By Design (20 page)

“Everything okay?” she asked as he shrugged on his jacket.

“Oh, yeah. It’s nothing, really.” And he gave her an unconvincing smile.

“Graham, what’s going on?”

He looked away and sighed. Emmie was getting pretty familiar with what that aggravated sound meant, and sure enough, he murmured, “That was Juliet on the phone.”

“What did she say?” Emmie didn’t mean for it to come out clipped and angry, but she was getting pretty fed up with the other woman’s manipulative tactics. Calling Graham, likely crying her eyes out, on Christmas Eve? Predictable. Tacky. And unacceptable.

“She . . . well, you called it. She’s alone—she doesn’t have the kids till late tonight—and she’s been stewing—”

“You mean she’s stewed?”

“Probably.”

Now it was Emmie’s turn to sigh. “All right. But nip this thing in the bud, understand? Or she’s going to keep doing this till you go back to her.”

Graham tucked his hand under her hair, cradling the back of her neck. “I’m never going back to her.”

“Then you’d better let her know that. Tonight.”

“I will. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He kissed her, called out a good-bye to his daughter, who barely waved because her hands were full of small furniture (
already redecorating,
Emmie noticed—
girl after my own heart)
, and he ducked out the door.

Emmie returned to the dining room, where her friends lounged among the remains of the meal.

“What’s going on, kid?” Trish queried, noticing Emmie’s stormy expression.

“Pour me some of that and I’ll tell you.” Adam reached for her glass and tipped some wine into it. “More than that. Amateur.” He obeyed. Emmie dropped into her seat and glanced over at Graham’s empty chair. They could have something really great . . . if only Juliet would get the hell out of the way.

 

The house was virtually silent. Emmie carried a stack of plates into the kitchen and glanced at the rooster-shaped clock. Ten fifteen. Graham had been gone for more than two hours. The rest of her friends had just left; Emmie wouldn’t let them help clean up. She found washing dishes a soothing meditation, and she wanted time to think. Her father was in his recliner, already snoring. Emmie had tucked Sophie under a multicolored crocheted afghan with a black border—one of those items that had been in the living room since the dawn of time, it seemed—and she had nodded off about half an hour before. SpongeBob prattled on the TV at a low volume.

With a sigh, she turned on the old radio on the shelf and started filling the sink with water. Her mother had never believed in dishwashers, so she had at least a good half hour with her arms in sudsy water. She plunged the first round of dishes in, thinking back on her conversation with her friends. She had been gratified to find that they were as incensed at Juliet’s behavior as she was, and they agreed with Emmie that she could very well have a field day taking advantage of Graham’s compassion. But they hadn’t been able to come up with any suggestions for stopping her. It all came back to the same “what if”—what if Graham ignored her and she actually did do something drastic, like harm herself? What then?

Emmie was wiping down the kitchen counters when she heard the front door open and close. She let Graham come find her in the kitchen, but she took a peek as he stopped in the living room to kiss his daughter on the forehead and pull the bottom of the afghan over her feet. When he turned toward the kitchen, Emmie ducked away from the doorway so he wouldn’t see her staring. Dammit, she sure didn’t want her heart to get all oozy—not for somebody whose attention was divided, like Graham’s appeared to be—but she just couldn’t seem to stop it. Yep, there it went, all melty, seeping into her shoes.

“Hey.”

Oh, that melodic baritone always got her. Damn, damn, damn. She took a deep, steadying breath before she spoke. “Hey yourself.”

“I’m sorry I was gone so long.”

She shrugged. “You do what you have to do.”

“Was Sophie okay?”

“Oh, she was fine. We had a great time.”

“Really?”

Emmie smiled tightly. “Don’t sound so surprised.”

“I—I didn’t mean it that way,” he stammered.

“Relax,” she said, reaching up to push his jacket off his shoulders and hanging it on the back of one of the kitchen chairs. “Sit. Want some pie?”

“There’s pie left?”

“One slice. Be honored—I usually booby-trap the fridge to prevent anybody else from getting the last piece.”

