“They’re horses. They have teeth.” She’s really scared of them. I get out and go to open her door. Her eyes go wide when Siege comes too close.
“Back, boy,” I instruct, and he backs down. “Emma, they won’t bite, come on.” I step closer and hold my hand out to her. She all but sails up against me, and I can’t keep the smile back.
“If you walk away from me, I’m climbing the nearest, highest thing,” she warns, her eyes never leaving the dogs.
“Hold your hand out to them, let them smell you.”
It’s better if she sees they won’t bite.
“Have you gone nutters!” She clasps her hands to her chest between us. “I’m not touching them!”
I can’t help but grin wider, she’s being real cute.
“Aiden, you’re here!” Mom calls from the porch, “come on in, darlin’, let’s meet Emma.”
Emma tenses in my arm, and her face loses some color. For a second, I think she’s going to pass out on me. But she steps back, toward Kayla and Siege, her fear of them forgotten as her eyes zoom in on my mother. She straightens her already perfect clothes, and puts on the same smile I saw with her mother.
“In a sec, Mama,” I call.
I take hold of Emma and step in between, so she can’t see my mother. “Emma, it’s my mom,” I say, “she’s loving, she’s caring, she’s like me.” Emma’s eyes focus on me and her smile changes a bit, but she doesn’t relax under my touch. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. No one here will hurt you.”
“I know.”
She doesn’t believe me. This time Emma doesn’t trust me. She’s fine to go into court with me, but not my parents’ home. She trusts me to protect her body, but not her heart. That hurts.
~*~
When we turn around, Dad has joined Mom out on the porch to welcome us. I’ve told them about her, so they won’t think anything weird of her if she freezes up around them.
But Emma doesn’t freeze up, she surprises the hell out of me. She lets go of my hand and reaches out to my parents.
“Mr. and Mrs. Holden, it’s such a pleasure to meet you,” she says warmly, leaving me all dumbstruck.
Am I the one overreacting here? Am I maybe coddling her too much?
“Emma, finally he brings you around. We’d thought we were never gonna get to see you. Come on in.” Dad shoots me a frown behind her back, as if to ask why all the fuss.
Yeah, him and me both.
We walk in, and Emma stops in the foyer. She moves right up against the wall and angles herself so we can pass by.
“Walk on in, hon,” Dad says.
Emma takes one step and stops again.
“Ah…” She clenches her hands together in front of her, and I squeeze past Dad to get to her.
“Go ahead Dad, we’re right behind you.” I take her hand, pulling her into me. “You okay?” I take hold of her face, tipping it up. She smiles, but I’m not buying into her smiles any more.
“Just nervous.”
“You’re doing just great.” I brush my mouth over hers. “I’m right here.” I keep my arm around her as we walk further into the house.
“Mama, you’re spoilin’ us today?”
“Of course. It’s not every day you bring a girl home,” Mom teases. “Y’all want something to drink? I was thinking we could visit some before we eat.”
“Aiden, why don’t we go get the drinks, and let your mama and Emma get acquainted?” Dad asks.
Emma looks at me nervously, sitting down on the edge of the couch.
“I’ll be right back,” I assure her, leaning down to kiss her forehead. Her hand slips from mine and I leave her with my mother, praying I’m doing the right thing.
~*~
Chapter Twenty Five
Emma~
Aiden got his eyes from his mum, but her hair is dark brown. She’s so pretty. Of course he’d have handsome parents, they made him, after all.
My stomach is doing a crazy spin-cycle, just going bonkers inside me. She doesn’t lean back and rest her arms on the side of the chair, as my mother would do. She crosses her ankles and takes hold of one knee, smiling at me.
“How are you, Emma?”
“I’m very well, thank you,” I reply automatically. “And …” my mind goes blank. I don’t know what to call her. I’d never dare say the word ‘you’ to my mother.
She smiles encouragingly.
I wish Aiden would come back. I wish we could go back to his house.
