“Me too,” Sophie answered. The trip was supposed to erase all her doubts and fears about making such a rushed decision to leave her Dallas loft and move to Del Rio, but it hadn’t.
Her phone pinged, and she dug it out of her purse and smiled when she saw that it was a FaceTime call from Emma. She hit the accept icon and gasped. “Holy crap on a cracker! What happened to y’all?” She held up the phone so Teddy could see the screen.
“Looks like we missed a mud-wrestling event,” Teddy laughed. “Who won?”
“I did,” Emma giggled. “I pinned him in a mud puddle when we lost our balance coming down the mountain. You should have seen Josh dragging the quilt behind him. He looked like a cross between Pigpen and Linus from the Charlie Brown cartoons.”
“I was just offering Em a fancy spa mud bath. Don’t ever say that the Hummingbird Trailer Park doesn’t have amenities, especially when it rains.” Josh chuckled.
“I can’t wait to hear this story,” Sophie said.
“Not over the phone,” Emma said. “I’ll give you all the details when you get home. See you in a few hours.” The call ended, and Sophie laid the phone on the console.
“Em is going to be all right,” Teddy said with confidence in his tone. “We’ve both worried for nothing.”
“Looks like it, but why does that make me sad?” Sophie sighed.
Teddy laid a hand on her shoulder. “I imagine it’s kind of like when the first child goes to kindergarten and doesn’t cry for their mommy. You’ve rescued Em, brought her into a healthy environment, and now she’s flourishing. But up until last week, you and the folks at the park have been her sole support system. That eased the guilt you had in your heart because you didn’t make a bigger effort to keep in touch with her.”
“Will you send me a bill for this therapy session?” Sophie laid her hand over his and squeezed.
He slid a sly wink her way. “Yes, I will, but don’t expect it to be for dollars.”
Filly came out of her trailer the minute she heard Arty’s truck on the gravel. The wind had dried the mud on Emma’s face, and now it was cracking, so she wasn’t a bit surprised when Filly’s eyes got wide and she hurried out to the edge of the truck.
“What in the hell happened to y’all?” she asked. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
“They played in a mud puddle,” Arty said as he stepped out of the truck.
“We might’ve been able to outrun the storm, but the four-wheeler wouldn’t start, so we took shelter in my cave,” Josh explained as he stood up and offered his hand to Emma.
“Why didn’t you call?” Filly fussed. “I would have sent Arty sooner than this to get you.”
“No service.” Emma took Josh’s hand and let him help her up. “But I FaceTimed Sophie so she could see us. She’ll be here in a few hours. They were just leaving the airport.”
“Why isn’t it all soggy here?” Josh asked.
“We only got a little shower, not a downpour like you must’ve gotten near the mountain range,” Arty said. “We just got enough to cool the temperature down a little and water Filly’s rosebushes. We’re supposed to have sunshine for the next week, so Sophie’s homecoming today will be nice.”
“You two get on home and take a shower, and then I want Em to come straight to my trailer and work on decorations. Josh, you are to help Arty with the outside stuff,” she bossed.
“Yes, ma’am.” Emma nodded. “But first, will you take a picture of me and Josh with my phone? I don’t ever want to forget this adventure, and if my mother gets hateful with me again, I will send it to her.”
“Of course,” Filly agreed.
Emma took her phone from her hip pocket and handed it to Filly. “I want one of each of us, and then one of us together.”
“Good Lord, darlin’ girl, did you drop this in the mud puddle? The only thing clean on it is the camera lens.”
Arty whipped a red bandanna from his hip pocket and tossed it to her. “Wipe it all off before you take the pictures.”
Filly caught it midair, wiped most of the now-dried dirt from the phone, and took several pictures of Emma and then a few of Josh. “Now, the two of you together.”
Emma wasn’t quite sure what to do since this was her first picture with a guy. Josh had sat down on the tailgate of the truck and patted the place next to him. She eased down beside him, and he scooted over closer to her. Then he draped an arm around her shoulders and said, “Say cheeseburger.” She giggled but said the word, and Filly snapped half a dozen pictures of the two of them covered in dried mud.
“One of those will definitely send your mama into a cardiac arrest if she ever sees it.” Filly handed the camera back to her.
“Thank you so much,” Emma said. “Now, I’m going to go get cleaned up. I’ll be over to your house as soon as I get all the dirt and mud off me.”
Josh walked beside her to the end of the porch steps and said, “Thanks for being such a good sport about everything.”
“I was serious when I said this was an adventure,” Emma told him. “I never got to play in the mud when I was a child. Sophie talked about making mud pies, and she told me about her and Rebel taking off their shoes and wading through puddles. Yesterday and this morning have been the stuff dreams are made of, even if I am past thirty, and, Josh . . . ,” she started.
She glanced down at his lips and then back up at his eyes. He was going to kiss her, and her lips and face were still smeared with dirt and mud. She wanted him to kiss her, but her first kiss ever should be special—something that dreams were made of, not just the taste of dirt in her mouth when it ended.
“I know,” he said, and then brushed a soft kiss across her forehead. “I’ll give you the space to find yourself.”
“Thank you,” she said.
She floated into the trailer and went straight to the bathroom, wondering if it would be possible to clean her face without washing her forehead.
Chapter Eighteen
Josh had wanted to kiss Emma for days. He had envisioned all kinds of scenarios and hoped that he would have the nerve to actually kiss her when the opportunity arose. When it came right down to it, everything happened in a split second, but it did not take one thing away from the effect it had on Josh.
“I’m thirty-two years old,” he grumbled as he kicked off his boots on the porch of his trailer. He went straight to the tiny laundry area in the hallway and put his dirty clothes in the washer. “I should have kissed lots of girls before now. Kiss nothing—I should have had sex by now, too.” He continued to fuss at himself as he got into the shower. “But I’ve been afraid to even talk to girls until Em came into my life. Besides, it wasn’t a real kiss on the lips.”
Has any other woman ever made you feel like Emma does? The voice in his head sounded a lot like Filly.
“No,” he answered out loud.
His heart had quit doing double-time when he turned off the water and wrapped a towel around his waist. He shaved, brushed his teeth, and grinned at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. “She makes me feel like a superhero, like I could move mountains and wrestle with a bear and win,” he whispered.