She retrieved the plate from the fridge, along with the last half bottle of chardonnay. “I’m not sure this goes with apple pie, but I don’t think either one of us is going to be picky at this point.”

“You’re not going to get any argument from me. Let’s have it.”

Emmie put the pie, the wine, two glasses, and two forks on the enamel-topped table in front of Graham, then sat down beside him. “You look tired.”

“I am tired.” Chivalrous to the last, he gestured to her to take the first bite of pie.

“So what happened? If,” she added hastily, “you feel like sharing. I realize I’ve been pretty nosy about all of . . . this . . . lately, and I don’t want to be that kind of person.”

“You aren’t. And you have every right to know what’s going on.”

“Okay.” She rested her chin on her hand and waited for him to talk.

After a bite of pie, Graham said, “So I went over to Juliet’s—”

“And she was sozzled . . .”

“Hey, were you a fly on the wall?”

Emmie rolled her eyes. “The odds are always good.”

“So . . . she was ‘relieved’ to see me and started going on and on about how she was afraid she’d lost me forever—”

“And you said, yes, she had . . .”

“Well, I said that I was still her friend.”

“And then she hung on to you and begged you not to leave her.”

“You could make a lot of money doing this for a living, you know—call yourself Madame Emmaline, get yourself a nine-hundred number. I should buy you a crystal ball for Christmas.”

“Well, Juliet’s not really that hard to figure out.”

“I guess not.”

“And?”

“She had ‘conveniently’ arranged a bunch of pill bottles on the kitchen island where I’d see them. When she left the room, I took a look.” He shook his head slowly, in disbelief.

“What?”

“She was so out of it, she didn’t even realize she had . . .”

“What?” Emmie asked again, fearing the worst.

Graham gazed at her with his deep blue eyes. “Baby aspirin—”

“Baby aspirin!”

“Some expired antibiotics . . .”

Emmie rolled her eyes.

“And . . .”

“There’s more?”

“Old suppositories. For their dog. Who died three years ago.”

“What!”

“She just grabbed every plastic bottle in the cupboard, for effect. If she thought she was going to convince me that she was actually going to harm herself, she was sorely mistaken.”

Emmie let out a huge sigh of relief. “That’s something, then.”

“It is.” Graham drank some wine. “But it’s still not normal. I just . . . don’t know what to think. But I do know I am
so
glad to be out of there and back here. With you.” And he took her hand under the table.

She gave his hand a squeeze. “So it’s over, then? You did eventually tell her you two were done?”

“Y-yeess . . .”

“Oh, that didn’t sound very definite.”

“I know. I tried.
Again.
Believe me, I tried. But I have no idea if she heard me or, if she did, that she understood what I was saying.”

“Or she understood what you were saying and chose not to listen.”

“There is that distinct possibility. She told me Kevin was going to be bringing the kids back in a couple of hours, and he was going to be staying at the house for a ‘family’ Christmas morning—just to make things even weirder. Still, I was glad to know she wasn’t going to be alone, so I put her to bed.”

“And she tried to get you to stay.”

“I suppose it doesn’t take a psychic to figure that out.”

“Not really.”

“And I peeled her off me and ran like a coward, right back here. The end.”

“That’s the end of this chapter, not the end of the whole story.”

“I don’t want you to be right about that.”

“But I am.” She fed him the last bite of pie, which he took gratefully.

“I wish I had better news.”

“You’ll figure it out.”

They were quiet for a few minutes. A Christmas tune jingled away in the background as Emmie put the empty plate in the sink. That song ended and another began, and Graham stood up. “C’mere.” He pulled her close, wrapping his right arm around her waist and tucking his left hand, holding her right, against his chest.

“What do you think you’re doing, Mr. Cooper?”

“Wooing you, Miss Brewster. It’s not much, but it’s all I’ve got for now—a slow song on the radio and dancing under a buzzy round fluorescent light.”

“Mm,” she said, pretending to consider it. “I guess it’ll have to do.” She rested her head on his chest as the Eagles begged their loved one to please come home for Christmas. And, despite her uncertainty about how long it would take to get Juliet out of their lives, it was enough for now.

