Читать книгу Always Emily - Mary Sullivan - Страница 12

CHAPTER THREE

AIYANA PEARCE CREPT past the living room where her grandfather dozed in the flowered armchair.

Dad would hit the roof if he knew she was going out without his permission, but what Dad wanted didn’t matter. He wasn’t home, was he?

She couldn’t help being bitter. Dad used to be home in the evenings with her and Mika, but now he was usually at the Heritage Center, and then when he finally came home all he did was study for his college courses. He wanted to be an architect.

Dad said a person should have ambitions.

Gramps snored and Aiyana glanced at him. Gramps didn’t have ambitions, hadn’t even finished high school, but people still loved him anyway, didn’t they?

Having justified her defiance, Aiyana stepped outside and closed the door slowly. She was careful. There was no way Grandpa would hear the click of the lock catching.

Bypassing the creaky third step, she ran down the walkway to the street. The cool breeze took her by surprise and she zipped up her jacket. The air smelled like rain.

A sharp whistle from a couple of houses down caught her attention. Justin! Her heart rattled in her chest like a baby bird flapping its wings.

She raced toward the sound but squealed when he jumped out from behind a tree and wrapped his arms around her. “Did I scare you?”

“Yes.” She gasped and caught her breath. She smacked her boyfriend’s arm, but couldn’t be mad at him for long. Boyfriend. She liked the sound of that. Yesterday, he’d said he was hers and had invited her out tonight for the first time. Hers, he’d said, forever and ever.

Justin White, the most popular boy in school, wanted her for his girlfriend. How cool was that?

He wanted to keep it a secret, even though she wanted to shout it to the whole world. He said it felt good that it was their special news, only theirs, and they should hang on to it for a while.

Under the streetlight, his hair shone like gold. His blue eyes filled with humor. Grandpa would call it the devil’s mischief, but Aiyana knew Justin wasn’t like that. He was a good guy. Everyone at school liked him. And he belonged to her!

He threaded his fingers through hers, his palm warm and callused from shooting hoops for a couple of hours every day after school. Holding hands felt good.

She glanced over her shoulder, but no one was following her. Good. Grandpa was still asleep.

Dad thought she was too young to see boys, maybe because Mom got pregnant with Aiyana when she was a teenager. Mom and Dad had to get married.

But Aiyana was too smart for that to happen to her. Dad should learn to trust her. For Pete’s sake, in a few days, she would turn sixteen. Of course she was old enough to date. All the kids at school did.

Justin urged her toward the end of Marshall Avenue. “Come on.”

“Where to?”

When he smiled, one side of his mouth hiked up higher than the other. She liked his lips. “You’ll see.”

He led her to the path that went down into the ravine. She never went down there this close to nightfall. The wind had picked up and the sky was getting dark. She shivered and Justin wrapped his arm around her. “Cold, babe?”

Her heart hammered. “Why are we going down here?” Even to her own ears, even trying as hard as she could to sound sixteen already, her giggle sounded shaky.

“Someplace private,” Justin said, and the word both thrilled and scared her.

“I thought we were going for ice cream.”

“We are. After.”

“After what?”

“I made something special for you.” Special. Just for her.

They stumbled to the bottom of the ravine, where he stopped and pointed. “Look.”

In a hollow created by a boulder at the back and large old trees on either side, Justin had fashioned a makeshift tent of sorts. She wasn’t sure exactly what it was. A cubbyhole? Just a private spot? He’d stretched a piece of canvas five feet above the ground between the two trees. On the ground he’d covered a plastic sheet with a blanket with a vaguely Native American pattern. It didn’t look like Dad’s blankets at home.

An overturned milk crate had a bunch of stuff on top of it.

“I made this for us,” he said. “No one else knows about it.”

She would rather have gone out for ice cream than sit in the woods when it was getting dark, but Justin looked so proud of himself, she smiled.

Crawling in on her hands and knees, she noticed that he had everything—candles, a flashlight, potato chips—and beer. She didn’t drink. She’d already told him that yesterday.

The place smelled like dead leaves and damp earth, but at least the tarp overhead cut the wind.

He crawled in behind her and pulled the tab on a can of beer then sipped the foam that bubbled out. “It’s warm.” He shrugged. “Sorry,” he said, handing her the can.

“I don’t drink, Justin.”

“I know, but it’s only one beer. No biggie.”

She sipped it but hated the taste. That put it mildly. He was right. It was warm and tasted like crap. When she handed the can back to him, he guzzled half the contents then belched.

She sat on the blanket not really knowing what to do with her hands or where to put her legs. The space was cozy and her knees kept bumping Justin’s thigh.

Every time they did, it felt as if electricity shot through her. She fidgeted.

“Relax,” he said, reclining onto the pillows at the back of the tent. They looked as if they belonged on somebody’s sofa.

