The old man frowned. “Is that so?”
“It’s so.” Jared pushed up his sleeves, then rolled lightly onto the balls of his feet, ready to lunge, dodge, evade as he searched for an opening in the old man’s defense. He braced himself for another onslaught, praying he wouldn’t hurt the old man by accident. The Captain’s arm swung in a hearty arc, but not to knock Jared back to the ground. This time Emma’s grandfather smacked him on the back in unmistakable delight.
“I’ll be damned!” McDaniel said. “I can finally die in peace.”
“Die?” Jared echoed, alarmed, thinking what such a loss would do to Emma. “Are you sick?” The thought of Emma facing such an illness when she was already so emotionally battered turned Jared’s stomach. He eyed the Captain sharply, his mind racing. The man didn’t look sick. Okay, he looked ninety-something years old, but if the grip he’d dropped Jared with a few minutes ago was any indicator, he was a whole lot healthier than he appeared. Or at least a whole lot craftier.
“Hell no, I’m not sick!” the Captain scoffed. “Couldn’t afford to be. I had to hang on long enough to make sure my girl would be taken care of.”
“Sir?” Jared rubbed his temple, confused. Had he bumped his head harder than he thought when Captain McDaniel had dropped him like a rock?
“You’re just what my granddaughter needs! That Drew Lawson—” McDaniel made a face like he’d just gulped down sour milk. “Everybody thought he was Prince Fucking Charming.
I
knew he was all wrong for my Emma from the first. But what can you say? I’m just one old man and the rest of my family was thrilled.
Such a nice boy, Drew,
” he mimicked. “
Such a gentleman.
A gentleman for my Emma? Bah! What that girl needs is a man she can’t push around!”
Jared grinned into the Captain’s wizened face and the hawk-sharp eyes, knowing exactly why Emma loved her grandfather so much. “Even with me, she tries.”
“That’s good. That’s good.” Captain McDaniel puffed out his chest and for a moment Jared saw the man he’d been fifty years before. “Taught her everything she knows. I’ve been waiting twenty-eight—no, twenty-nine years now for a man to come along who deserves my diamond in the sky.” He gave Jared a long hard look from head to toe. “If you carry that girl off and give me a
great-
grandbaby before next summer, you just might do.”
Jared laughed out loud. “You know, you’re the second old man who’s told me to kidnap the woman and get her pregnant. Don’t you think I should show a little more finesse than that?”
“Finesse, my ass!” The Captain pretended to glare. “Are you a fluffy or are you a man?”
Jared planted his fists on his hips, loving the old man already. “I’m no fluffy.”
“No, you’re not, by damn.” The Captain slapped his thigh heartily. Then he sucked in a deep breath. Jared’s heart tugged as he saw tears in the old man’s eagle eyes, Captain McDaniel’s voice soft with gratitude. “No, you’re not.”
“Thank you, sir.” Jared thrust out his hand, Captain McDaniel taking it in a viselike grip.
Sparkles danced back into the old man’s ornery eyes. “Don’t be thanking me before you’ve lived with her awhile,” he warned. “She’s got a damned foul temper and she’s stubborn as…well, as me.” He shrugged thin shoulders, a little sheepish. “The rest of the family’s off at some dance rehearsal for Hope. One of those fluffy tutu things on a McDaniel!” He shook his head, screwed up his face. “Never thought I’d see the day. But I won’t hold it against her, long as her daddy keeps teaching her tae kwon do as well. Girl’s got to defend herself, you know. Never know what kind of renegade she might run across.”
Jared chuckled, remembering the times Emma had bested him, the times she’d battled him. The times she’d loved him. “That’s a dead cert.”
McDaniel jerked his head toward March Winds’ open back door. “Emma’s alone up in the attic with all that old trash she loves so much. Might as well take that bundle of dirt you carted all the way from Scotland to add to it. Head up to the second floor. It’s the third door on your right. If you see lots of cobwebs and trunks, you’re in the attic. If you bump your head on shelves full of towels, you’re in the closet.”
The corner of Jared’s mouth ticked up in a smile. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He started to reach for Captain’s lead. But Captain McDaniel stopped him.
“How about we give you a little privacy? Might as well get acquainted with my namesake, here.”
“Only if you promise not to bite each other.”
