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Chapter Twenty-Two
Emma had returned from the stables an hour ago, the scent of chocolate floating on the air as she’d passed the Annex. The desire to go inside and see what Ted and Missy were doing had been nearly impossible to resist.
She’d even climbed the steps to the deck before realizing what she was doing.
She’d scurried quickly back down to the yard and continued to her new home. She’d been working every waking minute for the past six days to get it habitable for her and her daughter. Fran and Matt had stayed yesterday for hours, helping get Missy’s bed set up with her comfortable and familiar blankets, stuffed animals, and trinkets. She had Polaroid pictures of her and her friends. Her and her other parents. Just her.
Emma had cried for hours last night after Missy had gone to sleep. What was she doing, pulling this child from the only life and the only parents she’d ever known?
Fran had called about one-thirty in the morning, claiming she couldn’t sleep because she knew Emma would be having a hard time. That had only made Emma cry harder. Fran had assured her and reassured her that she and Matt were okay.
“We’ve always known she was only ours on loan,” Fran had said. “Please, Emma, don’t let this hurt you for too long.”
Emma didn’t know how to make it stop hurting. She’d wanted Missy to have the best life possible, and she’d had it with Fran and Matt. She had friends, and a big window in her room that let in lots of light, and violin lessons. Fran had taught her how to cook and Matt had taught her how to ride a bike. They’d loved her and raised her as their own, and Emma couldn’t just let that all go.
She didn’t know how.
She knew Missy wanted to be here with her, and for Emma, it was all of her dreams come true. “You’ve been working toward this day for a decade,” she told herself as she pulled out another chunk of grass from the flowerbed rimming the cabin.
“Momma?”
Her daughter’s voice filled the air and lifted her spirits. She clapped her gloved hands together and groaned as she got to her feet. “I’m out back,” she called. The back door opened a few seconds later, and Missy stood there.
She smiled at Emma and lifted the paper plate in her hands. “Come get some cookies.”
Emma couldn’t say no to that. She’d given her permission for Missy to bake with Ted that morning, even if she didn’t understand it. She’d never known the cowboy to beat, batter, or bake. But Missy had wanted to, and Emma could admit she’d hoped Ted and Missy would become fast friends.
He seemed to like everyone, and they all liked him too. Emma had been trying to convince herself for a week now that the connection between them was because of his magnetic personality and not because she’d started to fall in love with him.
“Let me wash up,” she said as she entered the cabin. It was bigger than the single bedroom she’d come from, but still small for a house. Two bedrooms at the end of a hall that was only three steps long, with a bathroom between them. A galley kitchen she had to walk through once she entered through the back door to get to the dining room and living room at the front of the house. The whole thing was nine hundred square feet, but it had felt huge as she’d cleaned it, that was for sure.
She paused at the kitchen sink and washed her hands. “All right,” she said, turning back to her daughter, who’d waited behind her.
At that moment, Missy’s phone chimed, and she lit up. “I think that’s Frannie. Can I call her?”
“Of course,” Emma said, taking the plate of M&M cookies from Missy. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to wait to have one of these.” She beamed at them and then her daughter. “They’re my favorite.”
“I know,” Missy said, her attention already on her phone. “You don’t have to wait for me, Momma.” She smiled and hugged Emma, who held onto her for an extra beat of time. Long enough to commit the moment to memory and feel a wave of gratitude roll over her.
Missy went out the back door, and Emma turned toward the rest of the house. Out of the kitchen, she turned left, and froze at the sight of Ted Burrows standing next to her dining room table. “Ted,” left her mouth in a gasp.
“Oh, I thought you were calling me Teddy,” he said easily, both of his hands wrapped around the stems of a bouquet of wildflowers. A smile slipped across his mouth, but it didn’t stay long. “I’m…”
He swallowed, and he was so adorable when he was nervous. He called to her soul in a way no one ever had before, and while it scared Emma senseless, she also wanted to embrace the feeling. Give in to it.
“I’m really sorry,” he said. “For pushing you to tell me stuff you didn’t want to. I said you could have time and you could tell me when you were ready, but I didn’t really honor that.”
“Don’t,” she said, her voice tight and harsh and pleading at the same time. “Please do not apologize to me. I’m the one who owes you an apology. I wanted to tell you.” She looked down the galley kitchen to see Missy had settled on the back steps, her phone to her ear. “She’s everything to me, and I was so used to keeping her to myself.” She looked back at Ted. “I realize now how wrong I was. She’s so wonderful, and everyone should know about her.”
“I know why you did,” Ted said quietly.
“I was scared.”
He nodded as if he really did understand.
“But you were right,” Emma said, finally able to take a step toward him and the table. Only a couple more and she arrived and set the cookies down. “Everything comes out in the end.” She looked up at him.
Hope emanated from his expression. “I brought you these flowers,” he said. “Because I did the same thing on our first date, and that went really well, and it’s a good memory for me.” He cleared his throat and laid them on the table.
