she’d enjoy the nice dinner her mother was making and some time with the kids her mother had taken care of.
For this one last day until Karen Tate left.
But Emmy couldn’t think about the fact that her mother was leaving tomorrow. About the fact that she would soon be on her own, not only with the farm and storm cleanup, but also with the house and the laundry and the meals and the kids, who included a colicky baby who cried for hours at night...
No, she couldn’t think about it. She was already tired and dirty and hungry, and she just couldn’t.
So she pushed everything out of her mind, turned the key in the ignition and started the truck’s engine.
“I sure hope you didn’t bite off more than I can chew, Mandy,” she muttered as she released the emergency brake.
Then she sighed and said, “One foot in front of the other, Em. That’s all you can do. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other.”
The truck made a cranky noise when she put it into gear and she reminded herself to add auto repair to the list of skills that would be good for a leaser to have. Then she drove down the dirt path that took her to the private drive leading to the house.
It was only once she was on the private drive that she saw another truck ahead of her. A black one almost as dated as the pale blue one she was in.
Company? She wasn’t expecting anyone. She and her mother were supposed to spend this evening going over the food her mother had stocked the freezer with and the revolving schedule of babysitters her mother had lined up to help with the kids. Then her mother needed to finish packing. She was leaving early Saturday morning, so Emmy doubted her mother had invited anyone over.
Hopefully it was just someone coming to say an impromptu goodbye to Karen Tate and Emmy could leave them to it while she hit the shower.
The other truck came to a stop near the front porch of the white two-story farmhouse. Emmy parked her own truck, paying little attention to the guest, who she was increasingly sure must be there to see her mother.
Until she got out of the truck.
The other driver had already disembarked and was standing beside his vehicle, facing Emmy, apparently waiting for her.
That was when she realized who her guest was.
Oh no, not him! Anybody but him!
Of all the people who had come to give condolences for her brother-in-law, Topher, in October, of all the people who had come to give condolences for Mandy during the last six weeks, of all the people who had come to visit or help since Emmy had taken over, of all the people in the whole wide world, not him.
Declan Madison.
He was her late brother-in-law’s best friend. The neighbor Topher had grown up with and considered a brother. The person Topher had gone to the naval academy with, who he’d served with in the marines. He was the person who had been with Topher when Topher died seven months ago, in an IED explosion in Afghanistan that also left Declan wounded.
And if it wasn’t bad enough that he was also tied to Emmy’s Afghanistan nightmare four and a half years ago, he’d rejected her in the worst way at Mandy and Topher’s wedding not long after that.
Emmy had dreaded the thought of seeing him again ever since.
But there he was.
She wanted to get back in the truck and drive as far away from him as she could get.
But he was staring straight at her and making this yet another bad situation she had to make the best of.
Feeling rooted to the spot, Emmy once again took a deep breath, breathed it out, then literally forced herself to put one foot in front of the other to cross the farmyard.
As she did, she took stock of him.
She didn’t know exactly how hurt he’d been in the explosion—she’d only heard that he’d survived. But looking at him now Emmy saw no clues as to what injuries he’d suffered.
As far as she could tell, there were no visible scars, no discernible differences in him. He still stood tall and straight—inches over six feet. His shoulders were still a mile wide, and even though he looked slightly leaner, the officer’s service uniform he was wearing was still packed with muscle.
It was only when her gaze went above the impressive body that she noticed a difference.
At first she thought it was just that he’d grown out the buzz cut from his black-coffee-colored hair. But a couple of steps closer made her realize that his handsome face had a new gravity to it. A brooding quality. Plus the hint of some weight lost there, too, had carved hollows that made his cheekbones and chiseled jawline more ruggedly drawn, adding an intensity to his exquisitely masculine features.
A few more steps took her near enough to better see the remarkable cobalt blue eyes that had mesmerized her in the past, and there she saw even more change.
There was no sparkle, none of the humor or lightheartedness that she’d seen in them before. Even his supple-looking mouth looked somber. It was as if the light had completely gone out in him.
“Declan,” Emmy said in greeting, hearing the chill in her own reception but unable to heat it up as she came to within feet of him and stopped.
“Emmy...” he answered with a heavy helping of his own reservations.
Only in that moment did Emmy remember how she looked herself—awful.
It was bad enough to have to meet up with this guy again, but to do it with no makeup, with stringy hair and all-around grunge? For the second time, she wanted to run the other way.
But she squared her shoulders as if she had nothing to be self-conscious about, thanked heaven that at least seeing him again still hadn’t caused flashbacks to Afghanistan and said bluntly, “What are you doing here?”
His clean-shaven chin went up a notch, defiantly, defensively. “I’ve been in one hospital after another since October and now I’m just out of two months of rehab—I was released three days ago. I thought I’d be coming to face Mandy, but then I got the news that she died?”
The question revealed understandable shock. As far as anyone knew, her sister had been a healthy, vital thirty-two-year-old.
“Apparently she had a congenital heart problem that no one knew about... She died in her sleep two weeks after Kit was born.”
“She made it through a second pregnancy, a second birth and then...” His full dark eyebrows arched and he shook his head in disbelief.
“My mom thinks Topher came for her so they could be together,” Emmy said softly, wanting to believe that, too.
The mention of Declan’s late friend caused those eyebrows to pulse together as if she’d struck a nerve before he said, “I’m sorry for your loss. I liked Mandy. She and Topher were good together.”
“They were,” Emmy agreed.
A moment of silence followed that