Captain McDaniel flung his head back and laughed—Emma’s laugh, belly-deep and clear—as Jared headed for the door.
“Hey!”
Jared stopped at the Captain’s brusque cry. He turned to see the old man giving him a glare that would have made armies back down. “Hey what?” Jared asked.
“You hurt her, I’ll break every bone in your body, got it? I’m not dead yet.”
“Emma thinks you’re going to outlive us all.”
“I might.” The Captain flashed his pirate grin, his gold hoop gleaming. “I just might after all.”
R
AIN DRUMMED SOFTLY
on the attic roof, filling March Winds with the magic that had been so much a part of Emma’s childhood. Dress-up clothes spilled across the wooden floor where Hope had left them. Treats from an impromptu tea party set up under the window had been decimated. Hope had dashed off to the dress rehearsal for her recital hours ago, insisting Emma remain in the attic until she an’ her daddy were gone. The costumes, sewn by her mom and Aunt Finn, were supposed to be a surprise.
It was good to be home, Emma thought. The past month in Whitewater had healed her in ways she’d needed far too long. It was amazing—the resilience of the McDaniel clan’s spirit. Hope had navigated the playground minefield with aplomb, reminding anyone who teased her exactly how good her daddy was at swinging a baseball bat.
Former classmates of Deirdre had been surprisingly kind, a few even apologizing for being such jerks when she was pregnant and alone. Deirdre had accepted their apologies with the dignity that was all her own. Not that she had needed their empathy. Jake had convinced her a long time ago that she wasn’t responsible for what Adam Farrington had done to her in the backseat of that car.
One of the few things that actually gave Emma a bit of grim satisfaction was imagining her birth father having to explain the bad press to his wife. Unfortunately, Farrington’s daughters would have to learn the truth, too. The crime of rape was an ugly thing to have to connect to your father. Emma knew that all too well.
But of all the things that had happened since she’d been back in Whitewater, the most surprising had been the day Drew had shown up at the door. His face shadowed with guilt, his eyes pleading.
I just wanted to let you know I refused to talk to the press when they wanted to interview me about what your father did and that night at the reunion when Jake smashed up the car. I’m sorry, Em. About…about this mess. About everything. Jessie and I…we loved the bear you sent from Scotland. The ba—
He’d stopped, as if knowing mention of the child Emma had wanted to have with him would hurt her.
It’s okay, Drew. You can say it. Baby. See? I didn’t break into a billion pieces. Not one tear. We were wrong for each other. A baby wouldn’t have fixed that. It still doesn’t mean you weren’t a jerk. But maybe that’s a good thing. Makes you almost human.
He’d left soon after and Emma suspected that, in time, the “three musketeers” might even be able to be friends again. Not as close as they had been. But friends, nonetheless. It was something to hope for.
She curled up in her favorite spot near the window, where the crooked brick chimney sheltered the keeper of her most precious memories of all. Treasures not to be dragged out and played with, but rather to be lifted out reverently, one at a time, and smiled over, wept over, scattering their unique spell.
Emma opened the trunk and leaned over it, remembering how it felt to be a child looking into it for the first time. The March family’s keepsakes from the Civil War had filled it then. Emma had added heirlooms of her own.
Uncle Cade’s lucky shirt with the diamond shapes Emma had cut out of it the day she’d made him so furious and they’d first met Aunt Finn. The tattered blue play script of
Romeo and Juliet
that Emma and her mom had found when she was sixteen and so in love with the stage, with hearing a live audience gasp or cry or leap to their feet in a standing ovation.
Between the pages of Grandma Emmaline’s playbook, Emma had discovered the letter that had changed all of their lives forever. Scraping bare the unhappiness of her grandparents’ marriage, the secret of her mother’s birth. But in the storm that followed, Deirdre McDaniel had found something precious as well. She’d found Jake.
Emma trailed her hands over the treasures tucked in the chest, talismans that reminded her no matter how bleak things seemed, the sun would shine on her beloved family again. Her childhood journey was stowed away here—full of wonder, full of hope—when she’d still believed with all her might that people you loved and lost would somehow find their way home.
And they had—her mother, her aunt Finn. Every McDaniel woman had built the home they’d always dreamed of, the family they’d always longed for. Every McDaniel woman but Emma.
Jared wasn’t coming.
