She didn’t have the face of infuriation I’d anticipated. Instead, it looked close to tears. All it would take was one more insensitive word from me to make the pools forming in the corners of her eyes to spill. I’d wanted her to see reason—I hadn’t wanted her to cry.

I was an ass.

“Please forgive what I said,” I rushed, holding my hands over her arms because I couldn’t bear to watch her run away from me again. “It was insensitive, and uncalled for—”

“And a really crummy thing to say,” she interrupted, sounding like a little girl trying to sound brave. That’s what she was right now, a little girl trying to be brave in the face of her past demons come to haunt her again.

“I know I’m making a pattern of this, and I promise I’ll try not to make it a hardcore habit, but,”—I tilted her chin up, wiping away the tear before it released—“forgive me?”

“You’re an idiot,” she added, her shoulders unfurling from their curled forward position.

I smiled—the Emma I loved was coming back. “I’ve got the t-shirt.”

She smiled at the ground, wiping a hand over her nose before looking up. “If you want to continue on with what was a perfect date before you brought up an off-limit topic, you have to promise not to mention Ty’s and my relationship again.” Now this was an ultimatum.

“Ty who?” I said, feeling kind of wicked for skirting the whole promising thing. I made her a promise I wouldn’t make a be-all-end-all promise to her if I couldn’t know with absolute certainty I could keep it. This was one promise I knew I couldn’t keep.

“Good answer,” she said, retrieving her sandals and sliding them back on. “You like coconut cream pie?”

This was why I loved her—well, one of the reasons why. Going against centuries of genetic code flowing through her, Emma might have been the one woman on earth who could get into a spat with a man, forgive him a minute later, and forget it two seconds after that. I didn’t want to tell her, but it wasn’t normal, in a very good way.

“I lust after it,” I said as I slipped into my own shoes.

Shaking her head at me, she headed for the back door. “Come on, Prince Charming. Pie’s a waitin’.”

“You think I’m charming?” I called after her, jogging again to catch up.

Looking at me over her shoulder, she said, “Can anyone stay mad at you?”

I didn’t have to think about it before answering honestly, “No. At least not longer than a few hours.”

“Of course not,” she said, nudging me. “I wish I could figure out a way.”

There were about a million and a half things I wanted to say, and twice that many things I needed to get off my chest, but Emma was hell bent on getting coconut cream pie, and I knew better than to get in the way of a woman seeking sugar.

The next thing I heard was a shout, followed by the shuffling of chairs and feet. I lunged into the kitchen, ready for anything.

Anything happened to be Emma charging around the table after two of her brothers. Where the other two were, I didn’t know. But it was clear they were the smart ones.

“You ate the whole thing!” she hollered, making a lunge at Austin, but he swooped to the side at the last minute. “We have a guest and you brutes can’t save one piece?”

Now this was something that would have been on my life list had I known it existed. Emma Scarlett chasing down her linebacker sized brothers, to inflict what kind of damage if she caught them I couldn’t guess at, because they’d chowed down on pie.

I knew it would infuriate her, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t even try to tame the laughter that erupted from me, and she didn’t make any attempts to tame the glare she shot me as the trio made another circumnavigation of the table.

“No,” Tex’s fake twang accent announced behind me, “we saved you a piece.”

I saw the slice of extra creamy cream pie arching at me, zeroing in on my face, but I didn’t take what I was viewing and translate into something useful.

Like ducking.

The raucous of the room diminished, it was dead silent, right before a quartet of laughter exploded. A round of high-fiving and back slapping ensued, but I didn’t see it. My eyes were glued shut by whipped cream and humility. I’d finally found an adversary that could attack in the midst of my surprise. And it was a piece of pie.

A delicious piece of pie at that, I clarified as I licked my lips clean.

“I am officially an only child as of right now,” Emma yelled, the sounds of a wet towel snapping against flesh taking over. “I disown every last one of you.”

She must have flicked the room free of pie throwing brothers because the room became silent again.

“Oh my gosh,” she said, her footsteps rushing my way. “I’m so sorry, Patrick.”

Her weapon slash dishrag ran over my eyes.

“Why?” I said, fluttering my cream coated eyelashes open. “We got the last piece of pie.” Running my finger down my cheek, I held it in front of her. “Want a bite?”

Turning the dishtowel around, she wiped my nose clean. “Are you always this go with the flow? Unpestered by anything?” she asked, licking the dollop of whipped cream off the tip of my finger. “Go figure. Of course it would be the best coconut cream pie I’ve made to date,” she muttered to herself.

I was lucky my words came out in the right order and the right language.

“I try to be,” I answered her, heading over to the sink because I wasn’t sure I could recover from any more finger licking. “Some things are easier to be that way with than others.”

