A Daughter's Story (7 page)

Rob was not a shark.

An occasional philanderer, yes. But he knew Emma. Really knew
her. He paid attention to her likes and dislikes. More than she’d ever realized
and…

“What do you want, Rob?”

“To see you, of course. To make our life right again. I want to
come home, Em.”

Her beautiful old home awaited her. Rearranged to her taste.
And devoid of him.

“We’ve already been—”

“Let’s just meet for drinks,” he said. “Let’s see each other.
Talk. Then if you still feel like you don’t want me back, I’ll move on.”

She’d already given away his desk. His shot glasses. She’d
thrown out the extra razor blades he’d left in the linen closet. Cleared him out
of her house.

Had she made a mistake? Been too hasty?

She’d slept with another man.

And he’d left her alone in a hotel room with no way to contact
him.

Looking down at her tan slacks and low-heeled pumps, the
turquoise silk blouse she’d worn to work that day—an outfit Rob had picked out
for her—Emma wondered if she should just quit fighting and accept herself as she
was. Rob apparently did.

She stared out at the parking lot and gave in to the
inevitable. “Can you be at the Dragon in ten minutes?” The lounge wasn’t far
from her house. They’d met there for dinner many times after work before going
home together.

“Give me fifteen and you’re on.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

E
MMA
DROVE
AROUND
the block several times. She was not going into another
lounge to sit alone. Not even for five minutes. As soon as she saw Rob’s silver
Ranger pull into the lot, she circled one more time and parked.

He was waiting at a table for two in the shadowed back half of
the room where they’d be least interrupted, overheard or even noticed.

The type of table Emma always chose.

A glass of white zinfandel sat in front of the empty seat. Rob
had a vodka and orange juice in his right hand as she walked up.

He stood. Pulled out her chair. Leaned in for a kiss and, when
she turned her head, kissed her on the cheek. He held her hand as she sat down.
And brought it with him to the top of the table.

“It’s good to see you, babe. I’ve missed you.”

She’d missed him, too. But was it because he was Rob? Or
because sitting at a quiet, obscure table and having your favorite wine waiting
for you felt normal, and normal felt safe? Still she said, “It’s good to see
you, too.”

He’d been a part of her life for a long time. A partner to her
in many ways.

“I called Cal Whittier,” she told him almost as soon as she sat
down. She’d been bursting with the news and had no one to confide in.

“Oh, Em! How’d it go? Was he civil to you, I hope?”

“Better than that,” she said, smiling at him—a real smile that
she felt all the way to her frozen core. “Crazy as it sounds, it was as if we
were kids again. I felt…close to him. Like I did then. Like he really was my
brother just as we believed back when we were young.”

“What about him?” Rob’s gaze was piercing, protective. “Do you
think he felt the same?”

“I know he did. Rob, he’s coming to Comfort Cove. He’s going to
come with me to the police station to drop off the box of hair ribbons.”

“So you decided to give Ramsey the DNA?”

Rob had been insistent that it was the right choice. Emma had
been the one wavering.

“Yes. If he can’t get Claire’s, I’ll give him mine. It won’t be
an exact match, but it could be close enough.”

He smiled. “Good for you, Em. I’m proud of you.”

Tilting her head, she asked, “Why?”

“Because it’s a big step for you. A potentially painful
move.”

She recognized the woman he was describing. Saw her clearly.
And didn’t like the image.

He took her other hand, holding both of them between his. “This
is what I’ve always wanted for you, Em. To be able to do what you know is right
without fearing the consequences.”

“Fear serves a purpose,” she said. “It protects you from
danger.”

“Yes, in the case of jumping out of an airplane without a
parachute, or walking into a dark alley alone. But it also prevents you from
experiencing so much of life.”

Like spending the most sensual, unforgettable night in the arms
of a man she didn’t know?

Or waking up alone the morning after?

“Where’d you go just now?” Rob was frowning.

Shaking her head, Emma pulled one hand free, and took a sip of
her wine. After a week of abstinence to recover from her overindulgence, the
sweet liquid tasted good. Felt nice and warm going down.

“So will I get to meet Cal when he’s in town?” Rob asked. “I’d
really like to.”

Part of her wanted him to.

“I…”

Rob’s phone rang. Still holding her hand, he pulled the cell
phone out of his case, looked at the blinking screen and said, “Sorry, hon, I
have to take this.