He took her arm and urged her down beside him. She resisted, but his grip was strong. “Easy. I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to keep you warm.”

She settled her head on his shoulder. It was solid and warm and felt nice.

He unzipped her jacket. When she tensed, he said, “I want see that necklace you always wear. What is the design? Does it have significance in your culture?” he asked, taking it between two fingers.

She was having trouble breathing. His heavy arm rested between her breasts. No boy had ever touched her there. He was strong. An athlete. A basketball player. He said Coach made them lift weights to keep fit.

“It was my mother’s necklace,” she finally answered when she thought her voice might be steady. “She did the beadwork herself. She’s dead now.”

“I know. The beading’s pretty.” He dropped the necklace. “Your name’s pretty, too. Aiyana. Does it mean something in English?”

“Eternal Blossom.”

Justin nodded. “Cool. Maybe I should call you Pretty Flower or Princess Blossom.”

No. She wanted a white name, like Tiffany or Brittany or Madison. Dad had chosen stupid Native American names for her and her sister.

“I’m not a princess. My dad isn’t a chief. I’m nothing.”

Justin smiled and popped the tab on another beer. After drinking a bunch, he set the can aside and wrapped his arm across her shoulders then curled his fingers around the back of her neck, gently urging her head forward. “You’re not nothing. You’re my girlfriend. You’re pretty.”

She knew that wasn’t true, but oh, it felt good that Justin thought she was.

He kissed her and his lips were gentle and sweet even if they did taste like beer. She liked his kiss, but wished he didn’t make it so hard so fast. When he put his tongue in her mouth, the taste of yeasty alcohol overpowered her and it was awful. He pushed his tongue in farther.

His hand touched her breast. It was nice. Sort of. He squeezed and moved his fingers over her nipple. She felt a pull in her belly and lower, excitement and itchiness.

Following the path of that itch, his hand rested on her there, the heel of his palm rubbing her and his fingers pressing the seam of her jeans into her.

He was moving too fast, not giving her time to catch up. Her pulse pounded inside her head. His fingers were at the button of her jeans and pulling down her zipper.

How? What? Wait!

His hand was on her belly inside her underwear. She grasped his wrist, but he kept moving.

His fingers were in her curls, touching her dampness. Stop.

She yanked her head away from his beery kiss.

“Justin, no.” She sounded breathless. Her chest heaved up and down and her breasts kept hitting his body. She put her hands between them and pushed, but he was strong.

Fear became a real thing bouncing around the tent.

“Hey, babe,” Justin said. “We’re just having fun.” He kissed the side of her face, and his hot breath whooshed past her ear.

She grabbed his wrist again, tried to pull his hand out of her pants, but his fingers were inside her.

“Stop!” she cried, her heartbeat as loud as a train engine in her ears.

“What?” Justin sounded frustrated.

“I don’t want to do this.”

“Can’t you feel what you do to me, Princess?” Something hard jutted against her thigh.

“Don’t call me princess.” Her voice shook. “I don’t want you touching me there.”

“You said you wanted to be my girlfriend.”

“I do.”

“This is what girlfriends do, Aiyana.”

“It’s too soon.”

“Grow up.” He pulled his hand out of her pants with a hard flick. It hurt and she winced.

“I can’t believe how ungrateful you are.” He downed the rest of the beer. How many beers made a boy drunk? She didn’t know. She wanted to get out of here, away from him.

“I went to a lot of trouble to make this place for us.” Justin adjusted himself inside his pants. His place didn’t feel safe, not to her, but more like a black hole in the dark woods.

“I want to go home.” Her fingers trembled when she pulled up her zipper, but they shook too much to do up her button. She yanked her jacket down over it. “Don’t tell anyone about this,” she begged. “I don’t want people to think I’m easy.”

He thrust his fingers through his hair. Even messed up it looked good. What she could see of it. There was hardly any light left in the tent.

“Easy,” he scoffed. “That’s a laugh. Find your own damn way home.” With that, he bolted.

Aiyana sat stunned. How could Justin do this? He’d seemed so nice. As though waking from a bad dream, she crawled out. The woods were almost completely dark and foreign. Hostile. Every rattling tree branch, every bush, was a monster coming to get her. Justin must have run up the hill because she couldn’t see or hear him. He’d left her alone in the ravine at nighttime. What kind of person did that? Terrified, she ran up the hill.

The rain started when she was only halfway up, scrambling in the darkness toward the patches of light from the streetlamps flickering through the trees. Something rustled the bushes beside her and she cried out, scrabbling to catch branches to help her up the steep incline.

Her feet slipped and slid in the muck.

Rain streamed down her face, ruining the makeup she’d put on to look good for Justin. At least the rain hid her tears.

She ran home, past their meeting place, and rushed into the house, careful to close the door quietly, even though she ached to throw and break things.

