by Cathie Linz
Emma’s uncertainty underlined the fact that she didn’t know her sisters all that well anymore.
She’d always felt closer to Leena, who was only two years older. But now . . . Emma didn’t know what to think.
And that wasn’t like her. Emma usually had her thoughts in order. Under control. Sure, she sometimes brainstormed and random ideas would hit her when she least expected it—like when she was in the shower or right before she fell asleep. Lately those ideas had all revolved around her project about Rock Creek’s revival. Had she been deliberately avoiding thinking about her family’s dynamics and the impending weddings? Probably.
She’d certainly walked into a hornet’s nest here. Emma had no idea that both her sisters seemed to think that their mom favored Emma as the baby in the family. Yes, her mom seemed proud of Emma’s academic accomplishments, but she’d seemed equally proud of Leena’s modeling successes as well.
As for Sue Ellen, well she had lead a colorful life and their mom had worried about some of Sue Ellen’s choices. Sue Ellen had married right out of high school against their parents’
wishes. And gotten divorced soon afterward. Emma had barely been in middle school then, so her memories of that time weren’t exactly fresh.
But Sue Ellen seemed to have chosen a good guy this time around. Emma had met Donny the first evening she’d been in town. He’d seemed really nice and he clearly adored Sue Ellen.
Your sisters have their lives mapped out before them and where are you? Lost in your own underachieved goals. Unsure of your choices. Still searching in vain for your own place in the world.
“Yeah, we all know Emma’s a good girl. Yada, yada, yada,” Sue Ellen was saying.
“I love all my daughters,” Maxie said defensively.
“Sure you do,” Sue Ellen said before adding the kicker, “just not equally.”
“You’re pregnant.” This time Maxie patted Sue Ellen’s shoulder. “Your hormones are talking, not you.”
“How typical,” Leena muttered. “This family never talks about anything. You’re all in total denial.”
Maxie shot a look at her watch. “I’ve got to go. I’m late for meeting Donny’s mother.”
“Sure, Mom, take off and avoid the situation. You too.” Leena turned her accusing look toward Emma.
Maxie hurried out but Emma stayed.
“Notice she didn’t say how she felt about becoming a grandmother,” Leena said.
“I’m not avoiding any situation,” Emma said, defending herself. “What’s the deal with you both saying I was Mom’s favorite? That’s not true. Yes, she’s proud of me, but she’s proud of you too, Leena. And if anyone is her favorite, I think it’s Sue Ellen.”
“Me?” Sue Ellen looked stunned. “How do you figure that?”
“She always calls you first and more often than she does either one of us.”
“Because you two are harder to reach.”
“No, it’s because you know Mom better. You stayed in Rock Creek when Leena and I left,”
Emma said.
“I moved to Serenity Falls for a while.”
“Which is the town right next door. You’ve always been here for Mom,” Emma pointed out.
“I’m sure she appreciates that.”
“She’s never said so.”
“That doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel that way.”
“I’m no mind reader like you.”
“It’s not mind reading. It’s basic psychology.”
“Now is not the time to point out how smart you are,” Sue Ellen growled.
“I just meant that Mom shows you how she feels instead of telling you. She’s always sending you articles about things she knows you’re interested in, like scrapbooking.”
“She does that for everyone.”
“Not for me,” Emma said.
“Me either,” Leena said. “Not that I’d want her to.”
“And Mom’s done nothing but talk about your weddings for weeks now,” Emma added.
“Why she even left Dad to come up here to help you guys out ahead of time.”
“She just likes weddings,” Leena said. “Did I tell you she wanted to do my hair with some upswept style held in place with fake birds?”
“I liked that idea,” Sue Ellen said. “I’ve got dibbies on that.”
Leena waved her hand. “Hey, it’s all yours.”
The room was still filled with a prickly energy that made Emma uneasy. She didn’t like confrontations. They left her feeling wrung out and weepy for some stupid reason. So she tried to calm the waters. “I think you’re both probably stressed out about the wedding, and of course there are definite hormonal changes when you’re pregnant. I can’t believe you both are going to have a baby.”
“I’m only about two months along,” Leena said. “And I only found out earlier today. Cole is over the moon. He knew before I did. I thought I had a stomach bug and sent him out to get some club soda and then called him on his cell phone to add squirty cheese and a mango to the list.”
“You hate mangoes,” Emma said.
“I know. That’s why Cole brought home a pregnancy test. I mean, the man is a doctor after all.”
“An animal doctor,” Emma said, but her sisters ignored her.
“When the stick turned pink, Cole did this macho dance.”
Sue Ellen nodded. “That’s the macho my-swimmers-are-da-bomb dance. Donny did it too.
So you’ve started with the food cravings?” Sue Ellen asked Leena.
“Yeah, jalapeno peppers and Cheerios.”
Emma watched her sisters sitting on the couch, heads together as they laughed and compared their weird food choices. She felt like an alien in a strange world. An outsider in her own life.