Emmie always loved Holiday No-Man’s Land, that week between Christmas and New Year’s, for one reason: no Wilma. He and Travis took their annual vacation around the holidays—a different tropical location every year. Emmie couldn’t for the life of her picture Wilma in a beach setting; she was sure he spent the entire vacation under an umbrella, wrapped up in a bathrobe, turban, and sunglasses like a latter-day Truman Capote, with just his black socks and huaraches sticking out of the shade.

But she didn’t really care what he did or didn’t do in Fiji or Hawaii or wherever the hell they were going this year, because Wilma had given her the best Christmas present of all (certainly better than his usual gifts of a cheese log and a ten-dollar supermarket gift card). This year, he and Travis were going to be away for
weeks.
She was sure it was Travis’s doing, and although she couldn’t figure out how he convinced Wilma to take the extra time off, she didn’t care. She was just going to enjoy the peace and quiet.

And freedom. The best thing about Holiday No-Man’s Land was that her only tasks were to keep the lights on at the office for at least part of the day and answer the phone
if
it rang. Now here she was, puttering around at home after nine
A.M
. and not even worrying about it. Well, a tiny nagging voice in her head was telling her to move a little faster, but she told it to shut up as she leisurely hunted for her phone. She found the pesky little device on her dresser and checked it for text messages as she made her way back down the hall. As she passed her parents’—er, her father’s—bedroom (she wondered how long it was going to take before she automatically thought of her parental unit in the singular), she heard the familiar
zzzzzzp
sound of a suitcase being closed.

She stuck her head in the doorway. “Dad?”

“Oh, hello, Emmaline,” he said, all too casually. Sure enough, his suitcase was lying on the bed behind him.

“What are you doing?”

“Packing, of course.”

“For . . . ?”

“A, uh, a cruise,” he said, looking embarrassed, because of course he hadn’t mentioned this to Emmie before now. “It’s a New Year’s cruise. Supposed to be very nice.”

“Uh-huh. Were you going to sneak out while I was at work and leave me a note?”

“Well, no, of course not,” he replied, not very convincingly.

“Geez, Dad, I thought you were done with . . . you know . . .”
Running away,
she thought, but she kept it to herself. “I mean . . . I thought you’d be here for New Year’s.”

New Year’s Eve had never been a big deal in the Brewster household, but she had been hoping they’d spend it together. After their successful Christmas Eve dinner and a peaceful Christmas Day, Emmie thought they were headed in the right direction toward forming some new sort of relationship—one without her mother in the middle. But now her father was taking off again. She couldn’t help but take it personally.

What else was she supposed to think, after all? Bob Brewster got a taste of home life after her mother’s death and decided he didn’t like it. At least, that’s what it looked like to Emmie. And if he was uncomfortable, or unhappy, at the thought of celebrating the holidays without his wife, shouldn’t he explain himself? Or at least think about how this affected his only child?

“Not very nice, leaving your daughter alone in your house, is it?”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic, Emmaline,” her father chided. “It’s only for three weeks—”

“Okay, three and a half.”

Emmie let out a little groan and plopped down on the bed next to her father’s suitcase. “Dad—”

“What?”

Honestly, she wasn’t sure what she wanted to say. She looked up at her parent, her hands working in her lap. Suddenly she burst out, “Do . . . do you not
want
to be around me?”

“What!” her father said again, shocked this time. “Emmaline, how could you think such a thing? You’re my daughter!”

“Then why are you always leaving?”

He sat next to her on the bed and put an arm around her. “Emmie, I love you so very much . . .”

Emmie’s jaw dropped. She didn’t think she’d ever heard her father say that to her before.

“But,” he went on, “this whole thing—establishing new traditions, doing things without your mother . . . it’s so . . . hard.”

“You seemed to be doing pretty well, there, Dad. Vacations by yourself, adapting to living alone without a fuss, new girlfriend—”

He smiled grimly. “I’m quite a good actor, aren’t I?”

Emmie looked at him closely, saw the glimmer of unshed tears in his eyes. “Yeah,” she whispered, softening, “I guess you are. I wish you wouldn’t be—not with me, anyway.”

