“I’m not telling until we’re all together. I’ll pick you up a little before seven.”
He disconnected before she could ask what this news was. She continued to her car with a slower step as her mind veered toward this good news. And she assumed when he said family, he’d meant his family, but something about the way he said it, made her wonder…
At her car, she dialed her mother.
“Hi, sweetie,” Debbie answered.
“Hey, this may seem like a strange question, but what are you doing tonight?”
“We’re meeting you and Dylan at the Cat Bird Seat. Why are you asking like you don’t know?”
“Because I didn’t know.” Her stomach swam with unease. “How did you… When did he…” She shook her head. “What’s going on?”
“Dylan came to the house today,” Debbie said, a little bewilderment in her tone. “You didn’t know?”
“No. Why?”
“To talk to us. To apologize for everything that happened and explain himself.”
“Oh my God.” Emma winced at the thought of her father getting ahold of Dylan. “He must not have talked to Dad. I just talked to Dylan, and he sounded way too happy to have been torn to shreds.”
“He definitely saw your dad. They talked for two hours. It started out rough, but ended well.”
“What?”
“Dylan’s even more charming than he was as a boy.”
“Tell me about it.” She unlocked the car and slid behind the wheel. “Did he say what this good news is?”
“No. He just asked us to join him and his sisters.”
“Okay. I guess I’ll see you tonight.”
Emma disconnected and stared at her phone a long moment. She didn’t like the idea of this spontaneous get-together at all. The fact that Dylan had gone to her parents and apologized made her insides shiver. It meant he was serious about righting his wrongs. And it had taken humility and vulnerability for Dylan to face her father and pour out his heart. This was a far more mature version of the man she’d married, and she didn’t quite know what to expect from him.
She thought about calling Dylan back to dig. But if he was going to tell her, he would have already.
She started her car and put it in Reverse. “I’ll find out soon enough.”
17
Emma was definitely on edge by the time she’d showered and slipped into a deep steel blue dress and low, strappy heels. She added a few loose curls to her hair, touched up her makeup and looked at her reflection.
Her expression hinted at the complex worries playing in her head. The battle between excitement and fear. Her options warred in her head, but when she simplified everything and put the two man locations against each other—Vanderbilt or Somalia—there was really no competition. Only then there was Dylan. And that threw a wrench into everything.
She wanted to talk to him about it, but they’d already talked about it in theory, and Emma felt like she needed to make this decision on her own. This was her life, her future, her dreams. He hadn’t even been home a full month. While her heart wanted to put him into the equation, her mind told her to stand on her own. Because the last time she’d trusted Dylan, she’d lost everything. Everything.
A knock on her front door made Emma jump. She tapped her phone face and saw it was almost seven. She smoothed her hands down the front of her dress, took a deep breath, and answered the door.
Dylan stood there in dark jeans, a gray button-down, and sport jacket. His smile was electric, his eyes sparkling. “Damn, you’re beautiful.”
The man could so easily move her. She smiled and stepped back. “You look pretty good yourself. Come in. I just need to grab my jacket.”
She turned toward the closet and pulled a thigh-length wool trench from a hanger.
Dylan wandered around the apartment. “You’re still an organizational wizard.”
She slipped on her jacket and pulled her hair from the collar. Dylan was skimming his fingers along her bookshelf, tilting his head to read the titles. He tipped a book out to read the cover and took it from the shelf.