Don't Call Me Cupcake by Tara Sheets (10)

Chapter Nine

Emma fed Buddy in the kitchen the following evening. “You’re still going to get a better name as soon as I find you a family,” she promised, patting his head. “Consider it just a placeholder.”

She had just posted an ad in the local paper that morning. Even though she adored him, he deserved more. He deserved a place with loving parents and noisy kids who ran wild down the halls and dropped Cheerios under the breakfast table for happy dogs to discover. A place where people gathered and celebrated, where they held on and supported one another and loved one another, no matter what happened. A real home.

Behind her, the ancient recipe book thumped open on the counter. She didn’t have to turn around to know it had opened to the “Day of Bliss” recipe. Emma sighed and closed the book for the third time that day. “Give it up,” she told the house. “I keep telling you, that recipe is broken.”

Emma was just about to dive into the piles of unread mail on the entry table, when the house shuddered and a door slammed upstairs.

“My sentiments, exactly,” she said, peering at all the overdue bills. How was she ever going to get caught up? There were so many late payments.

Someone knocked on the front door.

The curtains in the kitchen window swirled up and out, like open sails on the wind. Emma glanced up from the bill she was reading. The knock came again, and Emma got the feeling the house wasn’t thrilled with the visitor.

She walked into the foyer and tugged open the door, then froze.

Rodney Winters, her ex-fiancé, stood on the front porch.

He was still handsome, but he seemed rougher around the edges than she remembered. His cornflower blue eyes were bloodshot with dark circles, and his blond hair was in need of a trim. The faint scent of cigarettes and whiskey wafted in the air between them.

Buddy ran up and sniffed at his shoes, then turned away and trotted into the living room. He was unimpressed with Rodney. Smart dog.

“Hey, Angel,” Rodney said.

The old endearment tasted like ashes on her tongue. Emma couldn’t find her voice. The past came crashing back in waves and she struggled against the undertow.

He leaned one hand casually against the doorframe. It reminded her of the first time he paid attention to her in high school, leaning against her locker. He had been the football star running back; the king of the school. All smooth-talking charm and sunshine blond hair. No one was more surprised than Emma when he singled her out during their senior year.

She had been a quiet girl who didn’t belong in Rodney’s circle. At the time, she couldn’t believe her luck. Rodney Winters, the most popular boy in school, liked her. Her! For the rest of that year, she basked in the glory of his attention. He represented everything she had ever wanted: a sense of belonging, companionship, acceptance, and what she hoped was love. But not long after graduation, he grew distant. Then he moved away to college in California and forgot about her.

When Emma turned twenty-one, Rodney came home again. He had decided college was too conforming, the teachers too self-absorbed, and he wanted to live life on his own terms. It wasn’t until much later that Emma found out it was because those pesky college classes kept getting in the way of the parties, and he was expelled for failing grades.

Still a little in love with him, Emma let him back into her life. Her grandmother’s cancer had progressed and Emma needed to feel connected to someone, more than ever. In retrospect, that was the only reason she agreed to marry him when he proposed on her twenty-second birthday. By that time, she had already learned Rodney was far from perfect. He drank a lot. He wasn’t always accountable. He could spin any story to suit his needs. But he was familiar, and with her grandmother dying and life feeling so uncertain, Emma needed something familiar.

Shortly after her grandmother died, Emma came home one day to find the canister above the kitchen cupboard empty. It was where she stashed every extra bit of money she had, which added up to a few thousand dollars. Rodney was supposed to contribute to their future savings with his job as a local mechanic, but by then he was giving all his money to Johnnie Walker. Everything in that tin had been Emma’s and he took it all, leaving just a scribbled note behind:

Later she found out he really meant “free” to see other people. After stealing her money, he had run off to the mainland with some barfly. His abandonment had hurt so much, but the past eighteen months had changed her.

After the initial shock of his betrayal wore off, it was like the whole world cracked open. She could be herself without having to make excuses. She could blast her favorite music anytime she wanted. Eat pancakes for dinner. Go without makeup and not feel self-conscious. She could do whimsical art projects or discuss spells with Juliette or talk out loud to the house without having to endure Rodney’s disapproving looks. Oh, he’d heard the rumors about the Holloway family abilities, but he wasn’t a real believer. Rodney was all about being the “special” one, and nobody was allowed to eclipse that. Emma didn’t even realize how much she had tailored herself to fit into his life, until he was gone.

Now she understood that the truly important people were the ones who accepted her, no matter what. Her grandmother always told her, “Those who matter don’t mind, honey. And those who mind, don’t matter.” Emma had grown up and learned to embrace the life she was given, instead of trying so hard to fit into someone else’s. The lustrous glow of Rodney Winters had finally died away.

Her hands trembled but she forced her voice to remain steady. “What are you doing here?”

“I just got back into town and wanted to see you.” He shifted a little closer, all easy, masculine grace, until his broad shoulders filled the doorway. “You grew your hair out again,” he murmured. “Just how I like it.”

He reached out to stroke her hair.

She jerked back. It bothered her that he seemed completely at ease, standing on her doorstep. As if no time had passed. As if they still shared a life together.

Rodney chuckled and hooked a hand into the pocket of his jeans, letting his gaze slide down her body. “You look good.”

