Now She's Back (Smoky Mountains, Tennessee 1)

by Anna Adams

  “About you? I wanted to smack him, but I finally saw that would make me like him.”

  “It’s okay. It doesn’t mean anything. It might even be funny when we look back on this little jaunt. He wasn’t lying about your choices if you don’t learn to control your temper.”

  “I feel sick because I’m as arrogant and know-it-all as he is. I don’t want to be like our dad.”

  “Then it’s a good thing you get to decide.”

  “I needed to see him.”

  “We all have to find a way to live with Mom and Dad.” Noah turned toward the center of town. “Without actually living with them.”

  “Yeah, if you had room in that dinky apartment over your office, I’d have shown up on your doorstep about six times since school started this year.”

  “Mom’s trying too hard to make up for lost time with you and Celia.” Noah was willing to be ruthless, if his younger brother needed an escape plan. “But you’re welcome at my place anytime you need me.”

  “The only flat surfaces to sleep on are the floor and the top of your fridge.”

  Noah grinned. “At least Mom keeps the refrigerator full.”

  “That’s the only reason I’ve stayed most of the time when she tries to give me a curfew or look at my homework. You’re no chef, Noah. I remember that.”

  “She’s supposed to give you curfews, and if your school calls her to say you aren’t doing homework, naturally, Mom’s going to check.”

  “I’m just saying, it’s a little late for Suzannah or Odell to suggest we do as they say, not as they did.”

  “I don’t disagree, and after that visit with Dad, I suspect you’re smart enough to keep your fists to yourself and take steps to make your own escape plan if you want to leave Bliss with some dignity.”

  “Thanks for bringing me. He looks a lot older than Mom.”

  “He’s lived a lot harder.”

  Chad nodded. Then he made a production out of yawning, stretching his arms to the roof. “What’s to eat around here?”

  Good change of subject. Noah was happy to leave Odell behind again, too. “I like a barbecue place just over this way.”

  “I’m starving, man.”

  * * *

  WITH A LITTLE more backbone and a little less fear of rejection, Emma might have skulked down to Noah’s office and lurked on the bench outside. He hadn’t texted or phoned. They’d been gone hours.

  Finally, she took out pots and pans and tried a new stuffing recipe that tasted good enough to sample extensively. After she ate too much, she scrubbed up the kitchen and went for a run on the path on the ridge above the house, a path she knew well enough to have run at midnight.

  On her last lap, she turned down through the orchard and veered back up onto the driveway when a familiar sound stopped her. She waited until Noah’s car came around the last bend in the road before her house. He saw her and smiled—she could see it in the light from his dashboard. He stopped the car at her side.

  “Climb in.”

  Despite the fact she was standing only a few hundred yards from her own front door, she opened the passenger side.

  Why hadn’t he texted? Why had he let her worry? Why did she care so much? She’d never even realized she was so afraid of the man who’d pushed her down the stairs and then accused her of attacking him.

  “You’re all right,” she said. Noah looked as if he’d run a hard race. “Chad didn’t lose his temper?”

  “Chad got what he expected, I think, but he seems to be taking Dad as a lesson.”

  “So you got what you wanted? Your dad scared him straight?”

  “I hope so. He’s a smart kid.”

  That was enough for now. He parked beside her car beneath the trees. “You’re getting sap on your hood and roof,” he said. “Why don’t you use the garage?”

  “Nan was storing some of her belongings out there. I need to finish going through everything.” She smiled across the car. “She and I seem to have shared a reluctance to throw away anything that carries any meaning.”

  “Tonight, I don’t see that as a flaw.”

  He got out, and she got out and they walked in silence to her front door, which she opened.

  Noah caught her hand. “You don’t lock it?”

  “Now, who managed to spook himself? I lock it if I’m going to be out of sight of the doors, which is never, after the leaves fall.” She lifted her phone. “And I bring this, before you ask. Megan made me promise I wouldn’t run without it.”

  “She’s already a good mom,” he said, neglecting to mention what Megan had, that the phone hardly worked in the woods around the house.

  In the foyer, she took off her sweatshirt and tossed it on the bench. “Are you hungry?” she asked, turning instinctively toward the kitchen.

  “No.”

  Without warning, he slid his hands around her waist and pulled her back to him. Her heart leapt into her throat, pretty literally. She covered his hands with hers, resting her head on his shoulder.

  “What’s going on with you, Noah?”

  “My family makes me crazy.” He bent his head. His mouth brushed her ear, the nape of her neck.

  Emma’s sharp intake of breath seemed to echo in the quiet house.

  “You make me a little nuts, too,” he said.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Kissing you.” He turned her in his arms, and cupped the back of her head. Then he pressed his lips to hers, brushing gently, giving her time and space to say no and mean it.

  “Distracting yourself?” Once she would have cared, but tonight she understood that sometimes you didn’t want to think.

  She didn’t want him to go away. She wanted to matter to him. Cradling his face in her hands, she stood on tiptoe to deepen the kiss.

  His arms tightened. Each breath they traded bound them to each other. Four years was a long time.

  “I went everywhere I could think of to avoid you for the past four years,” she said, clinging to his lapels.

