The Edge of Heaven (10 page)

"Who exactly are you counting on right now, Emma? Where is this wonderful family of yours when you need them?"

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"What's to know? Look at you." He did, finally. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold, but he knew where the bruise was. "Your ex-boyfriend hit you and now he's calling here and scaring you half to death. If Sam McRae's such a fabulous father, where the hell is he?"

"He doesn't know Mark hit me. If he did, he'd be here in a second."

"So why haven't you told him? He's your family now. He's supposed to be the one you can count on when things get tough."

"I do." She crossed her arms, looking like she was stubborn enough that it would take a bulldozer to move her. "He's always been here for me."

"But not now? Come on? I know how scared you are." And he knew about needing people and having them turn their backs on you. He knew about how ugly life could get.

"He needs to be there right now."

"Because your aunt's having trouble with her baby?" He finished with the damned lights. What was he supposed to do now?

"No, because if her baby comes now, it may well die."

"Which would be bad," he admitted. "But you're his daughter, and you need him."

"I happen to think there are other people who need him more."

"How can that possibly be?"

She rolled her eyes and groaned, then said, "Where are your keys?"

"What?"

"The keys to your truck? Do you have them with you?"

"Yes." He pulled them out of his pocket and held them up. "So?"

"So, we're going somewhere. You can drive. Just let me get my purse and lock up the house."

"Where are we going?"

"I'm through trying to tell you about why Sam isn't here. I'm going to show you."

"Show me what?" What could there be for him to see?

"You'll see," she insisted, disappearing into the house.

He put the ladder and the empty boxes away, and ten minutes later they climbed into his truck. She directed him to a shop at the edge of downtown, a pretty, dainty-looking place called Nanette's Buds and Blossoms.

"Flowers?" he asked.

She frowned at him. "We could go back and string lights around the bushes in the front yard, if you'd rather."

"No, flower shops are fine," he said.

Emma reached into her purse and pulled out some money. "I called in an order. Would you mind picking them up? I'm thinking if I can hide from anyone who knows me for another two days, the whole town won't have to know my ex-boyfriend's been hitting me."

"Sure," he said.

He went in and asked the woman behind the counter, whom he soon learned was Nanette herself, a nosy-looking woman in her forties, for Emma's order. She came back with a simple spray of baby pink roses, tiny and delicate looking against the dark green leaves and the green tissue paper.

"Sam and Rachel still in Cleveland with Ann and her baby?"

"Yes," Sam said, extending the bill Emma had given him.

"And the baby still hasn't come?" She made change without a break in conversation.

"Not yet," he said, taking the flowers and Emma's money.

The woman shook her head. "You tell them we'll be thinking of them. All of them and that baby."

Small-town living, huh? Even the floral shop owner knew them and was worried about Ann's baby. Rye went back to the truck, climbed in, and gave Emma the flowers and her change.

"Is that what you wanted?"

"Yes. Perfect."

"What's going on, Emma? Where are we going?"

She gave him directions, little by little, until he realized she was taking him to the cemetery. They drove past row after row of graves, until she told him to park and got out of the truck, her steps getting slower and slower the closer she got to one particular spot under a big willow tree on the hill.

He followed two steps behind her. She knelt down to clear away a few stray leaves, then tucked the flowers against the tiny white gravestone with a lamb carved on the top.

The colors had his throat going tight, the stone so white, the flowers oh-so-soft pink.

He didn't really want to know this.

"Sam and Rachel had a baby once, a long time ago," she said.

He stared down at the grave. They'd named her Hope. She would have been nineteen in the spring. The gravestone showed that she died on the same day she was born, a long time ago.

Damn.

He couldn't say anything at first, and when he could speak without sounding like he was choking, all he could think of was, "They must have been young."

"Eighteen and twenty," Emma said quietly.

"What happened?"

"Car accident. Icy roads. The baby was born too soon. Sam was driving, and he blames himself. They did a hysterectomy to keep Rachel from bleeding to death, so there were no more children after that, something Rachel blames herself for. They've been through a lot, and they' re both very strong, but... If something happens to Ann's baby, they need to be together. They need each other more than I need them right now, and I don't want you to think badly of them because of that."

Rye nodded, not sure what to say.

He and Emma had drifted together once more, her arm against his, her hand slipping into his.

He just stared down at the gravestone, and a split second before he would have turned away, he went back to the date again. It happened nearly nineteen years ago.

March 12.

What happened in March nineteen years ago?

He counted back in his head, looking for some kind of way to mark the time....

It was when Sam came to see him. A stranger, he'd thought then. A stranger who was supposed to be his brother.

So this Sam had just lost his baby girl, when Rye's brother had come to find him. Both things would have happened within the same month.

Would a man do that? Lose a daughter, then try to find a long-lost brother? Did that make sense?

It felt like one big sign clicking irrevocably into place, and he found that the closer he thought he was coming to answers, the more afraid he was of what he was going to find.

This seemed like too odd a coincidence to ignore. It made him want to hope. It made him want to think the man he was looking for was right here. Or at least, he would be in a day or two.

Don't do this,
he told himself.
Don't.