Grandpa was still sleeping. Thank goodness. If he’d woken up and seen her, all hell would have broken loose. She needed to get to her room, where she wanted to hide forever.

She was only halfway up the stairs when Gramps let out his “wakeup” snort and said, “What?” She stopped and tried to calm her runaway heart. He smacked his lips, part of his waking-up routine. She knew he’d be stretching his skinny body every which way to come awake. His spine would make popping sounds.

The sound of the TV turning on followed her up the rest of the stairs. She tiptoed along the hallway and into her room. Closing her bedroom door, she leaned against it and let her tears flow.

Justin hadn’t really wanted her. He’d just wanted an easy lay.

What made him think she would be? She didn’t go out with boys. She was quiet at school. Was it because of her heritage?

In her mirror, she saw the reflection of a girl with dark raccoon eyes because of her ruined mascara. She swiped it with tissues until it was all gone.

Her hair, usually shiny and straight, hung in wet strings. With the broad cheekbones she’d inherited from her dad, there was no mistaking her heritage.

Native American. Ute.

She hated her face and she hated her name.

Would Justin have attacked her if her name had been Brittany? Or Madison? If she were white, would he have tried to make her drink beer and have sex?

She grasped the corners of the heavy blankets decorated with the symbols of her heritage and hauled them from the bed, wadding them into a ball and tossing them into the corner.

It took forever to get out of her wet clothes, to tug the wet denim down her legs and to put on her long nightshirt. She crammed her jeans into her laundry basket. Dad would be mad that she hadn’t hung them to dry. So what? It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

She curled into a ball on her plain white bedsheets and shivered.

* * *

“WHAT DID YOU SAY?” Salem asked, slowing the Jeep because they were near the turn onto her father’s property.

“I’ve hit rock bottom. I’m as low as I can go. I need a place to rest.”

He didn’t know what to say. He’d told her to leave him alone, but she hadn’t. She’d come to him sick. While he felt used, he also felt an odd sort of honor. In her father’s house, there would have been a dozen people willing to take care of her. She’d chosen him.

Or had she? He thought of her muddy hands.

“I’m dropping you off at your dad’s, right?”

He felt her roll her head on the headrest and watch him.

He glanced at her. “What?”

“I need a friend, Salem. I can’t go home tonight. Too many people there.”

No, he didn’t want her in his home. “There’s no room at my house. You know that, Emily.”

“I’ll take anything.”

Salem struggled to hold back his objections. This push-pull of love and anger was a struggle he’d lived with for too many years.

“Hey,” Emily said quietly. “Why aren’t you at Dad’s party? You two are good friends.”

“I meant to go after work, but started reading and lost track of time.”

Emily’s soft chuckle filled the interior of the car. He’d missed her laugh, and how it could lighten his darkest moments. “You’ve always been one for getting lost in a book. Remember when I used to sit in your office and say outrageous things about you and you would be so immersed in a book you wouldn’t hear a thing?”

He remembered, with enough pleasure that he drove right past the turnoff to her dad’s house to take her home with him.

Crazy fool, letting her use you like this.

Yes, I’m a fool, but I like having her close. This is just for tonight.

It had better be. You know how she breaks your heart when she leaves. Every time.

“What happened to you?” he asked.

“I left him. For good. Just like you said I should.”

“What about work?”

“I left that, too.”

“For how long? A couple of weeks?”

“For good.”

She was leaving her career? The light from the dashboard wasn’t strong enough to tell much more than that she had her eyes closed.

The nature of the silence in the car changed, became laden with censure, as though Emily were holding up a giant No Trespassing sign, making it clear that she’d said as much as she was going to.

Salem didn’t know how he knew this when she hadn’t said a word, but he knew, and held his tongue. Did he believe she’d left Jean-Marc for good? Not a chance. Had she left archeology for good? Never.

On the far side of town, he turned down his street and pulled into his driveway, where he helped her into the house. He led her to the kitchen. She plopped onto a chair and rested her head on her folded hands on top of the table.

His father wandered in. “Emily, hello.”

She raised her head. “Hello, Mr. Pearce.”

“You don’t look good, girl.”

“Feel awful,” she said with a wan smile. Here in the brightly lit room she looked even worse than she had in the dim Heritage Center office. Her skin was as ghostly as her voice had sounded in the car. Fever painted round red spots like old-fashioned rouge on cheekbones that didn’t use to be so sharp. She put her head back down on fragile-looking wrists.

Salem should go to the Sudan and kill the bastard who did this to her, and that puzzled him. Emily had always been able to take care of herself. She’d never needed him to fight her battles for her.

“She has malaria, Dad.”

“You need fattening, girl,” Dad said. To Salem, he directed, “Warm her some of that soup I made yesterday.”