She doubted Sue Ellen and Leena would even have noticed she’d left had her suitcase not bumped into the side table on her way out the door. As it was, they gave her a preoccupied wave and then resumed their sharing.
It was time for Emma to make it on her own.
Jake watched Sheriff Nathan Thornton walk into Nick’s Tavern. “I’ve been expecting you,”
Jake said. He’d been in town only two weeks, but he knew how fast word spread about stuff like fights in the bar.
“Really? Am I getting that predictable?”
Jake just shrugged. “Heineken, right?”
Nathan nodded and slid onto a bar stool. “It’s quiet in here.”
“Yeah.” Jake placed a napkin on the counter, then set the beer down on top of it.
“There a reason for that?”
Jake shrugged again. “Who knows?”
“I think you know what I’m talking about. I heard there was an . . . altercation in here earlier today.”
“An altercation?”
“Yeah.”
“Did someone file a complaint?” Jake asked.
“No.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“You haven’t been in town very long.”
“Is that a problem?”
“I don’t know.” Nathan took a sip of his beer. “Is it?”
“You always answer a question with a question?”
“Do you?”
“Pretty much.”
“Yeah, me too.” Nathan took another sip of his beer. “So how are you enjoying your time here in town?”
“So far, so good.”
“You plan on settling down here?”
“Do you ask all newcomers these questions?”
“Nah, just the ones who won the King of the Mountain trophy three times in a row.”
Jake made no comment.
Nathan said, “Rumor has it that you might be interested in opening a sports resort around here.”
“Do I look like a resort kind of guy to you?”
“Maybe that was a poor word choice. How about a sports training center for extreme sports?”
“What if I was? Is there some law against that?”
“No. So that’s why you’r
e here?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No, you don’t say much.”
“Neither do you.”
“True.”
Jake watched as Nathan took another sip of his beer before asking, “Is there any reason why I should be concerned about you or your reasons for being here?”
“Nope.”
“Would you tell me if there was?”
“Probably not.”
“I had that feeling.”
“I’m not planning on committing any crimes, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Would you tell me if you were?”
“Good point. Guess you’ll just have to trust me.”
“My wife tells me I have some trust issues.”
“I’ve been told the same thing about myself,” Jake said.
“You’ve got a wife?”
“No. I’m not the marrying kind.”
“Too busy traveling the world?”
“Something like that.”
“And how does Rock Creek compare?”
Jake shrugged. “It seems like a nice small town.”
“And I’d like to keep it that way.”
“Understood.”
“So do you like being a man of mystery?”
“I like minding my own business and having others do the same.”
“See,” Nathan drawled, “that’s a problem in a small town. Everyone knows everyone else’s business sooner or later.”
Jake’s gut tightened. He didn’t want anyone knowing about his private business, not until he was ready. And he still wasn’t even sure that time would ever come. Not that he planned on hanging out here indefinitely. He’d never been the type to put down roots in one place.
He’d been called a loner, a rebel, and an adrenaline junkie. He’d also been called much worse, starting in the foster homes when he was twelve. A misfit, a bastard, a troublemaker.
He was here for a reason, and it was time to get off his butt and start taking action instead of just brooding about it. He was on a personal quest more intense than any he’d attempted before. But this search wasn’t about physical accomplishments. This was about finding his birth mother.
He’d first gotten the idea when he was lying in the hospital in Peru, groggy from the morphine they were feeding him intravenously, ravished by the pain of his injuries and consumed by the nightmares of what had occurred on that mountain.
Three men had gone up and only two had come back alive. Jake still had a hard time accepting that reality. Why him? Why had he survived when his best buddy Andy hadn’t?
Why had Jake suggested climbing that freaking mountain in the first place?
They said that near-death experiences changed a man. Reshaped him. Transformed him into something more or something less than he’d been before.
Jake had survived close calls before but none as horrific as that deadly day on that killer mountain.
The nightmares still consumed him. He couldn’t beat them or forget them. And he hated that.
But not nearly as much as he hated the fact that his best friend was dead. He didn’t care about many people, but when he did, they died. What kind of sick life lesson was that?
“You’ve been rubbing that same spot on the counter for five minutes now,” Nathan noted.
“You timing me?”
“Just noticing details. An occupational hazard.”
“Yeah, I know all about hazards.”
“I’m sure you do. And I’m equally sure you have no intention of sharing those stories. Am I right?”
“What do you know about Emma Riley?” Jake asked abruptly.
Nathan showed no surprise at the sudden change of subject. “Why do you want to know?”
“She’s not a reporter or anything is she?”
“Emma? Hell, no. Last I heard, she was a professor in Boston. She’s home for her sisters’
weddings.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m going with her.”
“Going with Emma?” Now Nathan did look startled.
“To the weddings. Never mind.” Jake wanted to bite his tongue off. Why had he shared that bit of info with the local sheriff?
“What made you think she might be a reporter?” Nathan said.
“She asks a lot of questions.”
“So do I. And I sure as hell am no reporter.”
“Right. She asked for my autograph. Said it was for a friend of hers.”