Her father shrugged, rubbed the heel of his hand at the corners of his eyes roughly, and laughed a little. “Hard to change—in a lot of ways.”

“Will you try?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Emmie rolled her eyes at him, but affectionately. She tucked her head under his chin, and they sat there for a few minutes, silent. Eventually her dad jostled her gently.

“Come on, now, Emmaline, you’re a grown woman—you shouldn’t be looking for your old dad, anyhow. I thought you’d have plans with your young man.”

“We haven’t really talked about it.”

“Well, you
should
.”

“I don’t want to pressure him.”

“Bah, pressure,” he scoffed. “Make plans!”

Evidently her dad had regrouped and was back to his old self.

Emmie eyed him suspiciously. “Dad, since when do you take such an interest in my love life?”

“Emmaline, you’re my daughter. I worry about you. You think your situation doesn’t keep me up at night? You think I don’t wonder what’s going to become of you when I’m gone?”

“‘Become of’ me?” She laughed in disbelief. “This isn’t the eighteen hundreds, Dad. I don’t ‘require’ companionship.”

“But don’t you
want
companionship?”

“Of course I do! And I have it. So there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Graham is a good man,” he said. “Solid. Dependable. Trustworthy. And he cares about you—that’s easy to see. You need to grab this opportunity with both hands. He’s your best bet—”

“For what? Marriage, home, kids? Dad, we’ve only been seeing each other—sort of—for a few days. Let’s not get crazy here,” she cautioned, even though she had already thought the same thing. But if her father was going to be rambling in such an odd vein as this, she was going to counter him by being the voice of reason. Somebody had to; this conversation was getting too strange even for her.

“Why not? Your mother and I were married before we’d even known each other for a month.” Emmie knew the story well—their whirlwind courtship, their rock-solid knowledge that each other was The One. She had always envied it. “Plus, he’s got a darn sight more potential than that other one.”

“Who—Kyle? Well . . .
yeah
.”

Her father chuckled. “I can’t tell you how relieved I was when you gave him his walking papers. Had me worried there for a while, Emmaline.”

“You and me both, Dad.”

“Anyway, your old man can see, quite clearly—even if you can’t—that it’s time to move on. Don’t waste any more time—build your own life with someone. You don’t need me; I’m going to get out of the way and let you get on with your life.”

“You make it sound like you’re going to push yourself out to sea on an ice floe.”

“Nonsense. This cruise ship is going through the Panama Canal, not the Northwest Passage.”

“That’s not what I—never mind. Do you and Concetta need a ride to the airport?”

Her father set his suitcase on the floor and pulled up on the telescoping handle. “Oh, Concetta’s not coming with me.”

Emmie was surprised. “Why not? Does she have plans with her family for New Year’s?”

“I have no idea; we’re not seeing each other anymore.”

“What!”

“Ahhh”—he grunted with a dismissive wave of his hand—“she was getting too clingy.”

Emmie was about to give her father a piece of her mind—the nerve, insisting that she marry Graham tomorrow, when he’d dumped his ladyfriend for wanting to get more serious—when her cell phone rang. She glanced at the screen; the call was forwarded from the office.

“Wilman Designs, Emmie speaking. How may I help you?”

“Hi. Er, can I speak to John, please? This is Matthew Hudson.”

Emmie moved into the hall as her father pulled his suitcase through the doorway. “I’m afraid he’ll be out of town till after the new year. May I take a message?” And she glanced around for something to write with and write on. She came up with nothing, so she barreled down the stairs to the living room before the caller started rattling off room dimensions or drapery styles. She had no idea who this Matthew guy was, and she wracked her brain trying to remember if he was a client already or not.

“Well, we, uh . . . I don’t know if you remember, but we met with you and John a while back about redoing our living room?”

Oh, this was Plasma TV Guy, married to Scrapbooking Wife. Wilma had written them off ages ago, blaming Emmie for opening her big yap and “confusing” them.

“Right! You had that wonderful living room space,” she lied.

“We thought we’d stop in to the office to talk about getting started. We didn’t think John wouldn’t be available, though.”

