Trying them on in the store had felt like sticking his feet into a torture device, so Ted wasn’t sure how that would ever come true. But it was Nate’s money, and Ted just swiped the card.
“Burger Barn,” Ted said, his mouth watering. “I want to go there.”
“I know.” Nate grinned as he swung into the drive-through. “You’ve talked about this place since the day I met you.”
“I can’t believe there’s one here,” Ted said. “They’re not everywhere, you know.”
“So I’ve heard.” Nate rolled down his window to study the menu.
Ted looked at the one on his side of the stall, because he hadn’t been to Burger Barn in a very long time. They didn’t seem to have updated their menu, and he said, “I want combo number fourteen, with chicken strips and half and half fries. Huge Dr. Pepper.”
Nate put in their order, and only five or six minutes later, more food than the two of them could ever eat got delivered right to the truck. Ted once again marveled at the ease with which he could get things on the outside. He’d forgotten about this magical thing called fast food, and his mouth watered as he picked up a regular French fry and a sweet potato fry at the same time.
He closed his eyes and put them in his mouth, and Ted knew then that the stars had aligned.
They’d both eaten through most of their food before Nate asked, “So how do you know Emma?”
“What?” Ted asked. “I don’t know her.”
“Oh, please.” Nate threw him a sarcastic look. “I literally slept five feet from you for five years. I know something’s bothering you, and I think it’s her.”
“Maybe I’m just thinking maybe I have a shot with her, like you and Ginger.”
Nate blinked, clearly taken aback by that. “No, really.”
“So you don’t think I have a shot with her?” Ted enjoyed the heat as it filled Nate’s face.
“No, I just meant…do you like her?”
“Sure, I like her,” Ted said, grinning now.
“Okay, this is ridiculous.” Nate wadded up the paper from his second burger and put it in the bag. “Let’s go back to the ranch.” He backed out of the space while Ted took a long drink of his soda.
“I think it’s interesting you asked how I know her,” Ted said as they left the busier part of town behind them. “I don’t know her, but I did recognize her at the house yesterday. Today, I realized how—she was a known associate in a case I was working before I, you know, assaulted that police officer.”
“Okay, first off,” Nate said. “You didn’t assault anyone. And second, really? She was a bad guy in a case?”
“A known associate is not a bad guy,” Ted said, chuckling. “It just means we wanted to talk to her. Interview her. Find out everything she knew about the guy we were taking to court. We’d get affidavits from known associates, and sworn statements, and sometimes, you could establish an alibi—or break one—with those interviews.”
“So you interviewed her?”
“I didn’t, no,” he said. “I don’t recall if she ever got interviewed or who did it. I just remember her face.” He could still see it in the file, and she definitely hadn’t swept on perfectly pointed wings of eyeliner back then.
“Does she know you know anything about her?”
Ted shook his head, pieces falling together in his mind. “But she was really upset about that guy in the blue grasshopper truck. And she was a known associate—the girlfriend of a Knight, from the Knight crime family.” He looked at Nate. “What if she’s mixed up in something bad?”
“From a decade ago?” Nate swung his attention to Ted. “She’s been working at Hope Eternal for ten years.”
“Yeah,” Ted said, his pulse quieting again. “It doesn’t make sense that something would follow her for that long.”
Nate said nothing, because he’d had loose ends to tie up after he’d gotten out of prison. Ted didn’t; not really.
But maybe Emma had some dangling strings from her past that still needed to be stitched up. If so, what were they?
Ted really wanted to know, because he never wanted to witness her sobbing in a panicked state again. He wanted to help her, protect her. That was what he’d always wanted to do for the people he’d served as a lawyer.
But he wasn’t a lawyer anymore, and she wasn’t one of his clients.
As he put away his groceries and clipped price tags from his new clothes, he actually let his mind wander down the path that led toward a future with him and Emma in it together…just like Nate and Ginger.
It was a scary walk, but a beautiful outcome, and Ted decided he’d simply ask Emma if she knew Robert Knight the next time they were alone together.
Easy, he thought, but he instinctively knew nothing with Emma was going to be easy. He was going to ask her anyway.
Chapter Six
Emma finished feeding Ruby, a sharp pain pulling through her back. “All right, girl,” she said to the horse, pulling the empty bottle from her lips. “You got it all.” She stood up and stretched her back, a groan coming from her mouth.
This day had felt like a week, as her emotions had been all over the place. She’d started the day with a scream, been surprised at the homestead, then had a near-panic attack. She’d been exhausted on the way to the downtown mall, but she’d gone because she needed a new phone.
She’d gotten that, and she’d been able to keep the same SIM card, so all of her contacts were still there. She wasn’t great at using the newest electronics, but she could text and call, and everything else she could figure out later.
Emma had used her credit card to buy the new phone, because so much of what she made at work she sent to Fran and Matt Black, the couple who took care of Missy for her. They were raising her as their daughter, and while her official birth certificate said Missy Clemson, they’d gotten a new one with their last name on it so they could register her for school under their surname.
Fran had said Emma didn’t have to send money, but Emma did anyway. She didn’t want Missy to want for anything, and if that meant she put her fancy cell phone on a credit card, that was fine with her. Fran and Matt hadn’t adopted Missy; she wasn’t in foster care. Emma had looked up an agreement online, because she’d been too afraid to go to a lawyer. If even one person knew about Missy and who her father was, word might spread.
She knew all about the seven degrees of separation, thank you very much. The lawyer might have an assistant, who might have a girlfriend, who might then say something to a client in her hairdressing chair.
And sitting next to them would be Rob’s sister, and before Emma knew it, Rob knew about his daughter.
Realistically, when she wasn’t spiraling, Emma knew this would probably not happen. But she’d done everything she could over the past eleven years to make sure her daughter was one hundred percent safe.
She knew Missy loved Fran and Matt as parents, and they loved her the way a mom and dad would. Sometimes, Emma mourned the fact that she couldn’t raise her own daughter. A lot of times, actually.