insisted. “They’re just speculating.”
She started to get to her feet. “I need to talk to them.”
“Not now,” he insisted, catching her hand and pulling her back down beside him. “I know everything they know and it’s nothing we can do anything about right this second. I’ll follow up on it tomorrow. You need to get some rest.”
“As if I can,” she said wearily. “Do you think any of us will be able to look at anyone else ever again without wondering if there’s some dark secret at work? If my dad could kill himself, is there anyone who’s not susceptible to suicide as a way out?”
“You,” Matt said with certainty. “And I wish you would stop saying that your dad killed himself. We don’t know that.”
“I do,” Emma said. “I don’t want to believe it, but I can’t ignore what my heart is telling me. As for me not being likely to kill myself, I don’t see how you can say that. Everyone always said Dad and I were a lot alike.”
“And you were, but you have your mother’s strength. Problems don’t daunt you. You pitch in and look for solutions.”
Emma seemed surprised by his analysis. “What makes you say that?”
Matt grinned. “Remember the time you broke your brother’s bike? You’d borrowed it without permission, then ended up smashing it into a tree. I’ve never seen such a mess, but when I came along you weren’t crying or wringing your hands. You looked me straight in the eye and asked me if I could sneak back to the house and get some tools and help you put it back together.”
She leaned into him for a second. “You were definitely my hero that day.”
Matt gazed into her eyes and barely resisted the desire to sigh. If only he could have stayed her hero.
Then again, maybe he was getting a second chance now, though he wondered how she’d feel if she knew he’d carried on a brief, but torrid affair with the woman Gabe and Harley thought might also have been linked to her father.
“You’re doing the same thing now,” he told her, forcing himself to focus on the present, not the past. “You’re trying to fix this, doing what needs to be done, even though your heart is breaking.”
“I suppose,” she said. “But it’s one thing to come home and organize a funeral, to get meals on the table, and try to lift everyone’s spirits. It’s quite another to know what to do next.”
“You’ll figure it out. When the time comes, the answer will come to you.”
She regarded him skeptically. “What if I don’t like the answer?”
He knew what she was really worried about. She was terrified that she was going to be needed here indefinitely, when her life—the life she loved—was elsewhere.
“Then you’ll come up with a better one,” he said confidently. “Or if there’s only one solution, then you’ll make peace with it.”
“You make it sound so easy,” she said, sounding wistful.
“Not easy,” Matt corrected. “I know nothing about this is easy, but I have every confidence that you’re up to the challenge.” He glanced over and saw the sad, lost expression on her face, and decided that what Emma needed more than anything right now was to get her mind off the future. He elbowed her gently in the ribs to get her attention.
“Last one to the other end is a rotten egg,” he taunted, already shoving off the edge of the pool.
She stared after him in shock. Then a grin slowly spread across her face and she, too, pushed off.
Emma was a strong swimmer, more than strong enough to be a match for his greater height and head start. They touched the far end of the pool at the same instant and came out of the water laughing.
“You’re crazy,” she said, but her eyes were sparkling for the first time since she’d returned home.
Matt figured that ruining his best suit pants in all that chlorine was a small price to pay to see Emma happy. It might be a very temporary fix, but at least it was a reminder to both of them that life went on, that laughter was still possible even in the face of tragedy.
Just then she reached up, her hand cool against his cheek. “Thank you,” she said quietly.
“For?”
“This. Everything.”
Matt turned his head and pressed a kiss to the palm of her hand. “Anytime, darlin’. Anytime.”
Still soaking wet and dripping all over the tile floor in the kitchen, Emma ran smack into her mother, who regarded her with a horrified expression.
“What on earth were you thinking?” Rosa demanded. “We’ve just buried your father and you’re jumping into the pool with your clothes on. What will people say?”
Before Emma could reply that she didn’t give two figs what anyone thought, she sensed Matt stepping up behind her.
“It’s my fault,” he told her mother. “I fell in and Emma had to rescue me.”
Rosa scowled at both of them as if they were fourteen again. “As if I’m likely to believe that. Emma, go change your clothes. Jack Lawrence wants to talk to us. Matthew, go up to my room and find something of Don’s to put on before you go home.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Matt said meekly, then winked at Emma as he passed by.
Emma stood where she was, shivering in the air-conditioned room. “Why does Mr. Lawrence need to see us tonight?”
Rosa sighed. “It’s about your father’s will.”
“Can’t that wait?”
“He says not.”
Emma touched her mother’s pale face. “Are you up to this?”
“No, but it appears I have no choice. Now, hurry and change, please. Let’s get this over with. Jeff and Andy are already waiting.”
Emma changed clothes quickly and ran a comb through her damp hair. She said a quick goodbye to Matt in the hallway, then drew in a deep breath before joining her mother and brothers in the living room.
Jack Lawrence, her parents’ lawyer, had a sheaf of papers in front of him and a somber expression on his face that made her catch her breath. He nodded when Emma walked in, then began to speak in what she assumed to be the tone he deliberately chose for sad occasions. No normal human being talked in such a low, falsely soothing monotone.
“As you know, I have been this family’s attorney for many years now. As soon as I heard the terrible news about Don, I began gathering the information I knew you would need to move on with your lives. I have his will here, which is simple enough. If it’s all right with all of you, I’ll dispense with a formal reading and just explain it.”
“Please,” Rosa said, as if she would agree to anything that shortened the proceedings.
“Okay,