Salem took a container of chicken soup out of the refrigerator and heated a bowl in the microwave. Old wives’ tale or not, his father figured it was good for anything that ailed a body. He made a fresh pot every week.

Emily lifted a spoonful of soup, but the effort cost her. She needed to be in bed.

“Give me,” he said. He took the utensil from her and raised soup to her mouth.

“Not a child.”

“I know, but if I leave it to you, we’ll be here all night.” He got most of it into her before she batted his hand away.

“So tired,” she whispered.

“Okay, let’s get you to bed.” He carried the bowl to the sink to wash it, but his dad took it from him.

“Take care of her,” he said with a jut of his jaw toward Emily.

Salem led her upstairs to his bedroom and left her there while he went to the closet in the hallway to get fresh sheets. When he returned to his bedroom, Emily had stripped to her underwear—plain white cotton panties and bra.

He could probably wrap his fingers around her waist. There was a time when he’d craved her tight little body, but not tonight. Every part of Emily had been stripped down to bare essentials.

“Do you have a spare T-shirt?” She pulled back the covers.

“Of course.” He took one out of his dresser then turned his back while she finished undressing. He heard her climb into bed.

“Wait.”

She stopped with her knee on the mattress and watched him warily, her strange blue eyes with the odd hazel rings huge in her drawn face.

“I need to change the sheets.”

She made a sound—a cross between a raspberry and an old-fashioned pshaw—and finished scrambling under the blankets.

The second her head hit the pillow, she closed her eyes.

By the time Salem returned the clean sheets to the closet and came back to the bedroom, Emily was asleep.

He grabbed a T-shirt and flannel pants, and washed up and changed in the bathroom. When he finished, he laid a fresh towel and facecloth on the counter beside the sink and hoped neither of the girls used them in the morning before Emily got up, or before he could warn them he had a visitor.

From his supply of spare toiletries he kept under the counter—toothpaste, deodorant, tissues—he grabbed a toothbrush, unwrapped it and did a double-take. He held a child’s toothbrush in his hand. With a sick sensation, he realized he was still buying his girls small toothbrushes when they were no longer children. They were adolescents.

He placed the foolishly small brush onto the facecloth. He also needed a fresh bar of soap, but couldn’t find any under the counter. They were all out. He headed toward his younger daughter’s room. She owned a collection of small soaps.

The light bleeding around the partially closed door of his older daughter’s bedroom caught his attention. He pushed it open and said, “Hey, kid, time for lights-out.”

Aiyana slept in a tight fetal ball on top of her bedsheets, her fingers curled over her shoulders—an egg with hands and feet. Where were her blankets?

“What the heck?” They were a tangled mass in the corner. He picked them up, straightened them and covered her, tucking them close around her body until they cocooned her, as he used to do when she was little.

She used to giggle and say, “Make me a mummy, Daddy.”

She didn’t laugh with him these days. She no longer called him Daddy, but he still thought of her as his little baby, a child who was growing up too fast.

He stared down at his daughter. No, she wasn’t a child. She was becoming a woman, too quickly. He thought of those children’s toothbrushes he’d been buying. He knew Aiyana went to the store and bought her own feminine products. Yes, she was becoming a young woman.

He’d missed turning points in his daughters’ lives, and that made his chest ache.

When had he gotten so out of touch with them? With life around him?

Salem’s ambition to be an architect, and his part-time school studies, were admirable, but his children had grown up while he’d had his head buried in one book after another, studying for tests and writing papers. Had his ambition harmed his children?

When he finished tucking her in, he kissed her forehead and said softly, “Good night, Eternal Blossom.”

“Night, Daddy,” she whispered, but as asleep as she was, probably had no idea that she had. She would certainly forget by morning when she’d be prickly as a porcupine again, as she’d been for the past year.

He had no idea how to deal with her. All he could do was give her the creature comforts—food, clothing, a roof over her head—and hope it was enough.

Satisfied that she was warm and safe for the night, he left the room, turning out the light and closing the door behind him.

He checked in on Mika, who slept as though she hadn’t a care in the world. A turtle-shaped lamp on her bedside table sent a soft glow around the room, highlighting her collection of raccoon statues that friends and family had given her every birthday and Christmas since she was old enough to talk, to express her desires, which had been early.

There was nothing shy about his Mika. Intelligent Raccoon.

On her dresser, she kept a bowl of tiny soaps and bubble bath capsules in different shapes and sizes. Mika wouldn’t mind if he gave one to Emily. She’d inherited a generous spirit from her mother. Annie had been screwed up in many ways and her drug use was out of control at the end, but her generosity had been amazing.

For a split second, to his astonishment, he missed Annie, especially the good parts. Sure, she’d been neurotic at times, but she’d had a heart of gold. They hadn’t loved each other, but they had tried hard for respect.

