Tomorrow's Sun (Lost Sanctuary) - By Becky Melby Page 0,26
She prodded the slight bulge of her abdomen with one finger. “My OB says in a healthy pregnancy you’d actually have to be trying to hurt it for anything to happen.”
An unseen hand stretched over Emily’s windpipe. She turned away, pretending to be engrossed in the curved arm of an old rocking chair.
“That rocker belonged to my great-aunt. My mother got it when her cousin died. She was an only child and she’d never married, so there was no one to pass it on to. My mother said she was probably rocked in it when she was a baby, so it’s a little sentimental, but my sisters and I don’t have the room. I have my mom’s chair. She rocked us girls in it and nursed all my babies in this chair.” Her words used up the air Emily struggled to suck in through her closing throat.
“You said you had a little desk,” she rasped. “May I see it?”
“Sure. Sorry, I know I ramble.” She pointed at an oak desk with a single drawer. “You’re seriously going to live in your attic?”
Following slowly, Emily breathed the spots from her eyes and the thoughts from her head. “I’ll be out of the way and I won’t have to move from room to room.”
“Yeah, guess that makes sense.” Tina pulled a cloth from her back pocket and swiped it across the top of the desk, leaving a clean path in its wake. “The lady from the Historical Society almost bought this. Will it suit you?”
“It looks like it’ll fit through the attic door—that’s the main thing.” Emily turned a brass drawer knob. “I’ve been wanting to get in touch with someone from the Historical Society. I’d like some more information about the house.”
“It’s a one-woman show in this town. Dorothy Willett. I’ll introduce you. Hey! What are you doing on the twenty-third? It’s a Friday night.”
Emily opened the desk drawer and closed it again. She wasn’t here to make friends. She was here to make money. “I—”
“Are you in a relationship?”
Emily blinked. The boldness was disconcerting, yet easier to deal with than the eggshells friends and family had tiptoed over in her presence since the accident. “No. I’m not.”
“Wellll.” Tina’s voice rose up the scale. She held the single syllable until she ran out of breath. “Then it’s settled. We’re having a barbeque on the twenty-third. Dorothy will be there and Jake can pick you up.”
“No!” It popped out, too loud and way too emphatically. “I hardly know him. I mean, I don’t want—”
“Then this would be a great way to start.”
“Tina…” Her exhale scraped the lining of her tight throat. “I’m not staying here. I’ll be leaving Rochester at the end of the summer.”
“All the more reason. It’s the perfect setup for a summer romance with no strings.” Her smile spread like a puddle of glue. “Kiss and run. Oh, what fun.”
Emily promenaded up the sidewalk on the arm of a floor lamp. Her cane swung from the harp beneath a cockeyed shade. Clanging through her front door like a peddler, she dodged a head-on collision with the extension ladder descending the stairs. Her cane backflipped, hitting Jake in the shin.
“Ah!”
Emily gasped. “I’m sorry!”
Jake laughed. “That thing’s wicked.” The attic heat had tightened his disheveled waves. Rock-star tendrils skimmed his collar. Heredity and sunlight had accomplished what some guys paid dearly for, and he was probably oblivious to it.
And she shouldn’t be noticing. But as she did, “Kiss and run, oh what fun” played in her head like a jingle for a low-budget commercial.
“Did it hurt?”
“No.” He pointed to the lamp. “Want that in the attic?
She nodded. “This is just the beginning. I bought an air conditioner and a desk.”
“It’s going to be cozy up there. I tacked down that roll of vinyl I found, so half your floor is covered anyway.”
“Thank you. None of this is in your job description and—” Her phone rang. She grabbed it on the fourth ring, opening it as she raised it to her ear. “Hello?”
“Emily? Hi, it’s Sierra. How are you? I heard you moved.”
How am I? The question crackled across four states and eighteen months, amplified by guilt. Emily turned her back on Jake and staggered toward the dining room. She should be the one asking the question, should have asked it long ago. How could the girl still sound the same? Young, joyful, as if a hope-filled life still lay ahead of her? As if Emily hadn’t stolen her future. “I’m fine.