Heatherly Bell - Breaking Emily's Rules

Jedd soon joined the fray to help Stone, not that he seemed to need any help and, between the two of them, they had the situation under control. Right now Emily had her own damage control to do and needed to get her sister back home. Her drunk and sad sister, who had fooled Emily into coming here tonight.

“Let’s get out of here.” Emily pulled her sister away from the commotion, throwing one last glance in the direction of her hot hero. His back was turned to her as he restrained Thomas, who was now calling out every expletive Emily had ever heard, and some she hadn’t.

This wasn’t the way she’d envisioned parting tonight, and her chest tightened with the mess she’d left Stone to handle. She should have explained that she couldn’t take it any further with him, not now. Not ever. Casually drop in the fact she didn’t do risky and didn’t do strangers. She didn’t do much of anything, period. Not anymore.

Emily pulled her sister away from the chaos and shoved a sobbing Molly in the front passenger side seat of the Chevy truck.

Good thing Molly was already crying or Emily would have said something to make her. Emily gripped the steering wheel and high-tailed it out of the parking lot, kicking up gravel. She turned left on Monterey Road and headed toward Fortune Ranch.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for it to happen,” Molly bawled.

“Look at it this way. Thomas won’t be driving anyone home tonight, which is the way it should be. But I thought we agreed. Why did you do this?”

“I wanted to feel good, even for a little while. Do you know how long it’s been since a man wanted me? I mean, really wanted me. And only me.”

“We’re not going there. You are not going to talk to me about being lonely.”

“I’m sorry. But you know how to be alone, and I don’t. I feel like crap. And I probably look like it, too.” Molly pulled out a tissue from the glove compartment.

“You ought to feel bad. The man took a hit to the jaw, and you don’t even know him.” Neither did she, but after tonight, she almost wished she did.

“I have to apologize to him.” Molly rubbed at her mascara-smeared raccoon eyes.

“Don’t worry yourself too much about it. Something tells me the man can handle himself.” Or had Molly missed those special forces–like skills he’d displayed? Emily didn’t even know what the man did for a living, but she’d bet her family’s ranch it didn’t involve sitting behind a desk.

“Before you say anything, I know I have to start making better choices.” Molly rocked back and forth in her seat.

She sounded so pathetic and broken. Emily wished she understood, but she still wasn’t sure she could put her finger on what exactly had gone wrong. Of course, Molly wasn’t talking about it, either. For the first six months of her daughter Sierra’s life, Molly isolated herself from the rest of her family. The next thing anyone knew, Molly had taken off to Hollywood, leaving Dylan and Sierra behind. To a place so foreign to the Parker family, she might as well have gone to Mars.

“You have to get your mind off men. They’re not going to make anything better for you. Work on yourself first, like I am. Everything else will fall into place then.”

Emily turned her truck at the large sign that welcomed one and all to “Fortune Family Ranch: Events/Weddings/Picnics.” Once a large cattle ranch, present times meant the Parker family had to diversify. Enterprise.

The new family business.

The truck rolled down the long dusty driveway, past the empty lots designated for parking, past the red barn that served as a gift shop and up to the main Victorian house sitting on the hill.

Emily parked and turned in her seat to give Molly her full attention. “Does Dylan know you’re back in town?”

“I hope not. You know how he hates me.”

“He doesn’t hate you. He’s just not happy with you right now. Can you blame him?”

“It’s his fault, anyway. Maybe if he’d come after me.”

“When you didn’t tell anyone where you’d gone? Don’t do this, Molly. It’s not his fault you left.”

Emily should have paid more attention to the situation at the time, and she still blamed herself for that. She should have seen that Molly was in over her head and going under. But a few of the times Emily had wanted to come over and help, Molly claimed the baby was sleeping, or the apartment was a mess or any one of many other excuses why they didn’t want company. The times Emily had managed to make it inside, the small efficiency had looked like a bomb had gone off. Stacks of baby diapers all over the house, clothes strewn in every corner, piles of dirty laundry practically tall enough to be a teepee, other clean clothes folded in the basket, dishes overflowing in the sink.

Molly and Dylan had managed to keep mostly to themselves, and whether it had been intentional or not Emily had never been sure. Dylan’s mother could barely stand Molly, and the unexpected pregnancy hadn’t helped. But Emily didn’t fully understand why Molly would have shut her own family out. Unless it had been because of Dylan, who thought Molly had been spoiled by their father for too long.

And true enough, had he had one look inside, he would have likely hired Molly a cleaning service. Not how Dylan rolled.

“You needed help, and maybe you didn’t know how to ask for it,” Emily said now.

“I know you tried, but Dylan always thought we should do it on our own. And of course, he was never around much to help me.”

“There was no shame in either one of you needing help. You’re both so young.” Emily now wished she’d bulldozed her way in more often. What if Molly had suffered from postpartum depression? Dylan, as a trained EMT, should have seen the signs. But maybe he’d been too close to the situation.

After Molly had gone, Emily tried for a few months to help Dylan with a colicky and often inconsolable Sierra. Eventually, due to logistics and family ties, most of the babysitting shifted to Violet, Dylan’s mother. Dylan stopped calling, and Emily, ashamed of her sister and tired of making excuses for her, stayed away.

“Maybe if he’d loved me more. It felt like the only thing we had in common anymore was Sierra. He barely touched me for six months. Do you know what that’s like?”

Molly didn’t want to go there with Emily right now. Did she know what it was like to have her heart ripped out seam by precious seam? “Does a broken engagement count?”

Molly didn’t look at Emily. “I’m sorry, Em.”

“It’s all right.”

But it wasn’t. Emily had never been engaged before Greg. Greg was reliable, safe, structured. A software engineer. If a girl couldn’t trust a man like Greg, who color-coded his ties, then whom could she trust? No one.

* * *

MAYBE NEXT TIME you’ll stay home.

The night wasn’t over until a cab service took Thomas Aguirre home, black eye covered with a bag of ice from the bar. But the real cherry on top of this sundae had been when Stone looked for the stacked blonde that had caused him his sore jaw and found her nowhere in sight. Not like she owed him a thing, but a simple kiss would have been nice. Maybe even a short “thanks.”

It usually took a woman at least a month to be this kind of trouble to him.

Now he had a bruised lip and sore jaw, thanks to being temporarily distracted by the way she stared into his eyes with a kind of trust that sent lava-level heat running through him. More to the point, the whole thing was his fault for being stupid enough to follow her outside and become mixed up in drama that was clearly none of his damn business. That should teach him.

Jedd brought out a bag of ice. “It’s a good thing we caught Thomas trying to leave with Molly, ’cause he had no business driving.”