Читать книгу Breaking Emily's Rules - Heatherly Bell - Страница 11

CHAPTER TWO

“MOLLY!” EMILY HEADED after her sister. No way would this happen under her watch. Molly had obviously had too much to drink and ignored her promise. Either that or she’d lost her ever-lovin’ mind.

A man was the last thing Molly needed right now. She used men to distract her from the real work she had to do on herself. Sooner or later Molly would have to face the mess she’d left behind.

Emily stomped through the couples on the dance floor, and they parted like the Red Sea. She thought she heard some of their whispers:

There she goes, and she’s mad. Boy, I tell you, she almost looks like Molly right now.

I mean, there’s no way you can keep it inside for so long. Before you know it, blast, you’ve got a disaster on your hands.

Yes, sir, Emily’s about to let someone have it. Should we go watch?

She threw open the bar’s side door and spied Molly about to get into Thomas’s car. A few quick purpose-filled strides and Emily stood next to Thomas’ old beat-up Ford.

“Where are you going, young lady?” Emily grabbed Molly’s arm.

“She’s going home with me.” Thomas bowed. The smell of tequila nearly knocked Emily off her feet. He sure wasn’t driving her sister, or anyone else.

“No, she’s not. She promised me. Right?” Emily pulled at Molly on one side, and Thomas pulled on the other.

“Sorry, mister, but I have a sister.” Molly swayed a bit to the right, demonstrating her own level of intoxication.

“Why you gotta be such a killjoy?” Thomas tapped Emily’s shoulder hard enough to make her wince. “If you don’t want to have any fun, that’s your business. But don’t ruin it for Molly.”

“You should take your hand off her right now,” a voice said from behind Emily.

Emily turned. All the planes of Stone’s face were set in hard lines, his jaw rock hard. He looked different. Still dangerous, but in a whole other kind of way.

“What did you say, buddy?” Thomas sidled up to Stone, clenching a fist in the air.

“The lady is not going home with you. And you’re not going anywhere until you sleep it off.”

“That’s right. Thank you.” Finally, someone had come to her aid instead of the other way around.

He shot her a hot look she felt down to the heels of her boots. Not to mention how it began to melt her shield.

While she tried to take her focus away from his lips and back to the matter at hand, a flying fist seemed to come out of nowhere and connect with Stone’s jaw.

Stone reacted Ninja-style and had Thomas on his back within moments.

“Cool,” someone said from the back of the crowd. “Did you see that move? I can do that.”

“Emily!” Molly, as if she’d suddenly realized the mess she’d made, reached for her.

Emily pulled Molly to her side as others spilled out from the bar to witness the fight in the parking lot. Except, from the looks of it, there wasn’t much fight left in old Thomas there on the ground, twisting and writhing under Stone’s pin. A fresh pint of guilt seeped through Emily’s veins, knowing Stone had probably taken a hit because she’d distracted him for a moment.

What she should do is stay behind and thank him. Properly. But there were two problems. First, she’d never kissed a man she didn’t know, even if this might be a good time to start. Second, she’d given up men, and this one would be trouble. Trouble rolled into fun with a heaping side of heartache.

Jedd soon joined the fray to help Stone, not that he seemed to need any help and, between the two of them, they had the situation under control. Right now Emily had her own damage control to do and needed to get her sister back home. Her drunk and sad sister, who had fooled Emily into coming here tonight.

“Let’s get out of here.” Emily pulled her sister away from the commotion, throwing one last glance in the direction of her hot hero. His back was turned to her as he restrained Thomas, who was now calling out every expletive Emily had ever heard, and some she hadn’t.

This wasn’t the way she’d envisioned parting tonight, and her chest tightened with the mess she’d left Stone to handle. She should have explained that she couldn’t take it any further with him, not now. Not ever. Casually drop in the fact she didn’t do risky and didn’t do strangers. She didn’t do much of anything, period. Not anymore.

Emily pulled her sister away from the chaos and shoved a sobbing Molly in the front passenger side seat of the Chevy truck.

