She refrained from rolling her eyes. Barely. “This from the person who won’t let me drive Tracy shopping. How different would you feel if Tracy had died? Or if Granny Rose was hospitalized after being chained to a park bench all night? I know you believe I should never be trusted with someone else’s welfare ever again.”
“I thought I heard voices up here.” Granny Rose stepped into the room, saving Emma from saying or doing anything more. “Emma, are you talking to yourself again?”
“She’s not alone.” Will’s gruff voice startled Emma’s grandmother.
“You!” Granny glanced at the bed, which Emma had made first thing in the morning—thank goodness—before turning her gaze to Will. “What are you doing in here?”
“Checking up on Emma. She crashed her bike on Parish Hill.”
Granny Rose rushed over to Emma, lifting her bruised and scraped arms and examining her similarly abused face. “You’re sure he didn’t hit you?”
“Granny, Will may be many things, but he wouldn’t hit a woman,” Emma scolded. “I ran off the road and wiped out pretty good. I was lucky Will was there.” Not that she could bring herself to look at him while she reassured her grandmother she was fine a dozen more times.
In her concern for Emma, Granny forgot about Will, who was still standing against the wall. But Emma could feel his eyes upon her, feel the heat he refused to quell in his gaze. Was he that determined to get in the last word when Emma had so clearly summed up what was best for the both of them?
Finally, her grandmother stopped fussing and went downstairs to make her famous triple-chocolate cure-all—chocolate-chip cookies, brownies and hot chocolate. It would have been safer to follow her, but Emma had never played it safe. It was true what Will had told her days before by the river. She was willing to twirl near the fire.
“Now that she’s home, I should be going.” He pushed himself upright. “But think about this, Emma. You didn’t drive your grandmother to the town square and handcuff her there. You didn’t hand Mildred her car keys. Give the old girls credit for their own actions. This idea you have about sacrificing your relationships to be some kind of lonely, eccentric Picasso is giving power to a silly fear.”
Emma shook her head.
“The Emma I grew up with wouldn’t let fear get the upper hand. She’d dig in her heels and battle back.” He moved into the doorway. “That’s the Emma I’ll kiss again, despite my better judgment. Despite Rose and Tracy and the trade-off you think you have to make to get your art back. She’s there. Inside you. And I will kiss her again. And next time...” His eyes captured hers, an intense clear blue that laid claim. “I’ll take my time.”
His words plundered her principles and robbed her murmured denial of anything resembling conviction.
* * *
“WHAT DO YOU mean you don’t want to dance?” Granny Rose demanded later that afternoon. She opened the screen door and gestured for Emma to follow her out.
“I took a tumble on Parish Hill. I could barely make it down the stairs.” Who’d have thought Emma would miss Will transporting her from one floor to the other? Emma sat on the bottom step trying to convince her battered body it could make it back to her bedroom, where she’d continue to reject Will’s words about fears and kisses. Dancing? Out of the question. “I’m walking like an old lady.”
“I’m offended by that remark. Now, come out on the porch. You had a cup of hot chocolate, two brownies and three chocolate-chip cookies. You need to work them off.” Granny patted her tush. “So you took a tumble? Let’s work out the kinks and move on.”
How could Emma move on when she kept remembering the intensity of Will’s gaze? The thrilling threat of a kiss? The annoyance she felt that he didn’t believe she had to be alone forever to pursue her art.
“Well, look who’s here. It’s Tracy.” Granny let the screen door bang behind her. “I hope you’re ready to dance. Emma’s in a feel-sorry-for-me funk. She has nothing to be funky over. It’s not like she held a protest and no one came. Would you like to dance with me?”
“Yes.” Tracy’s voice was rich with silent laughter.
Emma dragged her sorry sack of bones out on the porch.
The big-band sound of Glenn Miller’s orchestra spun out of the phonograph, spilled out the open front window.
Emma waved at Tracy, who was grinning as she let Granny Rose lead.
