Tomorrow's Sun (Lost Sanctuary) - By Becky Melby Page 0,74

resembled a black-and-white cardboard cutout folded on the kitchen floor. Each passing day infused a bit more depth and color.

He caught up with her and they walked in comfortable silence along a row of time-smoothed gravestones. Adam showed off his stack of rubbings then went off to find Lexi. Emily pulled out the phone Jake had rescued and took a picture of Elizabeth Shaw’s marker. “It’s haunting,” she said. “Not in a creepy way, just strange to think of the connections. This woman lived in my house.”

Jake couldn’t remember her calling it “my house” before. Good. Take ownership. Stay here. Half an hour of hand-holding and praying it out had convinced him once and for all to wave the white flag. He liked her. He wanted to pursue something deeper than friendship. If she snubbed him and rode off into the sunset in her ugly gray van, he’d be trashed for a while. But not trying would drive him crazy. “She probably helped design it—planned exactly where she wanted each wall.”

A featherlight fist cuffed his arm. “Are you familiar with the serenity prayer, Mr. Braden?”

Jake rubbed his arm. “Yes, and I totally agree with the ‘courage to change the things I can’ part.”

Emily’s laugh blended with the chirp of goldfinches from the border of trees. “But my mind is not one of those things. I was under no obligation to compromise with my contractor, but I let the windows and the trim and the ugly old cupboard stay, and he should be kissing my feet in gratitude.”

Tempting. If there weren’t children present. “When it comes time to sell, you’ll be the one kissing feet, Miss Foster.”

“We’ll see about that.” She turned with a huff, walked several feet, and stopped. At her feet stood a marble urn about ten inches high filled with daisies. The inscription on the pedestal beneath it read:

ANGEL MARIE

APRIL 14, 2011

STEP SOFTLY … A DREAM LIES BURIED HERE

One date marked both birth and death.

Emily covered her mouth with one hand. Her body stiffened. Jake put his arm across her shoulders. “How sad.”

She nodded and a sob ripped through her.

“Emily?” Jake turned her to face him then wrapped his arms around her. Her chest heaved, her shoulders shook. Hand against her hair, he pressed her close to his chest. Lord, what do I do? He held her until her sobs quieted. “Talk to me,” he whispered.

Minutes passed. Finally she took a shuddering breath, let out a word he couldn’t understand, and cleared her throat. “I was pregnant when I had the accident. I lost the baby.”

His arms tightened. “Emily. I’m so sorry.”

“It was too early to know”—she pulled away and swiped her face with both hands—“if it was a boy or a girl, but I know it was a boy. I just know.” The sobs resumed.

Again, he pulled her into the shelter of his arms. The tears he’d witnessed, the sad, drained look, all made sense now. “How awful.”

“I had no right—”

His chest tightened. “Lots of women ski early on in their pregnancies.” Didn’t they? He knew of one, the wife of a friend. “Accidents happen. You can’t blame yourself.”

“It wasn’t an accident.”

She shattered again. Jake felt like he was literally holding her together. Questions peppered his mind, but he didn’t voice them.

He simply let her cry it out.

The crayon snapped in Lexi’s hand. She stared at the bumpy red edges of the break, picked up a purple one and broke it, this time on purpose.

Emily was crying. And Jake was hugging her. Holding her like a child, his head resting on her hair—her short, wedged hair he was supposed to hate.

Who cared? Pansy would be home tomorrow. That was all that really mattered. That was all the family she needed anyway.

But she couldn’t keep from looking at Jake hugging Emily. She’d never seen him with his arms around anyone other than her mom or grandma. Sure, he gave Tina a goofy kiss on the cheek when he saw her, but everybody knew that didn’t mean anything. He’d brought the lady with the pretty hair to a family picnic once. She had a name from a book. Heidi. She was nice in a too-nice way, and pretty, but she whispered to Jake the whole time and hardly talked to anyone else. Adam told Jake he was glad when he dumped her. Adam said it, so Lexi didn’t have to.

It probably wasn’t going to happen that way with Emily. Jake looked happy and that should be important to her.