sip left in the bottom. “A toast,” he said, “to good friends who make us feel special.”
All six of them touched glasses, and Emma got to her feet. “Another one. To Sophie and Teddy. May your life be filled with sunshine to warm your faces, laughter to feed your soul, and happiness every single day.”
“Hear, hear!” Josh raised his glass with the rest of them.
“Thank you.” Sophie suddenly wanted this party to be over so she could think. Sure, she’d be sad when Teddy left, but she felt like she was on an emotional roller coaster that was about to spin off the tracks.
Teddy finished his cake and gave her a sideways hug. “I’d love to stay all afternoon, but I should really be going. Walk me to the car, Sophie?”
“Of course, but don’t ever expect me to do it again,” she teased. “Y’all save me another piece of that cake. It’s better than all the fancy pastries in Paris.”
They walked arm in arm to his car, and he kissed her goodbye. “I don’t want to let you go,” he whispered.
“Me either,” she said, but deep down inside she really needed to analyze everything from the moving business to the fantastic gallery showings they had had. He took a step back, retrieved her bags from the truck, and set them on the porch.
Sophie felt like an emotional train wreck, and she couldn’t even figure out exactly why. She’d always felt like Teddy deserved more than she could give him, but it went deeper than that—deep enough that tears spilled down over her cheeks.
He kissed her wet cheeks. “You’ve never cried before. Are we all right? Something seems off with you.”
“I’m just fine.” She thought of the times when Emma had said that and yet, like her, she was anything but fine.
After one more long, lingering kiss, he got into the vehicle, and she closed the door. She waved until he disappeared around the first curve. Emma walked up behind her and slipped an arm around her waist. “Filly says they can take care of cleanup. I’m supposed to go with you and help you get unpacked. Are you going to be all right?”
“Yes, but not without tears, and I don’t even know why I feel like crying. This is our last goodbye, and I’ve never cried before. Everything is perfect, Em, but I feel like I’m smothering, like I can’t breathe. What’s wrong with me?” Sophie answered.
“I don’t know, but together we’ll figure it out,” Emma said and led her into the house.
Chapter Nineteen
Emma made sure there was not one single smidgen of cake left and then snuggled down into her bed. After a night on the sofa and one on the hard ground, she thought she would be happy to be in a nice soft bed and under her own covers, but she missed Josh. Six months ago, she would never have thought, not even for a split second, that she would toss and turn because a guy wasn’t lying next to her.
She sat up and beat her pillow, flopped back down, and covered up with a sheet. Then she heard a strange, muffled sound. Thinking that maybe Coco had gotten shut inside and wanted out, she threw back the covers and padded through the dark trailer to check both doors. No cat to be found, but the sound was still there. She tiptoed down the hall, noticed a light coming from under the bathroom door, and finally recognized the noise as crying, not a cat’s meows.
She eased the door open to find Sophie curled up on the floor, her hands over her face, crying like the end of the world had come. Emma eased down beside her and wrapped her arms around her. “Has someone died? Is Rebel all right? Did Teddy have an accident?”
“I had a fight with Teddy on the phone,” Sophie answered between heartbreaking sobs. “Teddy even ate all his cake, and this still happened.”
“What about? Is the wedding ceremony off?” Emma pulled Sophie up to a sitting position and kept her arms wrapped tightly around her.
“It was a silly fight. He wanted to take his sofa to our new house, and I told him I wanted to take mine because his was ugly,” Sophie said. “We wound up arguing, and I told him that he should have asked me before he went looking for a house and a gallery, and then he said I would have never picked anything out because I have these