Good thing Molly was already crying or Emily would have said something to make her. Emily gripped the steering wheel and high-tailed it out of the parking lot, kicking up gravel. She turned left on Monterey Road and headed toward Fortune Ranch.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for it to happen,” Molly bawled.

“Look at it this way. Thomas won’t be driving anyone home tonight, which is the way it should be. But I thought we agreed. Why did you do this?”

“I wanted to feel good, even for a little while. Do you know how long it’s been since a man wanted me? I mean, really wanted me. And only me.”

“We’re not going there. You are not going to talk to me about being lonely.”

“I’m sorry. But you know how to be alone, and I don’t. I feel like crap. And I probably look like it, too.” Molly pulled out a tissue from the glove compartment.

“You ought to feel bad. The man took a hit to the jaw, and you don’t even know him.” Neither did she, but after tonight, she almost wished she did.

“I have to apologize to him.” Molly rubbed at her mascara-smeared raccoon eyes.

“Don’t worry yourself too much about it. Something tells me the man can handle himself.” Or had Molly missed those special forces–like skills he’d displayed? Emily didn’t even know what the man did for a living, but she’d bet her family’s ranch it didn’t involve sitting behind a desk.

“Before you say anything, I know I have to start making better choices.” Molly rocked back and forth in her seat.

She sounded so pathetic and broken. Emily wished she understood, but she still wasn’t sure she could put her finger on what exactly had gone wrong. Of course, Molly wasn’t talking about it, either. For the first six months of her daughter Sierra’s life, Molly isolated herself from the rest of her family. The next thing anyone knew, Molly had taken off to Hollywood, leaving Dylan and Sierra behind. To a place so foreign to the Parker family, she might as well have gone to Mars.

“You have to get your mind off men. They’re not going to make anything better for you. Work on yourself first, like I am. Everything else will fall into place then.”

Emily turned her truck at the large sign that welcomed one and all to “Fortune Family Ranch: Events/Weddings/Picnics.” Once a large cattle ranch, present times meant the Parker family had to diversify. Enterprise.

The new family business.

The truck rolled down the long dusty driveway, past the empty lots designated for parking, past the red barn that served as a gift shop and up to the main Victorian house sitting on the hill.

Emily parked and turned in her seat to give Molly her full attention. “Does Dylan know you’re back in town?”

“I hope not. You know how he hates me.”

“He doesn’t hate you. He’s just not happy with you right now. Can you blame him?”

“It’s his fault, anyway. Maybe if he’d come after me.”

“When you didn’t tell anyone where you’d gone? Don’t do this, Molly. It’s not his fault you left.”

Emily should have paid more attention to the situation at the time, and she still blamed herself for that. She should have seen that Molly was in over her head and going under. But a few of the times Emily had wanted to come over and help, Molly claimed the baby was sleeping, or the apartment was a mess or any one of many other excuses why they didn’t want company. The times Emily had managed to make it inside, the small efficiency had looked like a bomb had gone off. Stacks of baby diapers all over the house, clothes strewn in every corner, piles of dirty laundry practically tall enough to be a teepee, other clean clothes folded in the basket, dishes overflowing in the sink.

Molly and Dylan had managed to keep mostly to themselves, and whether it had been intentional or not Emily had never been sure. Dylan’s mother could barely stand Molly, and the unexpected pregnancy hadn’t helped. But Emily didn’t fully understand why Molly would have shut her own family out. Unless it had been because of Dylan, who thought Molly had been spoiled by their father for too long.

And true enough, had he had one look inside, he would have likely hired Molly a cleaning service. Not how Dylan rolled.

“You needed help, and maybe you didn’t know how to ask for it,” Emily said now.

“I know you tried, but Dylan always thought we should do it on our own. And of course, he was never around much to help me.”

“There was no shame in either one of you needing help. You’re both so young.” Emily now wished she’d bulldozed her way in more often. What if Molly had suffered from postpartum depression? Dylan, as a trained EMT, should have seen the signs. But maybe he’d been too close to the situation.

