Out of those wonderful memories came another—of Salem sharing how his mother had left him and his fears that still lingered.
It made sense that he worried about abandonment. To be fair, Emily had come and gone so many times since she’d become an adult. He was still expecting her to go, to leave not only the town, but also him, permanently. The most basic relationship in his life, his first with his mother, had ended in abandonment.
She had seen the fear when she’d told him she was returning to the Sudan. And yet he’d given her the incomparable gift of his trust.
I’m coming home, Salem.
Wait for me.
* * *
SALEM WAITED AT the airport holding one single red rose.
While Emily had been gone, Salem had managed, bolstered by her words of love and his memories of their stellar lovemaking, to blast to smithereens his old fears of abandonment and his neurotic need to keep his loved ones close and safe. He had managed to quell doubts and trust that Emily Jordan would come home to him.
He had trusted her, with all of his heart.
Now here she was, coming through customs and then noticing him. Her face lit up with the same love he felt brimming inside him. She was home. Safe.
He drank in the sight of her, her hair and eyes and the tiny freckles on her nose dear and familiar to him, but it was the clear freedom in those eyes that called to him. She’d succeeded. No more strings. No more bullies.
She was free.
He rushed to her and took her into his arms.
“Salem, I—”
“Shh, don’t speak.” He trembled with his need for her.
“But I need to show you—”
“Quiet. Shh.”
“But I have a newspaper.”
The woman just wouldn’t stop talking. He would have to shut her up. He kissed her, pouring everything he had into her, every scrap of love, every grain of insecurity, every bit of loneliness he’d felt while she’d been gone—only eight days, but it had been an eternity.
He kissed her until they ran out of air, and then he kissed her some more. Other passengers exiting customs jostled them. Still, they kissed.
Finally, he felt a pair of firm hands on his shoulders. “Dad. Please. You’re drawing attention.”
He pulled away from Emily, drinking in her flushed cheeks, bright eyes, swollen lips, pretty mouth curled into a satisfied smile.
“Hello, you,” she whispered, still in his arms.
“Hello, you.” He stepped away from her, but held her hand. Now that she was home, he couldn’t not touch her. How could he ever release this woman again?
“I missed you.” He heard the pain in his voice, as though he’d said, I was dead while you were gone. And indeed, part of him had been.
Aiyana jerked Emily away from him. “Cripes, Dad, give the rest of us a chance with her.” She hugged Emily and then handed her off to Mika and then to his dad.
Next, Nick, Laura and Emily’s siblings took her into the warm embrace of the Jordan family. Salem had been so focused on Emily, and showing her his love, he’d forgotten about everyone else who’d come to see the woman he loved.
* * *
THE PEARCES AND JORDANS had two celebrations that summer. Salem graduated, and his family and Emily attended.
In that moment, Salem’s life became complete. He’d managed, during his career at the Heritage Center, to bring awareness of his culture to people in general, and pride in the culture to everyone on surrounding reservations.
Now, he would embark on the new career he’d worked his fingers to the bone studying for over the years.
Aiyana held him after the ceremony and whispered, “All of the hard work was worth it. I’m so proud of you, Dad.”
What better reward could there possibly be for a man than to hear that from his child?
He cherished his family, and the woman he’d loved for so many years would soon become part of that family.
* * *
IN AUGUST, THEY HELD a wedding celebration. Emily couldn’t believe they’d managed to pull one together so quickly.
She stood in the huge party room of the resort. Aiyana, Mika and their friends, including some of the girls who’d confronted Sheriff White in his office that day, had decorated to perfection with white and periwinkle blue streamers, small white lights everywhere, and floral arrangements Audrey at The Last Dance had pulled out all of the stops to create.
The wedding cake Laura had made for Emily and Salem shone like a jewel at the head table.
Cody approached, handsome and oh so grown-up in a tux. A minute ago, he’d been dancing with Aiyana.
“Happy, sis?”
“On cloud nine. What are you doing with Aiyana? You two have been hanging around together a lot.”
“I figured I wasn’t going to start a serious relationship this summer, not with heading to college in the fall.”
“So you thought you’d give Aiyana a good experience?”
“Yeah. She deserved a hell of a lot more than Justin for a first date. This way, she’s with someone safe, but experiencing all the firsts that can make a shy girl really nervous.”
“Firsts? You don’t mean...”
“Get your mind out of the gutter. She’s only sixteen. I mean, first date, first dance with a boy, first kiss. A very innocent, chaste kiss.”
Emily hugged him. “Cody, I love you.”
“You, too, sis. You’ve got a good man in Salem. You two have a good life, y’hear.”
Emily looked around the room, to find Salem watching her. Her heart filled with joy. Oh, they would have a very good life.
