She clasped her hands, squeezed them and begged, “Please let him get it. Please.”
“Okay, buddy,” Miller said. “You got it. Keep reeling it in.”
His hand covered Jack's on the reel. When Miller took his hand away, Emily could see that Jack was turning the handle in the wrong direction.
She squeezed her hands tighter together and whispered, “No. No. The other way, baby. The other way.”
The rod lost its arc, and the line went loose.
Abby bent over and said something that Emily couldn’t hear over Jack’s screams of, “What’s happening? What’s happening?”
Miller took the rod from him and turned the handle until he pulled up an empty hook. Jack started to cry and flap his hands, slapping Miller’s arms. Emily rushed to get Jack before he hit Miller any more. A situation like this was always ended up with Jack’s father throwing his hands up and yelling, “I can’t do anything with this kid!”
Miller put the rod aside, caught jack’s wrists with his hands, crossed them over his body and wrapped him in a deep hug. “It’s all right, Jack. We’ve got more worms. We’ll try again.”
Emily was stunned. “Where did you learn that?” she asked him, closing the gap between them.
Miller looked up at her. “What?”
“How to hold him like that.”
“Internet.”
“The Internet?”
“I did some research yesterday after Abby said Jack might be different.”
“He has Asperger’s and sensory problems. That’s why he needs the deep pressure.”
“Am I doing this wrong?”
“No. He’s calmed down so you’re doing it right. It’s…well hell, I paid an occupational therapist seventy-five dollars an hour to teach me how to do that.”
“Shoot.” Miller smiled. “I’d only charge you fifty.”
“Guess what, Mom!” Jack called out from Miller’s bear hug. “Miller doesn’t defrost his bait in the microwave either.”
“Well that’s a relief.”
“I’m gonna catch a fish, and then I’m gonna eat it.”
She sat down next to Miller. “That’s awesome, buddy. I can’t wait to see it.”
Miller released Jack and baited the hook with another worm. He cast the line into the water and handed the rod to Jack.
“I’m so sorry,” Emily said. “I only planned on closing my eyes for five minutes.”
Miller looked out at where the hook hit the water. “It’s fine.”
“I can’t believe I slept for three hours. I never do that.”
“I said it was fine.”
“He’s been having so many fits lately. I hope he was okay.”
“Dear God, Emily. Shut up.”
“What?”
“Ummmm. You said ‘shut up,’” Jack said.
“Has it been so long since you’ve been fishing that you forgot that fish won’t bite if you’re talking? You were tired. You fell asleep. No big deal. If we needed you, we would have woken you up.”
“It’s just that I know how difficult he can be.”
Miller turned the handle of the reel a few tics. “Jesus, Emily. Take a breath. Everything’s fine, and if Jack did have a problem, everything would still be fine. When was the last time you relaxed?”
“The last time I relaxed I fell asleep in someone’s bed for three hours.”
“Like I said,” Miller said with a smirk, “relax.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Miller
Miller averted his eyes away from Emily as she bent down to say something to Jack, who was still sitting in front of him and waiting to get his hook baited so he could catch a second fish. She looked uncomfortable, which was making him feel awkward, and that was pissing him off. They were never awkward with each other, not even before their first time in that field behind that barn. If anyone should feel uncomfortable, it should be him. He was the one with the bomb to drop. He sneaked another look at her, longer this time.
“What?” she asked without looking at him.
“Nothing.” He snapped his attention back to the worm on the hook. Busted for staring. Damn. Okay, now he was a little uncomfortable.
“You can say it,” she said softly.
“Say what?”
“Whatever it is you want to say.”
“I don’t want to say anything.”
“How about I let you down? Or I screwed everything up? Trust me, whatever it is you’re thinking right now, I’ve already thought it, felt it, and lived it.”
What she said was true…all of it. However, if he wanted her to show him a little mercy, he’d damn sure better extend some to her. “You did what you had to do.”
“I guess.” She lay back onto the grass and took a deep breath.
Good. Looked like she was going to relax a little.
“Is that a storm cloud?”
Or maybe not. “No.”
“It sure seems dark.”
“Weather called for a few showers today, no storms.”
“Are you sure? ‘Cause it—”
“Tell me something, Jack,” Miller said, casting the newly loaded hook out into the water. “Does your mom talk this much all the time?”
“Yep. All the time.”
“I do not. I’m worried it’s going to rain.”
Miller looked down at her out of the corner of one eye. “That’s not going to stop the fish from biting.”
“I know that.”
“So you’re afraid to get wet?”
She rolled over to her side, propping herself up on her bent elbow and facing him. The V in her t-shirt sagged a little and gave Miller a clear view of cleavage and…oh God she had on a lace bra. He looked away and tried to focus on helping Jack bring in the line.
“I’m not afraid to get wet. I don’t know what Jack will do if we’re caught in a storm.”
“What do you think, Jack?” he asked with two more clicks of the reel. “Should we give up and go back to the house?”
“No way.” Jack shook his head. “I have to catch fish for dinner.”
