Micah didn’t make it.” Sympathetic murmurs rose up around the table, but Caleb couldn’t take his eyes off Emerson.
Her throat worked, and he knew she was fighting the emotion that always came up with the accident. “I met him when I came to the hospital for Fi.” She lifted her gaze to his. “I was out of my mind with worry. Nobody would tell me anything, and there you were, like this island of calm. You took me back, told me about Micah and gave me time to fall apart before you took me to Fiona. Do you remember what you said to me?”
He’d said a lot that night, but he couldn’t recall anything that hadn’t been strictly professional.
“You said, ‘Just keep breathing. I’ve got you.’ I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I was devastated and you were offering comfort. But you stuck around. In those days and weeks after, you kept coming by. I’d hit that point when I was on the verge of falling apart, when I’d think, there is no way I can do this, and there you’d be to do whatever I needed, be whatever I needed, convincing me that I could. Making sure that I just kept breathing. And I could because you were there.”
Caleb’s throat went thick with emotion. Yeah, he’d done all that. He’d wanted to lessen their pain however he could. But he’d never really known how much of an impact his efforts had made. “You—” He had to clear his throat. “You never said.”
“Just because we never talked about it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.” Her mouth quirked in a half smile. “And, in my defense, you spend a lot of time seeming to read my mind, so I guess I thought you knew. You saved me every bit as much as you saved my daughter.”
Then let me watch out for you both for the rest of my life.
“That’s beautiful,” Ari sighed.
Right. They had an audience. Caleb swallowed down everything he wanted to say. There’d be opportunity later. This wasn’t the time or the place. But he couldn’t hold back the quiet joy that seemed to pulse through him with every thump of his heart.
“All of y’all are setting the bar so incredibly high for my future relationships,” the girl continued. He wasn’t quite sure if it was a complaint or not.
“Hold out until you find it, kid.” Emerson glanced back up at him and smiled with an answering joy. “It’s absolutely worth the wait.”
Chapter 12
“Foster or significant other?”
It had become the official first question of everybody Emerson met at the reunion—and there were dozens of people here, way more than the inn itself could house. She’d long since lost track of all the people she’d met and the stories she’d heard, but she’d fallen into a rhythm.
“Significant other.” She pointed across the yard to where Caleb had been pulled into conversation with Wyatt Sullivan. “Foster.”
The blonde brightened. “Oh! You’re Caleb’s. Nice to meet you. I’m Abbey Whittaker. Neither foster nor significant other, but long-time friend of the family.”
Emerson looked around at all the families, young and older. “There are so many. I had no idea. I kinda feel like we should have nametags with dates on them for the ones who were Joan’s.”
“Like a class reunion. That’s a great idea. I’ll suggest it to Pru for next year.”
“It’s a testament to who Joan was that they’ve all come back. That they’re so happy and well-adjusted, considering how many came from such sad beginnings. I wish I could’ve met her.”
“She was a force of nature. When she died, things were…pretty rocky among her daughters. I wasn’t sure what would happen. But they came together, stronger than ever, and made all this.” Abbey gestured at the inn and spa and the outbuilding that housed Athena’s Misfit Kitchen, where she periodically hosted cooking classes on top of filming her hit web TV cooking series.
“I think it’s even more amazing that they’ve managed to maintain the family ties she established with all the others.” She’d seen first-hand that actual family ties could be brittle.
Pru sank down into an empty chair, Bailey on her lap. “It’s work but definitely worth it. Even if hanging out around here it’s often like our own version of Cheaper By The Dozen.”
“Is that as awesome as I imagine it to be?” Emerson asked.
“Mmm, it can be a mixed bag. But for most of us, we came from lousy families of origin, so being brought into a family where we could count on others was something we learned to appreciate and protect. Caleb was unusual. He had a great relationship with his parents before they died. Mom would have adopted him, but he wanted to stay a Romero, which is entirely understandable.”
“He definitely seems to have glommed on to the sibling thing, though. He and Kyle are tight.”
Abbey stiffened, sucking in a hard breath through her nose.
Emerson went brows up. “Ah, let me guess. You’re the one he messed things up with.”
“What do you know about it?” Her tone was more alarmed than accusatory.
Definitely a story there. “Not a thing except that Kyle knows he screwed up and doesn’t think it can be fixed.”
“Then he’s smarter than he looks.” Abbey shoved up from the chair. “I need a drink. Does anybody else want something?”
When she and Pru declined, Abbey stalked away.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to step in it.”
“Kyle’s her trigger point. Always has been. There’s a lot of hurt there.”
“It’s none of my business, but I admit to being super curious about what happened.”