“So?”
“I don’t do autographs anymore.”
“Is that what caused the altercation in here earlier?”
“No.”
“Are you saying that you think Emma is a groupie or something?”
“No.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“Damned if I know,” Jake muttered in frustration.
“It sounds like Emma got to you.”
Jake clamped his mouth shut. No way was he responding or even acknowledging that comment.
Instead he left Nathan to his beer and helped another customer.
But Nathan didn’t give up that easily. In fact, he seemed to call in reinforcements as two guys joined him at the bar—one a big black guy who looked like he could be a defensive lineman, and the other a tall white guy with a ready grin. “Cole here is one of the grooms at one of the weddings you’re going to,” Nathan told Jake as he walked by to get a new bar towel. “Jake is taking Emma to your wedding.”
Cole looked at Jake and said, “You’re a friend of Em-ma’s?”
Jake just shrugged.
“He doesn’t like answering questions,” Nathan told Cole.
“I don’t blame him,” the black guy said. “You two are nosy. Not me. I’m Algee Washington, owner of Cosmic Comics down the street.” Algee stuck out his ham-sized hand and Jake shook it.
“I’ve got another store in Serenity Falls. The main thing you need to know about me is that I like my beer cold and my women hot.”
“Don’t let Tameka hear that,” Nathan said.
Algee just smiled. “I’m not saying anything she doesn’t already know.”
The three men were clearly good friends. They shared that same camaraderie that Jake had had with Andy. He and Andy had been convinced they were invincible. Extreme sports were all about attitude and pushing the envelope. Nobody did that more than he and Andy.
They’d pushed that frigging envelope until it broke.
“Hey,” a guy down at the other end of the bar yelled. “What’s it take to get a beer around here?”
Jake gladly left Nathan and his buddies and pushed all personal thoughts aside. It was the only way he made it through the day. The nights remained a personal hell.
“Temporary home sweet home.” Emma stood in her studio above the Health Nut health food store and surveyed her surroundings. The place was furnished with a futon couch that doubled as a bed, a table that doubled as a desk, two straight back chairs, and an armchair.
The walls were painted a brick red and the floors were shiny hardwood. Oak she thought, but she was no expert.
In one corner was a postage-stamp-size bathroom with a toilet, a sink hanging on the wall, and a shower but no tub. The apartment had a small kitchenette along one wall complete with a compact sink, a stove that reminded her of the Easy-Bake Oven she’d had as a kid, and one of those small fridges like the one she’d had in her college dorm room.
At the moment the only thing in the fridge was her six-pack of Dr Pepper, which was minus the can she held in her hand. In her other hand she held a bag of Cheetos—the crunchy ones, not the puffs. Dr Pepper and Cheetos. Two of her guilty pleasures.
The room was stuffy in the June heat so she threw open the window and couldn’t resist climbing out onto the fire escape to catch a little cooling breeze. At the last minute, she dragged a big pillow out with her and sat on it. Even though it was almost eight at night, it was still light outside.
Ah, this was the life. No sisters giving her disapproving looks.
No mom giving her ulcers.
No trouble . . .
Emma glanced across the narrow alley into the apartment directly across from her and saw him.
Jake Slayter. Naked.
Chapter Four
Jake naked. Emma almost choked on her Cheeto.
The windowsill covered his privates but barely. The rest of him was very bare. Arms.
Shoulders.
Chest. All muscular without being bodybuilding yucky. He looked so good she wanted to reach out and touch him. He seemed close enough to try.
Emma didn’t realize she’d actually raised her hand until she spilled some of the Dr Pepper on her bare leg. Her cargo shorts and tank top suddenly seemed too warm and she wanted to strip them off.
Jake suddenly bent over, and his bare butt flashed in the window frame. The man mooned her.
Was that a tattoo on his fine ass?
When he straightened, he had weights in each hand and was doing arm curls. Is that what they were called? Emma was no fitness expert. She’d once gotten a free month-long membership at a gym but never got around to actually going there. If she’d known there would be guys like this, she might have made more of an effort to get there.
Or maybe not. She’d never gone out of her way to see a pair of six-pack abs on a man. But then she’d never seen a man as hot as Jake.
Was she drooling? She raised her fingers to her mouth to check. Maybe that was Dr Pepper.
She took another drink but kept her eyes on Jake.
He was in profile now. She could actually see his nipples. How narrow was that damn alley anyway that she could see him so clearly?
She knew she should look away but lacked the willpower to do so. Finally she reached into her pocket for her iPod and stuck the earbuds into her ears. Music blared. She now had a soundtrack to go with his arm curls. “My Favorite Mistake” by Sheryl Crow. Ain’t that the truth. Thinking about Jake was a big mistake. That didn’t seem to stop her, though.
Emma closed her eyes and let the residual images of naked Jake wash over her as the music pounded. So involved was she in this process that she didn’t even notice there was someone on the fire escape with her until she opened her eyes and saw Jake right beside her. Not entirely naked but close enough as he was only wearing a pair of black running shorts.