For Emily, he chose a pink heart-shaped soap, because he was just that foolish. In case she might want a bath instead of a shower, he also took a gold bubble bath bead in the shape of a star.

Emily Jordan. His shooting star, here today and gone tomorrow.

He leaned forward and kissed Mika’s forehead. She still smelled like a kid, not like the perfume he’d detected on Aiyana.

He turned off the light before he left. She liked to fall asleep with it on, but she was a heavy sleeper. She wouldn’t need it for the rest of the night.

Salem smiled. No trouble with Mika yet, but then, she was only thirteen. Maybe adolescent hormones hadn’t kicked in yet.

Back in the bathroom, he placed the soap and bath bead beside the ridiculous toothbrush. Was it enough? It had been years since there’d been a grown woman in the house—four years since Annie’s death, and many more years since they’d had a guest. This wasn’t really a guest, though. It was only Emily.

That thought brought him up short. There wasn’t, never had been, and never would be anything only about Emily.

With one finger, he touched the pink heart soap that smelled like roses, and imagined her using it. He shook himself out of his foolish, romantic reverie, turned out the light and stepped into the hallway. Romance and Emily in the same thought? Dangerous.

“You sleeping downstairs?” His dad stood on the landing.

“Yep.”

“Good night, then.” His father entered the bedroom next to Salem’s.

Salem nodded and went downstairs, turning off the remaining lights as he went. In the living room, he gathered afghans and blankets from the backs of the two armchairs and made himself a bed on the sofa.

He stretched out, but his six-foot frame was too long for the furniture, so his feet hung over the arm.

Not the least bit comfortable, he eventually fell asleep, but was awakened by a hand shaking his shoulder.

“Go take care of Emily.” His father stood over him, illuminated by the streetlamp shining through sheer curtains. “She’s making noise.”

Salem threw off his covers and took the stairs two at a time. Emily thrashed on the bed.

“Hey, hey,” he crooned, lifting her into a sitting position, but she sagged against his chest.

“Here,” he said, reaching for the glass of water he’d left beside the bed. She gulped it down, with him holding her head to still her shuddering. He laid her back against the pillow and got fresh water from the bathroom.

Leaving it on the bedside table, he stared down at her. He couldn’t leave her like this, too small and fragile. Too alone.

His Emily didn’t do fragile. What did he mean his Emily? She wasn’t his and never had been. She’d left too many times, dashing his hopes, for him to ever trust her again, the anger she inspired in him a constant throughout their relationship.

What relationship? You don’t have one.

Damn right.

Remember that, Salem.

But she was his friend; or rather, he was hers. Sort of. Maybe. Reluctantly.

She shivered. He crawled in under the covers and nestled her against his chest. Gradually, the shaking stopped and she settled into an easier sleep.

He, however, did not sleep, not while he held Emily Jordan in his arms.

* * *

“I’M NOT GOING to school tomorrow.” Aiyana stood in the doorway of the kitchen, scowling. Her eyes were red. She’d been crying. Dread hollowed out his gut. He couldn’t take tears. He could handle—had handled—a lot in life, but crying made him feel useless.

“Are you sick?” Salem hoped this was physical, something the magic of chicken soup could fix. “What is it? The flu?”

She shrugged. Her hair stood out in all directions. She must have washed it before bed and fallen asleep while it was still wet.

“Dad, how about heating some of your soup?” Salem finished doctoring his coffee and caught his two slices of toast as they popped out of the toaster.

“You got it.” His father retrieved the Tupperware.

“I don’t want soup.” Aiyana sounded like an odd mix of little-girl sulkiness and teenaged defiance.

Mika sat at the table eating her cereal, her brown eyes darting between him and Aiyana.

“How about toast?” Salem asked Aiyana. “You can have these and I’ll make more for myself.”

“No.”

“But...”

“I don’t want anything, okay?” she cried. “I just want to go back to bed. Just leave me alone today, okay?” She ran from the kitchen without waiting for anyone to respond.

Salem stared at her retreating back and what he could see of her feet running up the stairs.

His dad grunted. “I don’t think it’s the flu.”

“Pardon?” Salem asked.

“It ain’t the flu. It ain’t physical.”

That’s what he was afraid of. “Crap.”

“Why crap?”

“The flu or a cold would be easy. Soup, medication, hot tea. Boy or girlfriend or school trouble? Not so much. I don’t know how to talk to her anymore.”

Mika stood and picked up the present she’d wrapped yesterday. The social daughter, she was attending a friend’s birthday party for the day. Aiyana, the quiet studious one, was more like him than Salem suspected she wanted to be.

“Boys,” Mika said, with a nod of wisdom and a shrug that said, isn’t it obvious? “See you after the party, Grandpa. Bye, Daddy.” Then she was out the door and off to meet her friends down the street, so blessedly uncomplicated Salem thanked his lucky stars.