After Molly had gone, Emily tried for a few months to help Dylan with a colicky and often inconsolable Sierra. Eventually, due to logistics and family ties, most of the babysitting shifted to Violet, Dylan’s mother. Dylan stopped calling, and Emily, ashamed of her sister and tired of making excuses for her, stayed away.

“Maybe if he’d loved me more. It felt like the only thing we had in common anymore was Sierra. He barely touched me for six months. Do you know what that’s like?”

Molly didn’t want to go there with Emily right now. Did she know what it was like to have her heart ripped out seam by precious seam? “Does a broken engagement count?”

Molly didn’t look at Emily. “I’m sorry, Em.”

“It’s all right.”

But it wasn’t. Emily had never been engaged before Greg. Greg was reliable, safe, structured. A software engineer. If a girl couldn’t trust a man like Greg, who color-coded his ties, then whom could she trust? No one.

* * *

MAYBE NEXT TIME you’ll stay home.

The night wasn’t over until a cab service took Thomas Aguirre home, black eye covered with a bag of ice from the bar. But the real cherry on top of this sundae had been when Stone looked for the stacked blonde that had caused him his sore jaw and found her nowhere in sight. Not like she owed him a thing, but a simple kiss would have been nice. Maybe even a short “thanks.”

It usually took a woman at least a month to be this kind of trouble to him.

Now he had a bruised lip and sore jaw, thanks to being temporarily distracted by the way she stared into his eyes with a kind of trust that sent lava-level heat running through him. More to the point, the whole thing was his fault for being stupid enough to follow her outside and become mixed up in drama that was clearly none of his damn business. That should teach him.

Jedd brought out a bag of ice. “It’s a good thing we caught Thomas trying to leave with Molly, ’cause he had no business driving.”

“Yeah. Glad I could be of assistance.” Stone took the ice and placed it in on his jaw since he couldn’t put it on his sore ego. He should have seen that flying fist coming. Six months out of the service, and he’d let his guard down.

“I wish I’d been out here sooner.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I hope you don’t blame this on Emily. If you blame anyone, blame Thomas. As for Molly, that girl is hell on wheels. Almost forgot she was back in town.” Jedd fell into step beside Stone, as he headed toward his truck.

“My fault. Shouldn’t have followed Emily outside.”

“But you thought she was in trouble.”

Stone didn’t want to be anyone’s hero, or pretend he’d had anything on his mind other than finishing what he’d started with Emily.

“To tell the truth, I didn’t do enough thinking tonight.” He massaged his jaw and managed to crack a smile.

Jedd laughed. “Yeah, Emily has a way of doing that to a guy.”

Stone looked sideways at Jedd.

“Naw, Emily’s older than me and never gave me a second look. She was going to get married to some guy from Palo Alto. But it didn’t happen.” Jedd lifted a shoulder.

“I don’t need her damn biography. I won’t ever see her again.” He clicked his key fob to unlock the truck.

“If you say so,” Jedd said.

Stone should have followed his first instincts and kept to himself. Probably should have searched harder for an excuse as to why he couldn’t come out with Jedd. “I do. I’m out of here.”

“Thanks for coming out with me. See you Monday, boss—I mean, Stone,” Jedd called out.

Stone threw open the door and climbed in his truck, throwing the ice pack to the side. He’d be sleeping alone tonight and that would be okay. It would have to be. With damage like this in thirty minutes, who knew what she could do with a little more time? He didn’t need the distraction. All he wanted tonight was a warm body under him, and Emily wouldn’t stop there. She wouldn’t stop until she was another in his long list of commitments.

Speaking of commitments...

A few minutes later, he’d pulled into the driveway of James Mcallister’s sorry-looking single family home, shut off the truck and stared at his inheritance. The place needed a new coat of paint. Hell, it needed to be bulldozed down to the ground and started over. He didn’t have the time or inclination to do either. But he, along with his sister, Sarah, was heir to this mess.