“I think your mom’s afraid to get wet, Jack.”
“No I’m not.” Emily sat up. “Remember that time we came out here and it started raining, and so we…we…” She glanced at each of the kids and then at Miller. “Got really wet?”
She was recalling the same memory he had been replaying in his mind ever since she laid down on the blanket next to him. So yeah, he remembered. They had come out to this very pond to be together when it started to rain. She stripped down to her underwear and ran out into the water like she didn’t have a care in the world. He liked seeing her in nothing but her bra and panties. After he followed suit and chased her out into the deep, he loved the way her bare skin felt on his. Mostly he loved that being with him made her feel wild and free. He was her refuge and that made him feel more like a man than any amount of sex they’d ever had. He missed that feeling almost as much as he missed her.
“I do remember that,” he said, trying hard to concentrate on Jack’s rod and reel. “I remember it all the time. This place is a minefield of memories.”
Damn. Things were starting to lighten up between the two of them, and he had to go throw a wet blanket of awkward over the whole encounter.
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s okay. I understand.”
A few seconds and a few clicks of the reel later, the line came up with nothing but a dead soggy worm still skewered on the hook. He sort of envied that worm. He was about to cast the line back out until he noticed Emily taking off her little white tennis shoes. “What are you doing?”
“I’m showing you that I’m not afraid to get wet.”
Emily walked barefooted to the edge of the water, briefly glancing back in his direction and throwing him a look he recognized so well it startled him. She was daring him, inviting him, begging him to follow her. Or that was just what he was hoping to see. She took off running into the water, and
he sat there like a fool watching her.
Abby snatched the rod from him and whispered, “Go!”
“Huh?”
“Go, Daddy. Follow her.”
“I don’t think—”
“You’re not supposed to think. Go. Now’s your chance to spend your weekend doing something fun.”
“I have fun.”
“Reading the same Tom Clancy books over and over is not fun. Go, Daddy. I’m begging you. She wants you to go with her.”
Abby had him pegged. Here he sat, frozen with fear that he would say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing and Emily expected him to be following her. She was expecting him, wasn’t she?
Emily was in the water up to her waist when she twirled around and motioned for him. “Are you coming, or are you too afraid?” she yelled and then laughed.
He pulled his boots and his socks off and ran out to meet her. When he got close enough to grab for her, she screamed and dove under the water. He dove under too and swam as hard as he could, despite his wet jeans weighing him down. Even in the murky water, he got hold of her leg. She kicked free.
“See?” she said, swimming backward and splashing water at him. “I’m not afraid.”
“Neither am I.” He lunged for her once more, seizing her wrist, and pulled her to him. To his surprise, and delight, she didn’t resist. Maybe it was because she couldn’t touch and he could. Feeling more confident than he had in years, he took hold of her around the waist and pulled her closer. They stared at each other as they sucked in deep breaths.
“I’m out of shape,” she said.
“You’re in great shape.” He couldn’t stop looking at her lips. They were so inviting and he wanted to kiss her worse than he’d wanted anything.
Emily wrapped her arms around Miller’s neck and her legs around his waist, putting them face to face, nose to nose, lips to lips. Other body parts were touching too. He didn’t dare concentrate on those.
“I think about that time we swam in the rain too,” she said. “All the time. I wanted to get you out here so I could tell you that without the little ears listening. I also wanted to thank you for being so nice to Jack.”
“You’re welcome.” He couldn’t stop staring at her lips. What was wrong with him?
She gently bit her bottom lip as she pushed his hair off his face. It was so simple yet so intimate that it sent a surge of desire through him that was so strong it nearly overwhelmed him. He had her in his arms again. How could he ever let her go? He couldn’t. Yet every decision he’d made up to this moment in his life was based upon the belief that Emily didn’t want him, that she would never come back, and that he wouldn’t want her even if she did. A few drops of rain fell around them.
She wrapped her arms tighter around his neck and shook her head. “I can’t—”
“Mooooom! You’re scaring all the fish!”
Emily sighed. “I almost forgot about Jack and Abby.”
Jack and Abby? Who were Jack and Abby? And what was she about to say? She couldn’t what?
“I guess we should get back.”
He nodded like an idiot, and, like an even bigger idiot, he let her go. Again.
***
Back at the house, Miller pulled a t-shirt and pair of sweatpants out of his dresser and left them in Abby’s bathroom for Emily. Then he went to his own bathroom and showered, which was a terrible idea because all he could think about was the fact that both he and Emily were naked in his house at the same time. Fish guts. That’s what he needed to concentrate on. Fish guts. He rushed through his shower, got dressed, and hurried outside to clean the fish they caught because there was nothing sexy about that.
Jack was watching TV in the living room.
Abby was in the kitchen, leaning against the counter and filing her fingernails. “Not interested, huh?”
“It’s not what it—”
“I know you’re not going to tell me it’s not what it looked like. I saw the way you looked at her and the way she looked at you.”
“I’m not discussing this with…how did she look at me?”