  “And yet, we can’t stay away from each other.”

  “I would be insane to let myself believe you mean anything by this. You are using me.”

  “I might be.” He pressed his mouth to her forehead, his touch gentle, adoring. A relief after so many days of longing and needing.

  “Why would you use me?”

  He lifted his head. His gaze bathed her face in tenderness. “I can’t explain why I needed so much to see you tonight.”

  She wrapped him in her arms. He must be suffering if he’d allowed himself to be honest. “That’s all you had to say,” she murmured.

  She needed no other explanation. She couldn’t imagine what he’d been through, helping his brother face the man who was both nightmare and father.

  She’d nourish him with food, listen to as much of the story as he could bear to share and then send him home before he could break her into a million pieces.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  EMMA HAD CLEARED Nan’s desk in the parlor and set up her laptop, along with her favorite teacup and saucer. Happily aware of the misty mountain outside her window, she was working hard when her cell phone rang, sounding muffled. She managed to find the thing in one of the desk drawers before her father hung up.

  “Emma,” he said, “I was about to try one of your many working haunts.”

  He liked to tease her about saving on office space by using every free table in town. “What’s up?” Emma asked. “Everything okay with Megan?”

  “She’s fine. We’re watching a marathon of the most chick-focused chick flicks ever made. I’m not sure I should be allowed to touch the DVDs as I don’t have ovaries.”

  “Feeling misogynistic?”

  “Teasing Megan.” A rustle at their end made Emma b
lush a little. She was glad her father had found a happy family life, but listening to him and Megan sometimes made her feel like a fifth wheel. “Listen, Emma,” he said, “I forgot I’d called for a special council meeting tonight. I meant to just pitch Noah’s plan again after they’d had time to think it over, but I think you should speak.”

  “You don’t want to leave Megan? I don’t blame you, but I’m not sure I’m the right person to take your place. Don’t you have a more powerful friend?”

  “I’m not asking you to change their minds or browbeat them. Just show up, explain what happened with Megan, and how it could happen again. You might want to mention she went into labor after I spoke in favor of the clinic at the last meeting. We don’t want to look entirely self-serving.”

  “Too late for that. You know people will think I’m pushing for you and Noah now.”

  “Do you care?”

  She didn’t answer at first. Her head was spinning at the memory of Noah’s hands on her skin, his breath in her hair. His lips, certain and tender and delicious.

  “You’re right,” she said. “I don’t. I’ll go to the meeting tonight.”

  “Thanks. Do your best. Just pretend you’re talking to a few clones of me.”

  She glanced at the wall clock above the sink. “I’d better get dressed.”

  “Let me know how it goes.”

  * * *

  EMMA TOOK ONE of the last seats in the small courtroom. She was surprised at how many of her fellow citizens had shown up to support the clinic, but the website and flyers must be working. Noah eyed her across the crowd from his spot near the judge’s bench. The five-member council was four without her father. They were sitting together on a bench in front, and they didn’t look happy to see her.

  They called the meeting to order, discussed old business and brought her in at the end.

  “Brett Candler asked for this meeting to discuss the proposed clinic that Dr. Gage has been urging us to fund.” Mr. Phillips, who owned the most rarefied ski resort, lifted his light, wire-rimmed glasses. “Any objections to letting Brett’s daughter address the issue instead?”

  They all looked bored as they fluttered their hands in “who could possibly care” gestures, and Emma got to her feet. Her legs shook as she walked to the podium. She could talk to anyone one on one, but speaking about something so important in front of a crowd undid her. She faced the other attendees. Their votes mattered to the council more than anything she could say.

  “Hello.”

  Her throat closed. She turned her head and coughed and ran into Noah’s steady gaze. That gave her a shot of courage. He’d rescued enough of the people in this room.

  “Dad had planned to present the charts and financial information Dr. Gage gave him, hoping you would have had time to reconsider your response.” She took a deep breath. “But since the last meeting, my family experienced a medical emergency.”

  She looked at the audience and almost stopped again, startled. Her mother had enthroned herself, front row center, barely four feet away from Emma’s shaking hands. She didn’t really want to discuss Megan’s unborn baby in front of Pamela. But what could she do? She had to tell the story.

  Pamela didn’t seem upset. Instead of frowning or shooting lightning bolts of anger with her eyes, she was nodding slightly, a sweet smile curving her mouth.

  Emma smiled back, marveling. “My stepmother is due to have a baby in a few weeks, but she was at home, just doing normal things she does at home, when she went into premature labor.” A sliver of that day’s fear sliced through Emma’s thoughts. She glanced at Noah and saw only concern, as if he felt what she was feeling.

  She found her voice again. “I was close by at my house, and I was able to go to Megan, and we drove, I’m sorry to say, above the speed limit most of the way into town to Noah’s—Dr. Gage’s—office so that he could help her. He’d called for a life flight that still didn’t reach town before Megan and I did. He was able to administer some IV medication before the helicopter landed.” She rubbed her mouth. It felt as dry as sandpaper. “The life flight took Megan into Knoxville, and she’s all right so far, but I never want to be afraid for anyone like I was for my stepmother, whom I love dearly, and a little sister I don’t even know yet. I’d found Megan in horrible pain when I picked her up. She was terrified, and all I could do to help her was to start driving and hope we wouldn’t be too late to save her baby.”