“You can call me Tisha.” She has a beautiful smile. I see so much of Aiden in her.
But I can’t call her by her first name. Not the woman Aiden calls mother. I’ve been raised to call anybody ten years older Aunt and Uncle, Mr. or Mrs.
“Mrs. Holden, I can’t call ma’am by ma’am’s first name.” I try my best to explain.
She smiles warmly and then gets up and my mouth dries out. I freeze as she comes toward me. I dare not move when she sits down next to me.
I’m going to die.
“Darlin’,” she says softly, “you’re not gonna be calling me Mrs. and ma’am. It’s either Tisha or Mama. Aiden is serious about makin’ you part of the family, and no family member calls me Mrs. or Ma’am.”
This is going to be so hard.
~*~
They FINALLY come back, and I almost do a tribal dance of relief.
Mrs. Holden goes to sit next to Mr. Holden, and Aiden slides in next to me. Sweet tea. I’ve never had sweet tea before. Needless to say, it’s sweet.
“So, Emma,” Mr. Holden starts. I straighten up a bit for the third degree. I feel Aiden’s hand on my back, and it helps. “How are you adjusting to the American Way?”
What happened to the third degree?
“Good … well,” I stammer.
“We’re learning the differences as we’re going along, Dad,” Aiden says. “I had a taste of it when I went to fetch her.”
“The weather should be nicer here?” Mrs. Holden asks.
“It is,” I agree. I can do this. “It took me some getting used to the cold weather, as well, and all the rain.”
Aiden stares at me, they all do, and I don’t know why.
“Why?” he asks.
My mind starts to race. I’m sure I mentioned Africa to him, a couple of times. I really don’t want to talk about anything that could steer the conversation toward that part of my life. But they are still looking at me.
“I was born in Africa. I lived there until I was thirteen, only then did we move to England,” I say, hoping he’ll settle for it and move on.
“You did mention Africa,” he muses. “I didn’t know you actually lived there.”
“I did.”
“We’d love to hear about it,” Mr. Holden says. “What’s it like there?”
“The coast is very tropical, lovely,” I answer vaguely. I’m scared they will all pick up that I’m trying to avoid talking about my past. “Where’s the bathroom?” I blurt out, as panic pushes up in my chest.
“I’ll show you,” Aiden offers, and I fight to keep my smile in place as I follow him down another passage full of pictures. Aiden pulls me into a room and closes the door behind us.
DIE, right now! I want to die.
“Fill me in quickly,” he says.
“It’s nothing,” I blurt out, and I wish he’d let up on me sometimes. But he doesn’t. He leans in and I cave, like I did back at the coast. He has a way of making me talk. “My parents got divorced when I was four. My mother got remarried and we moved to England. I haven’t seen my father since.”
I chew on the inside of my cheek as I watch him.
“But you call him dad?” he asks.
I nod. “He adopted us. If you’re gonna look after another man’s children, they might as well give you the title.”
Nervous laughter bubbles up and I press my mouth shut to keep it in.
Aiden shakes his head, he’s not understanding something.
“So you had two dads bail on you?”
<
br /> “You’re making it bigger than it is, Aiden,” I say. “People come and go all the time. You get dealt a life and you live it as best you can. Other people got dealt worse lives.”
“Some people are meant to stay, Emma,” he says. “Some are meant to guide you through life.”
He moves closer to me, brushing his hands up my arms. I soak in his nearness and press my head to his chest.
“I have a problem,” I admit.
“What, sweetheart,” he whispers close to my ear.
“I don’t know how to address your parents. Your mom insists I call her by her name, and not Mrs or ma’am. It’s very hard to just call her by her name.”
He draws back, tilting his head to look at me.
“We’ll sort that problem out very soon. For now, call her what you’re comfortable with,” he says. “Let me show you the bathroom for when you really need it.”
I smile back, and glance at the room we’re standing in. It looks similar to the one at the cottage he took me to, only it’s more lived in. A sound system, medals, an American flag folded and placed neatly on a dresser. Folded like I’ve seen them do in the movies at funerals.