“Like this.” She held her hands over her heart, batted her eye lashes, and said, “Oh, Miller. I think I’m in love with you.”
“Very funny.”
She dropped her hands and went back to filing her nails. “She might as well have.”
He kissed her on the top of her head. “You have a lot to learn,” he said, then went out to the backyard to start working on the fish.
Abby stuck her head out the door. “I expect a raise in my allowance when this whole thing works out.”
When this whole thing works out.
She really did have a lot to learn.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Emily
After her shower, Emily went downstairs to put her clothes in the washing machine. She found Jack outside watching Miller clean and de-bone the fish. Her son had never been in such close proximity to knives and boiling oil. Actually, her son had never been in such close proximity to a man who showed interest in him. Her stolen glances at Jack evolved into stolen glances at Miller. The muscles in his back moved underneath his t-shirt as he lowered the fish into the fryer and then stepped back. He motioned for Jack to move back, and Jack obeyed. Then he said something and put his hand up, and Jack gave him a high five. That made Emily smile.
So this was really happening. She was going to have dinner with Miller and his daughter, after taking a shower and putting on Miller’s sweatpants, which were pretty baggy on her, thank God. This was weird, right? It had to have been. Although it didn’t feel weird. It was…comfortable. No. That wasn’t the right word. Comforted. That was it. She was comforted by being in Miller’s house, possibly because it was once the house she lived in with her brother. Or it was because he seemed to be pretty happy with his life. Maybe it was because when they were in the pond, and she brushed his wet hair out of his face, she felt something spark between them.
Or it was all her imagination, and she was a fool to hope.
Since Miller and Jack were busy with the fish, Emily and Abby looked in the kitchen for the ingredients to make her grandmother’s famous fried potatoes and a salad. They found what she needed, including some bonus items to make fried pies. She hadn’t made anything her grandmother had taught her to cook since she was a teenager, probably because she always hated the way Ma’am would tell her she needed to learn how to cook because that was the only way she’d ever be able to get a husband. Truthfully, thanks to Ma’am, she was a pretty good cook, and she taught Abby a few of the basics.
“Emily?” Abby asked.
“Huh?”
“I asked what it was like to be back on your family’s property after all these years?”
“I don’t know. I guess I haven’t thought much about it. Actually, though, I used to live in this house.”
Abby’s eyes widened. “No way.”
“Yep. My grandfather built it for my mom and dad when they got married.”
“Did you have my room?”
“Sure did. I shared it with Levi until I was about ten. My parents decided we needed our own rooms, so they built the house they live in now.”
“So you used to live in my room?”
“I did.”
“Hold on.” Abby disappeared up the stairs and came back with something in her hand. “Is this yours?”
“Oh my God.” Emily took the mass of silver and held it up. “My charm bracelet. I thought I lost this. Where was it?”
“I found it on a shelf in the closet.”
“I wonder how it got there.” As she inspected each charm, her mind pummeled her with the memories of her grandfather coming to pick her up on her birthday every year and taking her to the jewelry store to pick out a charm. She got the horse for her seventh birthday, the painter’s pallet for her ninth. There was one missing. “There was a tree, like a family tree. Have you seen that one anywhere?”
Abby shook her head. “I would have seen it if it was up
there. I cleaned my closet out really good after my mom moved out.”
“You keep it.” Emily opened the clasp and motioned for Abby to put her arm out. “Think of it as a gift from me and my grandfather.”
Abby inspected the new jewelry on her arm, wearing a huge grin. “I’ll never lose it. I promise.”
“All right, then. Let’s cook.” Emily picked up a tomato and washed it.
“What do you do in Dallas?” Abby asked her. “You know, like what’s your job?”
“I don’t have a job. I was a receptionist at an accounting firm. I quit when I had Jack.”
Abby opened a drawer and pulled out forks, knives, and spoons. “A receptionist. That’s cool.”
Emily laughed. “It was boring and not at all what I wanted to do.”
“Then why’d you do it?”
“I didn’t have much choice. I didn’t graduate from high school, and I was on my own so I had to do something.” Emily realized she was looking…really looking at Miller’s daughter for the first time. Now that they were closer, she could see how pretty she was. Her hair wasn’t just blonde; it had natural highlights from the sun. Her eyes weren’t just green; they were lagoons.
“Oh. Well, what about now?”
“Now I take care of Jack. I have to be available all the time in case he needs me. If you hand me that knife, I’ll cut this tomato.”
Abby handed Emily a knife. “Even while he’s at school?”
“Especially while he’s at school.”
“You could move back here. We have a great school system. I know my dad would like it.”
“I’m not so sure my family would be too crazy about that.” Emily was struck by how familiar she looked when she smiled. It was too vague for her to put her finger on it. It might have been an expression she’d seen on Miller when they were teenagers. She studied Abby’s face. Maybe there was a little Miller in her smile. That wasn’t it, though. There was something more. Was it Sara? Emily tried to concentrate on the tomato she was supposed to be slicing, but she kept looking at Abby, trying to figure out what was so familiar about her.
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