* * *
SALEM WATCHED EMILY talk to her brother and then search for him at the end of their conversation. She homed in on him with little effort.
It had always been like this. When they were in the same room they had been aware of each other, had known exactly where the other was. For years, they’d been unable to act on their attraction. Their time had finally come.
Salem started across the dance floor toward her.
Everything receded but Emily gazing at him with loving eyes, a confection of white lace covering a body he now knew intimately, and whose every tiny molecule he had loved with care. It would take years to appease his hunger for her. The music faded, and even his daughters’ caterwauling with the karaoke machine couldn’t intrude when he stared into his wife’s lovely eyes.
This had been a long time coming. Everything, his entire life, every moment since she’d walked into his life as a stubborn, feisty twelve-year-old, had been about Emily Jordan. His love had ever and only been, and would forever more be, always Emily.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from SILVER LININGS by Mary Brady.
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CHAPTER ONE
THE BLUSTERY WINTER morning had started well...
But when Delainey Talbot let herself into the side entrance of the old redbrick building of Morrison and Morrison Attorneys, the office was eerily quiet. No morning chatter greeted her. No clicking of keys or rustling of papers—not even the smell of coffee.
Since her workday d
idn’t start until she dropped off her daughter at school, there should be at least five people here by now.
The excitement of her long-awaited acceptance into law school faltered as she crept forward in the unnatural silence, and a sharp edge of worry seeped into her joy.
Then she heard quiet murmuring from behind the closed door of the office Carol and Shirley, two of the legal assistants, shared.
She tapped on the door and opened it slowly. Five people stood in a clump in front of Carol’s desk, and as one, they looked at her with a mix of sadness, insecurity and maybe hope.
That was not helpful.
“What? What’s going on?” Delainey asked, directing the inquiry to Carol.
“Shamus is retiring,” cried Patty, the gray-haired sixtyish receptionist, as she rushed over, not quite teary but close, and grabbed Delainey’s arm. “We hoped you’d know what’s happening. Why would he do that to us?”
Since Patty’s reaction was usually to panic first and seek information second, Delainey decided to remain calm. “He’s been making those plans for years. He’s going to start pulling back in a couple of years and be gone in three or four.”
Patty just looked at her.
“Today,” said Shirley, red haired, the youngest office employee and granddaughter of the retiring Shamus Murphy.
“He’s retiring today?” Delainey looked at each of them. “That can’t happen.”
“He was here when I arrived, sitting right here drinking that awful tea he likes,” said Carol as she leaned back against her desk. “He didn’t say he was quitting soon and not even today. He said yesterday was his last day as partner.”
“He’s just stepping down.” A rush of dread made Delainey’s muscles ache and her chest tighten. “He’ll still be here, right?”
Leaving couldn’t be on the table. He had to keep the position open for her until she finished law school.
Until she finished. Oh, that sounded selfish, even if it was just inside her head. But if she was going to provide for her daughter, she needed to give up being a paralegal and become the lawyer she had planned on becoming six years ago.
“‘Stepping out,’ he called it. He’ll be available for consultations for ongoing cases for a while, but he’s retiring. Harriet is now senior partner,” Patty added, and the words felt like a door slamming loudly.
“But how? Who will be the other partner?” How would they get enough work to keep fourteen full-and part-time people busy with only one attorney? There needed to be two lawyers in the office, at least from a get-the-jobs standpoint. Shamus had to stay.
“Shamus left for the airport in Portland.” Carol held up a hand. “Said he’d be back after lunch with his replacement.”
Replacement?
In her head, Delainey saw this replacement arrive, sit down at the desk that was to have been hers in three years—and the world tilted on one dangerous edge.
Think. She had to think, not stand there and pull all her hair out with her coworkers watching.
“I have to get to my office,” Delainey said as she raced out the door, leaving, she was sure, the whole bunch gaping after her.
She fled to her second-floor office at the back of the building. A lesser ten-by-ten-foot space tucked between two storage rooms. Two walls were blank. The door in one wall was offset from the two main offices on the other side of the hallway, so even if the doors stood open, they could not easily see into each other’s offices. The back wall had two lovely windows, windows that should have a view of the ocean, but they looked out at the fire escape, the parking lot and the dilapidated abandoned warehouse across the alley. But the office suddenly became indispensable to her, a den of retreat.
She hung her old navy blue quilted winter coat on the hook behind the door and sat down in the chair at her desk. Things were not supposed to change until she was ready.
Shamus was not supposed to leave. She swung her feet up onto her desk. Her whole plan hinged on having a place to work when she got out of law school, a place in Bailey’s Cove, Maine, where she could raise her daughter among the townsfolk who loved them both.
Air came hard into her chest. Bailey’s Cove didn’t need another attorney. She wasn’t greedy, but there wouldn’t be enough work for the new person and herself after she graduated and came back to Morrison and Morrison.
