Always the Baker, Finally the Bride (22 page)

Sean and Andy took the cue and got up as well.

“Hey, Emma,” Andy said, and he patted her arm as he passed her.

“Hi.”

“ ’Sup?” Sean commented as well.

“Let me know if you need anything,” Miguel added, and the three of them filed across the court and through the door.

“Oh, Jackson. I am so sorry.”

“For what?” he said with a smile, taking her hand. “Let’s sit down and breathe for another minute. Then you tell me what’s got you so worked up.”

In the short walk to the bleachers, a dozen scenarios burned the fire line inside Jackson’s mind, but he couldn’t seem to land on any one of them for more than an instant. They sat down, and Emma perched on the edge of the bench like a nervous bird on a wire.

“Tell me,” he said.

She looked down at the floor for a long time, and when she lifted her head again and gazed at him with deep regret in her stormy brown eyes, tears cascaded down her face in full streams. Jackson’s heart began to race, and his palms went cold and sweaty. Emma never exhibited this kind of behavior. She normally managed to keep pretty even-keeled under the most stressful situations, except for the pacing. He determined that this must be something truly horrible if she hadn’t thought of pacing.

And suddenly a notion dropped on him. Gently at first, like an irritating feather tickling the inside of his nose. Then harder, with a thud that continued to press in.

No
, he prayed.
That can’t be it . . . Oh, Lord, don’t let her take off that ring and hand it to me
.

“Jackson,” she chirped through the emotion blocking her throat. “I’m so sorry.”

Where is this coming from? . . . No, it can’t be . . . Don’t say it, Emma. Please
.

“My heart has been so heavy over this. The burden is just . . . Well, I’ve never felt anything so deeply, so . . . And the thing is, I can’t even explain it to you. Not really.”

Dear God
.

“But you know how, sometimes, you just know that you know something?”

His chest ached. He sniffed back a mist of emotion gaining a chokehold on him, and he nodded. “Yeah. I think so.”

“Well, it really hit me hard tonight, and I’m so certain.”

He narrowed his eyes and rigidly turned toward her. Staring her down and steeling himself for her answer, he rasped, “Go ahead, Emma. Tell me.”

“I hope you’ll understand.”

“Just say it.”

“Please don’t do it, Jackson.”

He swallowed. “I’m sorry. What?”

“Don’t do it. Don’t sell The Tanglewood.”

It took half a minute for his heart to start beating again. But when it did, Jackson blew out a huge puff of air he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. And then he started to laugh. Hysterically. And he grabbed her—his beautiful
fiancée
—and he clutched her to him until she probably couldn’t breathe. The relief washed over him in icy waves.

“Jackson?” she asked, her voice muffled against his chest as he held her there. “Umm, Jack-son?”

“Sorry,” he said, releasing her for a moment, but then snagging her back again and embracing her with everything he had.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes,” he declared. “I’m perfect.”

“What did you think I was going to say?” Emma asked him as Jackson continued to rock her back and forth as he held her in a vise grip. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yes. I told you, I’m perfect.”

“Well, I already knew that,” she teased. “But really . . . you’re killing me.”

“What?” He drew back and looked down at her. “Oh. I’m sorry.” Shaking her shoulders with both hands, and looking like some kind of crazy person, he repeated, “Sorry.”

“So?” she asked, folding her leg beneath her. “What do you think? About not selling.”

“And you can’t explain to me why you feel this way.”

“I really can’t,” she told him as she pulled her hair back into a sloppy ponytail and secured it with a scrunchie from her pocket. “I was just standing there in the lobby, Jackson. Your sister was there, and Fee and Kat raced by, and Roy in Accounting, and . . . well, I just knew I couldn’t give up my life there.
Our life
there.”

Jackson nodded thoughtfully. “I still have the same concern, Emma. Your health, the stress levels—”

“Jackson, a day will never come when there will be no stress in our lives. In Georgia or in Paris, or in Bora Bora! I’m still going to have to figure out how to manage it. But if I have the choice, I want to learn to manage it here, with our friends and our family and my brides and . . . and . . .”

He pressed his hand lightly over her mouth. “Stop talking,” he whispered, and Emma chuckled. “Can you do that?”

She nodded, her grin pressing against his fingers.

“Everything all right in here?” Miguel called to them from the door. “I’m getting ready to lock things down.”

“Can you hold up on that?” Jackson asked him, still staring into Emma’s eyes. “Can you stick around for a few minutes, Miguel?”

“Of course.” He crossed the gym and stood over them as Jackson removed his hand from Emma’s mouth. “What’s up?”

“Emma and I would like for you to pray with us. Can you do that?”

“Did Noah build an ark?” Miguel joked.

“We have a big decision to make,” Jackson explained, “and we can’t make it on our own.”

“You’re very wise. Let’s take it higher then, shall we?”

Emma sighed as Miguel joined them on the bleachers, reaching for her hand, then Jackson’s. Thirty minutes later, the three of them parted ways in the parking lot on the promise that Jackson and Emma would sleep on it overnight and see where their hearts led them.

Emma felt a truckload lighter as they walked along, Jackson’s arm loose around her shoulder. Her cell phone rang, and she reached into her purse.

