CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Emma had taken her keys and bag with her when she’d left the brewery, but the idea of confining her pain to her car was too constricting. She needed to move, to walk, to breathe. Blindly she followed the dirt path that connected farm and brewery.
Spring was edging toward summer already with an explosive blooming of wildflowers in the field. The trees were full and green, the grasses in the meadows and pastures a riot of life. How could she feel so much pain while surrounded by so much beauty, Emma wondered?
But the icy feeling in her gut wouldn’t go away. She hated hurting people, and hurting Niko had been the worst thing she’d ever done. She wondered, for just a second, if her mother had ever been cognizant of the pain she’d caused others.
Emma trudged up a small hill, not bothering to look at anything but her own feet, and stopped when she realized she’d found the Pierces’ picnic pavilion, the very spot she’d surprised her sister and father almost exactly a year ago with the announcement she was moving to Blue Moon.
She’d been so excited about the possibilities, the future. How had it all gotten so screwed up? Emma buried her face in her hands.
“What is wrong with everyone?” she demanded to no one.
“Well, I like to think there’s a little something wrong with all of us.”
Emma clamped a hand over her racing heart. “Jesus, Phoebe. You just scared eight years off of my life.”
Phoebe slid off the picnic table she’d been perched upon. “Imagine my terror when a raving lunatic approaches shouting into the void.”
“Touché,” Emma offered a watery smile.
Phoebe patted the bench next to her. “Come sit. We don’t have to talk.”
Too emotionally exhausted to make an excuse, Emma sat. They stared quietly out over the hills and creek, the green and the blues and browns.
“So are you having a freak out, too?” Emma asked, breaking the silence.
Phoebe laughed. “If you call talking to the dead a freak out, then yes.”
“John?” Emma asked. John Pierce was Phoebe’s first husband, the father of her sons. He’d died years before, and the hole in the family was still felt. They’d built this pavilion on the spot where they’d scattered his ashes.
Phoebe smiled sadly. “Yes. I come up here regularly to fill John in on what he’s missing out on. Not that he’s not hovering over us all and pulling strings, of course.”
“Of course.” Emma’s lips quirked.
“I was just filling him in on Reva and Caleb.”
“They’re really good kids,” Emma sighed.
“So are you and your sisters,” Phoebe said pointedly.
“Is that your way of leaving an opening for me to pour my heart out?”
Phoebe grinned, leaning back and resting her elbows on the table. “I’ve got nowhere to be.”
So Emma told her. The whole ugly story.
“The things he said to me,” she shook her head. “I just can’t believe someone who loves me would say those things.”
“Honey, I’m not going to give you advice because the person who knows what’s best for you is you. But I will tell you something that I think you need to hear.”
Phoebe grasped Emma’s hand and squeezed.
“Love is an incredibly beautiful thing. Love is the reason your father keeps a handwritten list of things for me to come here to tell John about. Because Franklin loves me so much that he doesn’t see me still loving John as a betrayal.”
Emma took a shuddery breath and laughed when a tear fell. “That’s my dad.”
“And that’s love. It can and should be the source of your greatest strength, not your biggest fear. Don’t forget that, Emma.”
Emma sniffled and took a breath. “You know, Phoebe, if I got to pick my mom, she would have been you.”
Phoebe pulled her into a hug. “Oh, sweetie. Now you’re going to make me mushy. I love you very much, and I want you to be happy and safe.”
“I love you, too,” Emma hiccupped.
“Do you want to come back to the house and drink a whole pitcher of margaritas?”
Emma laughed. “Thank you, but I think I need to walk and think some more.”
“Well, the offer stands. Anytime you need it,” Phoebe said.
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The walking helped her work back up to mad. It was a safer emotion than sad or hurt. And she was fairly certain Niko had earned her wrath. She replayed his words over and over again in her head.
How dare he? Emma fumed as she stalked through the field away from the brewery. How dare he presume to understand her. Just because she’d rejected him, he’d lashed out at her with ugly accusations. She’d been right all along to be reluctant getting involved with him.
She ignored the lovely warmth of the sunshine even as it coaxed her face upward and trudged on down the skinny dirt path that paralleled the pasture fences.
She should have listened to her instincts, Emma railed against herself. They’d always protected her before, but Nikolai had tunneled under her defenses only to plant a Trojan horse in her heart.
She wasn’t her mother, and she sure as hell wasn’t a coward. She was steady, stable. She didn’t run away.
Except she had. The thought stopped her in her tracks.
Hadn’t she? After all, she’d been the one to walk away.
Emma sank down on the bench, oblivious to the riot of flowers, the buzz of long dormant bees. She’d carefully constructed a life that wouldn’t ever open her up to the kind of pain she’d known when her mother left. She’d chosen men for their steadiness, their lack of threat to her independence and her heart. She’d quashed desires and behaviors in herself that she deemed too much like her mother.
