A Second Chance in the Show Me State - Jessie Gussman Page 0,20
put her arms on the table and laid her head down on top of them. What had she been thinking? Instead of making things better, she’d just made them worse.
“I’m sorry, but we can’t really blame him for being angry.” Violet, the triplet that had become a vet, stroked Emerson’s hair gently. Her words were true, but she said them sweetly, almost tenderly. She wouldn’t lie to Emerson, and Emerson appreciated it, but Violet didn’t want to hurt her either.
“I know,” Emerson said again. Of course he was angry. She’d been an idiot. A mean idiot.
“Don’t be too hard on yourself. I think the fact that you still have feelings for him is what made you be unkind. You’re probably upset because it feels like he doesn’t.” Holly, who had never left the farm, and who had held things down while Daisy had become a doctor and Violet a vet, patted her arm.
Her words were too astute, and they made Emerson want to squirm even more.
“I don’t want to feel anything for him. I don’t want to care whether he feels anything for me.”
“Unfortunately, what we want and what we feel are usually two different things. You can’t just make yourself not feel things,” Daisy said.
“Are you sure you’re not a psychologist instead of a family doctor?” Emerson turned her head, still lying on her arm.
“In a small town, you’re a little bit of everything. Some people even bring their dogs in to me, if Violet’s out.”
“I bet the insurance company has a heyday with that,” Emerson said, lifting her head up and taking the tea that Daisy held out. “Thank you.”
“I never bill insurance companies. I had some hairy years there, when everyone had to have insurance, but I don’t deal with insurance companies. Period.” Daisy took a sip of her tea, seeming cool and unruffled.
Emerson scrunched her brows and tilted her head. “No insurance companies? How do people pay you?”
Daisy lifted a shoulder. “I don’t have to have as many people in my office. I don’t have to deal with all the paperwork. I don’t have to pay someone to do the paperwork. It doesn’t cost me as much, so I don’t have to charge as much, and people can afford it.” She grinned a little. “Stop looking so horrified. It’s different, but it works.”
Maybe if Emerson hadn’t been so wrapped up in Reid, she’d want to talk about that some more. The businessperson in her found that fascinating.
No insurance companies.
Thinking how much less paperwork and headache there would be if their companies didn’t need insurance, she tried to figure out if that were a viable possibility, but she had to let the thought go. There were too many variables, and she didn’t want to bore everyone with all those little bits of information that she found fascinating but put the rest of the world asleep.
Not to mention, all she wanted to think about was Reid.
“Why aren’t you guys at work? You didn’t take off just for me, did you?” She talked to them several weeks ago when she’d gotten her ticket and told them the day she was coming in.
Violet answered after she took a sip of tea. “Holly’s here all the time, along with our parents. Daisy and I each only work four days. But instead of having a regular day off, we schedule alternating days, and some weeks we line them up so that they match and we’re all here together, and some weeks we alternate so someone’s here with Holly.”
“That’s why we told you today worked,” Daisy said. “We already knew we were all going to be here.”
“The corn’s not ready to take off yet, and we’re kind of between harvests, although we’ve been getting a lot of vegetables. This is a perfect day, and we’re all really excited to see you.” Violet shifted the bowl of lemons she’d set on the table earlier, taking a slice and squeezing it into her tea.
In high school, Emerson and Reid had been best friends the whole way through. But Emerson had also had the triplets as girl pals. Even though there was just one of her, being that she was an only child, she seemed to fit in with them, and they joked sometimes that they were actually quadruplets.
“Why don’t you just tell him how you feel? I mean, what’s it going to matter?” Daisy moved her tea back away from the edge of the table and sat down. “You’re going back to Switzerland. Will it