Six months ago when he’d separated from the air force, Dad had said, “You didn’t have to come.”

“The hell I didn’t.” The air force might have been his life for the past twelve years, but when it came down to the AF and Dad, there had been no real choice.

The fact that it had taken him too long to make the choice? No use revisiting that scenario now. It had been tough to think anything could be strong enough to knock his old man down, but he’d been wrong about that. Should have separated earlier, when he’d first heard of the diagnosis. It seemed to be the first in a long line of mistakes he’d made lately.

Back then, Stone thought he’d have time with Dad. Time to say a long goodbye, fly their Cessnas in tandem a few times and maybe take a couple of fishing trips. But colon cancer had a way of sneaking up on a man. Four months. It was all the time they’d had, and Dad spent most of it telling Stone about his last wishes.

“I know this isn’t what you planned to do with your life. But stay long enough to sell the school so Cassie and Jedd can keep their jobs. Don’t listen to Cassie. She loves the place.”

She could have fooled Stone. “Don’t worry. It’s all taken care of.”

“When I die, Sarah will get my letter and half of everything. Be nice to her. I didn’t want her to know about the cancer. What would be the point? I sure don’t want her to see me like this.”

In the end, it had been a quiet death, not at all like all the other deaths he’d witnessed. There were no screams, no blood and no raging hot anger. No one fought death harder than a young airman. But Dad had been ready. The hospice nurse had nudged Stone out of a light sleep, and he’d been by Dad’s bedside to hear him take his last breath.

A few days later, Sarah had been notified, and the proverbial shit hit the fan.

Both the house and school would be sold and the proceeds split down the middle. He had a buyer lined up for the school, someone who loved planes and planned to keep everything the same. The way it should be. The way Dad wanted it.

Unless Sarah had her way.

He stuck his key in the front door, turned it and slipped inside. He wasn’t fooled by the silence for a second as he slipped into warfare mode. Granted, he hadn’t done any hand-to-hand combat in the air force. A good thing he’d been trained, though.

Stone flipped on the light switch in the family room. Winston, Dad’s ninety-pound golden retriever mix, flew around the corner and jumped on Stone. If licking could kill, he’d be a dead man walking.

Standing on his hind legs the beast nearly reached Stone’s height of six feet. But Stone had a knee, and he put it to good use by nudging Winston’s middle. “Off!”

Winston jumped down, his brown eyes wounded. It would take a lot more than a knee in the chest to hurt the monster, and he wasn’t fooling Stone.

“Don’t give me that look. I swear I’ll find you a new owner if you don’t stop jumping on me. The licking is bad enough. This is not going well.”

Within seconds, Winston had followed Stone into the kitchen, his food bowl in his jowls. Whoever said dogs weren’t smart had never owned a Winston.

“Yeah, yeah.” Stone fed him and watched Winston go to town. “With manners like that, you’ll never get a girl.”

Unfortunately, that made him picture the way Emily had moved in his arms and the curves she had in all the right places. It was possible that if he stepped back into that country music–infested den, he might see her again. Why that mattered he didn’t know, but if he didn’t get his mind off her, he might wind up making another trip to the Silver Whip, or the Silver Saddle, or whatever the hell they called it.

Stone stripped in his bedroom, took a shower, toweled off and didn’t bother with the boxers. Instead, he plopped on the California king, rolled into the covers and let sleep take him away.

* * *

DAMN, THIS GIRL can kiss. Emily straddled him and kissed him long and deep. She moaned, which ripped out a groan from him as his hands lifted the skirt of her dress, searching for heaven and finding nothing but silk. Soft. Smooth. Curves. Skin. Yeah.

Suddenly, she licked his face. This is strange, but if she’s into it, I’ll learn to like it.

The bark was what finally woke him. Winston on his bed. Again. The beast’s paws on Stone’s chest as he lapped at his face.

“Off!” Stone growled and opened one eye against the ray of light breaking through the window blinds. He pushed Winston off, rubbed his aching jaw and glanced at the clock. Crap, eight already. Time to get up.

