Chapter 24

“You. Are. An. Idiot.” Liam was the first one through the door the next morning, fresh from what looked like one of his ten-milers.

“Well, you smell. Get out of my café before people show up for coffee.”

“Not leaving.”

He sat down on one of the barstools, and Jasper took a deep breath, preparing for a reaming. How the hell did Liam even know already?

“What happened?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, bullshit. One day it’s all sleeping in and closing the café, and three days later, you’ve reportedly given her the boot?”

Jasper turned around from the percolators. “I did not give anyone any boot. And you closed the café, not me. Also, who exactly is giving you information on my personal life without me knowing?”

“Doesn’t matter. You know how this town works. I heard it, so I’m confirming it. Did you, in fact, call things off with Emma?”

“You can’t call off what never really got started, Liam.”

“Huh. Gotcha.” He nodded slowly, like he was pondering. Then, “Bullshit.”

“Love you like a brother, but there’s a line, buddy. And you’re stepping damn close to it. I did what I had to do to protect Emma. That was my only goal, and I did the right thing.”

“What are you protecting her from, if I can be so bold?”

“You know very well what I’m protecting her from.”

“Right. The big, bad past life of Jasper Stone. From which he has refused to move forward, though it’s been five effing years.”

Jasper sent him an icy glare. “Line.”

“You’re going to regret this.”

“I already do.”

“Then why?”

Jasper sighed. “Because I’ve already screwed up enough lives, Liam. I was a crap husband. I was a selfish bastard who let the shine of courtroom stardom blind me to the fact that I was losing my wife, inch by inch by inch. So excuse me if I don’t get the warm fuzzies over thinking I could do it any better the second time around.”

“You’re not the same person as you were. You know that.”

“Knowing it and living it are two different things. And I’m not willing to put Emma in that position, knowing I could screw her up, too. She’s too good a person to do that to, and in ten weeks, she’ll be back home in Florida, not crying over whatever might have happened.”

“Oh, so you’re saving her from a broken heart.” He nodded. “I see.”

“I don’t need this right now.” Jasper placed pastries on a tray. “So if your main intention was to come in here and make me feel like crap, you don’t need to bother. I’m already well down that road.”

“Emma?” Hayley called through the screen door of her cabin one evening a week later. “You in here?”

Emma stood up from the chair in her bedroom, wiping her eyes quickly. “Hey, Hayls,” she said as she walked toward the door. “What’s up?”

“I need a favor.” Hayley held up a laundry basket.

Emma opened the door. “I don’t have a washing machine in here.” Then she peered into the basket and saw a lumpy pile of soft black-and-white fur. “Oh-h. Not laundry.”

Hayley stepped into the living area and put down the basket. “Nope! Kittens! Am I the best friend ever, or what? I brought you kittens!”

“You—what?”

“You know how the other day you were feeling all morose about not seeing Jasper’s kittens?”

“I don’t think I ever mentioned Jasper’s kittens, no.”

“Oh. Huh. Well, I was sure you had. But, anyway, good news! I have more!”

“Um—”

“Coyote got the mom, so it’s kind of a desperate situation, see.” Hayley raised one pathetic eyebrow. “And my primary foster guy’s already got a litter, so I thought of you!”

“Because?”

“Because you love his, and because you’ll be here for the perfect amount of time to get these little dumplings strong enough to be adopted, and because…I decided.”

“You decided.”

“Honestly, you should feel pretty lucky right now. You should see what I foisted on Shelby when she was staying here. You’re getting off easy.”

“Just a quick question?”

“Sure! And the answer is yes.” She pulled a big fabric bag from her shoulder and set it down next to the basket. “I’ve got all of the formula and little blankets and everything you’ll need right here.”

“That’s not my question.”

“I know.” Hayley looked up at the sky innocently. “But that’s the one I’m answering.”

“What if I can’t do it?”

“Then I’ll ask somebody else. But I wanted to give you first dibs. Since you’re not spending so much time with Jasper—which I still think is a crime, but you told me three days ago to shut up about it, so I’m trying—I figured you’ve got some hours that could use filling. So…kittens!”

“I work all day, Hayls. They’ll need to be fed.”

“Easy! Just take them with you! Or if you can’t, Ma said you could bring them up to the kitchen, and she’ll watch them during the day.”

“I see.”

“Here’s the thing—if you take the kittens, then I won’t come asking you to take something else a lot less cute.”

“Like?”

“We’ve got a batch of chickens who could use a keeper.”

Emma laughed uneasily. Apparently Hayley had decided Emma was taking the kittens. And apparently when Hayley decided something, it was just easier to go with it.

“Fine. I’ll take the kittens. But you have to give me your cell number in case I need you.”

“Done.” Hayley grinned. “And thank you, of course.”