“What do I do about Aiyana?” Salem buttered his toast.

“Get your woman to talk to her.”

His knife clattered to the counter. Clumsy fingers. “She’s not my woman.”

“Ask her to talk to your daughter.”

“No.” He might have let Emily sleep here last night, and he might have held her while she slept, but he’d be damned if he would expose his daughter to Emily’s brand of heartache.

“She has been good to Aiyana since that girl was born.”

True. She had showered Aiyana, and later Mika, with gifts and stuffed animals and postcards from abroad. “I know, but—”

“And Aiyana loves her.”

Yes, he knew that, too, but maybe not so much lately. Anger at Emily had grown in Aiyana since her mother’s death. Perhaps she’d hoped Emily might replace her mom, but that hope had been dashed every time Emily left.

Aiyana used to adore Emily, used to trail around behind her imitating her every move, and singing all of the silly songs Emily taught her.

When Emily would leave at the end of her visits, it was okay because Aiyana had her mother. Once Annie started using, though, she became less and less available to her daughter. Aiyana looked forward to Emily’s visits too much after that, and was more devastated when she left.

Then, after Annie died, the questions started.

“Why is Emily going away? Doesn’t she want to be with me? When is she coming back?”

Salem explained about her career, but it was hard to be convincing, because he’d always suspected there was more to it than there appeared to be.

“Aiyana is angry with her,” his dad said, “but still loves her.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Who else is there?”

No one now that her mother was dead. They didn’t have an extended family.

“Ask her.” Dad could be as persistent as a bear in the mood for dinner.

“No.”

“Stubborn.” His father sniffed. “Like your mother.”

He was not. “Emily is trouble.”

“You need a little trouble.”

Salem rounded on his father. “How can you say that? You of all people? After everything Mom did to you? To us?”

“I loved your mother, warts and all.” His dad leaned back in his chair, crossed his feet and cupped the back of his head with his hands, as though they discussed nothing more serious than the weather. “Emily isn’t like your mother.”

Salem turned away and stared out the window.

“She isn’t Annie, either,” his dad said. “She is a different kind of lively. Not trouble trouble. Fun trouble.”

“So what?”

“Aiyana is unhappy,” Dad said. “Has been for a while.”

“This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

“You would know more if you spent more time at home.”

“I work hard—”

His father cut him off with a shake of his head. “So what? Listen to what is important here. Something is wrong with Aiyana. I’m no good for her. You’re no good. She needs a woman to talk to.”

There wasn’t one—Annie was dead and Salem’s mother long dead—but damned if he would ask Emily to step in.

His mind cast about. “I’ll phone Laura, Nick Jordan’s wife.”

“Uh-huh. Sure, you can. She’s probably at the bakery right now serving customers, but you can call her and ask her to leave them and come right over.”

Of course he couldn’t. Weekend mornings were crazy busy at the café, Laura’s busiest time. “How about Emily’s sister, Pearl?”

“She won’t think that’s odd? You calling her while Emily is here in the house? And her knowing Aiyana idolizes Emily? That won’t look strange?”

It would look ridiculous, and Salem knew it.

Emily was here. Still...he couldn’t ask. He couldn’t open Aiyana to heartbreak. But Aiyana was unhappy about something, and wouldn’t confide in him.

His dad’s white eyebrows rose in an exaggerated circumflex, low on the sides and high in the middle, almost meeting at the midpoint, compelling Salem to set aside his fears and seek help for his daughter.

It stuck in his craw. He didn’t want Emily’s help. He could do this on his own. He wanted Emily out of his house and back in her own. Away from him. Away from his daughters.

“She won’t hurt them,” Dad said as though reading his mind. “She won’t lead them astray.”

His confusion with Aiyana, his utter...helplessness, had him swaying toward Dad’s point of view. He needed someone’s help. Emily was the only one available right now.

He’d made the decision to not see her again, to not think about her, to pretend she didn’t exist, and yet here she was in his house. And Aiyana needed someone at this moment. Salem could deal with the consequences later.

“Okay,” he said and trudged upstairs, footsteps heavy and slow like his thoughts.

At his closed bedroom door, he halted and glanced down the hallway toward Aiyana’s door, also closed.

So many doors were closed to him these days. About the only thing that wasn’t was school. No wonder he spent so much time buried in books. They opened pathways for him he couldn’t breach elsewhere in his life.

He knocked and Emily called for him to come in.

She stood beside the bed, her skin pale and gray like ash, using his brush to calm her hair. He loved its thickness and color, a medium brown warmed by glints of blond and red tones. Natural highlights. Or, he assumed they were natural since they’d already been there when she was twelve.

He still remembered the first time he ever saw her and thinking he’d gone crazy because he’d felt such an immediate kinship with a stranger, and her only twelve while he was a strapping eighteen.