Emmie lightly bonked her forehead against the living room wall. Oh, hell, not this again—just like with Annette, she was torn between putting potential clients off until Wilma was available, or risk invoking his wrath by signing them up without him. Not for the first time (and likely not the last), Emmie cursed Wilma for not trusting her with more responsibility. The damned control freak could delegate things like this if he wanted, but noooo . . .

“Hello?”

“Oh, sorry, Mr. Hudson. I’m here. I’m just . . . checking the schedule . . .” And suddenly New Emmie got her dander up again. “You know what? Give me a few minutes—I’ve got to, uh, step out for a moment—and we can sit down, have some coffee, and get started on your project.”

“Great,” he breathed in relief, and Emmie got the sense that Scrapbooking Wife had something to do with the sudden need to start renovating. Either she was pregnant and nesting, or Plasma TV Guy had come up lacking in the Christmas gift department. Didn’t matter in the end. What did matter was that they were ready to pay—and, after Wilma got through with them, pay big—to give that “great space” some character.

“Twenty minutes?” Emmie suggested.

“We’ll be there.”

After she hung up, she hunted down her father to say a quick good-bye. He was going to have to find another ride to the airport. Now there was no time to play chauffeur for her globe-hopping parental unit.

 

Despite her best efforts, it was closer to thirty minutes later when Emmie the Interior Decorating Tornado came hurtling down the sidewalk, balancing a box from the bakery down the street, her bag falling off one arm, her purse falling off the other, her knit cap askew. She was sure she looked like a crazy homeless woman; she was about to smell like one if she spent one more minute perspiring in her new winter coat, a three-quarter length chocolate-colored suede number she’d gotten from her father, most likely via Trish, for Christmas.

She bustled faster when she saw Plasma TV Guy and Scrapbooking Wife—
the Hudsons,
she reminded herself—standing in the doorway, coat collars turned up against the cold.

“Sorry, sorry,” she panted, pulling out her keys and unlocking the front door. She stuck out a hand from under the pastry box for handshakes. “Good to see you again.” As she pushed open the front door, her work bag slid from her shoulder down to her wrist with a heavy jerk. She winced. “Please, come in.”

She turned on the lights with her elbow, the bag pulling even harder on her wrist. She bypassed her desk, intending to dump everything on the meeting table at the back. She slid the box onto the table and dropped her bag and purse onto a chair, took off her coat and hat, accepted the couple’s coats, and started zigzagging all over the office. To the front to hang up the coats. To the thermostat to turn up the heat. To the kitchenette for coffee. Emmie veered off once more as she changed her mind and decided to collect the couple’s file, thin though it was at the moment, with only the initial meeting notes and a few of Wilma’s sketches, from the filing cabinet.

“Make yourselves comfortable,” she said as she blew past the Hudsons again. The couple pulled out seats at the table. Emmie decided to move her gear to give them more room. File in one hand, she spun around, grabbed her bag and purse with the other, and tugged.

The portfolio bag snagged on the underside of the table. She pulled harder. And the strap of her old bag promptly snapped. She stumbled backward a step, tried to grab the bag, missed. All the papers and sample cards sticking out of it hit the floor with an avalanching
shoosh.

Emmie groaned and crouched down to collect it all; as she did, everything fell out of the Hudsons’ folder. Emmie dropped to her knees and covered her eyes for a moment. Why? Why did she try, when this was the result?
Why?

Plasma TV Guy came to her rescue. He crouched his large frame down as well and started to pick up the papers. “Don’t worry about it,” he said reassuringly.

Emmie smiled at him gratefully . . . then realized he was not looking at her the way a client looks at, well, any type of professional. He sure hadn’t leered at her like that—hadn’t even noticed her at all—when she and Wilma had met with him and his wife last time. And a smart thing, too, considering his wife had been sitting right next to him—and hey, there she was now, only half a step away, although she had her back to them at the moment (and thank goodness). Emmie gave Plasma TV Guy a shame-on-you frown, and she glanced up at the back of his wife’s legs. But he missed her silent message entirely, as his gaze was definitely not focused on her face, but several inches lower instead.