“I think our cooties are definitely BFFs by now,” Emily muttered, then hurried into the tiny en suite and grabbed the comb off the sink. And if she artfully arranged the waves, maybe the red patches wouldn’t be so noticeable? No?
Then she glowered at her reflection. Wait a goshdarn minute...
Colin was tucking in his shirt when she roared back out of the bathroom, the man’s expression remarkably calm for someone who’d been as good as caught with her in a very compromising position. And thank God for that, since calm was one thing Emily definitely was not right now.
“What the hell is she doing here anyway?”
“I assume that’s a rhetorical question? Although that fury you’re feeling right now?” He buckled his belt, then snagged her shawl off the chair and tossed it to her. “Hold on to that. ’Cause something tells me you’re gonna need it.”
That stopped her. And forced a tight little laugh from her throat. “And it’s a lot easier to be angry with someone from two thousand miles away than when they’re right in front of you, isn’t it?”
“Yep,” he said, then reached for her hand. “I have no doubt whatsoever you’ve got this, baby. But I’ve also got your back.”
She turned to him, fighting the burning sensation in her eyes. “And I repeat, you don’t have to do this. Play the white knight or whatever. Especially since...this isn’t—wasn’t—real.”
Something like anger shunted across his features. “You don’t think what happened here tonight was real?”
For a moment, she was confused. “After everything we just said—”
His grip on her shoulders almost hurt. Although not nearly as much as the regret in those pale green eyes. “This is about now, Emily. This moment.” She saw the muscles in his throat work. “True, maybe I can’t be what you need for the long haul, but sure as hell I’m not pretending like tonight never happened. That it wasn’t important. Because believe me, honey...it was. More than you have any idea.”
Except, in a blinding, breath-stealing flash...she did. Even, somehow, over all the other crap crashing around underneath her skull.
The turkey was every bit as much in love with her as she was with him.
And compared with the frustrating futility of that little situation, dealing with her crazy mother was child’s play.
“Should we bring Spud?”
“Why not?” Colin said, whistling for the pup. And as they walked in silence to the main house, the pup tumbling over his big feet, the twinkling stars in the blue-black sky seemed to chuckle at them.
With good reason.
* * *
“A little warning would’ve been nice, Mother,” Emily said a few minutes later, after her mother had clearly put two and two together and arrived at suitably appalled.
“Clearly,” she said, seated across from Emily in the great room, the light from the wrought iron chandelier overhead gleaming in her artfully highlighted auburn hair. The others had retreated to the kitchen, although Colin had refused to leave until Emily promised to let him know if she needed him. Even though she knew that he knew she needed to handle this on her own. Because “having your back” came in many different flavors.
“And why are you here, anyway?”
“We’ll get to that in a minute.” Her mother blew out a breath between lips rimmed with what was left of her signature bright red lipstick. And for a moment Emily felt a twinge of sympathy, that the woman had endured a long travel day, with layovers and the drive here from the airport stretching the trip to nearly twelve hours. Still, no one had asked her to make the trek out here. Least of all Emily. “But for God’s sake, Emily—I can’t believe you hooked up with someone this soon after your own wedding day.”
She supposed, from her mother’s point of view, that’s exactly what she’d done. And what the hell, she might as well own it. “Except, in case you missed it, I did not, in fact, get married.”
Her mother’s expression went from frosty to arctic. “And whose fault was that?”
“You know, I believe we’ll have to cede that one to Michael.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Emily...that’s what men do. And it’s not as if you were married yet.”
“And thank God for that. Except, really? That’s what men do? Or only men you happen to be married to?”
Her mother’s face went as red as the lipstick she’d probably chewed off by Dallas. “Your father’s always been a good provider. And loyal, in his own way. So I learned to look the other way.”
“Oh, jeez, Mother—”
“Your father’s and my relationship is none of your business.”
“And neither is mine with...well, whoever, actually. Because it’s my life? Where I get to make my choices?”
That got a hard stare, one that even a few months ago would have made Emily’s stomach go wobbly. Now? Nope.
“So, what? This—” her mother waved at the beard burn “—was about, what? Getting even?”
“Actually, it was about being with someone who actually cares about my feelings.”
Her mother scoffed. “Oh, please, Emily...you can’t be that naive.”
“You mean, the way you and Dad raised me?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. We didn’t—”
“Careful, Mother. Considering a second ago you took me to task for walking away from someone who cheated on me because... What was that you said? Oh, right...‘That’s what men do.’ So, two things.” She crossed her arms. “One, no, they don’t. At least not all of them. And two, that naïveté thing? Done.”
“I hardly think a fling with a cowboy is a way to prove your maturity. Do you?”
Somehow, Emily steadied her breathing. Somehow, she didn’t give in to the impulse to storm out of the room and leave her mother to stew in her own juices. Because that would be playing right into her hand, wouldn’t it? Giving her all the ammunition she needed to verify her accusation, her assumption, that Emily was still a child who couldn’t be trusted to make her own decisions.
That she was a stupid little girl who needed guidance. Direction.
