Always Emily. Mary Sullivan

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      CHAPTER TWO

      EMILY CAME HOME to Accord angry, railing against men and their perfidy, and scared.

      She’d returned to answer the toughest questions of her life—who was Emily Jordan? Who had she allowed herself to become? And how did she find her way back to being a better person?

      And what on earth was she going to do with the rest of her life?

      The hand she ran across her forehead came away damp. She’d been sweating for three days. The fever had to break soon.

      She stood in front of her father’s house. Another year come and gone and nothing to show for it. She didn’t even have her own home.

      She wrapped her arms around her violin, pressing the case hard against her breastbone, anything to stop the shudders that wracked her body.

      Cars lined the long driveway to her dad’s house, a white sanctuary in a sea of green conifers, lit up like a birthday cake. As it should be. Today was his birthday—the big five-O—and she didn’t even have a birthday present for him. Was I always this self-centered? Then again, she was sick and had other things on her mind.

      Where were the years going? How did her father get to be fifty already? How could Emily herself possibly be thirty-one, and what did she have to show for it?

      At her age, her dad had been a parent for twelve years, had already made his first few million and had owned a big house in Seattle.

      Emily had the knapsack on her back, the violin she clutched to her chest like a treasured doll and a career as an archaeologist she would never pursue again.

      She’d left the dry, dusty heat of the Sudan behind as though she were a mummy shedding her wrappings, one difficult twist at a time.

      Too bad it felt as if those wrappings still clung to her, like a ribbon stretching between Colorado and the Middle East, sticking to her pores like the sand of the desert during a windstorm.

      She imagined one long thread of decaying but tough fabric winding its way across the earth from her to Jean-Marc. With that one artifact he’d hidden in her bag, he’d bound her to him.

      “Get lost,” she whispered to the mummy wrapping. It didn’t listen. Resigned to that tug toward a man and a part of the world she had rejected, she opened the front door and stepped into a wall of sound, light and warmth, of conviviality and happiness—the most beautiful, welcoming homecoming she could imagine. And it felt all wrong.

      Oh, the things she’d done. She didn’t deserve these people.

      “Emily!” The voice belonged to Laura, who rushed down the hall toward her with arms spread wide. If Dad was fifty, that made Laura fifty-three. Wasn’t it a crime for a woman her age to look so good when Emily felt like crap?

      Laura had a body men drooled over, albeit a little thicker around the middle than it used to be. Her chestnut hair, threaded now with silver but still thick, fell past her shoulders and framed a face with a few more wrinkles.

      A crocheted sweater fell off one shoulder, revealing freckles that dotted pale skin, and a filmy flowered skirt floated around her ankles. Earth mother.

      “Nick!” Laura called toward the kitchen. “Our girl is home!”

      Enveloping Emily in a hug, she cloaked her in a cloud of patchouli and incense, the scent so familiar and dear it brought Emily to the edge of control.

      She’d been awful to Laura when she’d first met her, a twelve-year-old witch who’d wanted her father all to herself, but Laura had persevered in creating a lasting friendship. Thank God.

      Emily didn’t think of Laura as a step-mom. More like a second mom. Emily’s first mom lived outside Paris, and Emily visited when she could. Laura pulled back from Emily, puzzlement wrinkling her brow. “Are you all right? You feel—”

      A fine-boned hand touched Emily’s elbow. Pearl. Her baby sister had grown up. Last time Emily had been home—one year, one month and three days ago, but who was counting?—Pearl had been eighteen. Now, at nineteen, adulthood showed on her face in quiet, elegant bones that spoke of blossoming maturity and dainty beauty.

      She had her mother’s striking thick chestnut hair rather than Emily’s tawny richness, almost overwhelming her delicate features, and striking blue eyes with the odd ring of hazel that she’d inherited from her Grandpa Mort, as Emily had. Oh, you beauty. The guys at college must be falling like dominoes.

      Emily’s features and body were sturdier than Pearl’s. Or usually were. At the moment, Emily was as weak as a kitten.

      Her little Pearl had grown up. Hard to believe Emily had ever resented Laura’s pregnancy all those years ago when it had produced such a devoted sister, and a too-perceptive friend. Pearl watched her with a knowing gaze. “What is it, Emily? What’s wrong?”

      “What? No greeting?” Emily said, voice brittle and too bright. “Aren’t you glad to see me?”

      “Emily,” Pearl admonished. She valued honestly.

      Emily deflated and said quietly, “Malaria.”

      Laura gasped and Emily touched her arm. “It’s okay. It’s uncomplicated.”

      “What does that mean?” Laura frowned. “Isn’t malaria bad? We need to get you to the doctor.”

      “I stopped at the hospital in Denver when the flight landed.” She dropped her knapsack and violin at the bottom of the stairs. She’d take them upstairs later, when her legs stopped feeling as heavy as stone sarcophagi. “I picked up medication, but it’s just to prevent further attacks in the future.”

      “What can we do this evening?” Pearl brushed hair back from Emily’s forehead.

      “Nothing. It has to run its course.”

      Laura placed a cool hand against her cheek. “What do you need?”

      “Water. Lots of cold water.” She’d returned to the land of plenty, where reaching for a glass of water was as natural as breathing. There were no shortages here, no rationing.

      Laura took her hand and dragged her to the kitchen, threading their way through the crowd of friends and family saying hello. Her father looked up from slicing something at the counter, saw Emily, grinned and dropped what he СКАЧАТЬ