Yet Nikolai had revived them. The thrill of being on the back of his motorcycle had reawakened her sense of adventure. Exploring his naked body had sparked a physical craving for pleasure, one she’d never known before. Those intimate late night conversations that had laid her bare…
He’d used it all against her. He’d fulfilled her two biggest fears, confirming that he had the ability to hurt her like no other and drawing parallels between her and the woman who had broken her family. Nikolai Vulkov was the bad guy.
Unbidden, a hundred memories of his heart, his kindness, his creative genius swamped her. But she fought them off. It had to be him. She needed him to be wrong. It couldn’t be her.
Her sisters would tell her. They would back her up. He was all wrong for her, always pushing her to be someone she wasn’t. Always taking her past her comfort zone.
She turned back to the brewery. She was right. She needed to be right or else she’d just made the most unforgiveable mistake of all.
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Emma shoved through Gia’s front door, nearly tripping over the dancing Diesel. Beckett was jogging down the stairs with his brother’s twins, one under each arm. Jonathan giggled with delight. Aurora was hot on Beckett’s heels, peppering him with questions.
“Two nights of babysitting,” he muttered under his breath. He glared at her. “This is all your fault, Emma. I blame you.”
“Ah, the bet. Well, it didn’t last so maybe you can weasel out of the second night?” Emma said morosely.
He headed down the hall toward the kitchen, and Emma followed him.
“Evan!” Beckett shouted for his stepson and pushed open the kitchen door with his foot.
From the hallway, Emma could see Evan sitting at the island, enjoying a popsicle and some peace and quiet.
“I will give you $20 to take these two outside and play with them in the backyard for half an hour.”
“Deal.”
“You have to keep them alive, and don’t let them eat too much dirt or too many bugs.”
“On it,” Evan agreed.
Emma heard Gia giggle, and Beckett set both twins on the floor and pointed in his wife’s direction. “No laughing. I blame you for making the bet in the first place. I need half an hour to finish this deposition. They’re all yours until then.” He stormed back down the hallway muttering under his breath.
Emma poked her head into the kitchen and stumbled when she spotted Eva sitting at the breakfast nook table across from Gia.
“You’re back?” Emma asked.
“Damn it! You ruined the surprise,” Gia groaned.
“Surprise. I’m moving here,” Eva said with a wry smile. “Now what the hell’s going on with you and Niko? I hear from a reliable source that you had a fight.”
Emma ignored her sister’s question in favor of her own. “You’re moving to Blue Moon? Permanently?”
“I didn’t want to be the only Merill living hundreds of miles away. I can do my job from anywhere. So I thought why not here?”
Sensing Emma’s mood, Gia nudged Aurora out the back door to play with Evan and the twins in the yard.
“You look like you just accidentally murdered your best friend. I take it you and Niko didn’t make up,” Gia said.
Emma shocked herself and her sisters by bursting into tears.
“Oh shit. Oh my, God. What happened? I thought it was just a fight?” Gia rushed to her side.
“Niko.” It was the only word Emma could get out.
“What did he do? Did he get you pregnant? Cheat on you? Call you a crazy bitch?” Eva bombarded her with possibilities.
“Worse,” Emma sniffled, regaining some semblance of control. “So much worse. He said he loved me and got mad and said all these horrible things when I told him I didn’t love him, didn’t want to be with him.”
She wasn’t too hysterical to miss the long look that passed between her sisters.
“What?” she demanded.
“Why don’t we sit down, and you can start from the beginning,” Gia suggested. “I’ll make us some tea.”
So Emma sat and sipped her tea and told them everything. And when she finished, she still didn’t feel unburdened. If anything, it all sat heavier.
“He just didn’t want to understand that he’s not the kind of man I want to spend my life with,” she said, wrapping her hands around the sturdy mug, hoping the warmth would seep into her body.
Eva and Gia shared another look.
“If you two don’t stop with the mental telepathy thing and spill, I’m going to add you to the list of people who have really pissed me off today.”
Gia interlaced her fingers on the table. “Do you want some well-meaning honesty or only sisterly support right now?”
“Why can’t I have both?” Emma demanded.
“Because you’re wrong.” Eva picked up her mug and took a nonchalant sip.
“You can’t be serious.” Emma shook her head. “You know me. You know what I want in life, what I’ve always wanted. A stable partnership. Not some womanizing bad boy that thinks every day is a ridiculous excuse for ignoring responsibilities.”
“I’ve known you my entire life,” Gia began. “And I’ve never seen you happier than these past few weeks. What makes you think you don’t love Niko?”
Emma’s jaw strained under the pressure to keep it tight. “Ugh!” she groaned. “Fine. Okay. I do love him.” She loved him so much it hurt her to breathe. “He snuck up on me with the whole ‘we’re friends’ thing. But that doesn’t mean that love is enough of a foundation for a life together.”
“Love is the foundation of everything, dumbass,” Gia snorted in very un-yoga-teacher-like fashion.
“What is it about him that scares the crap out of you so badly?” Eva asked.