  Emma turned toward the bench, where three men and two women stared at her, one man, unconvinced, but Mr. Phillips was rubbing at a tear beneath his eyes. The women, both mothers of grown daughters, were rapt.

  “Why should Megan have had to be so afraid?” Emma asked. “Why should her baby have been exposed to danger for far longer than necessary? Why can’t we offer all of our citizens better care?”

  From behind her came applause. She turned to find people lined up to make their own comments. She turned back to the mic. “I see others who’d like to speak. Thank you for listening. I hope we can work this out, and, as you know, my father is in favor of the clinic, too.”

  She glanced at Noah as she turned. She couldn’t tell if he was smiling or frowning. Her mother lifted her hand and patted the seat beside her. Emma went to her and sat.

  “Thanks, Mother. You made it easier.”

  Her mother smiled. “You know I’m jealous of that Megan girl?”

  “Megan woman,” Emma corrected in a whisper.

  “Whatever, but I’m jealous because I don’t want you to love her more than me. I can see that she’s given you reason to love her more—I’ve seen you shopping together and talking, and soon she’s going to give you a little sister.”

  “You’re my mother. However you and Dad raised me, it turns out you gave me heart enough to love you all equally—you, Dad, Megan and the baby.”

  “Thank you, honey.” Then her mother pointed toward the podium. “We should listen. You may have to speak up again. Think like your father.”

  That was a suggestion she’d never expected to hear.

  Each person in the line that snaked around the small room agreed with Noah’s plan and Emma’s speech. They voiced their own fears for their families, and more than one suggested the council’s response might inform voting in the next election. Only one suspicious-eyed woman suggested Emma should have come to her senses and spoken up before her stepmother needed help.

  Emma sank against her mother. Pamela patted her hand and frowned at the woman.

  Finally, as there were only four people left in the line, Mr. Phillips spoke up. “I think we hear what the citizens want, and Emma, we all wish your father and his wife a healthy, happy child. But you all have to remember, wanting something as expensive as this clinic isn’t accomplished by simply wanting it.”

  Emma stood. “Can’t we work at getting public fundraising?”

  “Certainly,” one of the councilwomen said, “but it’s not the equipment that gives us pause.”

  Mrs. Parker, Emma’s former teacher, was the last in line at the mic. She moved in front of her neighbors with a polite “Excuse me” repeated for each person she passed. “I believe the council is trying to remind us that a clinic needs staff, who need to be paid, and also, there’s the question of a facility or a property.”

  “And,” the councilwoman jumped back in, “it’s not just the lack of a facility. No one sells in this town. Dr. Gage was lucky to get his office when he took over Dr. Bragg’s practice, but we’ve all heard that his search for an appropriate building has gone nowhere. We frown on new construction because of the covenants, but where would you put something as large as a clinic? We don’t have empty lots, Emma, Dr. Gage.”

  “A problem, I agree,” Noah said, “but waiting for a property to open up gives us time to raise the funding.”

  Several voices jumped into the fray. Tho
se who believed the need for a clinic was urgent shouted down the idea of waiting. Emma worried that tonight the council was listening because they were affected by Megan’s story, but if they had time to rethink as the town waited for a facility, they might harden their hearts again.

  The most obvious answer in the world occurred to Emma. She owned a house. A large house with six bedrooms and three baths, two parlors and a kitchen big enough to be a cafeteria. All that room for one person who didn’t even plan to live in it.

  Nan’s house. And Nan’s sweetness and generosity floating through it. Nan, who’d arranged for the first Thanksgiving dinner in the courthouse basement for people who had no meal of their own. Nan, who’d organized the school supply fair that gave every elementary school student in Bliss at least part of their supplies for the year.

  Nan, who’d always stepped in where she saw need.

  Emma got to her feet. Her body shuddered. She wanted to cry, but she would not.

  “Excuse me,” she said, instead of “point of order,” or whatever would have been appropriate.

  “Hey,” her mother said above the voices Emma hadn’t interrupted. “Emma has something else to say.”

  Everyone turned.

  Emma reached for her mother’s hand. Pamela gripped her fingers as if she knew what was coming.

  Despite her best efforts, Emma couldn’t hold back tears. “I have a house,” she said, and thank goodness the room had gone so quiet because she could barely hear herself. “It’s way too big for one person, but it would be perfect for a clinic. I had some termite damage that’s resulted in a renovation that goes all the way to the studs. This house will stand. It’s almost all the way up Bliss Peak, but it’s available, and I’m willing to donate it for the clinic.”

  There were gasps and then cheers. Emma looked down at her mom and saw a reflection of her own tears and her determination.

  “It’s the right thing,” Pamela said. “It’s what she would have done.” Then she noticed her daughter’s sudden frown. “Emma, are you tempted to change your mind?”

  “Absolutely.” Emma realized she’d given her mother’s house away as well. She longed to go home right this minute and run her hands over every inch of the plaster, each plank in the floor. “But I won’t.”