Tracy was out of breath after the first song. “Cut in.” She gestured to Emma before collapsing on the porch swing, her legs chicken skinny beneath her blue denim shorts.
“Go easy on me.” Emma shuffled forward.
“Why?” Her grandmother held out her hand. “You should always dance like it’s your last day on earth.”
Soon Emma’s muscles had warmed to the point where she didn’t whimper with each step. After two dances, she begged for a halt, and Granny Rose went to the kitchen for water and cookies.
“Will. Told me. Are you. Okay?” Tracy pointed to Emma’s bruised face when Emma sank onto the swing.
“I was dancing like it was my last day on earth.” It almost had been.
“You fell. Race...racing Will?”
Emma nodded. “I’m not very good at keeping people safe, even myself.”
“That’s. Not true.” Tracy scowled and pounded a fist on her thigh. “Don’t. Believe what. Will says.”
“It’s true.”
Tracy made a frustrated sound. “He bosses. Me. He orders. Me. He makes. Me mad.” Tracy panted with the effort to get the words out. “You. Too.”
“Sometimes,” Emma allowed. He could have ordered her into his arms this morning or the other day beneath the willow tree and she might not have minded. “But there’s truth to his words. I can’t explain what happened in the car that day, but my mind wandered and you got hurt. And now I’m struggling to paint and you’re struggling to talk. And you have so much to say.”
“Will wants. Me to. Have. Shock. Therapy.” Tracy touched her forefingers together and made a zapping noise. “Bye-bye. Brain.”
Emma grabbed Tracy’s hand. “You tell him you won’t do it unless he does it first.”
That made Tracy laugh.
“There’s got to be other methods. Maybe you just need practice. I’ll videotape you reading speeches. You can get up on stage with Granny’s production of The Music Man.”
“Ha! Seventy-ty-six. Trom-bones,” Tracy tried to sing, and then shook her head. But she was smiling.
“Now, that’s what I like to see.” Granny Rose carried a tray with three glasses of water and a plate of cookies. “Two girls sharing confidences on the porch. It’s like old times.” She set the tray on the table. “What were you talking about? Boys, I bet. You used to stay up all night talking about boys and wedding dresses. Those sleepovers made you the best of friends.”
“Granny, we’re not thirteen.”
“That’s it.” Granny Rose snapped her fingers. “You girls need a sleepover.”
Tracy and Emma exchanged glances and chuckled.
Her grandmother handed out glasses. “You’ve grown a bit since your last sleepover. You won’t both fit in that twin bed upstairs. Tracy, don’t you have a bigger bed in your room?”
Tracy rocketed to her feet. “I’ve got. To go.”
“But you just got here,” Granny Rose protested as Tracy ran down the steps. She turned to Emma. “What did I say?”
“I have no idea.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“YOU MADE ENOUGH cookies to feed an army,” Emma said to Granny Rose as they walked over to the town square on Saturday morning for the Grand Marshal Selection Ceremony. They each carried a big tub of homemade chocolate-chip cookies.
“My cast members make up a small army.” Granny Rose chuckled. “I’ll get nominated for sure. Don’t know if I’ll win.
It’s an honor to be recognized.”
“That’s what they all say,” Emma murmured.
Two weeks before the Spring Festival, the town gathered to recognize the artistic or community contributions of its members. But only one resident was chosen to be the Grand Marshal and preside over the Spring Festival.
This year, Granny Rose had invited her elementary-school production from Cloverdale to sing something from The Music Man. Snarky Sam would undoubtedly bring one of his taxidermy projects. Mayor Larry would demonstrate the latest yoga poses. Mrs. Mionetti would bring her latest wool-knitting project. And so on. Residents were a diverse and talented lot.
“Emma, do you have a rock in your shoe? You’re limping.”
“I’m still working out the kinks from that fall off the bike.” Emma’s body felt like she’d been run over by a truck. Twice. Will was right. Progress needed to be made before someone died waiting for help. But about the kissing... Will was wrong. Kissing her was a bad idea. If it came to a choice between a kiss and recovering her talent, she’d have to choose paintbrushes and canvas.