I still don’t know how Laurie died.
“Some are meant to stay, but they’re taken from us way too early,” he says. I glance up and see him looking at the flag as well.
“Your parents are waiting,” I remind him, giving him the option not to talk about her.
“Why do you do that?”
“Do what?” He’s lost me.
“You don’t talk about anything that’s painful,” he says. “It’s okay to talk about things, Emma.”
“I didn’t mean to stop you, I’d like you to talk about Laurie, more than anything. I just thought maybe you didn’t want to.” I frame his face with my hands. “I want you to talk to me any time, about anything. I think you think I might break, and that’s not going to happen. I’m stronger than you give me credit for.”
“Communication is a two way street, Emma. You need to talk to me about things that bother you, too.”
I go on the defensive, why, I don’t know.
“I do talk to you.”
“You never talk about your time with Colton and Katia,” he argues.
“Because it doesn’t bother me. It happened, it’s over and done with. It’s not like anything really bad happened,” I take a deep breath. “Aiden, things can always be worse. I tell myself this when something happens, and I walk away from whatever it is that happened, and that’s it. It’s over. Really.”
I can see that he doesn’t believe me.
“How do you do that, Emma? How do you switch off the pain?”
I see it in his eyes, and I finally realize why he’s arguing with me. I can do the one thing he can’t. He can’t get away from Laurie’s death.
Aiden is in pain, and I have been so closed off I haven’t been able to see it.
“Everyone deals differently, Aiden.”
He takes hold of my hands and grips them over his heart.
“Just when I think I did deal, and it’s getting better, it comes back, and I miss her even more,” he groans.
Bloody hell, I’m going to cry. He doesn’t need me crying right now.
“We weren’t even on duty.” He takes a deep breath and I curl my fingers around his, as tight as I can. “We’d just finished our shift and were heading home when we stopped at a gas station. Some kids drove by and they started shootin’ up this sign. Just shootin’ at the sign,” he says again. “One hit Laurie. She bled out in the car, didn’t even make it to the hospital. Never found the kids, either.”
I search my mind frantically to find the right words to tell him, to ease his pain.
“We never get given more than we can handle,” I remember the words Gran told me once. “I believe that when we are being tried and tested, we are at our strongest.” I press my lips to his hands before I say the words that mean more than a simple ‘I love you’. “You’re a great man, because you’ve been tried and tested and you’ve come out strong. You’re not a weakling.”
“You make me feel strong.” His crooked smile appears and his eyes settle, the pain eases.
I can breathe again.
~*~
Lunch with the parents, oh, and his brother, Wyatt.
Wyatt doesn’t look like Aiden. He’s the same height, but he has his mom’s dark brown hair and his dad’s deep brown eyes. He’s also not as serious as Aiden. He’s a joker. He looks like he could be a real charmer. I get pulled into a bear hug, until Aiden saves me.
“Now if you had told me Emma was this beautiful, I would’ve been knockin’ on y’all’s door a while back already,” he jokes. Aiden shoots him a dark glare.
“Wyatt, you come help me carry the dishes to the table, why don’t you,” Mrs. Holden says, also scowling at him.
I’m missing something here, but I get up. “Let me help, please.” I can’t just sit still while they are working in the kitchen, I’d like to see the kitchen, too.
“Darlin’, you’re a guest. Sit down and relax. It will only take a minute.” She smiles warmly, and I sit down again.
Oh boy, this is hard.
It’s a free-for-all at the table. Everyone helps himself. Aiden is talking to his dad. Wyatt is joking with his mom, and I’m gawking at them as if I’m a bloody daft nut.
“Emma, darlin’, help yourself,” Mrs. Holden says.
My head snaps up. The table goes quiet, too quiet, and embarrassment rolls over me like a steamroller. It levels me. My heart is looking for a way to escape out of my chest, pounding against my ribs. Then my world capsizes as she starts to reach for me. The bloody titanic sinks all over again.