By the same token, neither was she about to let herself get sucked into an argument, which would give her mother another kind of satisfaction. Funny, how she could almost feel Colin’s go-get-’em-tiger from down the hall. The sort of support she’d never felt, not once, the entire time she and Michael had been together.
“Believe it or not,” she said quietly, “I wasn’t trying to prove anything. To anybody. All I was doing was living my life, on my terms. Not anyone else’s—”
“You can’t stay, Emily. And I’m not leaving until you come to your senses.”
Her laugh clearly startled her mother. “You seriously came out here to bring me home?”
“Since talking to you over the phone wasn’t working...yes.”
“And what on earth made you think you’d get a different result in person? Mother... I have a job, a commitment I fully intend to honor. I’m not about to leave these people in a lurch simply because you have issues with it. Issues which for the life of me I don’t understand—”
“Then let me make it simple for you. You don’t belong here. This life...it isn’t your life. Oh, I know, it might seem like some sort of big adventure right now, but you’ll tire of it soon enough, believe me.” Her mother tried to soften her voice. It didn’t entirely work. “Look, I understand, the whole thing with the wedding getting called off...that’s enough to shake anybody up. To make you do... Well, to make you not think straight. Do things you wouldn’t do if you were. But if you believe being out here is going to somehow magically fix everything...” Her voice hardened again. But not before Emily caught an unmistakable flash of fear that made her frown. “Don’t be a fool, Emily—”
“And I’d stop right there if I were you,” Colin quietly sa
id from the doorway. Emily’s mother whipped around.
“This is a private conversation, if you don’t mind.”
“Which was edging a mite too close to abusive for my taste.”
Her mother’s jaw dropped. “Abusive? Are you serious?”
“Colin, it’s okay—”
“Not sure what else you’d call it—”
“Both of you! Cut it out!” Emily struggled to her feet, feeling as though her brain had been stuffed in a blender. “Jeebus. Colin...” She crossed to him to fit her hand in his. Because it wasn’t as if this couldn’t get any worse, so what the hell? “I appreciate your coming to my defense, but seriously—I don’t need it.” She turned. “Although, actually, Mother—he’s right. All my life you’ve tried to manipulate me into being who you want me to be, what you want me to me, as a reflection of you. It stops now.”
“Why, you little ingrate—”
Still hanging on to Colin’s hand—Colin’s warm, strong hand—Emily held up her free one. “I’m not ungrateful for the things I should be grateful for. Really. I know I had a charmed childhood, that you and Dad gave me everything I ever wanted. But that doesn’t mean...” She took a deep breath. “That doesn’t mean you own me. Or that I owe you anything besides my gratitude...”
But her mother clearly wasn’t listening, her gaze instead zeroing in on Colin’s hand linked with hers. When she lifted her eyes, Emily saw the fear again, more intensified. “So are you two actually together?”
“No,” they said at the same time, and confusion almost cramped her mother’s Botoxed forehead. Must be time for a tune-up. Emily slid her hand out of Colin’s.
“But what we are, or aren’t, is frankly none of your business. I tried it your way, Mother,” she said before the woman could interrupt. “And it was an unmitigated disaster.”
Her mother’s gaze zeroed in on Colin before returning to Emily. “And this won’t be?” she said quietly, then brushed past Emily on her way out of the room.
* * *
After Deanna’s filling Colin in on a few things over the past fifteen minutes, neither Margaret Weber’s dismissal nor her lobbing the last word as she swept from the room surprised him.
Neither had Emily’s standing up to her mother. For herself. Because from that first conversation all those weeks ago he’d glimpsed an inner strength he doubted she’d even been aware of at that point.
A woman’s strength. That indefatigable resilience that held families together, protected children...stood up to tyranny with no regard for personal safety.
But what had surprised him—as in, rattled him to the core—was his reaction to her courage. Hell, her outright defiance of her mother’s domineering attitude. Emily Weber was one tough cookie.
A tough cookie Colin was falling in love with so hard it almost hurt to breathe. And what exactly was he supposed to do with that, for God’s sake?
“You were supposed to stay away,” Emily said, standing in front of the open French door with her back to him, her arms folded across her ribs. A stiff breeze whisked across the large room, stirring the drapes, rattling papers on the coffee table.
“I couldn’t.”
“I told you, I didn’t need rescuing.”
“That wasn’t why I couldn’t stay away.”
Her forehead knotted, she turned. Then, shaking her head, she released a sad little laugh. “Did you feel like this, when you stood up to your father?”
Colin frowned as he rammed his fingers into his back pockets. “Not sure what you mean by ‘like this’—”
“Loyalty knocking heads with needing to find yourself. Be yourself.” Tears glistened in her eyes. “Did it...did it tear you up inside?”
For the first time, he saw what her rebellion was costing her. A realization that only made it even clearer that she didn’t need any more obstacles tossed in her path to self-discovery.
Never mind that for a moment there, when they were still at the cabin, he’d been tempted to backpedal, to take another stab at something he knew from experience would never work. Because it hadn’t before. Because feelings, no matter how strong, never trumped logic. Practicality.
