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Chapter Six
Emma finished feeding Ruby, a sharp pain pulling through her back. “All right, girl,” she said to the horse, pulling the empty bottle from her lips. “You got it all.” She stood up and stretched her back, a groan coming from her mouth.
This day had felt like a week, as her emotions had been all over the place. She’d started the day with a scream, been surprised at the homestead, then had a near-panic attack. She’d been exhausted on the way to the downtown mall, but she’d gone because she needed a new phone.
She’d gotten that, and she’d been able to keep the same SIM card, so all of her contacts were still there. She wasn’t great at using the newest electronics, but she could text and call, and everything else she could figure out later.
Emma had used her credit card to buy the new phone, because so much of what she made at work she sent to Fran and Matt Black, the couple who took care of Missy for her. They were raising her as their daughter, and while her official birth certificate said Missy Clemson, they’d gotten a new one with their last name on it so they could register her for school under their surname.
Fran had said Emma didn’t have to send money, but Emma did anyway. She didn’t want Missy to want for anything, and if that meant she put her fancy cell phone on a credit card, that was fine with her. Fran and Matt hadn’t adopted Missy; she wasn’t in foster care. Emma had looked up an agreement online, because she’d been too afraid to go to a lawyer. If even one person knew about Missy and who her father was, word might spread.
She knew all about the seven degrees of separation, thank you very much. The lawyer might have an assistant, who might have a girlfriend, who might then say something to a client in her hairdressing chair.
And sitting next to them would be Rob’s sister, and before Emma knew it, Rob knew about his daughter.
Realistically, when she wasn’t spiraling, Emma knew this would probably not happen. But she’d done everything she could over the past eleven years to make sure her daughter was one hundred percent safe.
She knew Missy loved Fran and Matt as parents, and they loved her the way a mom and dad would. Sometimes, Emma mourned the fact that she couldn’t raise her own daughter. A lot of times, actually.
A heaviness weighed her down as she washed out the bottle and left it to dry, then left the stables. The sun had started to arc toward its final destination in the west, and Emma looked at all the reds and oranges in the sky. Above them, navy was coming to steal the last of the light from the day, and Emma was glad.
This day needed to end.
She walked slowly back toward the homestead, ready for bed. She’d missed a couple hours of work that afternoon, and she’d have to catch up with payroll and the accounts payable she owed to the travel and tourism bureau and the IFA tomorrow.
Stalling along the fence that ran in front of the homestead, Emma put one foot on the bottom rung and looked out toward the trees that grew along the river. The ranch sat on one side of the river, and down the dirt and gravel lane, as well as over a bridge, sat the highway. Another service road ran along the tree line on the other side of the river, but right now, Emma felt isolated and protected.
She could still see that blue truck parked only a few feet to her left. She closed her eyes and tried to conjure up the man’s face that she’d seen. She could see the denim jacket with the fleece lining. The jeans. The blue ball cap. She couldn’t make out much of his face, and she wished she’d grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and done a rough sketch.
He’d been tall, but not overly tall. She’d classify him as a medium build, though he’d tried to bulk himself up with the jacket. He’d carried a clipboard and another device. Not a phone, and she’d assumed it was something to read the meters.
But there were no meters there. So what had he been carrying?
She drew in a breath, and though the air wasn’t cold at all, it felt like it froze her lungs together. As she lived a simple life on a ranch, she couldn’t even imagine some of the more evil things in the world.
Yes, she’d dated a student’s father. He’d turned out to be Robert Knight, the son of Gustus Knight, who ran a variety of illegal activities in the southern pocket of Texas. She’d grown up in a middle-class neighborhood and then gone to college in Laredo. Those had been two different worlds, but she’d enjoyed them both.
She hadn’t met Rob until she’d come to the Coastal Bend, and she wished powerfully with everything she had in that moment that she’d never met him. That his son had not been in her second-grade class. That she’d had the power and intestinal fortitude to resist him.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to the sky. Since that fateful relationship, Emma had been working toward forgiving herself. She could only hope and pray the Lord would do the same—and Missy too, one day.
Sighing, she turned back to the house at the same time she heard the rumble of an engine. She twisted back toward the trees and the lane she’d been gazing at, but she held very still so as not to disturb any gravel. Not even a blade of grass.
On the other side of the trees, headlights cut through the thickening darkness, but she could barely see them. With spring here, the trees had started to leaf out, and they concealed whatever vehicle was there.
The headlights stopped—which meant the car or truck they were attached to had as well—the light shining across the road on the other side of the bridge. Someone was on that utility road.
Someone had probably just gotten turned around. Emma knew people turned off here all the time when they meant to go down another half-mile to Half-Moon Bay Drive, where a popular Farmer’s Market took place every weekend.
Still, an alarm sounded in her head.
Number one, it wasn’t the weekend.
Number two, it was almost eight o’clock at night. No Farmer’s Market. No reason to be on that road.
Number three, she’d been standing at the fence for at least ten minutes, and she would’ve seen and heard anyone who’d made the turn by accident. They wouldn’t have gone down that road, waited ten minutes, and then turned around.
As much as she wanted to know who was there, she also wanted to rush to safety. That instinct won out, and she hurried across the lawn to the garage—all three of which were open—and up the steps. She practically smacked the buttons that would close up the garage for the night, and as the six doors closed—one on each side, for all three garages—she ducked inside.
