Lost And Found Family. Leigh Riker

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СКАЧАТЬ the anniversary party. The shattered moments of his and Emma’s lives.

CHAPTER TWO

      “I THOUGHT YOU’D be here sooner.”

      Emma had just stepped into Coolidge Park’s Walker Pavilion when Frankie—wearing an ivory gown and pearls—spotted her. On a drift of Chanel perfume, she gave Emma an air kiss on each cheek. “I wondered if you’d decided not to come.”

      Ah, but your wish is my command.

      Emma was wearing a sparkly, floor-length bronze dress for tonight’s fund-raiser. She’d even had her hair done today, sandwiching the appointment between a trip to Signal Mountain to begin redoing Mrs. Belkin’s closet, another tense phone call with her landlord and a quick dash home to shower then change.

      “Business,” she told Frankie. “Sorry.”

      Instantly Emma wished she’d said something else. Work was never a valid excuse for Frankie, whose daily life centered on her charitable activities.

      Despite Emma’s insistence that she and Christian come tonight, the event set her teeth on edge. This part of the city’s North Shore was now the place to see and be seen. That wasn’t a factor for Emma, who had few social pretensions. But she’d spent many afternoons here at the nearby carousel with Owen and didn’t need the reminder of happier times.

      “Is Christian here yet?” she asked.

      Frankie tilted her head toward a group of men, including her husband, in the far corner of the crowded pavilion. Emma easily picked out Christian. He stood taller than the rest, his dark hair, gray suit and white shirt like the beacon of a familiar lighthouse in some stormy harbor. He and Lanier were talking, but Christian looked tense. Emma recognized his I’m-with-my-father-and-I’m-not-myself-at-the-moment laugh.

      Frankie sensed trouble. “You didn’t drive in together? I assumed you were in the ladies’ room to freshen up.”

      Emma bit back a sigh. “Christian was tied up at the office all day. We missed each other at home. I had no choice but to drive my own car—being already late,” she couldn’t help adding. “He looks trapped. Excuse me.” With Frankie’s gaze following her, she crossed the room on high-heeled sandals.

      “Hey, good-looking,” she said, reaching Christian’s side, then flushed. The teasing words had come without thinking, as they might have less than a year ago. After their quarrel last night they sounded false.

      Yet his eyes warmed for a second. He turned to his father and the other men in the group, his tone a shade too hearty. “Am I a lucky man, or what?”

      Southern gentlemen to the core, they all politely agreed. She gave her father-in-law a quick kiss on the cheek, then slid her hand into Christian’s. “We need to circulate.”

      “Emma,” Lanier called her back. “We’ll talk about the party.”

      “Whenever you like,” she said.

      She and Christian continued across the room, greeting people here and there until an older woman swooped down on them in a flash of blue organza. Emma couldn’t remember her name, but she was one of Frankie’s charity friends.

      She hugged Christian, then cast a glance at Emma’s dress. “Lovely, my dear,” she said. “And how brave of you to come.” She patted Emma’s bare shoulder. “In your place I wouldn’t be able to leave the house.”

      Christian squeezed Emma’s hand. “We’re doing fine,” he said, then kept walking until another woman stopped them.

      “Emma. Frankie said you’d be here but I wasn’t sure...”

      “We wouldn’t miss it,” she murmured, her throat closing on the words.

      Grateful for his solid presence, Emma gripped Christian’s hand as he led her away. She spied Grace and Rafael Ramirez standing by the bar. Grace had married the barn’s trainer this past summer, much to Christian’s dismay. He still thought Grace, at twenty, was too young, and she’d quit college, rather than choose a major and then finish her degree, to become Rafe’s wife.

      Emma waved at them but they seemed to be in a deep discussion and didn’t respond. She glanced away—and there was Max Barrett. Her pulse skipped a beat. Later she’d have to apologize to him about the carousel horse. I don’t know what else to do except to start charging that poor pony rent.

      “Quite a gauntlet, hmm?” Christian said in her ear. “Thanks for rescuing me earlier. I was surrounded back there.”

      “I could tell. Lanier’s friends giving you a hard time?”

      Christian nodded. “It was a setup, I’m sure. All of them gave me the same advice. And Ed Wrigley actually offered me a job. Said if I wasn’t happy with Dad at Mallory Trucking he’d make it worth my while to leave the company.”

      Emma knew he’d become dissatisfied with his job in the front office, but why would anyone single him out in public?

      “The stockbroker?”

      “Yep. ‘Keep him in a suit,’ he said, ‘and we’ll make a real success of him yet.’ Or words to that effect.” He shrugged. “To make matters worse, his friends have some notion I should join them for a hunting trip. It’d be good for Bob, too, Dad said. More than once.”

      “Bob?” Emma couldn’t help but smile. “That dog has no idea of the life she was bred for. Chase after a bird? Stick feathers in her mouth?” She laughed. “The first time she saw a rifle she’d probably have a panic attack. She’d hate hunting.”

      “We’re two of a kind, then,” Christian said. “I put Dad off about a date, but every time I get near him lately I seem to end up frustrated or angry.”

      Perhaps, after last night, that applied to her, too. Emma laid a brief hand on his arm. “He only wants the best for you.”

      “Then why doesn’t he get off my back? I’m not some nineteen-year-old kid. He can’t tell me what to do with my wife—”

      He closed his eyes for a moment and Emma stared at him in shock. She’d always thought she and Lanier had a good relationship. He was trusting her to plan the anniversary party—not the sort of thing at which Emma normally excelled. Still, she hadn’t wanted to refuse.

      “I meant life,” Christian muttered.

      Emma looked away. “I know what you meant,” she said. “I’d better go help your mother with whatever she needs while you write our donation check. That’s why we came, isn’t it?”

      Separately, as Frankie had pointed out. Emma couldn’t remember the last time she and Christian had been together in a car. For a long moment he didn’t speak. Then he said, “Sorry. Guess I’m feeling raw tonight.” And still edgy after he and Emma had argued? He steered her toward the center of the room but she barely acknowledged the rest of the people they met.

      As they reached the other side of the pavilion, they walked right into a conversation between Frankie and Melanie Simmons, Christian’s ex-wife. The two were obviously sharing a moment, which reminded Emma of an oil painting СКАЧАТЬ