Part 15 (2/2)
Including her mother.
”Sweetheart.” Bitsy's sweeping head-to-toe appraisal held enough scrutiny to rival most police investigations. ”Do come in out of that awful heat. Look, you've already begun to glow.”
”It was ninety-five degrees today.” Emerson slipped the words past her clenched smile. It'd be a h.e.l.l of a lot more troubling if she didn't sweat a little in weather like this.
Her mother lifted her brows in a nonverbal translation of I fail to see your point. ”Yes, well. You know where the powder room is.”
”I'm fine, Mom,” she said, her feet purposely not budging over the foyer's marble floor. The trip up the sycamore-shaded walkway hadn't been a triathlon, for G.o.d's sake, and as hot as today had been, the sun was already halfway to setting.
Of course, the tiny defiance encouraged her mother to swoop in for another pa.s.s. ”I see. You must be anxious to have a good dinner, then. Haven't you been eating over at that apartment of yours? You look practically anemic, darling.”
Now that one made a direct hit. Despite last night's delicious meal at Cross Creek, Emerson's new meds were messing with her system enough to render her appet.i.te useless. On the rare occasion she did work up any actual hunger, she was full after four bites. The drugs had clearly managed to pale her face enough to outline the fatigue beneath her eyes like a beacon, though, and dammit, she was going to have to buy some better concealer.
”Thanks, Mom. You look lovely.”
To her surprise, her mother's graceful posture hitched. ”I didn't mean . . .” Her mouth pressed into the slightest frown before her expression defaulted back to chilly neutrality. ”Why don't we join your father in the living room for a drink? I know he's anxious to see you.”
For the life of her, Emerson couldn't picture her iron-fisted father anxious even if the world were about to implode, but the sooner they started this charade, the better. ”Sounds great,” she said.
Her mother's spine was so straight, her gait so poised and polished, that by the time Emerson had followed her down the hall to the formal living room, she was convinced the hiccup had been a figment of her imagination. Barely anything in the living room had changed, from the elaborate crown molding and the built-in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves to the matching Queen Anne sofa and love seat. Her father sat by the fireplace in his favorite wingback chair, and the sight loosened a memory from deep in Emerson's brain.
”Daddy, I can't remember all the bones in the wrist.” The nine-year-old version of herself frowned in her mind's eye, sticking her arm out with a sigh. ”The names are too long. I'll never learn them.”
Her father took off his reading gla.s.ses and closed the medical journal he'd been reading, setting both aside. ”What's this word, 'never'? You can do anything, my smart girl. Come on over here. Your daddy will get you all sorted out . . .”
”. . . Emerson?” The lift of her mother's voice that clearly indicated a question brought her tumbling back to reality, and Emerson did her best to cover her racing heartbeat at the long-forgotten memory.
”I'm sorry, Mom. I must not have heard you.” Lame, but considering the circ.u.mstances, it was all she had.
”I asked what you'd like to drink.” Her mother gestured to the fully stocked side bar in the living room, and G.o.d, she couldn't afford not to pay attention to everything her parents said tonight. How could she have lost her focus so easily?
And more importantly, where the h.e.l.l had that memory come from?
”Just water for me, please. I've got to work tomorrow.”
Her mother poured a highball gla.s.s full of ice water and a tumbler with just enough of her father's favorite single malt Scotch to be socially acceptable, delivering both drinks before sitting primly on the sofa. Emerson took the love seat, grateful for the opportunity to give her legs and back a much-needed rest, but her father barely waited until she was settled before cutting right to the chase.
”Your mother and I are certainly glad you managed to find the time to join us. Now that all three of us are finally together, we've got several things to discuss.”
Emerson's palms grew slick, and she tightened her fingers on the crystal in her grasp in a supreme effort not to fidget. ”Such as?”
Although his voice remained low, her father's icy-blue stare offered no quarter. ”I believe we can all stop pretending here, Emerson. For some reason you're refusing to disclose, you've taken it upon yourself to upend both your personal life and your career.”
”I still have friends. And a job,” she added, punctuating the words with a stare of her own. Stay cool. Stand your ground. ”I may have made some changes, but nothing's been upended.”
Her mother's exasperated exhale was dangerously close to unladylike. ”Darling, please. Think about how this looks. Your position with the Lightning. Your move across the country. Your father and I simply want-”
Emerson lifted her free hand, needing to put an end to this conversation before it got any worse. ”I know what you want, Mom.”