“I wish I could be that way,” she said, leaning into the counter beside the sink where I splashed water over my face until the water ran clear. She handed me a clean towel when I lifted my dripping face. “I’m sorry. Again. They’re infantile, but I love them.”

“It’s no biggie,” I said through the dishtowel. “They had to do what they could to intimidate me from making a move on you.”

When I tossed the towel aside, I saw she was looking at me in that intent way she could, without conveying a single emotion as to what she was feeling so intensely. “Were you planning on making a move on me?” she asked quietly.

If it wasn’t obvious to her by now, it never would be, and perhaps, after recent revelations, that was for the best. “Hell, Emma,” I said, unable to look into those eyes any longer. “After everything, I’m going to have to plead the fifth on that one.”

“Yeah,” she said, turning away and tossing the dirty towels to the side. “My favorite constitutional right, too.”

There was something sad in her voice and she wasn’t trying to hide it, but I didn’t know where that sadness stemmed from. And if I didn’t know the root of it, I couldn’t fix it. I hated not being able to fix something.

Opening the refrigerator door and investigating its next to non-existent contents, she said, “The guys are staying here tonight, but I can’t stand to spend the night here anymore.” She slammed the door closed again and turned to me empty handed. “Would you mind taking me home?”

I tilted my head in the direction of the front door. “Let’s go.”

She ducked out of the kitchen like it pained her to stay a moment longer.

“Mom?” Emma said in the next room. “Patrick’s going to take me back to my room. It was good seeing you.” She paused, waiting for a reply that would never come. “Take care of yourself, okay?”

Emma was tugging on her jacket when I rounded into the living room. Mrs. Scarlett was in the exact same place with the same dead face as when I’d arrived. I didn’t doubt if I came back in a few hours I’d find anything different.

“Thanks for having me over, Mrs. Scarlett,” I said, kneeling beside her. “Let’s do it again soon, okay?”

The screen door flapped shut, an empty patch of carpet where Emma had just been. She was in a hurry to leave, and she didn’t need to explain why.

I leaned closer to Mrs. Scarlett’s petrified form, resting my hand over hers folded in her lap. “You don’t have to worry about her,” I whispered, checking over my shoulder to make sure Emma hadn’t reappeared. “I’ll take care of her.”

I don’t know why I’d said it. I didn’t have a better reason than it just felt right at the time, but while the words coming from me had been unexpected, the response it elicited from Mrs. Scarlett was unexpected on a whole other level.

Her eyes flashed to mine, unblinking, watery eyes that paralyzed me. Her hand turned under mine, her fingers grasping mine in return.

“I know you will,” she said, her voice as hoarse as you’d expect someone’s to be after a night of silence. “You’re one of the good ones.” A trembling hand lifted to my face. “Stay that way.”

Her hand fell away, clenching back into her lap, at the same time her expression smoothed away. She was a zombie again, the lights of the television flashing like ghosts over her face.

It could have been another lapse in reality, and I would have written off the whole transaction as such had it not been for the chill that was still prickling over my cheeks.

“I will,” I vowed as I turned to leave.

She didn’t hear it, I could tell that right away, but I hadn’t said it to reassure her. I’d said it to remind myself.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“Okay, I can’t take it any longer,” Emma shouted, her fingers punching at the Mustang’s CD player like she couldn’t turn it off quickly enough. “Mercy, mercy, mercy,” she hollered as the second chorus of We Built This City vibrated at top volume through the car.

“Impressive,” I hollered over the music, fumbling around her spider fingers until I punched the disc skip button. “I didn’t even make it to the chorus the first time I heard that one.”

When two minutes of awkward silence passed after we’d left the Scarlett house, I proposed a game of Hell on Wheels because I couldn’t take wasting any time I had with her in silence.

It was a game devised by Joseph and me after about going mad three hours down an Oklahoma highway, facing another four more of the same, flat, scenic-impaired stretch. We loaded up a shopping cart of CDs that should have been a capital crime to record and took turns playing the most ear damaging songs known to man. There wasn’t a shortage. Whoever was the first to call mercy was a stinky tube sock. Juvenile, but fun.

I kept the storage container of abominations in the car for long journeys or, in this case, long silences.

Emma winced when the opening notes played on the next CD, her head slapping the headrest like it would keep her from yelling mercy longer.

A ring interrupted the coup d’etat of butt rock ballads. Emma shot me a victorious smile as she fished through her purse for her phone.

I punched the off button. “To be continued.”

Emma made a slitting motion across her neck before answering. “Hey, Jules. I’m on my way—” The smile was sucked from Emma’s face.