He’d have to cut his workout short this morning. Usually he ran five miles before work and hit the punching bag in the garage for an hour. Couldn’t afford to get too soft. He might be out of the air force, but the air force would never be out of him.

Last night he’d dreamed of the girl who made him forget he was a short-timer in this town. No need to start rescuing people. Served him right, even though it had been a cheap shot. His own fault for paying too much attention to the girl and not enough to the other man’s fists. All right. Get over it, Chump.

Winston stayed next to the bed and stared at Stone, panting, brown eyes questioning. He cocked his head and barked.

“I told you, this is my bed and over there is yours.” Stone pointed to the cushion that sat in the corner of the bedroom.

Winston barked again. Stone loved dogs as much as the next person, but Winston was less of a dog than an inconsiderate roommate. A hairy one who demanded his meals on time and whose only contribution to household chores was creating more of them. Another treasure he’d inherited from Dad. Everything he’d handed down seemed to come with complications. And commitments.

Dad had loved this dog and swore it could read his thoughts. Right now, Stone wondered if Winston could read his, too, because they were less than charitable.

“You interrupted a great dream, monster.” The first decent dream in months.

Stone pulled on a pair of jeans and headed to the kitchen, Winston following close behind. True to form, he performed his shameless circling dance as Stone scooped out the dry dog food and placed it in his bowl.

“Wish I could be that happy to have breakfast,” Stone mumbled, placing the bowl on the cold terracotta kitchen floor. “Do you realize all you do is eat and sleep?”

He’d not only inherited Winston, the flight school and his father’s ramshackle ranch house, but pretty much James Mcallister’s life. And if he often felt like there wasn’t enough oxygen in the room, it was probably because too many people, dogs and inanimate objects depended on him.

He’d arrived in town with one large duffel bag and everything he owned in it. He was always ready to leave at a moment’s notice.

The doorbell rang, and Winston ran out of the room like a scared schoolgirl. Doorbells. Winston was afraid of them. Then again, Dad’s doorbell played a haunting rendition of “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer.” Stone kept meaning to disconnect the thing.

Stone peered through the peephole. Staff Sergeant Matt Conner, wearing his civilian clothes, held a couple of cups. “Let me in, asshole. These are hot. Coffee.”

Stone swung open the door and accepted a cup from The Drip (Rise and Shine and Have a Drip, the annoying cup said) as Matt walked inside.

“Is he—?” Matt asked, eyebrows raised.

Stone nodded. “Put the cup down now if you know what’s good for you.”

Matt set the cup on the short key table by the door and squatted like a wrestler. Yeah, he knew the drill. Like he’d heard his name called, Winston flew around the corner and tackled Matt.

Fortunately, Matt was a dog person, not to mention the size of a linebacker. “Hey, I love you, too, you big lug.”

“Don’t encourage him.” Stone walked into the kitchen, taking a gulp of the coffee he had become addicted to. He’d never been there himself, but coffee from The Drip was first-rate; although, he’d never get used to saying that name. “Want something to eat?”

“You have food?” Matt followed.

Stone didn’t answer. All right, so he was stalling.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so. Let’s get to it. Where do we begin?” Matt threw him a look.

“Yeah.” Stone knew that look. It was a get your shit together, airman look. If he’d given it once, he’d given it a hundred times to the newbs. And it had been more than a few years since he’d been on this side of it. It didn’t sit well with him.

Sure, he’d helped pack up the barracks bags of airmen who were never going home again, but this was different.

My father’s house. Where to begin? No matter how he sliced it, it didn’t feel right to get rid of Dad’s things. Like maybe he’d be back later, pissed Stone couldn’t see the sense in hanging on to ten old fishing rods. Crazy.

“Yeah’s not an answer, dude.” Matt threw him a pity look, the kind bestowed upon the widows and orphans of the men who weren’t coming back.

“Where do you suggest, moron?”

“The clothes.” Matt met Stone’s gaze.