For a while, he’d wondered if he was some kind of pervert before realizing his attraction wasn’t sexual. That had come later, when she was still too young at fifteen. It had driven him into the arms of another woman. Just his rotten luck their birth control had failed. No, that wasn’t true. He might have regretted his marriage, but never his daughters, even now when they were teenagers and he didn’t have a clue what to do with them.

“Are you okay?” he asked Emily.

“I’m fine,” she replied, but wasn’t.

He knew when Emily lied. She was lying now.

“What’s up?” she asked shyly. Emily, who could go anywhere, do anything, was never shy. “You look upset.”

“And you look a little better than last night. More like yourself. How do you feel?”

“Tired, but the fever broke during the night, thank goodness. The attack’s almost run its course.” She placed his hairbrush onto his dresser. “I’ve known others with this. I’ve seen the symptoms and how they progress. I’ll be better soon.”

“Do you need to be anywhere this morning? I have a problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

“Aiyana’s upset.”

Her head shot up. “Aiyana? What’s wrong?”

The request backed up in his throat, but the bottom line was that Aiyana needed help and Emily was here. Even with his father’s help, Salem had been coping as both parents for so long, and he was out of his depth. “I think maybe she needs to talk to a woman.”

Emily looked uncertain, another sign she wasn’t herself. In all the years he’d known her, Salem had admired her generosity of spirit and her self-confidence.

He stepped back. “If you don’t want to that’s okay.”

“No. I don’t mind. It’s just...”

“Just what?”

“What kind of help does she need? I mean, I don’t know if I can help.”

If she didn’t help him figure out the puzzle that was his daughter, who would?

“What exactly is the problem?”

Salem shook his head like a bewildered old man, so far out of his element. “Mika says it’s boys. She’s at that age, right?”

Emily tilted her head, thinking. “Aiyana’s what? Fourteen?”

“Fifteen. Almost sixteen.”

“Yeah.” Emily’s mouth twisted wryly. “It’s probably a boy.”

“So, you’ll talk to her?”

A wash of emotion that might have been sadness painted Emily’s features.

“Okay.” She seemed to rouse herself. “Where is she? In her bedroom?”

Salem nodded and went back downstairs, hoping he could deal with the repercussions of Emily leaving—again—later. Maybe. He hoped.

* * *

EMILY LEANED HER forehead against Aiyana’s door to summon her strength before entering. She had to help the girl however she could, even though her resources were depleted. She just didn’t know what she had to give. Damn this illness.

Aiyana, the girl who used to follow Emily around like a perky kitten, needed her. While Emily had completed high school, she’d spent time with Aiyana on the weekends, bringing her gifts—stuffed bunny rabbits, books and toys.

The child might have been born to another woman, and Emily might have resented Annie for marrying Salem, but Aiyana had been Salem’s daughter, and a darling. And Emily had loved her from the first moment she met her.

Funny that Annie hadn’t minded, but then, Annie had been a proud mother, and happy to show off her baby. She had even let Emily babysit.

When Emily had gone to college, she had sent Aiyana birthday cards and sweet little notes at Christmas, and more presents.

As an archeologist, she had mailed Aiyana postcards from all the exotic countries she had visited. So, Emily had enjoyed a correspondence both ways, with Maria in the Sudan when she was at home, and with Aiyana when she’d been away.

And now Aiyana was hurting.

Aware of how hypocritical it was to offer boy advice when her own love life was a mess, she knocked anyway, because Salem had asked her to. How could she say no?

“Go away, Dad.” The voice sounded sullen, as only a teenager could, but Emily heard more. Desolation.

“It’s Emily.”

“Emily?” Emily heard a nose being blown. “Oh, um, just a sec.”

Emily waited.

“Okay. Come in.” It sounded thick with tears.

Emily opened the door cautiously. Aiyana sat on her bed with her arms wrapped around an oversize teddy bear, looking so much like a female version of a teenaged Salem that it brought back memories, both warm and tough. Aiyana was too old for stuffed animals, but Emily remembered the misery of unrequited love. Salem came to mind. She approached the bed.

“Hi,” she said and smiled.

Aiyana didn’t respond. Strange.

“Your dad says something’s going on. Do you want to talk?”

Aiyana shrugged. “I don’t know.” Her nose was stuffed up, and her eyes bloodshot. “What are you doing here so early in the morning?”

Emily was taken aback by Aiyana’s vaguely belligerent tone. It used to be that the girl would run into Emily’s arms when she returned for her visits. But the past couple of years, Aiyana been a bit cool, and now this. Was it normal adolescence, or something deeper?

“I slept over last night.”

“Did you sleep with Dad?”

Whoa. Did Aiyana mean sleep sleep or have sex sleep? Emily was pretty sure she meant sex. Where had this come from?

