Chapter Fifteen
"How are the girls holding up?" Trip asked as he straightened up.
"They'll be fine," said Emmett. "They were a bit scared when Cash brought them home this morning and they saw the state I’m in."
Trip pursed his lips. "I hate to say it, bud, but I can see why. You're not exactly a pretty sight."
"I know." Emmett closed his eyes against the thudding inside his head. The light was too bright and the room kept going fuzzy.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Trip asked.
"Yeah, I'm good." Emmett opened his eyes again. "I mean, it's not much fun, but I'll survive."
"Too damn right you will. I'm here to make sure of it. Which hurts worse?"
Emmett gave him a wry smile. "The ribs. It has to be the ribs."
"Well, as much as that sucks for you, I'm glad to hear it. That's the way it should be. We want your head to be low grade pain, and the hole in your shoulder isn’t fun, but as long as it’s not infected, it shouldn’t even register on the pain scale compared to your ribs.
Have you figured out what you're going to do about work yet? "
"Janey sent me a message this morning. She's going to come over tomorrow so that we can work through next week's appointments. She thinks she's going to figure out how she can cover them all. In the meantime, I'm trying to figure out how I can."
"You can't," said Trip. "Be real, Emmett. You can't even try; there's no way."
"No, I know that, but I have to figure something out, Trip. There's no way I can sit here on my ass all week."
"I know I won't win any arguments with you over that. All I'll say is, next time you're hobbling down the hallway to the bathroom, think about how you'll feel riding in a truck with someone else driving."
Emmett let out a breath. "Yeah, yeah, I know."
"I don't want to give you a hard time; I want you to heal. I know the girls are going to help as much as they can, but they can't do everything."
"And I wouldn't ask them to," Emmett said a little too sharply. He lifted a hand as if to apologize, but Trip shook his head.
"I know you wouldn't. I'm just wondering who is going to step up and help out. Shelley and I will..."
"I know you would. Thanks. Everyone would. But Blane's offered himself up to be my chauffeur and personal assistant."
"That's no surprise," said Trip. "And Harper?"
"Yeah, she's offered, too."
"You don't sound happy about that. You don't want to have to rely on her?"
"No, it's not that. Well, maybe it is. It's just that it's not ideal as we're starting to get to know each other."
"Maybe not," said Trip, "but then again, maybe it is. It seems to me that if she's carrying part of the load until you get back on your feet, you two will get to know each other a whole lot better, a whole lot quicker."
Emmett nodded slowly.
"Are you saying you're not ready for that?" Trip asked.
"As much as it surprises me, I think I am. It's the girls I'm not so sure about."
"You think they'd have a problem with Harper or with her being here?"
"I don't know, but I don't want to put them in a situation where we have to find out that they're not happy about it."
"I guess not."
"All we can do is play it by ear."
"Is Harper coming back later?"
"She told me to call her if I need her. And then said she'll check in later anyway."
"Well, I know it's none of my business, but if I were you, I'd roll with it, see how things go. Harper's good people."
"I know that."
They both turned at the sound of movement in the hallway.
"Do you think that's Blane back already?" Trip asked.
"Not yet," said Emmett. He didn't want to tell Trip, but he had a feeling that the sound out there might have been Alana listening in. Blane had taken Tanya on a ride along up to town to get pizza. But Alana had wanted to stick around and only left the room when Trip wanted to examine him.
"Would you do me a favor? Would you give Alana a shout and let her know that it's safe to come back in?"
"Sure." Trip went to open the living room door and Emmett wasn't surprised that before he reached it, Alana called, "Are you nearly done yet? Can I come back down?"
He smiled to himself when Trip opened the door and said, "You must be a mind reader. I was just about to call you."
Alana came back into the living room and sat on the floor beside the couch, looking up at Emmett. "So, how are you? What's the verdict?" She glanced over at Trip.
"He's going to be fine," Trip told her. "It'll take time. He has a lot of healing to do."
Emmett bit the inside of his cheek when Alana turned her gaze back on him. She looked so much like her mom, it made all the breath catch in his chest.
"If you're going to heal, you need to rest," she told him. "Me and Tanya can take care of things around here."
Emmett's eyebrows drew together. If she had been listening to him and Trip talking, was this her way of saying that she didn't want Harper around? He felt like he needed to walk through a minefield, and at the moment he was barely capable of even standing.
