Chapter Nine #2
Even if she and Emmett did possibly start seeing each other, they'd maybe develop the kind of friendship that included a handful of dates.
At their age and in their situation, it hardly warranted the blooming of flowers and the bursting forth of a new spring in life.
The two of them were in autumn, not spring.
When she pulled up out front, she was surprised when the door opened and Emmett came out. She was used to Tanya rushing out to greet her, but this was new. And he looked pleased to see her.
She let her gaze travel over him as he strode toward the truck—that easy confidence she'd noticed before, unhurried but purposeful.
The green shirt stretched across his broad shoulders, and those had to be his Sunday best jeans—bright blue, not faded from work.
Without his usual cowboy hat, his mostly gray hair caught her eye. She didn't see him bareheaded often.
As he opened the door for her, she noted that the shirt brought out the green in his eyes. She'd say they were hazel, but the colors seemed to shift like the tide. As she stared into them, she decided that green might be her favorite.
"Hi," she said, suddenly lost for words.
He chuckled. "Hey, sorry if you were thinking you could give yourself a minute to gather your thoughts before you came in, and I ruined it."
She laughed at that. "I thought you knew me better than that."
He cocked an eyebrow.
"I don't do too well at gathering my thoughts. They tend to spill out of my mouth before I get ahold of them."
He chuckled. "Can't say I'd noticed."
She climbed down from the truck and slapped his arm, saying, "If we're going to get along, there's no point in trying to be polite. I have a nasty habit of running my mouth when I shouldn't, and we both know it."
"I wouldn't call it a nasty habit," he said with a shrug. "You speak the truth, and that's a trait I value."
"Good, I'm glad." She pointed to the rear door. "I just need to get..."
He opened the door and gathered her things. "That's okay, I came out to give you a hand." He hesitated. "Oh shit, wait, am I okay to do this? I'm not trying to take over, I'm just..."
She laughed. "You're fine, I appreciate it. And if the look on my face said otherwise, you have to remember that I tend to be just as self-reliant as you are."
"Yeah, that's what I realized. If I overstep, just let me know."
She laughed at that. "You can bet your ass I will."
He laughed with her and jerked his chin toward the house. "Want to come in, then? The food's almost ready." He peered into the bag she'd brought, and his eyes widened. "Apple pie and ice cream?"
"Yeah, I hope that's okay."
He chuckled. "It's more than okay. It's my favorite."
"I'd love to say I knew and that's why I brought it, but I had no clue; it was just a lucky guess."
"Whatever the reason, I'm just glad you did." He glanced up at the house. "Maybe one day you can teach us how to make it."
She raised her eyebrows.
"I do all right with cooking. I mean, I'm no chef or anything, but I keep us fed. But when it comes to baking, I'm a total disaster in the kitchen. We tried a few times, and we had a few laughs, but the girls voted that whenever we're going to have dessert, we have to get it from the bakery."
"I'll be happy to give you baking lessons. It's one of my favorite things to do in my downtime."
"Do you get much downtime... I mean in the normal run of things? I figured as an editor in New York, you'd be a busy lady. Are you like on sabbatical while you're here?"
She shrugged. "I left my job when I moved. In theory, I'm setting myself up to work freelance with some of my authors, but..." She looked out at the mountains before turning back to him. "I'm discovering, now that I'm here, that I enjoy having my time to myself more than I enjoy working."
His smile faded. "Are we taking up too much of your time, you know, running around with the girls?"
"You are not," she said firmly. "I think you already know me well enough to know that I do what I please. But come on, we should get the ice cream into the freezer."
~ ~ ~
When they'd finished eating, Emmett leaned back in his chair and patted his stomach. "That was so good, thank you."
Harper laughed. "Don't thank me, you did the hard work. The food was wonderful. All I did was bring dessert."
Alana laughed. "Dessert's a big deal around here, Harper, you need to understand that. We tried to learn baking for a while, didn't we, Dad?"
"Yeah, but it didn't turn out too well," Tanya said, screwing up her nose. "Do you remember those nasty hard cookies?"
Emmett laughed. "I try to forget about them."
"And the flat cake," Emmett asked.
The girls laughed, and Alana explained to Harper, "We were supposed to add some raising stuff in it, apparently, but none of us knew that. It came out more like a pancake cake than anything else."
"It didn't taste too bad, though," said Tanya. "I put jam and frosting on mine."
Emmett laughed. "Tanya's our sweet tooth."
He pushed his chair back, about to clear the table. But the girls jumped to their feet and started grabbing dishes. "We can do it," said Alana. "You guys both did your part. It's our turn now."
He gave her an inquiring look, but she just gave him a bright smile as she and Tanya made their way to the kitchen.
Harper watched them go, but her smile turned to a frown when her gaze landed in the corner of the room. He knew exactly what she'd spotted.
"Damn, sorry," he said, as he got to his feet. "I should have put that away. They're usually all locked up in the cabinet," he assured her.
