Page 161

“We’ll find one with the best things. And if you don’t see something perfect, we’ll find someone to make it.”
Knowing him, Garrett would have a list of bespoke carpenters on file.
Stella squealed, excited. They left the pantry, chattering about pink beds and princess sheets.
Emma pulled out her phone and showed her different styles and decoration ideas until Stella got sleepy and went down for a nap.
Hovering over her sleeping daughter, she pressed one last kiss to her little hand before forcing herself to stop.
There would be time for kisses later. For now, there was something else she had to do.
Stella had picked up on her reluctance to speak to Mariana. That wasn’t good. Emma was going to have to start untangling the knot of emotions choking her every time she thought about how long Mariana had kept her in the dark. For all their sakes.
Bracing herself, she found Mariana upstairs in her bedroom, packing up her things. Clearing her throat, she waited until her mother turned around, her hands full of shoes.
“You know Garrett offered to hire movers. You don’t have to lift a finger.”
Mariana gave her a tight smile. “I want to sort things myself. Most things I’d like to get rid of or donate.”
They stared at each other, both seemingly at a loss as to how to go on from here.
“Want some help?”
Mariana nodded, some of the tightness of her muscles easing.
They hadn’t been alone since the big revelation. Garrett had given them privacy to speak, of course, but he’d still been in the house, just a few rooms away. And it wasn’t that her motherhadn’texplained. Mariana had told her everything last night after Stella went to bed, going over the entire situation in halting words, along with her rationale for not telling her the truth.
Her mother had genuinely feared that her pregnancy had been the reason she’d been run down. She had been picturing anaffair with a married man, someone determined to get rid of the evidence of his indiscretion at any cost.
Emma didn’t need to speculate on why her mother’s brain went there. If she was being honest, she wasn’t mad about it.
If someone had asked her which was more likely—an affair with a married man or one with a handsome eligible billionaire, she would have ticked the box next to married man as well.
There was also the fact Emma hadn’t been capable of caring for herself, let alone a baby. She knew that in her head. It was just harder to tell that to her heart.
Emma had never felt so mixed up. Her emotions were like a hurricane with her at the epicenter. If she stepped out of the calm center, she could be swept away, smashed against the nearest hard surface.
Emma pictured her skull cracking against a concrete wall, the image so clear and real.
Yeah, she might not remember the accident, but somewhere in the recesses of her brain, there was an echo of it. Maybe it was encoded in her cells now, imprinted by the car that hit her like an unexpected dose of radioactivity mutating her DNA.
Shaking off that morbid thought, she refocused on her task, lifting various items of clothing and knickknacks so her mom could vote and veto, sorting them into three piles: going to San Diego, going to Goodwill, and going to the trash.
“There’s nothing you want to set aside for friends?” she asked when the Goodwill pile threatened to topple over.
“Not too many of those,” Mariana said matter-of-factly. “None of the women around here would want this stuff anyway.”
She wanted to ask why but Emma kept her mouth shut, merely nodding and continuing to sort as if her life depended on it.
They made excellent headway. It helped that they didn’t have to worry about the furniture. Except for a few pieces, most of it would stay with the house as it had come furnished. It would stay on for the next tenant.
She and her mother had finished clearing the closet when the soundof a car engine roaring up the drive drew her to the window. Emma had been expecting Garrett, not the sheriff he’d gone out to meet.
Sheriff Warner had come out to see her a few times before she moved to San Diego. He would check in periodically, in case she remembered anything about the accident.
She had thought it odd in the beginning. The visits never lasted more than a few minutes—a bit of small talk followed by a few questions that could have easily been asked over the phone.
There had been that weird tension she couldn’t decipher every time Mariana and Jesse had been in the same room together.