“Fee,” she told him as she opened it. “Yeah, Fee. What’s up?”

“You ran out of the hotel like a bat from you-know-where. You okay?”

“I am,” she said with a sigh. “I just needed to see Jackson.”

“Are you with him now?”

“Yes, why?”

“Can the two of you come over to our place?”

“Sure. I guess so.”

“It’s important, Emma.”

“Okay. We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

She ended the call and looked up at Jackson. “Can you follow me to Fee and Sean’s? She says it’s important.”

He nodded and pulled her in for a kiss before heading toward his car. “Lead the way.”

The emotions of the day had swung from one extreme to another, and Emma paused to stretch after she pulled up in front of the tiny cottage that used to be known as Sean’s house. Since Fee and her closet had moved in, Emma and Jackson had taken to just calling it The Closet.

She met up with Jackson at the edge of the driveway, and he extended his hand and clasped hers. When Sean opened the door to greet them, his eyes seemed unusually wide, with large, dilated pupils.

“Thanks for coming,” he said, rubbing his dark, bald head.

“What’s the story?” Jackson asked as they stepped inside.

“You need to see for yourself,” Fee told them, leaning against the arched doorway to the kitchen. “But first, we want you both to know that . . .” She darted an excited glance at her smiling husband before continuing. “. . . we bought a house tonight!”

“Fee, that’s awesome!” Emma exclaimed.

“I just saw you at the gym two hours ago,” Jackson said, shaking Sean’s hand. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“They just accepted our offer a little while ago,” Fee answered for him. “We can hardly believe it. We close in thirty days!”

“My little Fiona,” Emma said, snaring her by the shoulders and pulling her close. “A home owner.”

“Dude. Shut it,” she said with a grin, squirming out of Emma’s embrace. “We’re pretty stoked. It’s more than twice
the size of this place, and it has . . . 
wait for it!
 . . . two walk-in closets! Count ’em. Two.”

Emma glanced around at the neatly piled boxes providing a full border to the room. In the small dining area, the table had been pushed into the corner so that two jam-packed rolling wardrobes could squeeze in. Wire shoe racks hung over the bathroom and bedroom doors, and the door on the coat closet couldn’t even be closed for all of the garments poking out of it.

“I love my girl’s individuality, don’t get me wrong,” Sean told them. “But all this gothic, steam punk, and buckled jazz takes up a lotta room.”

“And now we’ll have it,” Fee told him with a smile. Turning to Emma, she pulled a very serious face “Look, something else happened tonight, and you need to tell me what to do.”

“What do you mean?” Emma asked, glancing at Jackson for a quick moment. “What happened?”

Fee nodded toward the hallway leading to the one bedroom in the house. “Have a look.”

Emma felt tentative as she made her way into the hall and turned the knob on the bedroom door. She looked back at Fee, who nodded, and she opened the door.

Curled into a small ball of wild hair and fair skin, wrapped in a black shirt about thirty sizes too big, lay a sleeping Hildie.

Emma’s focus darted behind her to Fee.

“How did this happen?” she whispered.

Fee nodded back toward the hall, and Emma followed her, pulling the door so that it only remained ajar by an inch.

“She showed up at the hotel earlier,” Fee said softly. “She came into the kitchen looking like she’d been through the war. You didn’t answer your phone, and I didn’t know what to do, so I brought her home with me. I gave her some dinner, forced her into the shower, and put her clothes in the wash.”

“Sounds familiar.”

“Dude. What should we do?”

“I’ll call Mrs. Troy in the morning. Do you want me to take her home with me? I’ve clearly got more room than you guys do.”

“Nah. We’ll work it out. But calling the kid police . . . won’t that just put her right back where she’s so miserable?”

“That’s the law, Fee. I don’t really think we have a choice here.”

“There’s gotta be something.”

“Well, if you can think of it, let me know. Right now, the only thing I know is that she needs a family, and Mrs. Troy seems to be the only link to making that happen.”

When she turned around, Jackson stood behind her, and he placed a hand on Emma’s shoulder.

“Hildie?” he asked as he peered through the open crack in the bedroom door.

She nodded. “She showed up at the hotel tonight, and Fee brought her home.”

“You should have seen her, Jackson,” Fee told him. “That little chick has been through it.”

“I’d say she has,” he commented.

“We’ll figure it out in the morning,” Emma told them, leading the way back to the living room. “I’ll call Mrs. Troy first thing, and I’ll let you know what she has to say.”

“I hate going that route,” Fee admitted.

“We have to make sure her needs are met, baby,” Sean said.

“But if they were being met, she wouldn’t have come running back to us.”

“We have to work with what we’ve got,” Emma told them. “And unfortunately, the foster care system is what we’ve got.”

After a moment of silence between them, Fee sighed. “That stinks.”

“It sure does.”

Jackson walked Emma to her car and opened the door for her. Before she slid in, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, kissing her softly on the neck.

“Anything you need?” he whispered.

“At the risk of sounding a lot like Sherilyn,” she teased, “what I’d really like . . . what would make me feel infinitely better . . .”

“Chocolate?” he asked.

“Nah.” She grinned up at him before pulling a very serious face. “Cake!”