19. Brock
CHAPTER 19
Brock
I t’s too quiet in the office without Emerson now, but I can’t bring myself to leave. I keep getting hints of her in remote corners of the office—or at least I had been up until a day or so ago.
Now I don’t smell her around anymore. But her presence still lingers.
Staring at my cell phone, my thumb hovers over the send button. It feels impersonal to send a text after all this time. This feels like more of a face-to-face discussion.
Inhaling, I delete the text before I can change my mind.
We do have to talk to her at some point, though. Why won’t she reach out to us?
When we finally talk to her, we have to be honest with her about the DNA test she wants. It won’t give her the answer she’s hoping for. Not with us. Identical triplets share the same DNA, which means a simple test won’t tell her anything useful. To get real answers, she’ll need something way more advanced. Expensive. Maybe even out of reach. But in the end, it doesn’t matter. This is our baby. She won’t be doing this alone.
The office door opens, and I toss the phone aside.
Owen strides in, his face pinched.
“Have you given any more thought to what I said?” he asks.
“About what?” I ask, knowing exactly what he’s asking me about.
He scowls. “Are you trying to be a dick on purpose?”
“I told you that we’re leaving things up to Emerson,” I say firmly.
“She’s not going to reach out, Brock. We need to go to her, or at least call her. To be honest, I think Toby’s tried.”
“Well, there you have it,” I say stiffly. “She doesn’t want us in her life.”
“No. I don’t buy that, and I don’t think you do either.” Owen takes the chair in front of me and pulls it up to the desk, draping his elbows over the tabletop. “Brock…”
I throw up my hands. “What do you want from me, Owen? You want me to go beg her to let us in her life?”
His brow furrows. “No. I want you to come with us when we tell her how we feel about her.”
Shocked, I sit back. “What?”
“You heard me. We’re going to Austin tonight?—”
“No!” I fire back, standing to splay my hands on the desk. “You aren’t!”
My eyes inadvertently turn toward the phone, silently willing Emerson to text me, to show me that she’s been thinking about us, caring about us, the same way we’ve been thinking about her.
Owen rises too, confusion flickering across his face before it sharpens into something harder. “You’re just being an asshole,” he tells me evenly. “And it’s not your call to make. We let you make a lot of decisions around here, but not this one. Not now”
Our eyes lock. “She doesn’t want us, you idiot,” I hiss. “Do you really want to go all the way down there and get rejected?”
My brashness takes Owen aback, but he maintains his stoic expression. “If that’s what it takes to show her that she’s not alone, then yes,” he answers quietly. “She wouldn’t have moved back home if she weren’t desperate, Brock. She doesn’t want to raise her baby there. She wants to be here, with us.”
“She sure as fuck has a funny way of showing it.”
“We need to go to her,” he insists. “Are you coming or not?”
His eyes bore into mine, and I again look at my cell phone, willing it to chime, to give me a sign.
Slowly, I sink back into my chair and shake my head.
“No,” I tell him. “I’m not going to get turned away. I have a ranch to run. And don’t come whining to me when she slams the door in your face.”
* * *
Rain starts in the early afternoon, not long after Owen leaves me, and I find myself staring out the window, lost in thought and unable to work.
In the drizzle against the panes, I make out the delicate lines of Emerson’s face, the sensuous curves of her body, those stolen moments in Las Vegas piling down on me again in a torrent.
Goddammit. I want her. I wanted her in Vegas, and I wanted her here. Owen’s right. I’m not going to be able to just let her go.
I pick up my phone and call my brother.
“Where are you?” I ask when he answers.
“Waiting for you to come to your senses,” he replies. “At the house.”
I chuckle. “I’m ready to go bring her home.”