Part 3 (1/2)
”You could've called,” Emerson said with unerring calm, opening the front door to usher her mother inside her apartment. ”It would've saved you a trip.”
This time, the eyebrow raise was accompanied by a disdainful frown, both of which called Emerson's bluff. ”It also would've allowed you the opportunity to avoid the conversation,” her mother said. ”Since you've been doing that for the last two weeks, your father and I thought it was time to take a different approach.”
Seriously? Her father was the only man alive who could guilt a person without even being present.
Emerson s.h.i.+fted her weight from one foot to the other to burn off the last of the unease still threatening to send her vitals into red alert. ”And how is Dad?”
”Darling, you're fidgeting. And if you'd bother to come to the house, you'd see he's quite well,” her mother said, the words as crisp and tart as the Granny Smith apple Emerson had just put back in her bag. ”You, on the other hand, are still dodging the topic.”
Emerson stopped moving, mids.h.i.+ft. Breathed in. Counted her heartbeats. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump . . . ”I've been telling you this since I made the decision to leave Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago. I'm not avoiding anything, Mom. There's just nothing to say.”
”Sweetheart, please. You up and quit your job as a medical professional for one of the most lucrative and well-established sports organizations in the United States and ended a relations.h.i.+p that could've become a lovely marriage to a very auspicious young man, all out of the blue. There's plenty to say. You're simply not saying it.”
Emerson's knuckles went sheet white over the handle of the grocery bag looped over her palm, but she forced herself to walk calmly into the kitchen and lift it to the counter without fanfare. She needed a different channel for this conversation, and fast. ”I thought you and Dad would be happy I'm back in Millhaven.”
”That's not fair.” Her mother followed her, running a hand over her cla.s.sic Chanel sheath in her equally cla.s.sic nervous tell. ”Of course we're pleased to see you, but you're impulsively turning your back on successful endeavors. Your father and I are concerned.”
Translation: Your father and I are concerned about how this looks. G.o.d, her parents hadn't changed a bit. Too bad for them, Emerson had; namely, she'd grown a backbone.
One she intended to keep, even if she had broken the vow she'd made to herself twelve years ago and come back to Millhaven.
”There's nothing to be concerned about. I'm simply here to work with Doc Sanders. I'm not turning my back on anything,” she said, but her mother met the words with a noise that was as close as she'd ever get to a scoff.
”I beg to differ.” After a pause, she asked, ”Is this about Lance? Did he have an indiscretion?”
Emerson's urge to laugh was strong, but she caught the sound between her teeth. Lance's only love affair was the one he'd recently started with himself. He wasn't a bad guy, necessarily-he didn't kick puppies or blow past little old ladies on the highway with his middle finger held high, and he'd been attentive and sweet, especially in the beginning. But the hotter his career had grown, the more Emerson had come to realize nothing would ever matter to Lance as much as Lance. She just wished she'd grasped the magnitude of his self-absorption sooner and saved them both the trouble. ”No, Mom. That's not why we broke up.”
”Alright.” Another pause. ”Did the Lightning decide they no longer required your services?”
Of course her mother had a tidy euphemism for being s.h.i.+t-canned. Nothing unpleasant or imperfect ever got an out-loud mention from Team Montgomery. ”No. I resigned from my position on the training staff.”
Her mother's lips thinned into a line of frustration. ”And may I ask why?”
”I just needed a change of pace,” Emerson said, because it was the only truth she could stick to that would keep her suit of armor in place and intact.
Unfortunately, her mother knew exactly where to slide the barbs to make said armor about as effective as a string bikini. ”If you needed a change of pace, you could've taken a vacation, or even a leave of absence. But quitting? Moving across the country? It's just so permanent, Emerson.”
Just like that, something deep in her belly snapped. ”Believe me. I know how permanent this is. But it's done, and nothing I can do will change it.”
”Oh, darling, don't be so dramatic. I'm sure if we-”
”Was there something else you needed, Mom?” Emerson's cheeks flushed in time with her quickening pulse. Okay, so she hadn't meant to be quite so terse, and she was certain she'd regret giving her mother the verbal stiff-arm. The woman made Miss Manners look like an epic rookie. But standing her ground was the only way Emerson would survive. No way was she lifting the lid on this conversation and putting a spotlight on why she'd come back to Millhaven. Not with her mother. Not with anyone.
Nothing she could do would change the truth. Her only option was to forget it and move the h.e.l.l on.
Her mother straightened as if she'd been starched on the spot. ”Well, then. No. I suppose not.” She removed her car keys from her purse, her words chilly and her head held high. ”I'll just show myself out.”
Emerson waited for the squeak of the door hinges and the controlled thump signaling her mother's departure a second later before releasing the breath holding her lungs hostage.
”Awesome. Good talk, Mom,” she said, slumping against the narrow stretch of wall s.p.a.ce dividing her kitchen from the rest of the apartment's living area. Logically, she'd known her parents would react to the circ.u.mstances of her return in exactly this manner, questioning everything right down to the moving service she'd chosen to slow-boat her furniture and most of her belongings back to town, then trying to pressure her to do better, faster, more.
But Emerson held a master's degree in disappointment, especially where Dr. Bradford Montgomery, chief of surgery at Camden Valley Hospital, and his lovely wife Bitsy-who just happened to be the president of the hospital's board of trustees, thank you very much-were concerned. Her father may have had meager beginnings, growing up as the son of a farmhand and an elementary-school teacher, but he'd always aimed for the very top of the pile, and set every last one of his expectations for her even higher.
