Overprotective Cowboy - Elana Johnson Page 0,19
just meant…do you like her?”
“Sure, I like her,” Ted said, grinning now.
“Okay, this is ridiculous.” Nate wadded up the paper from his second burger and put it in the bag. “Let’s go back to the ranch.” He backed out of the space while Ted took a long drink of his soda.
“I think it’s interesting you asked how I know her,” Ted said as they left the busier part of town behind them. “I don’t know her, but I did recognize her at the house yesterday. Today, I realized how—she was a known associate in a case I was working before I, you know, assaulted that police officer.”
“Okay, first off,” Nate said. “You didn’t assault anyone. And second, really? She was a bad guy in a case?”
“A known associate is not a bad guy,” Ted said, chuckling. “It just means we wanted to talk to her. Interview her. Find out everything she knew about the guy we were taking to court. We’d get affidavits from known associates, and sworn statements, and sometimes, you could establish an alibi—or break one—with those interviews.”
“So you interviewed her?”
“I didn’t, no,” he said. “I don’t recall if she ever got interviewed or who did it. I just remember her face.” He could still see it in the file, and she definitely hadn’t swept on perfectly pointed wings of eyeliner back then.
“Does she know you know anything about her?”
Ted shook his head, pieces falling together in his mind. “But she was really upset about that guy in the blue grasshopper truck. And she was a known associate—the girlfriend of a Knight, from the Knight crime family.” He looked at Nate. “What if she’s mixed up in something bad?”
“From a decade ago?” Nate swung his attention to Ted. “She’s been working at Hope Eternal for ten years.”
“Yeah,” Ted said, his pulse quieting again. “It doesn’t make sense that something would follow her for that long.”
Nate said nothing, because he’d had loose ends to tie up after he’d gotten out of prison. Ted didn’t; not really.
But maybe Emma had some dangling strings from her past that still needed to be stitched up. If so, what were they?
Ted really wanted to know, because he never wanted to witness her sobbing in a panicked state again. He wanted to help her, protect her. That was what he’d always wanted to do for the people he’d served as a lawyer.
But he wasn’t a lawyer anymore, and she wasn’t one of his clients.
As he put away his groceries and clipped price tags from his new clothes, he actually let his mind wander down the path that led toward a future with him and Emma in it together…just like Nate and Ginger.
It was a scary walk, but a beautiful outcome, and Ted decided he’d simply ask Emma if she knew Robert Knight the next time they were alone together.
Easy, he thought, but he instinctively knew nothing with Emma was going to be easy. He was going to ask her anyway.
Chapter Six
Emma finished feeding Ruby, a sharp pain pulling through her back. “All right, girl,” she said to the horse, pulling the empty bottle from her lips. “You got it all.” She stood up and stretched her back, a groan coming from her mouth.
This day had felt like a week, as her emotions had been all over the place. She’d started the day with a scream, been surprised at the homestead, then had a near-panic attack. She’d been exhausted on the way to the downtown mall, but she’d gone because she needed a new phone.
She’d gotten that, and she’d been able to keep the same SIM card, so all of her contacts were still there. She wasn’t great at using the newest electronics, but she could text and call, and everything else she could figure out later.
Emma had used her credit card to buy the new phone, because so much of what she made at work she sent to Fran and Matt Black, the couple who took care of Missy for her. They were raising her as their daughter, and while her official birth certificate said Missy Clemson, they’d gotten a new one with their last name on it so they could register her for school under their surname.
Fran had said Emma didn’t have to send money, but Emma did anyway. She didn’t want Missy to want for anything, and if that meant she put her fancy cell phone on a credit card, that was fine with her. Fran and Matt hadn’t adopted Missy; she