Smart Girls Think Twice (27 page)

She grabbed her husband’s hand. “He could have killed you!”

“It takes more than a rusty pickup truck to do in this former Marine,” he said with a stoic bark of laughter. “Semper fi!”

“It’s not funny.” Maxie shook her head so hard that one of the plastic cherries on her hairclips went flying and nearly hit Donny in the face. He ducked just in the nick of time.

They were all silent for a moment. Then Emma, Sue Ellen, and Maxie cracked up while Donny looked on in confusion.

“You’ll get used to them in time,” Emma’s dad told Donny.

Ten minutes later, Emma was alone with her dad as the rest of her family went in search of a late lunch at the hospital cafeteria.

“You really scared us,” Emma said.

“I didn’t raise you to be afraid.”

“How could I not be afraid with all the yelling and screaming?” The words were out before she could stop them, and they surprised her as much as him.

“What yelling and screaming?”

“When you had too much to drink,” she said quietly.

Her dad looked stunned. “That was a long,
long
time ago. You were too young to remember those times.”

“I do remember them.”

“I’ve been sober for over twenty years now.”

“I know you have and I’m proud of you.”

“You never said that before,” her dad said.

“Well, I am.”

“And I’m proud of you too, Sweet Pea.” His voice was gruff as he took hold of her hand. “I know you, Sue Ellen, and Leena are all grown up and don’t need your old dad anymore.”

“That’s not true. We’ll always need you.
I’ll
always need you.”

She saw the sheen of unshed tears in her father’s eyes before he pulled her to him for a fierce bear hug. “Holy crap!” He sniffed. “You nearly made your old man cry.” He cleared his throat. “Don’t tell your mother.”

“Tell me again why I have to be here for this?” Jake asked Lulu as they stood in front of the trailer where she’d grown up.

She grabbed hold of his arm as if afraid he’d take off, which he was damn tempted to do.

Emma was visiting her dad at the hospital. He hoped she was doing okay because he sure as hell wasn’t.

He was still rattled from his nightmare about her early this morning.

“You’re here as moral support,” Lulu told him.

“Yeah, well, the thing is I’m not real good at that. Oliver would be a much better guy for that job.”

“Yes, Oliver is very supportive,” Lulu agreed. “But this is a family matter. And like it or not, you’re family.”

“Not really—”

“Shut up and get used to it. You’re family now.”

Jerry opened the door. “What are you two shouting about out here? Well, don’t just stand there.

Get your butts in here before you let all the air-conditioning out.”

Jake entered the trailer to find Zoe busily wiping the kitchen counter and sink. She dried her hands on a kitchen towel imprinted with the state map of South Dakota. “It’s good to see you both.”

“See, here’s the thing,” Lulu said, still hanging onto Jake’s arm as if they were fellow prisoners chained together. “Things have changed.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Zoe said. “I’ve changed.”

“You were almost killed. Yesterday. When Roy aimed his truck at Emma and her dad. I saw it all out the store window. That truck was going to hit you next. You were on the sidewalk. Then he veered and hit the lamppost. Anyway that got me to thinking.”

“Yeah, near-death experiences tend to do that,” Jake said.

Lulu shot him an aggravated look.

“What? I was just agreeing with you.”

“I’m trying to be all emo and stuff here,” Lulu said.

“Hey, go for it,” Jake encouraged her.

Her eyes narrowed. “This isn’t easy.”

“Nothing worthwhile is.” That comment reminded Jake of how Emma had flown off the handle when she’d thought he was calling her easy. He’d go see her as soon as he finished here.

“As I was saying, the accident got me to thinking,” Lulu said. “And it hit me that I didn’t want anything happening to you and that maybe we might have a second chance at not being so angry at each other.”

“I’d love a second chance,” Zoe said unsteadily. “With both of you.”

“I’m just along for the ride. For moral support,” Jake said.

“Yeah, right,” Lulu scoffed. “He’s the one who said I should come out here and talk to you, tell you how I felt.”

“I said you should come out here,” Jake reminded her. “Not me.”

“And I told him I wasn’t coming without him because he’s family now.”

Zoe nodded. “That’s right.”

