Chapter Two #2
Aghast, Aubrey said, “You think that someone hit her on purpose?”
Emma turned a stunned look back at Connor, watching the scene from the doorway to her room.
He looked quickly away. His indolent lean against the hallway door held no answers and did nothing to distract her from the kick of unwelcome attraction she felt toward him.
There was no denying his beauty. Aristocratic yet raw.
Honestly, his mouth alone was enough to cause her to break out in a sweat, with that full lower lip always bent in a sexy scowl.
A disapproving, sexy scowl. Why was it that she was always attracted to men who judged her?
He certainly made no secret of it even as he attempted to seem unconcerned with her plight.
He seemed anxious for her to get on with it. Whatever “it” was.
But there was something else. Something in his gaze when she caught him studying her. Something she couldn’t quite identify, yet vaguely familiar. Or perhaps it was just the feeling that she found familiar.
Men.
Even male angels confounded her. And that she’d even just thought the word angels was enough to make her feel like she was losing it. Where was Gran when she needed her?
“Is there any reason you know of that someone might want to harm your aunt?” the officer asked Aubrey, opening his small flip notebook.
“No. Why would they? Everyone loves her.”
Her words sent a warm feeling rushing through her. Her friends, the women who worked for her, were her family. Her only family outside of Aubrey.
“Husbands? Ex-husbands? Boyfriends?” the officer asked. Emma’s thoughts raced in a new direction. “Disgruntled employees? Ms. James owns a successful real-estate company, is that right?”
“Yes, she owns it. She built it from the ground up. All of her employees are friends. Women, mostly. Women who needed jobs. Even I’m interning there this summer. And no, she’s not married. She’s never been married. She was— is —pretty much married to her job.”
Heat rose to Emma’s face. Married to my job? Is that what she thinks?
“There was a guy she was dating,” Aubrey continued, “sort of half seriously for a year or so. But he’s out of the picture now.”
“Happen to know his name?”
“Drake. Drake Lasserman.”
Drake would never —
“He’s a lawyer,” Aubrey went on. “Works at the law firm Billford, Bradley, and Cutler. But,” she said, “it couldn’t be him.”
The cop narrowed a dubious look at her. “You sound pretty certain.”
“It was over. He knew that. She made that clear.”
“I never liked that guy,” Jacob muttered.
“Why’s that?” the officer asked.
Jacob made a face. “Some guys you just know. They’d sucker punch you when they got the chance or step on you on their way up. That’s Drake Lasserman in a nutshell. I’ve seen him in action in the courtroom.” He shook his head.
Sadly, Emma had to agree. Drake was a jerk. Why had she even dated him? What was wrong with her that she always picked the wrong men?
“You a lawyer, too?” the officer asked Jacob.
“Yeah,” he said, extending his hand to the officer. “Jacob Warner.”
Jacob had never voiced his opinion about Drake to her, but she knew that Aubrey hadn’t ever liked Drake. She’d made that pretty clear early on. Despite her youth, Aubrey had seen coming what Emma hadn’t much sooner. But Drake wanted control. Emma wasn’t about to let anyone control her.
Connor lifted one dark eyebrow as if he’d been privy to that thought. She ignored him.
“My aunt broke it off with Drake weeks ago,” Aubrey continued. “It was her idea, not his, but I heard he took it well. As well as one could, I suppose, when it’s not your idea.”
“Why did she break it off?” he asked.
“That’s personal,” Emma announced to no one.
But Aubrey said, “Emma said she felt…suffocated. She’s a bit of a free spirit, I guess.”
Or a commitment-phobe. Aware of Connor’s perusal, Emma bit her lip and looked away.
“Can you think of anyone else?”
“Maybe you should be looking at that debris on the road before you go accusing the people in Emma’s life,” Aubrey told the officer. “I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt her.”
As a list of potential suspects spun through Emma’s mind, a sick feeling swelled up in her. This was her life they were talking about. Her life. Or what used to be her life. But no one she loved would want her dead. It had to be a simple case of road rage. Or a hit-and-run accident.
Emma couldn’t seem to quite catch her breath. She felt the hallway closing in on her.
