eyes were fixed on her belly.
“Yeah, there’s another baby in there,” she said, going into the kitchen, where she finally unwound the scarf and draped it over the back of a kitchen chair before scooting across the floor toward the pie. At least, in her head she was scooting. In reality she felt like a hippopotamus slogging through hip-high mud.
“Didn’t know this one was coming until a couple of weeks after Lee died. It’s okay,” she said when Cash’s brows dipped, signaling the doubt demons to swarm, taunting her about all the responsibilities balanced on her not-quite-broad-enough shoulders. Sometimes she truly wondered how she wasn’t curled up in a fetal position herself, sucking her thumb. She flashed him a smile and scooped up the pie. “Everything’s under control. Really.”
And the sooner she did that tidying-up thing with Cash about his father, the sooner he’d be gone and she could get back to figuring out the rest of her life.
She turned, the pie cradled in her hands, catching the barely banked blend of disgust and horror on Cash’s face as he scanned the kitchen. Meaning, most likely, that a few coats of paint weren’t doing a blamed thing to eradicate the bad mojo that had not only sent Cash running but had kept him away for twenty years.
Somehow, she highly doubted the truth would, either.
Don’t remember this being part of the marriage vows, she thought, setting the pie on the table.
Chapter Two
At least the house smelled good. Damn good. Like strong coffee and baking and that flowery stuff women liked to keep around. But man, being here was doing a number on Cash’s head. In fact, as he watched Emma serve up a huge piece of pie, he felt like somebody with ADD was controlling the remote to his brain.
Cats lazed and groomed in the midmorning sunlight splashing across the dull butcherblock counters, the gouged tile floor—old, faded dreams struggling for purchase in a scary sea of color. Orange walls. Turquoise cabinets. Yellow curtains. Hell, even the table was fire-engine red—
“Bright colors help stimulate the brain,” Emma said quietly, setting a plate in front of him and licking her thumb. “We did it mainly for Hunter.”
“Did it help?”
Through the calm, Cash caught a glimpse of the worry that was most likely a constant companion. “I don’t think it hurt,” she said with a slight smile, and his heebie-jeebies about being in the house morphed to apprehension about what she wanted to tell him, which then slid into a skin-prickling, inexplicable awareness of the woman herself—
“Let me get you a refill,” she said, whisking away his mug.
—which in turn stirred up a whole mess of conflicting feelings, most of which he’d pretty much lost touch with over the years … none of which he was the least bit inclined to examine now. If ever. The weird, inexplicable spurt of protectiveness notwithstanding—even more weird since he doubted there was a woman on the face of the earth who needed protecting less than Emma Manning—he wasn’t the protective type.
More than one shrink had told Cash his self-centeredness was a direct outcome of the hell he’d been through, the old survival instinct clawing to the surface of the toxic swamp that had been his childhood. Although how that survival instinct jibed with an equally strong bent toward self-destruction—at least, early on—neither he nor the shrinks could figure out. Other terms got bandied about a lot, too. Trust issues and emotional barriers and such.
A highfalutin way of saying he sucked at relationships.
At least, that was how his last ex had put it, Cash pondered as he watched the dark, rich brew tumble into his mug, in the note she’d left on the custom-made glass-and-iron dining table in their ritzy Nashville condo eight years ago. Yeah, the tabloids had been all over that one.
The self-destructive tendencies, Cash had finally gotten a handle on. Mostly. The putting-himself-first thing, however … not so much.
Which was why it was taking everything he had in him not to bolt. From the house, the woman, whatever she had to tell him. But before he could, she slid into the seat across from him with a glass of milk. He met her frown with one of his own.
“Well?”
“Eat your pie first.” The brutal, midmorning light showcased the fine lines marring otherwise smooth skin, the faintly bruised pouches cushioning those odd-colored eyes. Not gray or blue or green but some combination of the three. “Cleaning up after my husband wasn’t exactly on my chore list this morning. So I’m working up to it. Besides, I don’t know you, Mr. Cochran. I have no idea how you’re going to react to what I’m about to tell you.”
“Sounds ominous.”
“It’s not that, it’s …” She sighed. “Eat. Please.”
So he took a bite of the still-warm pie, letting the smooth, tangy-sweet fruit and buttery crust melt in his mouth. “Damn, this is good.”
“Thanks.” After watching him for a second, she said, “It really doesn’t feel any different? Being here, I mean.”
“Looks different, sure,” Cash said, reaching for his coffee. “Feels different?” He shook his head. “My brain knows my father’s not here. That it’s been twenty years. But it’s like no time’s passed at all.”
“You still have some serious issues, then?” When he looked over, she shrugged and swept a strand of hair off her face. “I’m not judging. Just trying to get a feel for where you’re coming from.”
Cash set down his mug. “How much did Lee tell you?”
“That your daddy got religion when you were little. The kind that gets hung up on the hellfire-and-brimstone stuff and kinda misses the memo about loving one another. That he took the ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’ thing a little too literally.”
Despite being oddly grateful for her directness, Cash had some trouble swallowing the last bite of pie. “He also mention how my father made sure I felt like a worthless piece of garbage?”
When Emma didn’t answer, he glanced up, seeing something in her eyes that could suck him right in. If he let it. “That, too.”
Sitting back, Cash released a breath. “God knows I’ve tried long and hard to let go of the bad feelings. But apparently the roots run too deep to dig ‘em out completely. Like that old yellow rosebush alongside the fence out front.”
Emma curved her hands around her glass, smiling slightly. A farmer’s hands, blunt-nailed and rough. Strong. An indentation marked where her wedding ring had been.
“Lord, I hate that thing. A thousand thorns to every bloom. Every year, I’m digging up runners, cussing it the entire time. But I swear nothing short of napalm’s gonna kill it.”
From the living room, Annie got after one of the cats. Her lips still curved, Emma shook her head, then sighed. “When you’re a kid, you assume everybody’s life is like yours. That since your parents are loving, everyone’s are—”
“Trust me, the opposite doesn’t hold true. I knew other kids didn’t have fathers whupping the ‘sin’ out of ‘em. Knew, because it