“Sit still, Aiden,” she says, as she rests her hand on my arm. Not my hand, not my face. I can’t feel her skin. She squeezes tightly. I wait for the words and my body starts to ache with tension. “Darlin’, look at me.” My eyes jump to her gray ones. Aiden’s eyes. “It’s okay. It’s gonna be fine.” It’s all she says, and she smiles warmly.
But it’s not. I’m bodging it all up.
~*~
Chapter Twenty Six
Aiden~
I don’t know what I expected, how I thought it would turn out. Emma surprises me at some points during the day, but then, like at the table, I wonder if she’ll ever get over it. I worry that Emma will fear my parents, and never see them for who they are.
I shake it all off when we get home. It’s our time now.
I put on music, and watch Emma take the stairs to the books. I don’t know what she’s been doing besides cleaning. I’m going to have to teach her how to drive over here. We need to start getting her settled in.
I hear her phone ring. I wait to hear the laughter in her voice. A call from Chloe always makes her happy, but there’s nothing. I take the stairs two at a time and find her behind my desk.
“She did?” she whispers, looking really pale. She listens to whoever she’s talking to. “She tried to phone me?” her voice cracks on the words. Silence, and then, “No, I won’t be coming. Goodbye, Barry.”
She drops the phone, and her hands go to her mouth and she starts to rock herself.
“Gran’s gone,” she whispers brokenly.
I pull her up against me and hold her. Emma doesn’t cry like I expect she would. She sheds a few tears and that’s it.
Later that night, I wake up to an empty bed. I find Emma in the den.
“I didn’t get to say goodbye, Chloe.” She’s crying. For a second it stings that she’d rather talk to Chloe than to me, but then I’m relieved that she’s talking to someone. “I wrote her a letter just for in case, but it’s too late. Barry said she wanted to call me today. She kept saying she wanted to hear my voice one last time. She didn’t know how to dial international,” she says, and anger flares up. Damn that family! “Why didn’t they help her, Chloe? My mum couldn’t even give me that. She couldn’t even give me a goodbye. How can she hate me so much? What did I do t
o her that she would punish me like this? I don’t understand.”
She gets up from the couch and walks over to the window.
“Thank you, Chloe. You know you’re the best, right?”
Her arm falls away from her ear, and the phone slips to floor. She drops to her knees, weeping.
“Oh God. I’m going to miss you, Gran,” she whimpers, and I start toward her.
I sit down behind her and pull her body into mine. I caress her back, just holding her until she starts to drift off. Only then do I pick her up and take her back to bed.
I console myself with the thought that everything that could hurt her has hurt her, and that it can only get better from here on out.
~*~
Monday I finally get the license. The one that solves all my problems. I can marry Emma. It took damn well forever. Only, I can’t ask her to marry me with her gran just passing on. But then, the court case is today, and we don’t have time, I have to marry her to keep her here (besides the obvious fact that I love her).
When I pick her up she’s smiling, I think it’s more to put me at ease than anything else.
“You’re gonna be fine,” I say anyway.
“I know. You and Zac will be there. It’s normal proceedings.”
When we get to the courthouse, Zac comes toward us. Only then does she tense up.
“Mornin’ Emma. You ready?” Zac smiles at us.
“Yes.” The word is clear, but her smile is stiff. Of course. I can’t expect her to be sprouting rainbows right about now.
“We won’t be able to sit with you because we were the arresting officers,” he says, and it’s the first time I have ever wanted to slap him upside the head.
I forgot about this. He didn’t tell me until now for a reason.
“Alright,” she breathes.
I hold Emma outside the room she has to wait in until they call for her. She looks calm.
“I’ll be right inside, sweetheart.” I don’t want to let her go, but the proceedings are going to start soon. “I love you.”
“I love you most,” she says. I kiss her, tasting the sweetness of the words that sound like music in my ears.
Wake Me Up (Love Knows No Boundaries) Page 23