”I'm not certain you do,” her father said, the slow finality of his tone rippling down her spine. ”These changes of yours have got your mother and me deeply concerned. We think it's time to consider alternate plans.”
Just like that, Emerson's warning sensors. .h.i.t DEFCON One. ”Alternate to what?”
”To your current job, of course.” Her father straightened against the back of his chair, clearly gaining steam. ”I've spoken to Dr. Norris about your qualifications and your experience with the Lightning, and he's agreed to consider making a position available for you on his staff. Of course, there would be an expectation that eventually you'd further your training to become a physician's a.s.sistant at the very least. But truly, even though you've lost some time, medical school is by no means out of the question. Becoming an MD would be a process, to be sure, but that's something Dr. Norris fully understands.”
No way. No way could she have heard any of this properly. ”You . . . you already spoke to Dr. Norris about this?”
Her father placed his gla.s.s on the side table at his elbow, straightening his dark-gray suit jacket with authority. ”s.h.i.+fting careers is a delicate process. Getting Dr. Norris's support was the first step.”
”I'm sorry,” Emerson said, even though she was far from apologetic, ”but isn't the first step getting my support?”
”I asked you to accompany me to the hospital last weekend.” Her mother sniffed, obviously still stung at Emerson's bob and weave on the day of the Watermelon Festival. ”It would have been the perfect opportunity for you to see reason.”
She sc.r.a.ped in a breath, her pulse beating fast enough to press against her ears in a whoosh of dark anger and white noise. ”You mean it would've been the perfect opportunity for you to blindside me in front of Dr. Norris.”
”The man is the head of one of the most renowned orthopedics departments in the state,” her father said, censure lacing over every word. ”Considering your current circ.u.mstances, one would think you'd be thrilled he'd even consider taking you on.”
Brilliant. The hard-earned career that she loved had just been reduced to a pity f.u.c.k. ”And what about my 'current circ.u.mstances,'” Emerson asked, slas.h.i.+ng air quotes around the phrase. ”Did you ever stop to think I might be perfectly happy working here in Millhaven? Did it even cross your mind to ask me how my job with Doc Sanders was going before you made plans on my behalf?”
”Despite your mother's and my efforts, you haven't been here to ask.”
”I'm thirty, not thirteen,” she shot back, her voice pitching dangerously high. She wasn't the same wide-eyed daughter they'd bullied all the way through adolescence. ”You don't get to interfere with my career just because I moved back to town.”
A muscle in her father's jaw twitched, a ma.s.sive show of emotion despite the barely-there move. ”Getting you out of this mess you've created is hardly interfering. The chance to fix this won't last forever, Emerson, and contrary to what you seem to believe, there's nothing wrong with a father trying to help his daughter make smart decisions.”
Emerson's hands trembled along with her breath, and she lost the battle to steady both. Of course her father wanted to edge his way in and try to fix her, to make her right according to his own standards without any regard for her own.
Damage control for the damaged. How f.u.c.king appropriate.
And wasn't that all the more reason for her to sweep her brittle, broken pieces under the rug and move the h.e.l.l on.
Emerson straightened her shoulders, mirroring her father's demeanor right down to the tightly folded fingers resting squarely in his lap. ”Going behind my back to engineer a career change I have no interest in making isn't help. I don't want to work for Dr. Norris, and I definitely don't want to go to medical school. I'm fine exactly where I am.”
But taking no for an answer had been part of her father's repertoire only once, and he looked anything but eager to go for a repeat.
”I don't understand why you're so intent on being unreasonable,” he said, each word more covered in disdain than the one before it. ”Consider your training, your pedigree-your legacy, for G.o.d's sake. We didn't send you to Swarington just to see you end up in the back room of Ellen Sanders's two-bit practice, taking the sc.r.a.ps from her appointment books. That's simply not good enough.”
Emerson's heart pounded in earnest now, so hard she felt nearly dizzy. Anger collided with the deeper pang of sadness in her veins, but still, she managed to cover them both as she lifted her chin and pushed to her feet.
”Maybe not for you, but as far as I'm concerned, it's G.o.dd.a.m.n perfect. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be heading home early. Somehow I managed to lose my appet.i.te.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
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