Before Emily could react, Aiyana asked, “So, like, did you guys kiss and make up?”

Ohhhh. Was this about Emily and Salem fighting before she left last year? Aiyana must have picked up on the change in Salem’s attitude toward her.

Why did adults never think that kids understood what was happening around them?

“I slept here because I was sick last night. I fainted at the Cathedral and your dad brought me home and took care of me.”

“How long are you staying this time?”

Emily finally got what was going on. The daughter had the same issues as the father.

“I’m staying for good this time.”

Skeptical, Aiyana shrugged.

“You look really pale,” Aiyana said, begrudgingly, as though she cared, but didn’t want to. “Are you okay?” A glimmer of compassion softened the blunt edges of Aiyana’s teenaged pique. Maybe they would get through this after all.

“It’s the tail end of an attack of malaria.”

“Isn’t that really bad?”

“I’ll be okay in a few days.”

Emily tucked her hands into her pockets. She felt as lost as Aiyana looked miserable, and just as uncomfortable. She didn’t know what to say or do.

This kind of thing had been easier when Aiyana’s problems had been as simple as scraped knees and broken toys.

On the wall on the other side of the bed, Emily spotted a corkboard filled with all the postcards Emily had sent over the years. Oh. Aiyana had kept them, every last one.

Aiyana might as well have reached into Emily’s chest and petted her heart as she was doing with the teddy bear’s head. Emily had to find a way to help her. She wanted to regain what they used to have.

“You know, when your dad and I fought last year, it had nothing to do with you. I love you as much now as I ever have.”

At the word love, Aiyana’s expression softened even more.

Emily took advantage. “Maybe I can help you through this.” It sounded like a question instead of an offer of help because, honestly, she had no idea what to do. She knew how to be a good listener. Maybe that’s all it would take. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I don’t know,” Aiyana wailed. Oh, she must be hurting badly if she would consider confiding in Emily even though she was still so angry with her. “It’s embarrassing.”

“Did something happen to you?”

Aiyana buried her face in the bear’s head. “Sort of.”

Sort of? Oh, dear. “Can you explain what you mean?” Emily sat on the edge of the bed, but made sure she didn’t touch Aiyana. She didn’t want to invade the girl’s space if things weren’t fully right between them.

Aiyana covered her face with her hands. “I don’t know if I can. You wouldn’t understand.”

“You’d be surprised.”

Aiyana’s head jerked up at the depth of emotion in Emily’s voice.

Maybe in this situation, Emily would have to give before she would receive. “I broke up with my boyfriend three days ago when I left the Sudan to come home.”

“Oh, that’s so sad.”

“It was long overdue. We’d been together for six years, but he didn’t treat me well. I tolerated his behavior way longer than I should have. It was time for me to smarten up.”

Something about the phrase smarten up must have resonated with Aiyana, because she opened her mouth to speak, and the dam broke.

Through tears, haltingly, she told her story, about how she’d thought the boy had cared for her, about how she was honored and happy he’d asked her to be his girlfriend, about how last night he’d taken her into the ravine and had tried to pressure her to have sex.

He’d pushed her too hard too fast, but Aiyana hadn’t given in. Wow, strong girl for holding her own.

Emily was proud of her young friend. “That took guts. You have to feel the time and the boy are right before taking that big step. You’ll get over him.”

“I already have, as soon as I realized what a jerk he is. That’s not the problem. Look!” She jumped up from the bed. Anger vibrated in her slim frame. Good. Anger was a hell of a lot better than despair. Aiyana hit a few keys and her Twitter account came up. “Look what he did.”

Emily joined her, pressing her hand onto Aiyana’s shoulder. Oh, she had a bad feeling about this.

There, on the computer screen, tweets bounced around from the boy and his friends, and girls too, stating that she’d gone all the way with him last night...and that it hadn’t been the first time, and he hadn’t been the first boy, tweets like a hail of bullets cutting Aiyana down, too similar to Jean-Marc’s assault, but much, much worse.

Aiyana was too young, her defenses too undeveloped, to repel an attack like this. No wonder she needed help.

Damn the internet for making bullying so painfully public.

“It’s all lies,” Aiyana wailed. “I’m still a virgin.”

In Aiyana’s pain, Emily heard echoes of her own.

She fell back to sit on the bed, her past rushing toward her from a long dark tunnel, whooshing full speed ahead, the memories she’d worked so hard to submerge surfacing here where she had thought she would be safe.

She could handle Jean-Marc and his ugly innuendo miles and miles away, because she knew she could find a way to repair the damage, somehow, but this was here at home in Accord, and it was happening to a girl she loved, and it was happening in Emily’s old school. And that easily, the woman Emily had matured into was gone, and she was back to the lost and lonely girl she used to be.