now?”
“He’s still at his restaurant. I was bored over there, so he called Ms. Cora Jane and she said it was okay if I came over here with Tommy.”
“Does she know you’re in here with me?”
“Uh-huh,” he said, then flushed guiltily. “She sent me in to tell you to get back outside and get to work.”
Emily laughed, immediately suspicious that it hadn’t been Cora Jane’s sole motive. “Did she really? Well, how about we don’t tell her that you forgot? We’ll tell her that I asked for your expert opinion on the job I’m working on. That’ll make you my consultant.”
“Really?” he said, his eyes wide.
“Sure thing,” she said. “But I guess my break is over. I’d better do what she said and get outside.”
And later she’d have a few words with her grandmother about deliberately sending B.J. inside for the sole purpose of nudging the two of them a little closer. She had a feeling there was going to come a time when she’d regret that it had worked so successfully.
* * *
Boone had arrived at Castle’s and stepped inside the restaurant just in time to overhear his son’s conversation with Emily. Her insight and her tenderness caught him by surprise, but it was B.J.’s fear of upsetting him that made his heart ache. He slipped back outside before they caught sight of him.
“Weren’t they in there?” Cora Jane asked, looking puzzled by his quick retreat.
“They were there,” he said tightly.
“Why do you sound angry about that?”
“I’m not angry,” he said. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was feeling, but anger wasn’t part of it. Blind panic, maybe. Once again, he’d seen evidence of his boy bonding with a woman who would wind up leaving and hurting him. There were a lot of things in life he hadn’t been able to protect B.J. against, but he hadn’t anticipated needing to protect him from another loss quite so soon.
“I think I’d better keep him away from here for the next couple of weeks,” he said, trying to figure out how he’d pull that off without a major rebellion on B.J.’s part.
“Why on earth would you do such a thing?” Cora Jane asked, clearly mystified.
“He’s getting too close to Emily.”
“Seems to me that’s a good thing for both of them,” she replied.
“She’s leaving,” Boone reminded her. “Me, I know how that works, how it feels. He’s a kid. He’s already lost his mother. What if he gets attached to Emily and she walks out of his life? How’s he supposed to cope with that?”
Cora Jane regarded him impatiently. “I know you have your issues with Emily, but do you really think she’d be so cruel that she’d get close to B.J., then walk away without looking back? You’re not giving her much credit.”
“Why should I? She left me without a backward glance.”
“And we both know why she did that,” Cora Jane reminded him gently. “She was terrified that with one word, you could make her stay. Instead you didn’t even try. Worse, in the blink of an eye, you turned right around and married Jenny.”
He frowned at the hint of accusation he heard in her voice. “You actually think the breakup was my fault?”
She smiled at his indignation. “No, I think she broke up and your pride stopped you from trying to fix things.”
“You let her go because you loved her,” he accused. “How is what I did any different? I could see she’d never be happy here with me.”
“Really? Even though you could have offered her something I couldn’t, the future she really wants?”
“Cora Jane, she made it abundantly clear that a future with me wasn’t what she wanted.”
“Maybe not right that second,” she conceded. “But she loved you then, and I believe she loves you now. She just has to figure out how to have it all, that choosing you doesn’t mean sacrificing the career she wants. That’s a lesson that comes with maturity. I think she’s just about there now.”
Boone scowled at her. “Too late,” he said stubbornly. “What’s that expression—once burned, twice shy?”
“So you don’t believe in second chances? Seems to me you had a couple of them in your day. I recall sending my husband to the police station one night to bail you out when you got caught trying to buy beer with a fake ID. You called me instead of your folks.”
Boone winced. “I was an idiot.”
“But I didn’t hold it against you, did I?” she said, not denying the truth of his assessment.
“Because