“What doesn’t scare the crap out of me? He’s this restless artistic type who has had so many women that I don’t think he even knows what number I am. He’s never committed before. Why would he commit now? Why would he want to? I’m not some millionaire super model. I run a brewery.”
“That’s bullshit,” Gia said cheerfully. “And I’m not even going to dignify that with a rebuttal because you know it’s bullshit. Niko loves you. A blind idiot with no sense of romance could see that. So stop with the ‘woe is me, I’m not a six-foot-tall model crap.’”
“Be careful,” Eva warned Emma. “You’re going to piss her off, and she’s going to take us out to the shed to punch us instead of the heavy bag.”
“I am getting pissed because you are purposely turning your back on a wonderful man who loves you just because he doesn’t fit your unrealistic control freak goals.”
“Oh, so you think I have control issues, too?” Emma demanded.
“Yes!” her sisters shouted back.
“What’s with all the yelling? Did Aurora try to make an indoor Slip ‘n Slide again?” Beckett, looking slightly more relaxed, pushed through the swinging door, took one look at their faces, and turned back around. “Call me if you need help with a body.”
“See!” Emma gestured toward where Beckett had been. “That’s what I want.”
“You can’t have my husband, you weirdo,” Gia announced firmly.
“Not your husband specifically. But someone steady and stable like Beckett. You know he’s always going to want to be here.”
Gia blinked. “I’m sorry, did I not tell you about the time he broke up with me because he thought that I should remarry Paul?” Her voice was entering dog whistle range.
“That was a misunderstanding,” Emma argued. “He thought he was doing the right thing for your family.”
“He thought me being with the man who was incapable of providing any emotional, physical, or financial support for my family was the right thing. And now I’m getting mad about it all over again, and he’s going to have to apologize again,” she yelled toward the closed kitchen door.
“I’m going to the flower shop and taking the kids,” Beckett yelled back.
“Bring back pizza,” Gia shouted after him. They heard the front door slam behind him, and she smiled smugly. “My point is, my darling husband was an idiot, but I was magnanimous enough to forgive him. But you, sister dear,” she said pointing at Emma. “You’re the idiot in this situation.”
“There is nothing wrong with prioritizing stability—”
“Okay, let’s just cut to the chase here,” Eva suggested. “We think you make all your life’s decisions around keeping yourself safe so you don’t feel the pain and abandonment you felt when Mom left.”
Niko had held the same theory, and she’d eviscerated him over it.
“Do you honestly believe that?” Emma asked.
“Yes!” Eva and Gia answered together.
Emma crossed her arms, shook her head. “I still don’t see what’s wrong with that. Mom leaving was devastating to our family, and I think it’s smart to make sure I’m never in the position to give someone that power again. Nikolai is too much like Mom. He’s never given the future more than a passing thought. He’s always looking for the next exciting thing, the next beautiful woman, the next assignment. There’s no long-term plan there. He wouldn’t want to live here. We’re all finally in the same place at the same time, and you want me to just pack it all in and follow this guy to New York?”
“Relationships are about compromise—” Eva began, but Emma cut her off.
“No, they’re about figuring out exactly what you want in life and then finding someone who fits those goals.”
Gia’s laughter bordered on hysterical. “Oh, my God. Can’t breathe.”
Eventually she regained control. “I get why you feel that way. I totally do,” Gia told her. “But the problem is, even though you say you want stable and safe, you still walked away from Mason. You didn’t want him so you didn’t even give him the option to follow you here. You made the decision for both of you, and you walked away.”
“Just like Mom,” Eva added.
There was no blame in her tone, no anger. Just the cold, hard truth.
“And now you’re walking away from Niko because your feelings for him scare you. No, he’s not what you thought you wanted. But he is what you want, and you walked away.” Gia glanced at Eva who nodded at her. “Just like Mom.”
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Why aren’t you two carting around baggage over Mom?” Emma asked quietly.
“Our baggage is just smaller,” Eva insisted.
“Because we had you,” Gia said, reaching across the table to squeeze her hand.
“Mom may have walked out on us, but you stepped up for us,” Eva nodded, reaching for Emma’s other hand. “You did my hair for prom.”
“You bought me condoms when I told you I was thinking about having sex with Billy McBride,” Gia added. “You didn’t say ‘I told you so’ when Paul and I got divorced. You just showed up on my doorstep and helped me pack.”
“You used your own money to buy us presents that first Christmas Mom was gone,” Eva remembered. “You took a thousand pictures of my college graduation.”
Emma felt tears prick her eyes again, though these were of a different kind. “Oh, my God. This place is turning me into a sobbing lunatic,” she lamented. “I never used to cry before I moved here.”
“You stepped up as the mom we deserved,” Gia said softly. “And it kills us to see you push something real and beautiful away just because it makes you feel.”
“Fuck.”
Gia and Eva nodded in agreement.
She did the walking away so she wouldn’t get hurt. It wasn’t any better than what her mother had done, walking away because she got bored.