She’d told him not to. Was still determined to stand by her decision. And yet as weeks passed she realized that somewhere, in some secret corner of her heart, she’d hoped one day she’d turn around and see his face. But he was gone from her life for good.
Tomorrow she’d be on her way to a new life as well. Away from Aunt Finn’s pitchers of lemonade in the kitchen of March Winds when the bed-and-breakfast guests had left for the day. Far from Uncle Cade’s log cabin beyond the picket fence and the Captain’s adjoining apartment snuggled up to the building’s east wing. Gone from her room at Jake’s bungalow, the special addition he’d built in spite of the fact she’d left for drama school in New York before it was finished and he knew she never planned to live back home again.
But more than anything, she’d miss her mother’s unfailing love and strength, the mental toughness that had helped Emma survive the pain of what had happened in Scotland.
It was time Emma showed the same grit. Put her life back together and get on with things. As her grandfather told her: There wasn’t a man on earth good enough to merit making his grandbaby cry.
But for once, the Captain was wrong. Jared was worth every one of her tears. The brawny Scotsman hadn’t just captured her heart. He’d stolen it altogether, until every time she closed her eyes she could see him. On the night wind she could hear him. In her dreams she could feel him—his callused workman’s hands on her bare skin, his mouth hot on hers, demanding she give herself to him completely. His big body bearing her down as he drove himself inside her so she could know….
Know what all those words meant in the wedding ceremonies she’d heard. Two becoming one….
But once that happened, once you were joined with a man that way—in your hearts, if not in some church—could you ever be whole again without him? Or would you always feel his loss, like the phantom pain that came when an arm or leg was torn away?
Strange, even when Drew had left her she’d never missed him this way. Never felt bound to him, soul to soul, the way she did to Jared Butler.
She leaned into the trunk, took out a soft bundle wrapped in acid-free tissue. The antique wedding dress she’d never wear. She fingered a sleeve that peeked out of the wrapping. Thistles…Mariah March had embroidered thistles on the sleeves of her gown, in honor of her bridegroom’s country. Another man from the wild shores of Scotland. Emma’s heart squeezed, as if Mariah March were reaching out to her through time.
A wedding dress…
such a silly thing, really, Emma had told herself after Drew had walked away. A costly white dress a woman wore just one day, then packed up in a blue drycleaner’s box and stuffed in an attic to yellow with age, then sent to Goodwill once the divorce papers were filed. And yet Mariah’s gown was different. All those stitches taken so carefully, every thread dipped in a bride’s sweet dreams.
Emma fingered the tiny mother-of-pearl buttons and wondered. If she’d married Jared, would she have worn this historical artifact? No, the archaeologist in him would be horrified. Not to mention, the gown was too small. Would she have dragged out her lucky diva dress, the simple black gown that had replaced the similar one she’d used both for auditions and her elopement to Drew?
Or would she have slipped on the surcoat and silver-tissue undergown she’d worn as Lady Aislinn? The dress Jared had stripped from her body the night he’d saved her on the cliff, made love to her. The night all the walls between them tumbled down at last.
Her throat tightened. She swallowed the lump of pain.
No.
What dress she might have worn didn’t bear thinking about. That wedding would never be.
She should have tucked the dress away, but she couldn’t stop herself from spreading the tissue back from the gown she and Aunt Finn had found when everything still seemed possible, even someone you loved coming to find you.
Emma had already had that dream come true once. Her mother coming back to love her. It was a precious one, even more so since the maelstrom of guilt and pain and publicity had battered Emma and Deirdre Stone.
But McDaniels never surrendered to defeat. Her mother standing strong. Her stepfather right behind her. Little Hope trying to understand. Even Hope would be okay, Emma knew. The child was certain of the one thing that really mattered: Her mother and father loved her. And so did her big sister.
Someday Emma would watch Hope float up to the gazebo, thistles embroidered on her sleeves, as the wedding dress made another McDaniel bride’s dreams come true.
Emma would make that be enough.
S
OMEONE WAS COMING
. Emma climbed to her feet at the sound of footsteps on the attic stairs and brushed the last of the tears from her eyes. She didn’t want anyone to see her cry. Especially not now, before she had to leave. For New York, a new audition. Please, God, a fresh start somewhere on the stages of Broadway where her dreams used to live. She turned, expecting to see her mother’s catlike face and flyaway hair.