“You and me both. She’s never said specifically. Shuts it down if anybody brings it up, as you saw. We gave up asking about it years ago.”
Bailey squirmed in Pru’s lap and reached toward Emerson. Her heart gave a little bump. “May I?”
“Oh, of course.”
Pru handed over her daughter. Bailey pressed both pudgy hands to Emerson’s cheeks and stared into her with big, blue eyes.
“Kiss.”
“Oh, well okay then.” She accepted a sticky baby kiss. It shouldn’t have been charming, but it was. As Bailey wound both arms around her neck, Emerson cuddled her close, relishing
the feel of the tiny, warm body against hers and the scent of baby shampoo and cookies. “I skipped this stage since mine was fourteen when I got her. I didn’t think I’d miss it.” But there was a little ache under her breastbone at the idea of never doing this, never having this herself.
“It’s a big change taking on a teenager when you didn’t expect it. Mom was in the process of adopting Ari when she died, so I ended up shifting mental gears from sister to mom. It was tough, but I at least knew what I was getting into. I chose it. Yours was harder. I’m so sorry about your friend.”
Emerson inclined her head, acknowledging the condolence. “Fiona changed everything. All the things I wanted, all the things I thought were important, shifted that night. Everything the last four years has centered around her. It had to. She was so broken after the accident. Nothing else mattered but getting her through that. Now she’s in college, and she’s happy and well-adjusted, and I know a big part of that is because of Caleb. Because he cut open a vein and bled for her in sharing his experience with losing his parents.”
“Has he ever talked about it with you?”
“No, and that’s fine. That’s their shared pain point. I don’t need to know to be grateful. He’s been an amazing friend to me.”
“And now he’s something more.”
Emerson began rubbing absent circles on Bailey’s back. “I didn’t expect this. I had no idea he felt more for me than friendship. I’m still kind of adjusting to it.”
“I think I understood better than everyone else why Caleb waited to say anything. It’s hard to balance motherhood and womanhood.”
“Yes.” It was a relief to hear someone else say it. “I hadn’t even looked at him like that before.” At Pru’s raised eyebrow, she offered a rueful smile. “Okay, maybe I looked, but I certainly didn’t have any expectations. Not with him being so much younger than me.”
Pru scanned the yard in that automatic way Emerson had come to realize meant she was checking on guests. “I met Flynn when he flew in right before Kennedy’s wedding. We’d just made the decision that I’d be the one to adopt Ari, and I knew my life was going to irrevocably change. I was going to be a mom. In the beginning, even though I chose it willingly, I felt a little like a cage door was shutting on me, and I decided I was going to take one thing for myself before it did. So I propositioned him.”
Emerson choked a little. “Seriously?”
Pru shrugged. “I figured at least I’d have the memories of a blistering affair with a gorgeous Irishman to keep me warm at night. As fate would have it, I kept the Irishman when he fell in love with us both.”
“And now you have this little one.” Bailey’s head had grown heavy on her shoulder as she slid into sleep.
Pru beamed, the picture of motherly bliss. “We do. We’re an unconventional family, but we work.”
“Is it weird? Having two kids with such a big age gap?”
“Yes and no. Ari was so hungry for family, she was ecstatic when I turned up pregnant. She’s been such a big help with all the babies. It’s a little strange thinking about the fact that she’ll likely be out on her own and maybe married herself before Bailey’s out of high school.” She cut a glance in Emerson’s direction. “But that’s not what you’re asking, is it?”
“I don’t guess it is. I’m older than you by several years. Nearly a decade older than Caleb. I gave up on the idea of having children years ago. I’m at the other end of the spectrum. That cage door is open now—God, I feel like such a terrible person even saying that. Fiona wasn’t a prison.”
“Not terrible. Human,” Pru corrected. “Kids under the best of circumstances can be a lot. Traumatized kids are a whole other level. There’s no shame in feeling some relief that a bit of that burden is lifted.”
Hearing another woman, another mother, say that was something of a benediction.
“Anyway, I find myself thinking about kids—the idea of my actual, biological children—wondering if it’s something I gave up because I didn’t think I could rather than because I had to. And if it is something I want, there’s this ticking clock in the back of my brain telling me I don’t have that much time left. Which is a crappy place to be because having a child isn’t a decision that can or should be made fast. It’s a big shift in my thinking, and I don’t quite know what to do with it.”
“What made you give up on the idea before?”
“I was alone and on the heels of a breakup with a long-time boyfriend who ended up cheating on me. There is no amount of money on earth that would induce me to be a single parent again.”
“It’s definitely different doing it alone. I was lucky enough never to have to do that. I always had my sisters, and then Flynn. But you have Caleb.”