“Oh, my goodness.” Shelby’s voice came from the porch steps. “What’s in that basket, Hayley?”

“Kittens!” Hayley playfully clasped her hands like she was freaking Santa Claus.

“You give her kittens, and I got a piglet?”

Emma’s eyes went wide. “A piglet?”

“You loved that piglet.” Hayley laughed.

Shelby shook her head as she pulled open the door and peered into the basket. “You’re lucky I was desperate for company.” Then she turned to Emma. “Be careful. Once Hayley sets her sights on somebody who needs Whisper Creek healing, she puts on her witch-doctor robes and delivers helpless baby animals.”

“Now, now,” Hayley clucked. “I just happen to be a desperate vet with a lot of homeless animals. Plight of the country doctor and all.”

“Uh-huh.” Shelby nodded. “Well, good luck with those, Emma. Hope they don’t wake up at night as much as my piglet did.”

Emma closed her eyes. So did she.

“Hey.” Shelby waved a notebook. “Anybody feel like writing a song?”

“Oh, no way.” Hayley shook her head. “Last time I tried, you didn’t like my rhymes.”

“I don’t think I ever said that.”

“You said—and I quote—‘Hayley, honey, do you think you could get us some drinks?’ ”

“And from that, you got that I didn’t like your rhymes?”

“No. From that, I got ‘please take your useless self elsewhere and let the rest of us write something that might sell someday.’ ”

Shelby laughed. “Fine. Emma? Want to give it a go? I’m totally stuck, and I need to get something on paper before Cooper comes back tonight. We’re recording next week, and we’re one song shy.”

Emma shook her head. Shelby Quinn was asking her help in writing a song? Shelby Quinn? The one who currently had three songs sitting on the top-forty country list? The one whose concert she’d gone to a year ago and never dreamed she’d actually even meet?

It was just surreal.

“Come on.” Shelby motioned her back out to the porch. “Let’s sit out here where we can stare at the horses for inspiration.”

“Right.” Hayley rolled her eyes. “It’s the horses you’re looking to for inspiration.”

“Well? You know. Whatever happens to come along will be helpful.”

“I’ll leave you two to it, then.” Hayley headed down the steps at her customary quick clip. “Feed the kittens in an hour, Emma. The rest of the directions are in the bag.”

“Yup. Sure. Got it.” Emma’s voice faded as Hayley jogged back up the pathway to her truck. Then she turned to Shelby, who patted the porch swing cushion.

“You get used to her.” Shelby laughed. “She has a heart of gold, as long as you’re willing to admit she’s always right.”

“Well…”

“She usually is, if it helps.”

Emma smiled. “I’ll take your word for it.”

“Good. Now, let’s write a song. Can you sing?”

“Not a note.”

“Do you rhyme?”

“Not on purpose.”

Shelby laughed. “Perfect. Let’s do this. I need heartache and sadness and you-done-me-wrong.”

Emma cringed. Well, she’d come to the right person. “Um, okay? How do we start?”

“I ask questions. You talk. Ready?”

“Sure?” Emma shook her head. “But first, can I take a selfie of the two of us? Because no one, and I mean no one, is going to believe I’m out here in Montana sitting on a porch swing with Shelby Quinn.”

“Eh, Shelby Quinn’s just another girl. She just happens to be lucky enough to sing for a living.”

“Right. In front of thousands of fans, while selling millions of records.”

“And I’m grateful for all of it. It was a long journey, getting to this place.” Shelby patted her shoulder. “Okay, ready? Heartbreak. Give me three ways to describe it.”

Great. Emma could think of ten, without—well—thinking.

“Painful, lonely, jagged.”

“Good.” Shelby scribbled. “I like the last one. Now, put on your heartbreak hat and tell me how it feels. Imagine the guy, and talk to him.”

Emma swallowed hard. She didn’t need to put on any stupid hat to know how it felt. She was living it right now, and even while she was fighting back tears, she was berating herself for ever falling for Jasper in the first place. How stupid and naïve could a thirty-five-year-old woman be, right?

She took a deep breath, putting her fist to her chest. “I can’t breathe. You took my breath away, and forgot to give it back. I look for you, I listen for you, I take the scenic route just to see if I can find you. I feel stupid, I feel cheap, I feel like I gave you something I can never get back. I’m selfish, you’re selfish, we’re both stupid. Too fast, too slow, too everything, dammit. I don’t know love, but I got a taste. It was sweet and full and warm and precious. But now it’s cold and dark and so, so bitter. Because I don’t understand. I’ll never understand.”

She paused, turning away from Shelby to grab a tear that had appeared out of nowhere. Then she turned toward her, a suspicious thought crystallizing in her brain.

“Hayley assigned you to do this, didn’t she?”

Shelby went all wide-eyed innocent for a moment, then let her shoulders fall. “I mentioned how she’s pretty much always right, right?”