Jake eyed them all suspiciously. “You’re not going to do a group hug or something, are you?”

“Hell no.” Jerry walked up to him and gave Jake a bear hug that just about cracked his ribs.

“We’re gonna hug you one at a time.”

“Not necessary,” Jake said.

Lulu’s hug was almost as tough as Jerry’s while Zoe’s was tentative and hopeful.

“Okay, not that that’s settled, how about some lasagna?” Jerry said. “I made a new batch last night.”

Jake checked his watch. Emma would still be at the hospital for a while yet. “Lasagna sounds good,” Jake said.

“Our first family dinner sounds even better,” Zoe said.

Emma was on her cell phone when she opened the door for Jake. That didn’t stop him from kissing her.

“Hello? Hello?” Emma heard the woman’s voice in her ear, but Jake’s tongue was in her mouth and that was where her focus was for the moment. “Are you there?”

Jake ended the kiss but kept his arms around her.

“Is this Emma Riley?”

“Yes.”

“This is Cynthia Abrams from Academic Media Press. You e-mailed your book proposal on risk takers to me. I have good news. We’d like to buy it.”

“What?” Emma stepped away from Jake, only then realizing he’d released her bra.

“We’d like to buy your book about risk takers,” the editor repeated.

“You would? Really?”

“Yes, really.”

Emma handed Jake a beer and then locked herself in the bathroom so she could concentrate on what the editor was saying. She emerged ten minutes later and did her own version of Oliver’s happy Snoopy dance.

“What was that all about?” Jake asked.

“They want to buy my book!” She still couldn’t believe it.

“What book?”

“About risk takers. I e-mailed a proposal, but I never thought they’d buy it.”

“Risk takers? You mean like me?” His expression turned cold, as cold as the mountains that had almost killed him. “Is that all I was? Some sociology experiment for your book?”

“No, of course not!”

Emma saw the change come over him, saw him revert back to the dark and dangerous man he’d been when she’d first walked into the bar. A man ready to lash out at anyone who threatened the protective wall he’d built around himself. “What right do you have to pry into my private life?” A muscle jumped in his clenched jaw. “Too bad I found out before I spilled my guts to you for your tell-all book.”

“That’s not what this is. The publisher is a small press specializing in nonfiction.”

“Like tell-all books. How long have you had this in the works? From the day you walked into the bar looking for me?”

“No! I e-mailed the proposal after I saw you and that bare-breasted woman in the bar.”

“And this was your payback for that?”

“No. I’d honestly forgotten I’d even e-mailed it because I was so upset that night. You came over . . . and we made love for the first time.”

“We had sex.”

“It was more than just that. It was something special.”

“It’s always special.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Maybe not for you . . .”

His insinuation was clear. Emma felt the cruel barb like a blade through her heart. She was nothing special. Words failed her for a moment.

“But you said . . .” Her voice was too unsteady to continue.

Jake shrugged. “If you’re studying risk takers, then you should know we like to win and we’ll say or do whatever it takes to do that. Chalk it up to male curiosity. I wondered what it would be like to nail a brainy girl.”

Another direct hit. She wasn’t sure how many more she could take. But she saw a flash of vulnerability beneath the anger in his golden brown eyes that kept her doggedly soldiering on.

“You don’t mean that. You’re angry—”

“Damn right I’m angry. I’m not usually this gullible.”

“I wasn’t trying to fool you or to hurt you.”

“It takes a hell of a lot more than this to hurt me.” He headed for the door.

“Wait! Where are you going?”

“Far away from you.”

Her final scrap of hope died with his words . . . and his departure.

Chapter Eighteen

Emma
sank to the floor and angrily wiped the tears away as fast as they fell. His words still echoed inside her head.
I wondered what it would be like to nail a brainy girl
.

Jake had certainly done that and more. He damn well may have broken her heart. The pain came in recurring waves of burning tears followed by periods of humiliation and numbness.

Okay, enough. She got up off the floor. She might have been knocked down, but she refused to stay there.

She should be celebrating her good news about the book deal. Instead she was a mess. She curled up in a fetal position on the futon before realizing the sheets smelled like him. Like Jake.