They were still in the closet. Pretty pathetic. Clothes were always the first thing to go. It wasn’t like he was going to suddenly start wearing plaid shirts and polyester pants.

“Right this way.”

Winston followed them in the bedroom and lay like a rug near Dad’s bed. Stone made himself shove shirts and pants, even an old suit he’d never seen before, into a plastic garbage bag.

Matt worked faster, bagging up two to every one of Stone’s. “I’ll take all these to Goodwill Industries.”

“Sure.” Stone didn’t look at Matt. They were just clothes. It shouldn’t make any damn difference. He didn’t understand why his chest felt tight.

“By the way, she came by to see me again yesterday.” Matt said it like it was nothing, like he might as well be talking about the weather.

“Why?” Stone didn’t even have to ask who “she” was. She’d somehow decided Matt was her new best friend.

“You know why. She wants to talk to you.”

“I have nothing to say to her.”

“She’s your sister,” Matt said with an emphasis on the word sister, as if it was supposed to mean something to Stone. It didn’t.

Not his fault. His parents had made that decision, and he’d had no say in the matter. Only now, he was left to pick up the pieces. All in the past, and best left there. He wasn’t going to start singing “Kumbaya” this late in the game. “Here’s the thing. I don’t know her anymore.”

“You could get to know her. Again.” Matt threw another bag in the pile.

But it had been Sarah’s choice to stop visiting summers after that last one when she’d been thirteen. He’d been fifteen at the time, and sue him if he’d been a little busy. Their parents had each agreed that by fourteen each kid could decide where they wanted to spend their summer. That summer Stone chose to stay in California where he had a job and a learner’s permit. It meant that he’d spent the summer with his sister for the first time since the divorce. Looking back, he probably hadn’t paid her enough attention but what he’d remembered of that summer was a teenage girl with attitude. Not much different from now.

Dad didn’t know what the hell to do with her, either, when she didn’t want to fish or camp anymore. Every morning she’d glare daggers at the both of them as if they were doing something to offend her by simply breathing. Then she’d gone in the bathroom for three hours where she did something to her hair.

It was about all he remembered of that last summer from hell.

The next summer Sarah chose not to visit again, nor any summer after that. There had been cards over the holidays and a few strained phone calls. Stone had unfortunately had a front-row seat to his father’s confusion and pain at feeling shut out of his daughter’s life. It had served to remind Stone to call his mother and not just wait for her calls to him. He might not have thought he needed her much as a stupid teenager, but he’d always loved his mother. Which was why he couldn’t quite understand Sarah’s anger now. She’d made the choice. If their father hadn’t begged, it was because the Mcallister men didn’t beg.

Stone surveyed the closet. They’d made a dent in it, but not much more. He’d leave the boxes on the shelves for another time. Had his father thrown anything away? Ever?

Stone reached for a tie that looked straight out of the seventies. Probably not. “Maybe we should have a family reunion. Picnic, maybe?”

“Don’t be a smartass.”

“She wants to sell to a developer. There’s nothing to talk about.”

“You could talk and explain this is what your Dad wanted.”

“She knows that. All she wants is more money. She doesn’t care that people are about to lose their livelihoods.” It wasn’t just Cassie and Jedd. The airport had a small air museum, the only one of its kind for miles. There was also the Shortstop Snack Shack, owned and operated by a retired firefighter. Dad had owned the hangar building and leased the space to everyone else. The aviation school was the anchor, and if it was sold to a developer all the other businesses would go, too.

“I get the feeling your sister might be reasonable. Why not meet with her?”

“I did.” All she’d wanted to do was hurl insults and accusations at their late father. He carried enough guilt about those last months without Sarah adding to it.

“Again, I mean.” Matt slid him a look. “One meeting that didn’t go well isn’t enough. It’s worth a try.”

But Stone wasn’t sure of that anymore. He should talk with Sarah again, to see if he could get her to see reason. Matt seemed to think she was open, but that hadn’t been Stone’s experience. Some people were a lost cause, and he felt fairly certain the sister he didn’t know anymore was one of them.