“Yeah.” Emma sighed. “You did.”

“I really do need a song for the album. And I really do want a heartstrings-puller. That’s not a lie. She just maybe pointed me in your direction for inspiration. ‘Two birds with one stone,’ she said. ‘You get a song, and she gets a much-needed vent.’ ”

“This is a strange, strange little place.”

“Agreed.” Shelby put the notebook on the table, then pulled up her knees and stared toward the stables. “But as the most recent in a long line of transplants, I’ll be dead honest with you. Every single person I’ve met here at Whisper Creek operates with the best of intentions. They are as nosy as all get-out, but it’s because they care.”

“I can see that.”

“Actually? You probably can’t yet. But it’s okay. It takes time. It took me a long time, but I wasn’t ready. I was a born-and-raised Tennessee girl, and there was no way I was pulling up those roots to move out here, especially since it’d been so long since I’d felt any roots.” She smiled softly. “But this family—this town—it has a way of growing on you. It has a way of just sort of wrapping you up like a warm blanket on a cold night, and boy, did I need a warm blanket.”

“Well, I’ll only be here for a couple of months, so I’d probably be well served not to go looking for any more warm blankets.”

Shelby laughed. “Jasper?”

“I’m not even going to wonder how you know. Everybody knows everything out here.”

“Well, I heard it from Cooper, who heard it from Daniel, who probably heard it from Gunnar or Liam. I’m not sure.”

Emma smiled, picturing that particular bunch of holy-alpha-male cowboys dishing at the café bar like a bunch of old ladies.

“Your men are worse gossips than any women I’ve ever met.”

“Noted. Agreed. But again—”

“I know. It’s because they care. Yadda yadda.”

Shelby studied her for a long moment, then took a deep breath like she was trying to decide whether to tell Emma something. Finally, she closed her eyes tightly and spoke.

“Has anyone told you what happened to Jasper’s wife?”

Emma felt her stomach squeeze. Wife?

“I, um, I didn’t know he had a wife.”

“He did. She died in a car accident five years ago.”

“Oh, God.” She crossed her arms across her body, feeling actual pain for Jasper.

Shelby nodded. “He blamed himself then, and I don’t think he’s ever stopped.”

“Why?”

“Because the night it happened, she was leaving him.”

“Oh, no,” Emma whispered. “Why?”

Shelby shrugged sadly. “I don’t think any of us knows that part. But—I just thought you should know, in case you were thinking his cold feet are all about you. They’re not. Everyone can tell how much he cares about you, but I think he’s just not ready to have someone in his life again. Not ready to risk that heartbreak again.”

“Wow.” Emma nodded slowly. “Just…wow.”

“I’m sorry, Emma. I’m sure at another time, somewhere down the road, you guys could have been a perfect match. Maybe you still will be—who knows? And the wife thing probably should have been his to tell you, but I know how it feels to have your heart shattered, and to have nobody think your heart could possibly have fallen for somebody so fast and hard. I also know how easy it is to blame yourself and assume you’re damaged goods, and you don’t deserve that.”

Emma shook her head. “You don’t even know me. Why—”

“I know enough.” Shelby shrugged, then stood up. “Focus on you, and focus on the things you want to accomplish while you’re here. The rest will sort itself out, right?”

“I like your optimism.”

“Ha.” Shelby laughed. “And thanks for your help with the song. I’ll let you know how it comes out, after I play it for the horses enough times.”

Emma smiled, then clasped her hands nervously, an idea forming in her head. “Hey, Shelby? What if I offered you a better test audience than horses?”

Hours later, Emma washed the last kitten bottle, feeling a smile creep over her face. She’d fed the itty-bitties, who were now snuggled together on a new blanket in their basket, and now it was time to sit down for some good, old-fashioned decision-making.

She had eight weeks left here in Carefree. Eight weeks to run Shady Acres, live at Whisper Creek, and do her best to make it all count somehow. Mooning over Jasper wasn’t going to get her anywhere besides Prozac Lane, and before she knew it, she’d be back in her neat Florida office working on spreadsheets and proposals and watching animal control wrest yet another alligator out of the retaining pond behind the building.

Maybe she was on her way to the corner office, but—maybe she wasn’t. Maybe Duncan didn’t think she had the chops, or maybe Duncan had been cutting her off at the knees for years now, in fear that she might overtake him on that ladder.

She pulled out the binder she’d lugged here from Florida, opening it to the section where she’d printed and hole-punched all of her rejected proposals. Then she found some blank paper and got to work.

If they were going to send her to Big Sky country to get her out of the way, then she was going to make the most of being out from under their watchful eyes. She had a binder full of what she knew were good ideas, and dammit, she was going to start putting them into practice.

Step one? Kittens.