Inevitability.
“Some, sure.” Then he blew out his own laugh. “Who am I kidding? Of course it did. I love my folks, I think the world of them, and I knew Dad didn’t understand what I was doing. What I had to do. But—”
Too late, he caught himself.
“But the family dynamic isn’t exactly the same,” Emily said. “I know.” Heaving a huge sigh, she walked back over to the sofa and dropped onto the edge, her arms tightly crossed over her stomach. “My mother isn’t an easy person to love. But I do love her. And she’s got her good points. Like taking in Dee after Aunt Kathryn died. Maybe her reasons weren’t entirely altruistic, but we were raised like sisters. If anything, Mother might’ve overcompensated a bit with Dee to—in her mind—make up for what had happened. But...” She blew out another breath. “She never got over her only sister moving so far away, embracing a life she couldn’t understand. So I know it’s killing her to think I might do the same thing.”
Again, Deanna had filled him in a little bit ago, about her aunt’s issues with Whispering Pines. Even though Colin’s reasons for not wanting to stay were entirely different from Margaret Weber’s old fears about her sister, he still had to sympathize with her, at least to some extent.
“This really feels like home?”
Emily’s gaze met his. “It really does. Yes, I love your family, and the landscape—the obvious things. But it goes beyond that. It simply...feels right. Feels like me.” A small smile touched her still-swollen lips. “It always did, even when I was a kid.”
Then she got to her feet and slowly walked over to him to wrap her arms around his waist, and he felt his heart crack. “I know, to you, this probably seems like I’m settling. That I’ve chosen something small and quiet and safe. Except...” She sighed. “When I look into those children’s eyes in the classroom, or when I see the love all these people have for each other, how they show it, every minute of every day...to me, that feels pretty darn big.”
Colin tugged her close, his own eyes burning as he pressed his cheek against her hair. “Reminds me of what my dad said to me,” he whispered, “when I told him I was leaving. But I can’t—”
“I know,” she murmured into his chest, then leaned back to look up at him, tears brimming on her lower lashes. “And I totally understand. Believe me. Different purposes, different paths...” She shrugged. “That’s how it goes sometimes. Nobody’s fault.” Then she snuggled close again. “Doesn’t mean my heart’s not breaking right now.”
“I know what you mean,” he pushed out, holding on to her as tightly as he dared before saying, praying his voice held, “I’ll take the pup back for tonight, but Josh said I could leave him here tomorrow morning.”
Then, with another kiss to her soft, soft hair, he let her go.
* * *
Holding on to her shaking self as though she’d fly into a million pieces if she didn’t, Emily watched Colin walk away, wondering if she’d even ever see him again. A thought she let play through a dozen times, simply to torture herself. Because she didn’t need to hear the words to know he’d be gone by tomorrow, if not before. Why else would he be bringing Spud here in the morning? After all, there was no reason for him to stick around, now that the book was done. And even though she’d laid bare her soul just now—because he deserved to know the truth about how she felt—not only was that not a reason for him to stay, if anything she’d given him that final little push to leave sooner rather than later. Would she ever willingly hurt him? Of course not. But he didn’t know that, did he?
How it was even possible that she’d fallen in love, and so hard, in such a short time she had no idea. Especially after what she’d just been th
rough. But she had. And now, standing in the vast room by herself, she blew out a dry laugh, that her mother had been right. Not that whatever had happened between her and Colin even remotely compared with the ignominious end to a three-year relationship with someone she’d expected to spend the rest of her life with. This one at least had come with a built-in end date, one they’d both been fully aware of from the beginning. So humiliation wasn’t even an issue.
Pain, however...
Emily sat back on the sofa, her legs tucked up underneath her, realizing the only person she wanted to talk to about her feelings was the only person she couldn’t. That if nothing else, she’d found a friend in Colin, a good friend, someone she knew she could trust with her life.
And had, whether she wanted to admit that or not.
“Oh, sweetie...”
She hadn’t heard Dee come in. Or realized she was crying until a box of tissues plopped on the sofa beside her a moment before her cousin followed suit—the only other true friend she’d ever had. The only other person she knew she could trust with her life, her sorrows, her secrets.
Dee wrapped Emily up in her arms and tugged her close, much the same way Emily had for her only a few months before when her cousin’s world had shattered, as well.
“You slept with him, didn’t you?”
There wasn’t the slightest trace of judgment in her cousin’s gently spoken words. And not only because considering Dee’s history she had no room to talk, but because that had never been part of their relationship, anyway. Not with each other. Although remembering their conversation that first night, Emily pushed out a puny little laugh.
“Hey,” she said, a soggy tissue clutched in her fist. “It was your idea.”
“Yeah, well, that was on a par with ‘Why not eat the whole cheesecake?’ Fun to think about, major regrets after you’ve actually done it.”
“Speak for yourself,” Emily grumbled, and Dee chuckled. Then Emily pushed herself upright, partly to grab another tissue, partly to get hold of herself. “I did know what I was getting into. Except I never thought...”
Falling for the Rebound Bride Page 16