Some of the tension left his shoulders when Alana continued. "We can't stay home from school though, so you're going to need help during the day." She met his gaze and raised her eyebrows expectantly; another echo of her mom that made him smile.
"I'll be fine," he told her. "If I have to stay home, then all I'll be doing is sitting right here, waiting to heal."
"No, you can't stay home alone." Alana glanced at Trip. "Isn't that right? He needs someone with him, doesn't he?"
Trip nodded at her, even as he gave Emmett a puzzled smile. "I think it'd be better to have someone around, yes."
"Uncle Blane has to work."
Emmett couldn't figure out where she was going with this, so rather than reply, he waited for her to continue.
She gave him a pointed look. "Okay, Dad, I'll just come out and say it. I think we should ask Harper to stay."
"To stay?" he asked, more than a little surprised.
"Yeah, why not? We all know her, we all like her. You guys were starting to hang out more anyway. She knows our routines. She's a really good cook—and she always says she enjoys cooking, too. I'm not trying to make it a job for her. She says she enjoys it."
"She does. She made omelets this morning, and they were really good," Emmett said with a smile.
"I wish she hadn't left before we got here. She didn't leave because of us, did she?"
"No, she needed to go home. She needed a shower, and..."
Alana narrowed her eyes at him. "Did she stay here all night?"
"She did, yeah."
"I insisted," said Trip. "Someone had to keep an eye on your dad through the night."
Emmett was more than a little surprised when she smiled at that. "Well, then I definitely think she should stay. Tanya could sleep through an earthquake, and I'd be too... worried."
"About what?"
"About having to make adult decisions before I'm ready—before I'm old enough and wise enough to make the right ones," she added with a sassy smile.
He narrowed his eyes at her. "You wouldn't be using my own words against me, would you?"
"Would I ever do something like that?"
He reached out to run his hand over her hair. "I believe you might, Sprout."
She looked so much older than her years when she met his gaze and said, "Only because I want what's best for you."
His heart squeezed tight in his chest, and she nodded at him before shrugging her shoulders and getting back to her feet. "But you're the real grown up around here. It's up to you," she said with a smile. "Uncle Blane should be back soon. I hope he remembered to get my diet soda."
~ ~ ~
By the time Harper pulled up outside Emmett's house again, it was late afternoon. Spending some time with Shelley had done her good—as much as she didn't like to admit it, yesterday's events had more of an effect on her than she realized.
She'd called Emmett at lunchtime, but Blane had answered his phone and told her he was sleeping.
She'd been concerned at first that Blane might be closing her out.
He'd said that he'd ask Emmett to call her when he woke up, but that she should probably get some rest herself.
She'd been relieved when Emmett called a little while ago.
She deliberately hadn't pushed or offered to come back, but Emmett had handed his phone to Blane, and he'd asked her to come, saying that he needed to go and check in with Brooke this evening.
She got out of the truck and looked up at the house, hoping that the girls were doing okay. She took her purse and a casserole that she'd made from the back seat before heading up the path.
She was only halfway to the front door when it opened, and Tanya came dashing out to greet her. "Hey, Harper, I'm so glad you're here. Are you doing okay? I bet you were scared yesterday, weren't you? I know you're scared of guns, so it must have been awful."
"You're right. It wasn't much fun," Harper agreed. "But I wasn't scared for myself so much as I was for your dad."
Tanya smiled up at her. "You did great. He told us you saved him. Thank you."
She smiled as she followed Tanya inside. "I didn't do much. Your dad's the one who saved us both. He was very brave."
"Oh, he is very brave," Tanya agreed. "He used to be a Navy SEAL, you know. Uncle Blane did, too. They all did. Uncle Blane's still here. He brought pizza—I went to town with him." Tanya peered at the dish Harper was carrying. "Oh, wait though; what did you bring?"
"A tater tot casserole. I know you guys all enjoy it, but we can freeze it and save it for another time."
Tanya closed the door behind them. "Do you want me to take that to the kitchen, and you can go and say hi to Dad?"
Harper glanced at the doorway to the living room, feeling a little uncertain. Things were different than when she was here yesterday. Now she didn't know if she should be back on a visitor footing or how to play this.
"Come on in, we're in here," Emmett called from the living room. When she stepped inside, he added, "But I guess that kind of goes without saying—I'm not likely to be anywhere else at the moment, am I?"