"What?" Emma asked.

"Nothing," he lied.

But she knew it wasn't.

She still had that look on her face, like someone who understood. Someone who could see right through him. What would that be like? Having someone who saw it all and somehow understood?

He didn't know what to do or what to say. He felt like something inside of him was just crumbling, piles of rubble falling down and lying in ruins. He felt vulnerable in a way he simply hated, open and completely without any kind of defenses, and he wanted to reach for her and just hang on.

He had the most absurd notion about leaning on her, not just in a physical way but an emotional one. That beneath that slender build of hers, beneath the fear and the tears, beneath the bruise that now had the power to make him murderously angry, she was a very strong woman.

She had old eyes, he realized. As young as she was, she looked out at the world with eyes that had seen too much. He thought as much as he would be staying here to help her and to keep her safe, she was likely going to help him, as well, if he could find the courage to let her in just a little bit.

She'd said everybody needed somebody, and he sure seemed to need her. It was Christmas. He'd been so sure he was in the wrong place once again, and there just weren't that many more names on his list. But now, he thought maybe he was in the right place after all.

He'd never understood how frightening that would be.

He stood there thinking,
Hold me, Emma. Don't let me fall.

She slipped her arm through his and with great trepidation, he turned to face her. She put her other hand to the side of his face and smiled up at him through those old eyes of hers, now wet with tears.

"If you think you've cornered the market on hard times, think again," she said. "We've all been there. Whatever it is you've been through, we'll understand."

He caught her hand and held it against the side of his face. She'd taken off her gloves and it was cold, and he wanted to warm it, wanted not to have to give up the kindness of her touch just yet.

And then he leaned down and sought the comfort of her mouth, ever so softly, thinking the woman had a way of reaching right down to his soul in ways he just didn't understand. She dug down inside of him, finding things he didn't want anyone to find, and giving back things he didn't quite understand in return.

He just knew that whatever it was she offered, he needed.

So he kissed her cold lips, soaking up the strength, the kindness, and the comfort of her, things he'd never sought from a woman before, things she gave so generously.

Emma,
he thought. Quiet kisses and soft hands, old eyes and a seductively gentle touch.

Letting her go was one of the hardest things he ever did. Pulling his mouth from hers, drawing his body away. Life was just too hard some days.

And if he had found the right Sam McRae... This was
Sam's
daughter.

"Emma, I..." He had no idea what to say. "What is this?"

"I told you. I like you. And you like me, too. It's not really that complicated, is it?"

He held her with his hands on her upper arms, telling himself it was because he had to hold her away from him, but maybe it was because he simply couldn't let go.

He cupped her poor bruised cheek in his hand and ran his thumb over her lower lip. She made him want so much on so many different levels he couldn't even quantify it. He seemed to want her in absolutely all ways, all at the same time. It was bewildering, surprising, even frightening.

"Yes," he insisted. "It is."

"Why? You don't like women?"

"I like women just fine."

"But not me?"

He didn't say anything at first. What could he say to that? He liked her very much, he just couldn't let himself.

The silence stretched awkwardly between them. She looked confused, then doubtful, then hurt. "Oh." She stepped back. "And I was supposed to keep my hands off you, wasn't I? Sorry."

"Oh, hell. I wish I was sorry about all of this," he said. "I don't know what to do with this, Emma. Aren't things complicated enough?"

"My life's more complicated than I'd like at the moment, but I still think you and I—"

He pressed his fingertips against her lips, stopping the words. "Don't say it. Please. It's just not going to happen."

He would hate himself if he let anything happen. Sam would, too.

"Why?" she asked.

"There are things you don't know, Emma." He felt like he owed her that. "Things I've done, places I've been."

"Long, sad stories. I remember."

"Not things that have happened to me. Things
I've
done. It's different when it's a bad place you take yourself through your own actions, not ones you end up in because of what the people around you do. I'm talking about who I am."

"Who are you?" she asked.

"I'm a mess. Have been forever, it seems. And you..." He still had her by the arms, his hands rubbing at the long, smooth lines of her shoulders. "Look at you. You know the first thing I thought when I saw you? I thought you looked like a schoolgirl for a minute. All soft and sweet and innocent, and I still think you're all those things. A very good girl. The kind a man protects. The kind who shouldn't give someone like me the time of day."

"Because you're just so bad?"

"And you're just about the most tempting thing I've ever seen. Must have awakened every good-girl fantasy I never even knew I had," he said, trying desperately to lighten the mood.

"So you go for the bad girls, do you?"

"Oh, yeah." He made himself grin.

"I don't think I believe that."

"Okay, mostly I've just been trying to get myself together and stay out of trouble the past few years. It's not a bad plan."

"So maybe you're not so bad, after all?"

"I'm trying," he said. "Not sure how well I'm succeeding."

"And I'm not helping matters. I did promise to keep my hands off you. Sorry."

"Yeah, well... Who's got their hands on whom right now?" But he let them drop to his side and stepped back, his head still kind of spinning. How did he keep ending up with his hands on her, anyway?

And what was he going to do with her now?

Chapter 5