Tara Quinn - A Daughter's Story

“You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Yes, actually, I do.” Emma shook inside, scared to death but determined.

She’d done the unimaginable the night before. She’d left a bar with a man she didn’t know. She’d shed her clothes for him, spread her legs for him. And then she’d been left to wake up alone.

Somehow she had to make something good come from that. She had to make the night count. She had to become a changed woman.

“I’m warning you, Em. If you do this, if you really force me out of here, I won’t be back.”

She stood still and tried not to cry.

“I mean it.”

He took a step toward her.

“I know you mean it.” Emma could hardly believe the firmness of her tone. “I am changing the locks and anything that’s left behind, you lose. You’ve had twenty-four hours.”

“Fine, then. But mark my words, you’re going to regret this.”

She faced him one last time, aware of how she must look in yesterday’s clothes with last night’s rumpled hair, smeared makeup and unbrushed teeth. “That’s a chance I’m willing to take.”

Emma didn’t take chances.

But apparently the woman she’d unleashed the night before had caught a ride home with her.

CHAPTER NINE

CHRIS TOSSED BACK a few drinks with Jim at his house on Saturday night. The older man had taken a look at his boat and had verified what Chris already knew. He’d shot at least one piston. The Son Catcher wasn’t going anywhere until Chris came up with a thousand bucks and the time to fix her.

And if he kept dipping into his savings, he wasn’t going to have anything left for his retirement.

Not that he had any plans to quit working.

If he couldn’t fish, there wouldn’t be anything left to live for, anyway.

“You don’t come around enough, Chris.” Jim’s wife, Marta, put a plate of fresh crab sandwiches on the table in the enclosed patio and pulled up a stool.

“I don’t want to impose,” Chris said.

“Your folks have been gone almost ten years, and you’ve been here, what, five times since then?”

It sounded so bad when she put it like that.

“I miss our Friday-night dinners.”

Jim had been friends with Chris’s father in high school. When they’d married, their wives had also become close friends. The two couples had shared dinner together every Friday night. And after Chris had been born, the only child among them, he’d become a part of the tradition. One that had continued until his parents’ deaths.

After that, Chris found it easier to be alone.

* * *

EMMA SLEPT ON the couch Saturday night. With the television on.

She wasn’t afraid of burglars. Or of the dark.

She was afraid of herself, that—alone in the queen-size bed, in the room that she’d shared for two years—she’d toss and turn and feel desperate.

She was afraid she’d do something crazy. Like call Rob. He’d be expecting a call. And, in spite of what he said, he’d come back.

She knew him well, too.

Another possibility, a worse one, was that she’d leave the house and go down to Citadel’s. If Chris made his living there, he’d have to be there more than one night a week. Weekends were the biggest draw.

And if he was booked someplace else, Cody would probably know about that, too.

As badly as Emma wanted to see him again, she knew she shouldn’t. So she didn’t sleep much.

But she caught up on I Love Lucy reruns. And when dawn still took too long to arrive, she put in Pillow Talk, one of her favorite movies from her Doris Day collection. Emma owned every single movie Doris Day had ever made.

She loved them all.

Doris always got her guy. But she never lost sight of who she was in the process. Always remained true to herself.

She was an icon in her day, a woman before her time. The characters Doris depicted were strong women. Women who didn’t need men to complete them, who were successful in their own right and found men to complement them.

Men who were so in love with her characters, that love changed them from playboys into faithful partners for life.

At seven in the morning, as the end credits of Pillow Talk played, Emma reached into the side-table drawer, pulled out a journal—an unused gift from one of her students—and opened it to the first page.

She wrote her name in large black print: EMMA SANDERSON.

And then she started a list.

1. I want to be loved by a man who loves me so much that that love changes him.

She waited for more to come to her, and when nothing presented itself, she closed the journal and put it back in the drawer. Then she went to take a shower and begin the rest of her life.

* * *

AT NINE O’CLOCK Sunday morning, Emma picked up the phone.

Ramsey Miller had given her Cal’s number, after obtaining Cal’s permission to do so. She’d programmed it into the contact list on her cell phone.

She’d let it sit there.

With the push of a button, she made another major life decision.

Her heart was pounding as she waited for Cal to pick up.

“Hello?”

His voice was deep. Distinguished.

“Hello?”

She almost hung up. She had no idea what she was getting into. What kind of Pandora’s box she could be opening. What if the Whittiers tried to sue them?

“Hello?” Cal sounded more perplexed than irritated by the silence on the other end. The young boy she remembered had always been so patient with her and Claire. So willing to listen.

“Cal?”

“Yes?”

“It’s Emma. Emma Sanderson. Detective Ramsey Miller told me that you said it was all right to call and…” I’m a new woman now. Or at least I’m trying to be.

“Emma. I wondered if that was you when I saw the area code and didn’t recognize the number.” There was hesitation in his voice. Not that she could blame him.

“I just… I called to apologize, Cal. I know that nothing I can say will ever make up for what happened to you—and to your father.…”

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