So Logan had been right to keep his mouth shut. “Sorted your own girl problems out yet?” he asked Greg.
“No.” Greg frowned. “I’m convinced her mother has something to do with her decision to dodge my every move. I sowed a lot of oats when I was younger and I guess her mother remembers that. At least Anna wasn’t around back then. Just wish her mother didn’t have such a fucking good memory.”
“Prove yourself, and I’m sure you’ll get under the mother’s skin before too long.” Logan laughed. “I’m done giving you advice about women...I feel like a fucking girl.”
Greg laughed, and they continued to work in silence for a while until Logan’s truck was cleared and he’d be able to get it out to the road.
When he was finally on his way, his stomach cramped with nerves.
Chapter 8
“Emma, can you go into town and pick up some groceries for me?”
Emma looked at her mom, but she wouldn’t meet Emma’s gaze. Why? Emma’s brother, Travis, had headed into town as soon as him and Gabe, her brother-in-law, had cleared the road. What was stopping him from calling at the store?
“Travis is already there, just message him the list.” Emma continued to read from her book.
She felt the silence as it settled around the kitchen. Almost afraid to look up, Emma slowly marked her page and glanced from her mom, who looked surprised, to Bree, who couldn’t seem to believe Emma had spoken the way she had, before it settled on Gabe, who looked amused. He hid it well, though.
“What’s going on?” she finally asked. “Why would you ask me to drive all the way into town, knowing the roads are probably bad, when Travis is already there? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Look, Emma, I was only trying to give you something to do, maybe, take your mind off everything.” Her mom sat opposite. “I’ve had enough of seeing you like this. Where has the fun loving girl gone? At one time you’d be outside in the snow- sledding or building a snowman.” She paused. “Sometimes, when you’re here, it’s as though only your body is, but your mind is elsewhere. You know that I never agreed with you writing to that soldier, a stranger, while you dated Seth. But you did, and this is why you’re like you are and I want it to stop. It has to stop and you need to forget about him.”
Emma felt her anger as it slowly rolled through her. How could her mom speak like that about a soldier, her soldier, the man she was sure that she loved? “You’re out of line. He’s overseas risking his life to protect this country, and yes, I know you didn’t agree with me writing to a stranger, but I did and now that he’s stopped, I’m worried about him. I can’t help that I care. But you have to stop telling me to stop thinking about him. It doesn’t work like that. I can’t switch my feelings on and off like a faucet.” Emma came to the end of her tirade and didn’t know what the hell to do.
She wanted to scream! One letter was all she needed to know that he was okay, but she didn’t know how to contact him if he wasn’t deployed. Logan had told her that he didn’t have a place he called home. Instead when he got back from his deployments, he would always check in to a hotel until he found another apartment to rent until it was time to ship out. Through his words, she’d gotten the feeling that he’d grown tired of not having anyone to care about him or anything to call his. At the end of all her letters to him, after the first few, she’d signed them with love and told him to stay safe for her. She only prayed that he had.
“Emma, you know Mom means well. She cares about you. We all do.” Bree sat beside her husband of six years with his hand on her swollen stomach.
Her sister had two months to go before Emma’s niece or nephew was born. As she watched Bree and Gabe, she longed for that. She longed for her man to be beside her while he caressed her belly that was swollen with their child.
“Look, I know you all mean well,” she admitted, “but I need to get through this on my own. None of you understand the relationship I had with him, it was special. More special than anything I’ve had with anyone else, and it’s going to take me time, especially because there was no goodbye…no explanation. You all just need to be patient with me.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell them that she planned on moving out in the New Year. She’d move out tomorrow if she didn’t think that she’d make this whole thing with her family worse.
Of course, her family would worry about her, but why couldn’t they just give her space, and talk about something else instead of her all the time? The answer to that was because she had stopped listening to what they had to say.
“This is all my fault,” her mom whispered. “I should have been honest from the start.”
She frowned. “What? I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“I...I stopped…”
Bang. Bang.
Who would call to the house with how bad the weather had been?
Bang. Bang.
“I’ll get it.” Emma jumped up, anything to break the tension in the kitchen.
With a heavy heart, she headed toward the front door and could make out someone, a man, bundled up, through the glass of the door. He stomped his feet on the mat, either to get the snow off or to keep warm.
Hurriedly, she pulled the door open.
“Can I help you?” Emma asked, and looked up into the most mesmerizing pair of blue eyes that she’d ever seen.
Her heart stopped as she quickly glanced over him, but her eyes wanted to look at his face, and those eyes. There was a spark of some indefinable emotion in his unwavering gaze...that looked so familiar…