Granny Rose laughed. “How sad that there won’t be a painting from Emma Willoughby this year.”
“I’m no longer a resident, so I can’t enter.”
There was a chill to the spring morning that seemed to rise from the dewy, fresh-cut grass, making Emma glad she’d chosen to wear black yoga pants and a plum-colored hoodie, which also hid most of her scrapes and bruises. Or maybe it was the chill of anticipation Emma felt. She suspected she’d see Will today. Would he try to kiss her? Or chide her about her silly fears?
They stepped onto the Harmony River bridge. In the distance, Emma could see people buzzing around the perimeter of the town square, setting up tables and chairs.
“Why is it that only Harmony Valley residents show up to this?”
“We like to be true to ourselves. Two weeks from now we’ll show off the best of our talents in the Spring Festival, celebrate our town’s diversity with floats and open the year’s first Farmer’s Market.”
“Maybe next year there’ll be wine poured at the festival.”
“I told you not to listen to that computer nerd.” Granny Rose frowned.
“I want you to have a safety net here in town. Will’s plan isn’t perfect, but it’s the only plan out there.”
“I warned you about Will. He fascinated you even as a child.” Granny Rose stopped long enough to shake her finger at Emma. “But he never saw you as more than a nuisance. Nothing has changed. You chase after him and he ignores you.”
“That’s not true.” The words slid slowly from Emma’s lips as she realized the truth beneath the alibis she’d been telling for years.
I have a crush on Will.
Granny Rose huffed and continued walking, leaving Emma alone with her thoughts on the bridge where town lovers traditionally shared a good-night kiss.
I have a crush on Will.
When had that happened?
Emma flipped through memories—rafting, fishing, hiking—going back further and further—Easter-egg hunts, Fourth of July sparklers—until one memory stuck.
This one.
She’d been too small and weak to make a basket on the hoop above Will and Tracy’s garage. She’d been trying for what seemed like forever, so long that her best friend had gotten bored and run over to the swing set. But Emma, stubborn even back then, had kept at it in the hot sun. Sweaty, her hands smelling like dirty rubber, she’d dribbled and leaped and wished the ball into the hoop. To no avail.
And then Will had rounded the corner of the house from the barn, looking as hot and dirty as she felt in his scuffed work boots and dusty blue jeans. A few years older, a few feet taller, with a lot more responsibility on his plate.
“You’ll never sink that,” he’d said.
She’d wanted to toss the ball to the moon, along with every other basketball on the planet.
And then, without warning, Will had lifted her up, basketball and all. Her laughter had filled the air as she’d stretched her arms toward the hoop, barely putting the ball through the orange metal rim. Her feet had come back to earth safely. He’d released her.
She’d scurried after the ball. “Let’s do that again.”
He’d lifted her over and over, laughing along with her, until his father had called him into the field.
She’d known he had chores. She’d known she’d be in the way. She’d followed him anyway.
A few days ago she’d followed him around Harmony Valley.
Could I have more than a crush on Will?
Heavens, she hoped not.
She was fascinated by the deliberate, yet confident way he moved, the meticulous approach he had toward life, as if unwanted what-if scenarios were weighed, measured and avoided at all costs. She found his protection of Tracy both exasperating and endearing. She enjoyed the way his bossy nature needled her rebel instincts.
But love? She wasn’t sure she knew what that meant, how that felt.
And she was determined not to know.
Thankfully, the object of her soon-to-be nonexistent affection was nowhere in sight when Emma collected herself and ventured into the town square. Would it be too much to ask that he and his friends had taken the day off from schmoozing Harmony Valley residents?
Of course he’d be here. Everyone in Harmony Valley came to the ceremony. Which meant Tracy would be here, as well.
Emma deposited her tub of cookies on a table near her grandmother, who was busy welcoming her young performers and their parents. Slipping on her sunglasses, breathing in the smell of fresh-cut grass, she wandered around the square to check out what the residents had done this year.