“Look, Tiffany, I told you, don’t keep calling me,” he said
into the phone.

Tiffany. Emma felt completely blank. On the inside and out.

“What happened last week was a mistake. A huge mistake. The
biggest of my life. I love Emma. I’m sorry.”

Last week.
Tiffany was the woman in
her bed? And he’d taken her call? Now?

As the woman on the other end of the line said something, Emma
pulled her remaining hand away from Rob’s.

The alarm in his eyes as he stared at her, pleaded with her,
was too reminiscent of other times he’d had to face up to his indiscretions.

“If you call me again, I’m going to block your number,” Rob
said next.

Emma wondered why he hadn’t already done it.

Had he been keeping that window open in case her door remained
firmly shut?

“Thanks for the wine. I have to go.” Gathering her purse, Emma
stood, leaving Rob to work things out with Tiffany, and walked out of the
restaurant.

* * *

C
HRIS
WORKED
UNTIL
his shoulders ached and his knuckles were scraped
and bleeding.

And then he did something he rarely did.

He bought a bottle, took it down to the
Son Catcher
with him, anchored down in a cove just below his house
and drank just enough to put him to sleep.

* * *

R
AGING
AT
HERSELF
this time, more than at the man who couldn’t be faithful if his life
depended on it, Emma found the courage to be brave.

Her desire to break the chains that had bound her to Rob took
her out of that restaurant and back to her car.

If she wasn’t happy, she had only herself to blame. She got
what she’d asked for. Because she didn’t ask for enough for herself.

She was the one letting herself down.

Spurred by Rob’s phone call, by the fact that he’d recognized
the number and taken the call because he somehow thought Emma would understand,
Emma drove to the tourist district.

What if Chris had been thinking about her this week? What if
their night together had lingered in his mind as it had in hers?

He had no way of finding her. No way of tracking her down.
She’d paid cash for her wine last Friday night. She’d told Chris her first name,
and nothing else about herself.

She’d been a woman with no previous identity. No past.

Emma parked the car in the lot across from Citadel’s and
marched across the street.

She paused on the sidewalk, trying to see in, to see the bar
and the piano dais—or more accurately, to see who was sitting there.

She could make out a few shadows at the bar and nothing else.
The streetlights were too bright, and the interior of Citadel’s too dim, for her
to see who sat at the piano. With a pounding heart, Emma pulled open the
door.

Citadel’s was crowded. Piano music filled the room. From what
Emma could see, all of the dining tables were occupied so she didn’t approach
the host to be seated.

Still, she couldn’t just stand there.

And there was an empty stool at the bar. Less than a minute
after she sat down, Cody was standing in front of her with a bottle of wine in
hand and his eyebrows raised in question.

She nodded. What the hell.

She’d always liked wine. And she’d read an article this
week—while she was checking on the effects of overindulgence after her night of
craziness—about how a glass of red wine a night was actually healthy for women.
The grape seed extract in red wine was reportedly a powerful antioxidant that
was good for the heart among other things.

When Cody placed the glass in front of her, she picked it up
and sipped.

Her movements were calculated. She had it all planned out.

After her third sip, she glanced over at the piano. But she
already knew Chris wasn’t there.

The music was good. Really good. But it wasn’t art.

So she waited.

She was going to stay uptown again tonight. But she was going
to get her own room. And stay sober. No more foolishness. She was going to take
a long hot soak in a tub. And make certain she wasn’t home if Rob tried to
contact her again.

She knew he would, and she didn’t want to deal with him
tonight.

Tonight was for her.

“He’s not coming tonight.”

Jumping in her seat, almost tipping over her wineglass, Emma
looked at Cody. The bartender had appeared in front of her again without her
being aware of him. He stood, shining a glass with a white towel, and she was
pretty certain he was pitying her.

“Who?”

“Chris.”

She considered pretending that she didn’t know what Cody was
talking about and concocting some story about how she was waiting for someone to
join her. Or about coming back for the music.

The actions of a coward.

“He told you that?”

“He called.”

“I hope everything is okay.”

“Yeah, it’s not very often that he misses a Friday.”

“And he didn’t say why he was missing tonight?”

“No, but then he doesn’t generally let us know if he isn’t
going to be here to play. All the pianists are here on a voluntary basis.”

“Then why did he call?”
Because of
her?

“Because he’s bringing an extra catch in the morning for a
private party the owner’s hosting tomorrow night.” Cody didn’t point out that it
was none of her business.

