Bethany Campbell - One True Secret

“Tomorrow,” she said, still feeling dazed. “Good night.”

She listened to the click as he hung up. Her chest felt as if it were full of winged things, struggling to be free. As she hung up the phone, she thought, What have I done?

“YOU’VE done what?” Emerson demanded when Claire told her.

“I’m going to help show Merriman around tomorrow. He phoned and asked. He was very nice about it.”

Emerson stood in the doorway to the living room, her hand on her hip. She wanted to snap that of course he acted nice; he was trying to dig up all the dirt he could.

But something in Claire’s face stopped her. A kind of radiance shone from it, and Emerson had never seen Claire’s cheeks so pink. So she didn’t zing out a sarcastic answer.

“Be careful what you say,” she muttered.

“I will, I promise. But he’s not like the other one. He’s not like Eli Garner at all. He’s…different.”

With mixed feelings, Emerson realized that Claire was actually taken by this man. Up to now Claire had never had a real boyfriend…and she was twenty-five years old!

The men who had chased Claire had frightened or repelled her. The ones she admired, she admired from afar and in silence. Over the years, the few male friends she’d had were gay. Not flamboyant sorts, but boys as sensitive and almost as shy as she was.

Yes, it was high time Claire got interested in a man. But, Emerson fumed inwardly, why this one? He might be “nice” and “polite” as Claire hoped, but his alliance with Eli Garner made him suspect.

She trained a gaze on Claire she hoped didn’t show her very real reservations about the man. “They’re only going to be here an hour, you know.”

A sly man can do a lot of damage in an hour, Emerson thought. Especially to someone like Claire.

“I know,” Claire said, with a hint of defiance. “And so does he.”

“Shall I tell Nana about this decision? Or do you want to do it yourself?.”

“I’ll do it myself,” Claire said in the same tone. “Is she upstairs?”

“Yes.” Emerson didn’t have to tell Claire not to discuss the matter in front of the Captain. Extreme weather excited him. When the wind was high, so were his emotions.

Claire started upstairs. Fang stayed pressed close to her, as if only she could protect him from the storm. Emerson sighed, shook her long hair and ran her fingers through it.

Nana’s reaction, like Emerson’s, would be mixed. For a long time Nana had been wanting Claire to mingle more. But with the enemy? Emerson knew Eli was the enemy. Merriman seemed a gentler, more head-in-the-clouds sort, but was he really trustworthy?

She gritted her teeth. If Merriman used or betrayed Claire, Emerson would kill him, just plain murder him in cold, vengeful blood.

On impulse, she snatched up the phone. She glanced up the stairs, making sure Claire was out of earshot. Then she looked at the number Eli had scribbled on his card and dialed it, stabbing the phone buttons militantly. She wanted him to know she was capable of skinning him alive and nailing his hide to the wall.

He answered on the second ring, his deep voice lazy. “Eli Garner here.”

Drat! His voice sent a quiver through her midsection. “This is Emerson Roth. I want to talk to you.”

“Ah,” he said, “I was just wanting to talk to you.”

“Me?” she asked, taken aback.

“You. And your family. I’m watching weather reports. The hurricane.”

“Oh, that.” She spoke as if the storm was trifling, although in truth it had her deeply worried.

“Yeah, that.” He said the word as snidely as she had.

“It’s getting worse, veering closer. There’s talk of an evacuation order for the Keys. It may come tonight.”

“They can’t enforce it,” Emerson said. “They call it an order, but they can’t make people with solid homes go. And storms are unpredictable—”

“Like women?”

She squared her jaw. “If the hurricane scares you, Mr. Garner, I suggest you run. Get out while the getting’s good.”

“Ah, but I have an appointment with you tomorrow. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Providing your house is still standing, of course. And you’re still in it.”

“We’ll be here,” she vowed. But we may not stay.

“You’re determined not to evacuate?”

“I don’t plan on it.” This was a lie, because she’d spent all evening planning for it. Nana and the Captain wouldn’t like it, but she considered herself responsible for them. She would do whatever she had to do to keep them safe.

“On TV,” he drawled, “it said that usually twenty-five percent of the population wouldn’t leave, no matter how bad things get. You know what that tells me?”

“That we’re a hardy breed.”

“No. It tells me that at least twenty-five percent of you people down here are certifiably crazy.”

“Probably a conservative estimate,” she shot back. “But I didn’t call you about the weather. I want to talk about your photographer.”

“Oh. Merriman.”

“Yes. Merriman. He phoned my sister tonight.”

“Isn’t she allowed to take calls? Or is there a new law— Merriman can’t make them?”

Damn you, Emerson thought, wishing she could twist the phone cord around his neck. “They’re both adults. They can talk to whom they please.”

“That’s very generous of you. This afternoon you acted more like you were her keeper than her sister. And poor Merriman. You kicked him out. But now you’ve relented? How magnanimous.”

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