Snarky Sam had set up a five-foot-tall sawhorse next to his lawn chair. Hanging from it was a deer head with a broad spread of antlers. Sam had somehow given the deer humanlike shoulders and dressed him in a white shirt and black vest, a sloppy gray toupee and a hoop earring.
A group of elementary schoolchildren from Granny Rose’s school in blue jeans and T-shirts painted like blue band jackets swarmed around Sam and his work as if he was a rock star.
“Nice,” Emma praised the pawn-shop owner over the children’s heads.
“It’s better than the skunk, don’t you think?” Sam’s Sherlock Holmes skunk had won him the Grand Marshal title one year. “Worth your vote?”
“Worth somebody’s. I can’t vote anymore.” Wishing him luck, Emma moved on.
Hiro Takata sat at the next table.
“How did the colonoscopy go?” Emma asked politely, hoping the pictures on his table weren’t of his insides.
“I’m smooth as a baby’s bottom in there.” Old Man Takata, as he liked most people younger than him to call him, patted the back of his hip. He used to be an undertaker and still did special requests. He had two framed pictures on his table, both extreme close-ups of Nadine Tarkley’s face. “Can you tell which is before and which is after?”
Emma’s stomach threatened to sour, but she gamely took a closer look. “I’m going to guess the one with the white silk background is the after.” The one where Mrs. Tarkley’s dead eyes were closed.
“Correct!” He clapped his hands. “I hear you took my place at bowling. I’ll be back week after next.”
“I’ll hold your spot.” Emma moved on.
She was admiring Mrs. Mionetti’s knit wool lampshades when Will appeared next to her. He handed her a travel mug. “Thought you might need an extra cup of coffee this morning.”
I have a crush on Will.
Emma held the coffee between them like a much-needed barrier. “Where’s Tracy?”
“She and my dad went to the hardware store first thing. They should be back soon. Flynn and Slade went into town to catch a movie.” He stepped into her space, examining
the bruise on her cheek, which Emma thought was barely visible beneath a layer of makeup. “You look good. How do you feel?”
“Okay.” Please don’t ask me about my fears. Emma walked away with a nervous gait she hadn’t experienced since high school. She stopped in front of Felix’s table.
The big retired fireman had pet crates of adorable kittens. One was occupied by a rather large, one-eyed Siamese. Upon seeing Will, the Siamese started yowling and rubbing against the cage. Will reached in a finger to scratch the cat behind one ear. The Siamese purred.
“Ping’s bonded with you,” Felix said stiffly to Will. “I’d ask if you’d adopt him, but I want him to have a stable home with a person who cares about others.”
Will retracted his finger. “I keep telling you and everyone else—I’m building the winery and running the winery. It’s not for sale.”
“He’s selling.” Felix reached into a crate to take out a small white kitten, passing it to one of Granny Rose’s musical cast.
Will clenched his jaw. “No, I’m not.”
Emma laid a hand on Will’s arm. “People would be more likely to believe you if you gave them a reason. An honest reason for starting a winery and retaining ownership.” And then she waited for him to admit he was doing it for his dad and Tracy.
Will’s lips remained sealed.
Why was he stopping short of reassuring the town of his commitment?
“He’s selling,” Felix surmised.
“I’m not.”
“He’s selling,” Felix repeated gloomily.
* * *
TRACY STOOD NEXT to her dad at the Grand Marshal Selection Ceremony. The sun and light breeze had chased away all traces of fog, leaving the late morning squintably bright. She’d rather be home painting in her dark room, but her father had driven straight from the hardware store in Cloverdale to attend the festivities. Heaven forbid he miss out on a town event.
Tracy’s paint cans were in the back of his truck. Thankfully, her dad hadn’t asked her why she needed five gallons of paint in five different, loud colors. She would have left, but there were too many cans for her to carry home by herself. Even if she left with one or two, Will would notice and ask questions she didn’t want to answer.
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