She crossed her arms tightly around her chest. He had been her first everything. He was the only man on the planet who had ever seen her naked. She didn’t like the fact, but there it was. It never ceased to amaze her how you could be so close to someone one moment, and then completely out of their lives the next. Emma knew she could never be one of those people who flitted from one person to another. She put far too much importance on relationships to be so fickle.

“You have no business coming here, Rodney. You left, remember? And you took all my money with you.”

He brushed his hair back, arm muscles flexing. It was another “Rodney” move. Her insides coiled with resentment. It used to make her feel giddy when she was a starstruck teenager, but none of it worked on her anymore.

“Well, technically, it was our money, wasn’t it?” he asked.

Wow. The urge to kick him was strong. But she was barefoot, and she might chip the polish on her new pedicure. He wasn’t worth it. Still, it didn’t stop her from fantasizing about it for a second. A nice roundhouse kick to the solar plexus, ending with him flying through the air, just like on Buffy. It worked for her.

“It was my money and you know it,” she said through clenched teeth. “And now my house is falling apart and I can’t even afford to have it repaired.”

As if to emphasize her point, the porch step right behind him snapped in half.

Rodney jerked his head around, gazing uneasily at the broken step. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and turned back to Emma. “Look, I never meant to hurt you, okay? I was just confused.” His eyes went wide and serious, but she knew that look well. He usually reserved it for telling saccharine-sweet lies.

“Yeah, I can see how being a cheater and a thief might get confusing,” Emma said. “Must be hard to keep all the facts straight.”

Rodney glanced away. “You were so sad all the time, Emma. With your grandmother dying, and all. You were always crying, and I guess . . . I didn’t know what to do. I just felt like I had to get away. I couldn’t breathe, you know?”

Of course. It was always about him. “I’m so sorry my grieving over a loved one bothered you so much.”

He shrugged. “Hey, it’s okay. I just couldn’t deal, that’s all.”

She shook her head in disgust. Typical Rodney. He was so wrapped up in himself that he couldn’t even recognize her sarcasm. “What do you want, Rodney?” There was always something he wanted.

He shifted on his feet. “I just wanted to see you. I was thinking of you all alone here, and I wanted to see how you were doing.”

“I’m doing great,” she lied. There was no way in hell she was going to give him the satisfaction of seeing poor little Emma fall apart. “Everything’s going great.”

He nodded. “Good, that’s good. I’m glad. My parents are giving me a hard time since I got back. My mom’s still mad at me for taking her car when I left town, which is stupid since I worked on it so often, it was pretty much mine anyway.”

Of course it was. He always found a way to rationalize his actions, because life owed him a living. How silly of her to forget.

“Anyway, they won’t let me stay at their house right now, so I kind of need a place to crash until they cool off.”

And there it was. Her stomach churned with anger and resentment. How did he even have the guts to ask?

He gave her his best smile. The canned one. A flash of perfect teeth that ended on a smolder. She had seen it too many times to be fooled.

“It would just be for a little while,” he continued. “I’m sure I can get them to come around in a week or two. Anyway, I thought of you here, all by yourself.”

Emma was already shaking her head. “There’s no way I’m letting you stay here.”

“I don’t have to stay in the house,” he said in a rush. “To be honest, this place always kind of creeped me out, anyway.”

Rodney had never liked visiting. He always had trouble with doors jamming or tripping on the stairs. She used to try to make excuses, but it was pretty clear the house never liked Rodney much. Once, when they were teenagers, he tried sneaking in her bedroom window in the middle of the night. Halfway over the ledge, the window slid shut on him and stuck. By the time they were able to pry the window off him, he was in no mood to stay. Convinced the house was haunted, he never tried to sneak over at night again.

“Just let me hang in the room above the garage for a couple of weeks, all right?” he asked. “You won’t even know I’m there.”

Emma glanced behind him at the small outbuilding near the edge of her yard. It was used for storage, but there was a tiny room above it. “Absolutely not. I want you to go. Now.”

He dropped his head in disappointment, then peered up at her like a street urchin from a Dickens novel. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Annoyed, Emma bit the inside of her cheek. It was a tragedy that Hollywood had never discovered Rodney Winters, because he’d have made a fortune on the silver screen.

He turned to go, jumping over the broken step. She was about to close the door when he called out, “I’ve missed you, Angel. I’m going to find a way to make it up to you.”

“Don’t bother.”

She shut the door and leaned against it, staring up at the ceiling. She was so over him, but it was still a shock, seeing him there on her front porch. After all these months, he thought he could just waltz back into her life like nothing ever happened. It was absurd! She thumped the back of her head against the door and groaned. Rodney had a knack for weaseling his way into people’s good graces, but she was never going to fall for it again. Not after what he’d done. She was a different person now. A stronger person.

She walked into the kitchen with Buddy at her heels. A few minutes later, she sat at the table with a steaming cup of orange cinnamon tea while he snuffled around near the corner cabinet.

The ancient recipe book thumped open on the counter again.

“I’m just going to ignore that,” Emma told the house. She added a dollop of honey to her tea, sighing. “And I can’t believe you broke the front porch step just to scare him. As if we didn’t have enough things to fix. Was that really necessary?”

The deadbolt on the front door slid firmly shut.

Apparently, it was.