"I never said a word."
He picked up the rifle from the corner of the room and returned it to the gun cabinet. "No, I know, but you didn't need to. And don't worry, Harper. The girls know all about gun safety. It's just..."
His heart was pounding. He'd had a run-in with some hikers who turned out to be from New York a couple of weeks ago when he was riding out with a rancher whose cattle had been predated by wolves.
They only expected to find carcasses, but were both carrying their rifles in case they found the wolves, too.
He knew that city folks sometimes weren't big fans of guns, but at the sight of the rifles, those New Yorkers had given them an earful.
He thought of himself as a reasonable man and had wanted to try to explain it was a cultural difference, but.
.. Now, from the look on Harper's face, he had a sinking feeling that she might feel the same way.
The silence between them felt brittle, as if it might shatter into a thousand pieces. He wanted to explain, but he dreaded seeing that same fearful, hate-filled look on her face that those hikers had given him.
"Hey, Dad, we're just..." Alana stepped back into the dining room and stopped abruptly when she saw their faces.
"You're just what, honey?"
Alana looked from him to Harper and back again. "I came to say that we're going upstairs to do our homework now, but what's wrong?"
He pressed his lips together, wondering what, if anything, he should say.
Harper’s voice sounded strained as she said, "Nothing's wrong, sweetheart, it's fine."
Tanya came to stand beside her sister. "What's going on, guys?"
She looked so worried that Emmett had to set her at ease. "It's okay, Button, there's nothing wrong. It's just that Harper spotted the rifle. It's my fault; I hadn't put it back in the cabinet."
Both girls swung their heads to look at Harper.
"You have a problem with guns?" Alana asked.
Harper shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
"I... " She met Emmett's gaze. "I don't have a problem with you having them.
I'm certainly not judging you for it." She turned to the girls.
"And I know damn well that with the relationship you guys have with your dad, you'll be well trained in how to be safe around them. "
"And how to use them," said Tanya matter-of-factly, making Emmett cringe.
"Is it because you're from the city and you just don't know about guns?" Alana asked, sounding as though she was prepared to cut Harper some slack if her problem was only due to ignorance.
Harper let out a short, humorless laugh. "Kind of yes and kind of no."
"What then?" asked Tanya, going to stand beside Harper and resting her hand on her shoulder.
"It's okay, you know, you don't need to be scared.
Guns aren't dangerous by themselves. It's the people who use them that can be dangerous.
Guns are bad when bad guys get ahold of them.
But we don't let that happen around here, right Dad? "
"Right," Emmett agreed, still waiting to hear what Harper had to say.
She gave him a tight smile. "You know what, I think that's what my problem is.
Where I come from, only the bad guys have guns.
And... it was a long time ago now. But after the night I found myself staring down the barrel of one while my purse was taken, I'm not a huge fan.
" She looked around at them. "But since I don't think any of you are going to mug me, we should probably be fine, right? "
Tanya wrapped her arm around Harper's shoulders. "I'm sorry that happened to you, that must have been scary."
Harper shuddered. "It was, I don't like to think about it.
But like I said, it was a long time ago.
" She smiled at Alana before turning back to Emmett.
"Sorry I reacted that way. I wasn't judging you.
I guess I was more concerned about you guys judging me.
" Her smile was brighter and seemed a little more genuine as she added, "I don't want you guys thinking I'm a weenie. "
Alana chuckled. "You're no weenie, you're a badass. Even if you're not used to guns."
"Thanks, I think."
"So, are you guys okay, then?" Alana asked.
"We're good, thanks," Emmett told her.
"Good." She gave her sister a meaningful look as she continued. "Because we were just about to go upstairs to do homework. I have to help Tanya with that pre-algebra, remember?"
Emmett did his best to hide a smile as he said, "Oh yeah, that's right. You'd better get on with it then."
Tanya grinned back at them from the doorway before she followed her sister upstairs.
When he caught Harper's gaze, she smiled at him.
"They weren't exactly subtle, were they?" he asked.
She chuckled. "No, but they mean well."
"Oh, I know, I'm not going to give them a hard time about it or anything."
"I didn't think you would. They love you, Emmett. They're trying to look out for you."
"I know." He held her gaze for a moment. "And they seem to think that this is a good idea."
She nodded slowly. "They do."
"What about you?" he asked after a few moments.
"I think it could be. I'd like for it to be. But I think we'd need to proceed cautiously."
"Yeah, there's no question about that." He glanced through the doorway where the girls had disappeared. "I know they're enthusiastic right now."
"But they could change their minds at any point," Harper continued.
"Yeah."
"And if they do, I'll respect it. I'll back away. They're the most important ones in all of this."
He didn't answer that. Of course the girls were important. But... he inhaled deeply when it hit him, for maybe the first time since Emily died, that as important as the girls were to him, he had a right to a life for himself as well.