A heaviness weighed her down as she washed out the bottle and left it to dry, then left the stables. The sun had started to arc toward its final destination in the west, and Emma looked at all the reds and oranges in the sky. Above them, navy was coming to steal the last of the light from the day, and Emma was glad.
This day needed to end.
She walked slowly back toward the homestead, ready for bed. She’d missed a couple hours of work that afternoon, and she’d have to catch up with payroll and the accounts payable she owed to the travel and tourism bureau and the IFA tomorrow.
Stalling along the fence that ran in front of the homestead, Emma put one foot on the bottom rung and looked out toward the trees that grew along the river. The ranch sat on one side of the river, and down the dirt and gravel lane, as well as over a bridge, sat the highway. Another service road ran along the tree line on the other side of the river, but right now, Emma felt isolated and protected.
She could still see that blue truck parked only a few feet to her left. She closed her eyes and tried to conjure up the man’s face that she’d seen. She could see the denim jacket with the fleece lining. The jeans. The blue ball cap. She couldn’t make out much of his face, and she wished she’d grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and done a rough sketch.
He’d been tall, but not overly tall. She’d classify him as a medium build, though he’d tried to bulk himself up with the jacket. He’d carried a clipboard and another device. Not a phone, and she’d assumed it was something to read the meters.
But there were no meters there. So what had he been carrying?
She drew in a breath, and though the air wasn’t cold at all, it felt like it froze her lungs together. As she lived a simple life on a ranch, she couldn’t even imagine some of the more evil things in the world.
Yes, she’d dated a student’s father. He’d turned out to be Robert Knight, the son of Gustus Knight, who ran a variety of illegal activities in the southern pocket of Texas. She’d grown up in a middle-class neighborhood and then gone to college in Laredo. Those had been two different worlds, but she’d enjoyed them both.
She hadn’t met Rob until she’d come to the Coastal Bend, and she wished powerfully with everything she had in that moment that she’d never met him. That his son had not been in her second-grade class. That she’d had the power and intestinal fortitude to resist him.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to the sky. Since that fateful relationship, Emma had been working toward forgiving herself. She could only hope and pray the Lord would do the same—and Missy too, one day.
Sighing, she turned back to the house at the same time she heard the rumble of an engine. She twisted back toward the trees and the lane she’d been gazing at, but she held very still so as not to disturb any gravel. Not even a blade of grass.
On the other side of the trees, headlights cut through the thickening darkness, but she could barely see them. With spring here, the trees had started to leaf out, and they concealed whatever vehicle was there.
The headlights stopped—which meant the car or truck they were attached to had as well—the light shining across the road on the other side of the bridge. Someone was on that utility road.
Someone had probably just gotten turned around. Emma knew people turned off here all the time when they meant to go down another half-mile to Half-Moon Bay Drive, where a popular Farmer’s Market took place every weekend.
Still, an alarm sounded in her head.
Number one, it wasn’t the weekend.
Number two, it was almost eight o’clock at night. No Farmer’s Market. No reason to be on that road.
Number three, she’d been standing at the fence for at least ten minutes, and she would’ve seen and heard anyone who’d made the turn by accident. They wouldn’t have gone down that road, waited ten minutes, and then turned around.
As much as she wanted to know who was there, she also wanted to rush to safety. That instinct won out, and she hurried across the lawn to the garage—all three of which were open—and up the steps. She practically smacked the buttons that would close up the garage for the night, and as the six doors closed—one on each side, for all three garages—she ducked inside.
The door clicked closed behind her, and she locked it. Then turned the deadbolt. Ginger usually went around and locked up the West Wing when she came in, but Emma knew she was back already. She’d invited Nate for dinner.
Their voices filtered back to her in the hallway, and Emma pressed against the rising desperation in her throat. With shaking fingers, she walked into the kitchen to find Ginger and Nate still sitting at the bar together.
“Hey,” she said, slipping easily into her façade. She’d gotten very good at hiding things over the years, and she was proud of herself for it at the same time she loathed herself. “Horses are fed.”
“Great, thanks,” Ginger said with a smile.
“I’m going to go shower,” Emma said. “I feel hot and sweaty.”
“Welcome to another summer.” Ginger smiled and sighed, and Emma stepped around the counter to give her a quick hug. She hated lying to her best friend, but she reasoned that the fib today had been small. She wasn’t hot, but cold. The shower was meant to warm her up and remind her that she was still alive.
She was sweaty, and the chilly, clammy feeling in her soul was not pleasant. She also didn’t know what else to do to drive it away. So she stood in the shower for a long time, watching the water flow down the drain and wishing she could just as easily get rid of the uncertainty of her life, and the record of her past.
Emma left the West Wing the next morning about twenty minutes later than normal. Ahead of her on the wide path, a man walked with four dogs at his side. It wasn’t hard to know who that was, and Emma actually smiled at Ted’s back.
He’d charmed those canines in a single day. He probably had them all named by now too, and they seemed to know they’d found the one person who wanted to take care of them. Every once in a while, one would veer off to sniff something in the grass, and Ted would whistle, and the dog would come running to catch up to him.
He led them like the Pied Piper toward the stables, his step easy and light. Emma wondered how that would feel. She hadn’t felt light since the day she’d found out she was pregnant.
She wanted to ask him what life was like in prison, and she wondered if he could walk like that now, because this life was so much better than where he’d come from. Nate had said very little about life in prison, at least to her. Ginger probably knew more.
Emma increased her pace, but unless she ran, she would not catch Ted before he reached the stables. She couldn’t think of a reason why she’d need to be running, so she simply watched him stroll through the morning light.
One of his dogs suddenly sprinted away, and Ted’s step faltered until he’d stopped. He watched the dog, and Emma tracked him too. He’d seen Ursula, who was coming down the road alongside the ATV that Nick drove. He must’ve been out in the fields that morning, checking their irrigation system. Emma knew it had been having problems, because Nick wanted money to fix it.
Emma had directed him to Hannah, because again, she did the global ranch finances, and only she would know if they had money for a global thing like that.