Just last night he’d held her so tenderly in his arms and made her feel as though she were the only woman in the world he cared about. Had he really cared about her, he would have listened to her explanation about the book.

Was that project worth losing him over?

You never really had him in the first place.
He’d told her so himself.

Emma leapt up and yanked the sheets off the bed, replacing them with a new set. Then she opened her laptop and got to work. She had plenty to do now that she had a book deadline as well as her research project to complete.

And talk about research, she had tons of that to do about risk takers. One hard lesson she’d already learned thanks to Jake—risk takers were total heartbreakers.

Emma worked through most of the night, avoiding the futon even with its new sheets. She finally crashed around 4 a.m. But she didn’t sleep well at all.

After a few hours of tossing and turning she got up and inserted a new tai chi DVD into her laptop. She needed to calm down and tai chi was her best bet for doing that.

It didn’t work.

She kept at it. “Relax. Breathe easy,” the tai chi instructor on the DVD said. “This movement is known as stroking. Gently stroke an invisible wall . . .” Yeah, a sexy, muscular wall like Jake’s bare chest. No, wait, that wasn’t the image she was supposed to have.

“Now we gently move into our next movement called stoking the fire . . .” Jake was an expert at stoking her fires, his devilishly skillful fingers knowing exactly where to touch her for her maximum pleasure.

Tai chi not helping
.

She clicked off the DVD and collapsed on the futon. Her prone position gave her an unrestricted view of the ceiling but did nothing to help her discover the answers she’d hoped to find by returning to her hometown.

Where was she going?
Downhill fast
was her immediate answer.

Had she made the right choices?
ot where men were concerned, that’s for sure.

What about her future? She didn’t have one with Jake.
Move on.

What if she failed? Hell, she’d already messed up so many things that failure was no longer a fear but a fact.

Whoa. That last agenda item hit her.
Let’s go over that one again.
Failure was no longer a fear but a fact.

Yeah, she liked it. Liked it a lot. She had finally given herself permission to screw up and it was surprisingly liberating.

She took a shower and ate a power breakfast, doubling the amount of fresh blueberries and toasted almonds on her organic yogurt. She was worth it.

The mantra
I am academic diva, hear me roar
worked hard at drowning out
I am dumped
woman, hear me cry.
And it even succeeded to some degree until Lulu and Oliver showed up on Emma’s doorstep.

“What’s going on?” Lulu demanded.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that Jake left town.”

“Left town?” Emma repeated stupidly.

“Yes, as in he’s vacated this location.”

“His apartment?”

“The entire town.”

He’d said he was getting away from her, but she hadn’t expected him to leave so fast or so far.

“But what about Mutt?”

“He gave the dog to me.”

“You mean he asked you to take care of Mutt for him until he comes back.”

“No, I meant what I said. Jake gave the dog to me along with a big bag of kibbles and Mutt’s bowls. The dog is back at my apartment now, probably gnawing on the woodwork with separation anxiety. Mutt really loves Jake. And so do I.”

Emma looked at her in surprise. “I didn’t realize you guys were that close.”

“He’s my brother. Well, my half brother.”

Emma blinked. Maybe it was her lack of sleep last night, but she was having a hard time keeping up with Lulu. “What are you talking about?”

“He didn’t tell you?”

“No. He angrily informed me I had no right prying into his private life.”

“Then maybe I shouldn’t say anything.”

“Yes, you should,” Oliver said. “Emma loves that guy.”

“The feeling is not returned,” Emma said, her throat tightening with suppressed emotion.

“Jake doesn’t love me.”

“Yes, he does,” Oliver said.

Emma shook her head. “Trust me, he doesn’t.”

“Jake isn’t the emotional kind,” Lulu said. “That runs in the family. He got it from me.”

“Actually traits don’t run that way,” Oliver said. “They come from the two parent’s genes.

Besides, as the eldest sibling—”

“I wasn’t speaking scientifically,” Lulu said.

“Oh. Right. My mistake.” He blushed. “I always speak scientifically.”

Lulu kissed Oliver’s cheek. “That’s one of the things I love about you. But getting back to Jake . . . Why did you think he was here in Rock Creek?” she asked Emma.