Emerson sighed. “Yeah. Yeah, I do, and he makes it really easy to imagine what could be. But it’s way too soon to know anything about the future.”
“From what it sounded like last night, the feelings have been there for both of you for years. It’s just the acting on them that’s relatively new.”
Was that true? Had she, on some level, been sliding in deeper with him all this time, even without the expectation of reciprocity? “Maybe.”
“It seems to me like you’re looking for some kind of certainty. And I hate to break it to you, but that doesn’t exist. You know what kind of man he is. That’s the most certainty you’re going to get. Everything else is a leap of faith. If you think you might want kids with Caleb, talk to him. Figure out where he stands and whether that’s something you’d be on the same page about.”
Emerson gave her a sidelong glance. “Bring up kids after dating for six weeks?”
Pru laughed. “Talking about the possibility doesn’t mean do it tomorrow. And if it’s something you do want and he doesn’t, then it’d be better to know that now than later.”
She met his gaze from across the yard and thought back to their quiet morning a few weeks before.
I want it all, Em.
Did he really mean everything? And if he did, was she prepared to take that leap?
Caleb watched Emerson where she sat on the porch with the baby drowsing against her shoulder. Her posture was relaxed, curled around Bailey with the kind of affection that spoke of legitimately loving children. Something about the picture they made reached up to grab him by the heart and twist. She should have the chance to be a mother on her terms. He wanted to give that to her, along with every other dream she’d put on hold.
Porter joined him, following his line of sight. “It’s a powerful thing, seeing the woman you love with a baby.”
The woman you love. He waited for the jolt at that, but none came. And why should it? Maybe he hadn’t named it, but he’d been in love with Emerson for a long, long time. If anyone could understand that, it would be Porter. “Is that how it is with Maggie and Faith?”
“Yeah. Faith is our miracle. But, actually, I meant before. Seeing her with Bailey the day she was born is what finally made me speak up about my feelings for her.”
That surprised Caleb enough to pull his attention. “Really? Why?”
“Because I wanted that with her, and if she didn’t or couldn’t feel the same, then I needed to get to work getting over it.”
Everything in Caleb rebelled at the thought. No, he’d waited for Emerson for years. No way was he giving her up. She was enough, all on her own. But as he glanced back to see her pressing a kiss to Bailey’s curls, he got that twist in his heart again.
“I thought I was okay without it. Kids were just this kind of hypothetical thing I could take or leave. Then I look at her like that and…damn. I feel all this possessive, primal shit. Obviously, I’m more than the sum of my hormones, but what if it matters more to me than I realized?”
“So you have an honest conversation about it.”
From the porch, Emerson met his gaze, her expression serious before her lips curved into a half smile.
Could they really have that conversation? They’d circled around it as
she’d had those epiphanies about her age and how what she’d wanted wasn’t out of reach after all. She hadn’t come outright and said she still wanted it. More to the point, she hadn’t said she wanted it with him. But it felt like they’d turned some kind of corner in their relationship this weekend. As if maybe it had finally become real to her as a relationship, not just as some kind of a fling.
“I don’t want to pressure her. This between us is all new for her, and she just got Fi out of the house.”
“You know her. I figure you’re capable of finding a way to discuss it without being all, ‘I want you to have my babies.’”
Fuck, why did the idea of that make his dick twitch? “I just don’t know that she’s at a place where I can ask that yet.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to know before you get in any deeper with her?”
“I don’t know if I can get in any deeper.”
Porter laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “Brother, there’s always deeper with the one you love.”
Well, wasn’t that both wonderful and terrifying?
Abbey Whittaker sidled up. “Hello, boys.”
“Hey! I wondered whether I’d get to see you this trip.” Caleb pulled her in for a hug.
She looked good, her blonde hair loose around her shoulders, her ready smile in place. But the longer he studied her face, the more he could tell that something was off.
“I met your girl. I like her.”
“I’m pretty keen on her myself. How’s life treating you back in The Ridge?”
“Can’t complain. I’ve been working at the spa since it opened. Business is booming.”
He was trying to work out whether he could or should ask her if something was wrong in front of Porter, when she linked her arm through his.
“Can I talk to you? In private?”
“Sure.”
Porter gave a two-fingered wave. “I’m off to find my wife. See y’all later.”
Caleb followed her through the crowd, noting the tension in her shoulders. Something was definitely wrong. They circled around to the front door of the spa. It was closed for the reunion this weekend, so nobody was inside. The interior was dark and cool, but for the light streaming through the skylights in the atrium of the lobby. The faint burble of water from a small water feature was the only sound other than their footsteps.