And that was the large and the small of it. There were already more than enough attorneys for the struggling town of fourteen thousand. She had been eking out a living as a single mom for a long time while saving money for school. Her parents helped with her daughter and if this attorney job went away, she’d have to find work elsewhere, away from Bailey’s Cove and everyone she and Brianna loved.
She rubbed her chest and coaxed herself to relax. This replacement might only be temporary, because why would someone come here to this tiny town, and more importantly, why would they stay here in the back of nowhere?
She got up and stood at the window. Gulls floated in the sky as if the world were not crumbling. She felt small again, the way she had when her actions kept her from law school the first time.
Shamus knew she needed the job. Okay, he had never said in so many words the job was hers, but everyone in the office assumed she’d be the next attorney.
For Shamus to leave so abruptly, there had to be something terribly wrong with him or maybe Connie, his wife, or maybe a grandchild. The thought only tightened the knot in her chest.
She couldn’t ask Harriet, the other partner, because Harriet had conveniently gone on an impromptu Caribbean cruise. Shamus would have planned this, she was sure. Get Harriet out of the way for her own peace of mind while he dealt with the fallout of whatever this was.
Oh, Shamus, please be okay.
She’d just have to pull it together for a while until she found out what was going on and who this was he was fetching from the airport. Probably some young thing fresh out of law school. Get some experience for the résumé in Bailey’s Cove and be gone in two or three years—she could only hope.
The thought calmed her a bit. That would be perfect. That left only Shamus to worry about.
But what if the new attorney fell in love with the small coastal town, or even someone in the town? They might want to stay forever.
The budding calm fled.
When her phone jangled with her sister’s ringtone, she jumped and grabbed it off the desk. “Good morning, Christina.”
“Deelee!” Her sister, Christina Talbot, younger by two years, was the only person who called her Deelee. Well, of all the people in the world she had trusted with the moniker, the only person who still lived in Bailey’s Cove. “I got them. All of them. As of today they are mine.”
“Wait. What did you get?” Her sister had been talking madness about the Three Sisters, three Victorian-style houses built long ago for three siblings. The houses sat side by side on Treacher Avenue a few blocks from the harbor.
“Dora, Cora and Rose, of course.” Christina’s tone held a touch of smug.
“Did you sign the contracts already?” She was certain her younger sister didn’t know the meaning of due diligence.
“I did that a long time ago. Monday I got the money, and at eight o’clock this morning I closed on them.”
As Christina had retorted more than once during their sisterly discussions, Delainey wasn’t the one to be pointing fingers at decision making, good or bad. The big one Delainey had made had been a whopper. So she kept her mouth shut.
“I know. I know,” Christina started again. “Owning them is going to be a total drain on my finances, but this is happening. It’s really happening.”
“Where are you now?”
“I’m in Cora. She’s a great lady.” Cora was the center and largest of the three houses. Cora had been the oldest daughter, and apparently, Daddy did love her
best.
Delainey had a sudden thought. Her sister’s purchase was the perfect distraction. “Hey, why don’t I come down and join you? You can give me a tour.”
“You’d come? I—I’d, ah, gee, love it.”
Delainey knew her sister’s hesitancy was shock that she’d just up and leave work so early in the day.
“So can I come now?”
“Now? Of course you can come now. I’m here with a tablet of paper and a pencil to work on my wish list. You can give your sisterly advice.” The excitement in Christina’s tone almost inspired Delainey to be optimistic about the Three Sisters.
“You’d be doing me a favor if I could butt in for a while,” she said, already getting up from her desk.
“Okay, I’m going to make you explain that when you get here. Come, I’ll give you that ‘before’ tour you’ve been almost coming to take for six months now.”
Delainey hadn’t wanted to encourage what she thought of as Christina’s scary adventure, so she hadn’t been inside the houses. Now she felt a little ashamed of not being supportive.
She grabbed her coat and flew down the back stairway.
When she stuck her head into the reception area and called out, “Patty, I’m leaving for a while. Call if you can’t live without me,” Patty looked shocked, but it could not be helped.
As she yanked her long blond hair from inside her collar, she ran out the door before anyone could call her back. For six solid years after Brianna was born and she became a single mom, she had been the responsible one, the one who was always where she was supposed to be, doing what she was supposed to be doing and more. If she was to be fair, she had been responsible her whole life except for two short days, and maybe right this minute as she left work shortly after she’d arrived.
The cold February wind rushed inside her open coat and she wrapped the warm quilted fabric around herself. In less than twenty-four hours, she had gone from elated and on her way to the moon to troubled and tumbling out of control. The idea made her muscles twitchy and her head begin to ache.
Always Emily Page 29