on the way home. He should stop in tonight… There were never enough hours in the day.
A half hour later, Jared set the takeout on his dining-room table. Emily was at his elbow, close enough to touch. He found the idea of touching her aroused him. His sexual urges had been in deep freeze for so long that he welcomed feeling alive again.
So much for pint-sized chaperones. They were already digging into their toy box in the great room.
“Girls, go on to the bathroom and wash your hands. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Jared went to the kitchen and Emily followed. “What can I do?”
Apparently she was a doer like he was. “Set the table?” he suggested, opening the cabinet that held dishes.
There were two sets—plain white ironstone dishes and then a collection of cream china with tiny blue roses.
“Oh, how pretty,” Emily commented.
“Those are my mother’s. She insists we use them every holiday. They have to be hand-washed.”
“You don’t like the tradition?”
“I never thought of it that way—as a tradition, I mean. When I was growing up—” He stopped short. “Traditions are okay as long as they bring along happy memories with them. Those dishes don’t.”
Emily looked puzzled, but he wasn’t going to go into his background. Not now. Probably not ever.
“I understand you’re a widower,” Emily said. “How long has it been since your wife died?”
He stopped for a moment, startled because she’d been so direct.
“I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned it. It’s one of the pieces of information everyone at Family Tree has about you.”
“One of the pieces?” He lifted dishes from the cupboard, not knowing whether to be amused or annoyed.
He could see Emily was flustered, but she went ahead anyway. “Everyone seems to know you’re a widower and have three-year-old twin girls.”
“Three and a half,” he amended. “And if that’s all ‘everyone’ knows, I guess I should consider myself lucky.”
After setting the dinnerware on the counter, he leaned back against it and crossed his arms over his chest. As soon as he did it, he knew it was a defensive gesture. He was feeling defensive. Still, Emily’s honesty prompted the same kind of honesty from him.
“Two years ago I was divorced. Six months later my wife died of cancer.”
“I’m so sorry.”
He uncrossed his arms and let them drop to his sides. “Valerie had had custody of the girls and I had liberal visitation rights. But taking over their full care was a real shocker.”
“I imagine it must have been.”
Usually he didn’t want to talk about this with anyone, but he found discussing the situation with Emily wasn’t so bad. “My mother stepped in to help. Honestly, I don’t know what I would have done without her. Hired a nanny, I guess. That’s what I’m going to have to do now until she’s back on her feet. I set up an interview with someone from a service tomorrow afternoon.”
That was certainly enough about him. He wanted to know more about Emily. “I remember from your application that you were from Corpus Christi.”
“Yes, I was born and raised there. I’d never lived anywhere else until I moved to Sagebrush.”
“Culture shock?”
“From east Texas to west Texas, beach to plains. I’m getting used to it. I’m even beginning to like it.”
“You intend to stay here?”
“I hope to. I like my work. I’ve made great friends. What else could a girl ask for?”
There was something in Emily’s eyes that told him she might like a lot more, children maybe, a family. He noticed she didn’t wear perfume, not the kind other women wore, anyway. But she always smelled like a summer garden. Maybe it was her shampoo. Maybe something she dabbed in intimate places.
They were standing close, close enough that if he leaned forward just a little—
But she suddenly caught her breath. He leaned away. Then he cleared his throat and, feeling as awkward as a teenager, mumbled, “I’d better see what trouble the girls are getting into.” If that wasn’t an exit line, he didn’t know what was.
When he and Amy and Courtney returned to the dining room, he stopped short. Emily hadn’t just put food on the dishes; she’d set places, napkins included. She’d found a place mat from somewhere, put that in the middle and piled the entrees on platters and the sides in serving dishes. Instead of the plastic forks and spoons from the restaurant, she’d used real silverware.
“I hope you girls are hungry.” She pulled out a chair for each of them so they could hop on. She pushed Amy in while he helped Courtney.
Leaning close to him, she said in a low voice, “I thought the girls would have trouble eating with the plastic forks.”
“Are you used to spending time with children?” She seemed to know exactly what to do.
“I’ve never had any of my own, but when I was in Corpus Christi, I volunteered in a pediatric ward when I had time off.”
So that’s how she’d spent her free time. He was seeing facets of Emily he’d never had time to explore.
“Have you ever been married?” he asked as he pulled her chair out for her.
She looked surprised he’d done the gentlemanly thing. It had been a long time since he’d wanted to do the gentlemanly thing.
“Yes, I was married. I’ve been divorced about a year.”
Now it was his turn to ask a blunt question. “Is that why you moved here?”
This time she didn’t hesitate. “I needed a fresh start.”
His hands were on the chair back, close to her hair. She was looking up at him over her shoulder. He was so tempted to push her curls away from her face, to erase the little frown line on her forehead, to tell her he understood about wanting a new beginning.
Yet he’d figured out the past dogged him no matter where he went, or how badly he tried to forget. Did her past dog her, too?
The urge to ask her was strong and on the tip of his tongue when the cell phone on his belt beeped. He almost swore, and then he realized he should be glad for the interruption. This evening was becoming intense and personal.
Straightening, he unhitched the phone, checked the number and held it to his ear. It was his service. Crossing to the counter, he found a notepad and a pen and jotted down the number.
He said to Emily, “I think Lubbock is about to have a new citizen who