If Emerson's parents were let down by her change in locale and her disintegrated relations.h.i.+p, telling them the real reason she was back in Millhaven would win her a gold medal in the Defective Daughter Olympics.
Which was all the reason she needed to keep her head up, her eyes forward, and the truth buried deep.
Emerson yawned and blinked back the relentless early-morning suns.h.i.+ne spearing past the blinds in her bedroom, cursing the very nature of inflatable mattresses. Her spine felt as if someone had snuck in and replaced it with a rusty corkscrew overnight, and she turned to her side on the floppy, makes.h.i.+ft bed to try to release some of the triple-knot tension.
Nope. No go. G.o.d, she'd give her left arm and her latest paycheck for a hot tub-no, a ninety-minute ma.s.sage right now.
Sure would be nice to have someone put their capable hands in all the right places . . .
Unrepentant and unexpected heat pooled between her thighs, turning her half-sleepy state into all want. Between Lance's militant training schedule and her overwhelming fatigue, remembering the last time she'd found pleasure between the sheets was pretty much a statistical impossibility. Then her relations.h.i.+p with Lance had abruptly become past tense, and Lord knew the last thing she needed while she'd waded through the s.h.i.+t storm of leaving Las Vegas was for another man to fall into her life.
A couple of down and dirty o.r.g.a.s.ms to satisfy her drowsy state of arousal, though? Now those wouldn't hurt.
Emerson pressed her legs together, the warmth from the covers and the friction of her panties over bare skin waking her better than any alarm clock. Her eyes drifted shut, her heart beating faster as her b.r.e.a.s.t.s grew heavy, her nipples tight. Sucking in a breath, she s.h.i.+fted, reaching beneath the powder-blue blanket for the hem of her nights.h.i.+rt. Up the soft cotton went, brus.h.i.+ng the sensitive skin of her thighs, her hips, her belly, until the only thing between her fingers and her aching s.e.x was a swath of satin and lace.
Oh G.o.d, it had been so long since she'd let herself feel this good. Pus.h.i.+ng the damp material aside, she canted her hips slowly forward in search of more contact. Emerson slipped her fingers upward, shocks of undiluted pleasure sparking all the way through her as she delved into the slick heat of her folds.
More. More. She needed more.
Eyes squeezed tight, she stroked faster, imagining a pair of wide, callused hands on her needy body. Not hands hardened by agility drills or the guidance of thousand-dollar-an-hour personal trainers, uh-uh. The hands in Emerson's imagination were strong from the kind of work done with sleeves rolled up, with dirt and sweat and good, old-fas.h.i.+oned exertion.
Hard. Strong. Hot. Touching her in all the right places, as if they knew every inch of where she needed them most.
There. Ohhhhh, she needed them right . . . there.
A moan tore past her lips, a powerful climax brightening deep between her legs, and Emerson twisted onto her back in order to- White-hot pain shot from the base of her spine all the way down both legs, carving out a vicious path of numbness and tingling that doused her desire in an instant.
”Ow! Oh, ow.” The pain nailed Emerson into place, tears p.r.i.c.king the backs of her eyelids like tiny, scalpel-sharp daggers. She sc.r.a.ped a ragged inhale, then another into her lungs, metering her breath until the pain coalesced into a dull, thudding ache. Frustration burned in her chest, tightening around each of her ribs like a steel band. Had she seriously been fantasizing about mind-scrambling s.e.x with a rough and tumble man? Was she insane? She couldn't even get herself off painlessly, for G.o.d's sake.
And here Emerson had thought she'd already hit all the benchmarks for being a complete failure. But the thought of being with a man, any man, ranked right up there with sprouting wings and learning how to fly.
Emerson flung the blanket from her body, welcoming the shock of cool air as she pushed herself off the mattress and into the bathroom. She was a smart woman, logical and well trained. There was no sense not admitting the facts.
Multiple sclerosis was going to make having a normal life impossible. The best thing she could do for herself was change her expectations and move the h.e.l.l on.
CHAPTER FIVE.
Hunter leaned against the top rail of rough-hewn horse fence behind him, his eyes on the sunrise even though his mind was conservatively a trillion miles away. His shoulder had come up with a whole new definition of sore over the past four days of physical therapy, making even limited work difficult and sleep downright impossible. In theory, Hunter got the whole ”use it or lose it” aspect of rehabbing an injury like his. He didn't mind some blood, sweat, and tears-literal or figurative-if it meant grabbing his goal of returning to the farm. But the twelve years that had ticked by since his last round of PT, plus all the daily wear and tear that had gone with them, was making this second go-round a whole lot more challenging.
Add in the near-constant arguing his brothers had thrown down and the ”just the facts, ma'am” nature of the four sessions he'd had with Emerson this week? Yeah, Hunter had his toes on the edge of bats.h.i.+t crazy.
”Don't be an idiot,” he muttered, his breath scattering the steam from his coffee as he raised the mug to his mouth for a long draw. Emerson had made it clear as the summer sky above him that she wanted to keep things strictly on the level, and, in truth, doing just that made sense. She'd been gone for over a decade, and while he hadn't done the first-comes-love-then-comes-marriage thing with anyone else, Hunter definitely hadn't sat around pining for her return, either. He'd gotten over Emerson's leaving ages ago.