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Jesse stared at him for a minute. Then he stalked to his vehicle, climbing in and slamming the door. He drove away in an aggressive cloud of dust.
“Okay then,” Garrett told the trees with a sigh. Then he swore.
Jesse hadn’t given him the phone.
He finished dusting off his clothes and headed to his rental, wondering if there was any way he could beat the sheriff to Mariana’s house.
Chapter Sixty-Two
EMMA
“Mommy, are you still mad at Mama-Grandma?” Stella asked.
Emma jerked, studying her daughter in the dim light of the cramped pantry. “What? No. I’m not mad.”
“Then we aren’t hiding from her?” Stella asked, blinking those impossibly long lashes at her.
The conjoined Mama-Grandma wasn’t a mistake. Stella had started calling Mariana that last night and Garrett had encouraged Emma to embrace it.
“The situation is complex and she’s only five,” he said. “As long as you’re not hurt, I don’t think there’s any harm in it. Stella will get it all sorted out in her head once she gets used to us as parents.”
Emma had agreed, assuring him it didn’t bother her. But secretly her stomach had nose-dived to her knees. Because she wasMama-Emma now.
Motherhood had hit her like that moment of free fall when the coaster dropped.
Emma had done her best to be a supportive and loving sister in the past few years. But once she moved to San Diego, she’d been so wrapped up in her own life, trying to establish some semblance of independence.
The fact that she’d diligently video-chatted with Stella every week didn’t seem like enough. Not now that she knew the truth.
A little hand crept into hers. “Are you sure we’re not hiding?”
Emma sat on the upturned bucket Mariana used as a stool, pulling Stella into her arms.
“Well, maybe we are a little,” she admitted. “It’s just that Mariana, Mama-Grandma, keeps apologizing for not telling me about you.”
Emma kissed her forehead, taking a deep sniff to draw her baby’s scent deep into her lungs. “I want you to know that I would never have left you if I’d known you were my baby.”
Stella put her little hands on her cheeks. “It’s okay, Mama-Emma. Papa said it would have been superhard to be a normal mama with your broken head.”
Blinking back tears, she smiled at Stella. “That’s true. But I would have tried. Because I will always choose you.Always.”
Stella widened her eyes. “But you had to go so you could find Papa! So he could come and be my papa. And I’m glad he’s my papa! He’s the bestest!”
Emma bit her lip, mentally counting all the papas. She rubbed her cheeks against her daughter’s baby-soft hands before pressing kisses all over them. “You’re right. Heisthe bestest. And you’re going to love his apartment. It’s bigger than this house.”
Like four or five times bigger.
Stella tilted her head, pursing her rosebud lips. “Will I like my room?”
“Yes!”
Emma pictured the bedroom she’d slept in when she first moved in with Garrett. Stella probably wouldn’t like sleeping right across the hall when she was a teenager, but for now, they wanted her close.
“We’re going to get all new furniture for it,” she promised. “And lots of new clothes. It's warmer in San Diego but still gets chilly by the water.”
Stella’s eyes lit up. “Can we go to the store to pick a new bed?”
Somehow, Emma doubted there was a store Garrett would consider good enough for his baby girl.