“An extra catch?” she asked.

“Of lobster.”

She’d only had three sips of wine on top of the half glass
she’d consumed at the Dragon, and yet she felt as if she’d stepped into a
slow-motion film. “I don’t understand.”

“Chris is a lobsterman. Didn’t he tell you?”

“A lobsterman?”

“Yeah. I thought he’d have told you or I wouldn’t have said
anything. You know, last week… I thought the two of you were hooking up.”

Grabbing the bottle of wine, he tilted it over her nearly full
glass, topping it off. “I’m really sorry, ma’am,” Cody said. “I assumed you were
here to see Chris again and…”

Emma smiled. “No problem,” she said. “I’m just here for the
music.”

Chris was a fisherman. From the local docks. Her mother had
forbidden her to frequent them. For very good reasons.

Far more than being a danger to her libido, Chris was a
dangerous man. In a dangerous profession.

Cody had just saved her from
herself.

With that thought, Emma ordered a soda and, an hour later,
ordered a third. But not until after she’d left the bar long enough to secure a
room for herself at the inn next door—a less-expensive family establishment,
not
the glitzy place Chris had taken her to.

She’d nurse her pop. She’d hang out at Citadel’s until bedtime.
She’d show them all that she really was just there for the music.

And then she’d go sleep off another Friday night in the tourist
district.

* * *

“H
EY
, B
EAUTIFUL
,
HOW
’
S
life?”

“Life’s just peachy, Chris. How’s my favorite guy doing?”

“Great. Things are great.” He was leaning against the bow of
the
Son Catcher,
the fourth Saturday in
September—two weeks after he’d left a beautiful dark-haired woman in a hotel
room. Holding a half-empty bottle of orange soda, Chris peered past the dock to
the ocean that had come between him and Sara. “Got the engine overhauled.
Replaced the pistons to the tune of a thousand bucks.”

“Thank God. I was getting kind of tired of hearing you whine
about the damned thing. How long did it take?”

“Couple of weeks.”

“Whoa!”

He held the phone away from his ear as Sara Bailey yelped. “You
went a couple of weeks without fishing?” Incredulity turned to sobriety as she
asked, “What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing’s wrong with me. I’m fit as a fiddle and as ornery as
ever.”

“You don’t have an ornery bone in your body, Christopher
Michael Talbot. Now tell me what’s wrong. And don’t give me any bullshit. I know
you, remember? I’m the woman you were going to promise to love and cherish until
death did us part. The one who lost out to those damned lobsters of yours. There
is no way in hell you’d miss two weeks of fishing before the snow hits.”

“I didn’t miss fishing, smarty-pants,” he said with a swig of
soda and a grin, and then he sobered, too. “We lost a man a few weeks back, a
young kid from Alaska who’d signed on with Trick Havens. Havens was there, tried
to save the kid, but couldn’t get to him in time. He’s pretty shook up. Anne
called and asked if I could help fill his orders for a bit so I made a deal with
her. I’d fish for both of us if I could use his boat.”

“You’ve been bringing in two hauls?”

“I’ve had some help.” Havens had the money to hire hands, even
with the low prices Manny was paying. Trick’s father-in-law dabbled in things
Chris didn’t want to know about.

“And you’ve been working on the
Son
Catcher
every day after hauling in two loads?”

“Utility lights work wonders.”

“You been sleeping at all, Chris?”

“Enough.” Hard work had always cured whatever ailed him. Far
more than lying sleepless on a mattress staring at the ceiling had ever
done.

“I worry about you.”

“Don’t.”

“Too late.” She sighed and, picturing the way she curled those
full lips up to her pert little nose any time she was exasperated, he grinned
again. “I assume you’re calling to tell me that you won’t be coming for
Thanksgiving or Christmas again this year,” she said next. She’d texted him the
week before about the holidays.

“Wrong.” He might need to take her up on the invitation. Though
why he would after years of saying no, he couldn’t fathom. “I’m calling to find
out if that man of yours has an extra connector rod around his shop.” He named
the specifics for his thirty-year-old engine.

Sara’s husband—a colonel in the air force who, as a hobby,
rebuilt and refurbished old engines—was known to enthusiasts all over the
country and made a mint dealing parts.

“A little too much torque in your wrench, sailor?”

“Put Jeff on, would you?”

“He’s out with Lily, teaching her to fly his new
helicopter.”