“I just…I can’t—” she told Connor before fleeing down the hallway. Away from Aubrey and Jacob. Most of all, from that maddening man who was apparently an angel.
She rushed down the hallway but found herself in the waiting area, filled with people she knew. There were Dierdre, Joanne, Amanda and her sweet husband, Joe. Mark Wallace, who had just joined her team. Even Kinsey Adler, her assistant, was there.
The sight of all of them here caught her by surprise.
All of them waiting to see if she would live or die.
Amanda was crying. So was Dierdre. Kinsey, her short, boyish hair cut looking uncharacteristically messy today, sat ten chairs over from everyone else looking very…
stoic. But Emma couldn’t fault her for that.
That was just Kinsey. But she’d brought flowers for Emma.
They sat wilting on the chair beside her.
That was unexpected. Surprisingly sweet of her.
Emma suddenly recalled the conversation they’d had just the other day, when Kinsey had told her she’d earned her real-estate license and wanted to move away from contracts to become an agent.
To Emma’s regret, she’d tried to dissuade her.
Success in her line of work was relationship-based, but Kinsey was not a people person.
At all. But now Emma wished she’d encouraged her instead.
Good office managers were hard to find, true.
But why stand in the way of someone wanting to grow? Maybe she’d surprise everyone.
There was Diedre, who had just gone through a messy divorce, with two young boys to care for, who must have moved heaven and earth to arrange care for her boys to be here.
Dierdre was one of her top sellers, but only during school hours when someone else could take care of her boys.
It made things tricky for her, but Emma had supported her in every way she could.
Still, had she done enough? Had she been too wrapped up in her own career to really notice how much she was struggling?
Even Amanda—a woman who seemed totally together—had to work hard balancing selling condos with juggling her three kids’ sports schedules. Joe was fortunately supportive of her work. But sometimes, even the flexible hours were a challenge due to his demanding railroad job.
Looking at that roomful of coworkers gathered together, it struck her not for the first time that, except for these friendships and Aubrey, her life was relatively unfettered by intimate relationships.
She had no children to show for her thirty-three years, no husband, and not even a dog who required walking.
Just Winston, a very independent, self-sufficient cat.
Which said pretty much everything that needed to be said about the possibly “late” Emma James’s life.
Wildly connection free. Unencumbered by mad love.
“And what about Aubrey?” Amanda whispered to her husband. “Emma is the only family she has left in the world. She’ll be lost if…”
“Jacob will watch out for her,” Joe told her, patting her shoulder. “He seems like a good guy.”
“Three months, Joe. That’s how long they’ve been together, according to Emma. That’s not even long enough to know how someone likes his coffee. Much less become family.”
Emma had to agree. She liked Jacob. But really, who could actually deserve her Aubrey?
She was special, not just because Emma had spent the last seven years as her surrogate “mom.” But because from the moment she’d been born, Emma had adored that child.
Before she’d started her own firm, Emma had even flown to Rome four times to visit after Lizzy and Daniel had moved there when Aubrey turned seven.
Later, when they’d moved back and were off scouting locations for dives, it was Emma they called to stay with Aubrey.
Sometimes their trips would last for weeks at a time.
It had been one of those times when Aubrey had been with her that her parents had disappeared, never to return.
A pain of that memory was still as sharp today.
She was Lizzy’s mini me. Even now she looked so much like her with her thick, dark hair and brown eyes.
Never once did Emma forget the responsibility she had to Lizzy and Daniel to see Aubrey through to a happy life without them.
Aubrey was likely the only child she’d ever raise.
At thirty-three, Emma’s prospects of finding someone to father a child for her seemed as…
well, as unlikely as her chances right now of waking up—considering there was already an angel waiting for her to go.
She wanted out of this place. Now.
She reached the hospital entrance before she could make sense of her journey there but stopped at the glass front doors.
Somehow, without even fully willing herself to do so, she found herself outside. In the fresh air. Standing beneath one of the dozens of pine trees that lined the parking lot. How had she done that? Frankly, she didn’t care because now she felt free.
How strange, being outside in the world away from all that beeping noise of the machines and the sterile smell of the place.