Enticing Emily (Southern Scandals 3)

Prologue

OF THE THREE McBride cousins, twenty-six-year-old Emily was the only one who appeared to be enjoying their afternoon outing in the woods behind her house. Which might have seemed odd to some, considering that Emily had seen her father buried only hours earlier.

It wasn’t that Emily was hard-hearted. But her father had been ill for a very long time, suffering in a way that made his death almost a relief. For five long years Emily had cared for him, nursed him, tried to comfort him. She needed this time for herself, even if it was only for a visit with Savannah and Tara in the Georgia woods where they’d spent so many pleasant hours as children.

Fifteen years ago, as a lark to fill a lazy summer afternoon, the cousins had buried an old cypress chest containing individual plastic boxes filled with mementos of their childhood. A time capsule, they’d called it. They’d made a solemn vow to dig it up on Savannah’s thirtieth birthday. Though that occasion was still a few weeks away, Emily had talked the other two into unearthing it today, since they were all together.

“I’m not sure this is such a good idea,” Savannah had protested, looking strangely reluctant.

“It has only been fifteen years,” Tara agreed. “Timecapsule contents are much more interesting after more time has passed, don’t you think?”

Emily firmly shook her head. “We’ve already trekked out here and dug it up. And we’re only a few weeks away from Savannah’s birthday, the date we originally agreed upon. We might as well open it.”

For some reason, this was something Emily really wanted to do. Maybe she simply wanted to be reminded of happier times.

Emily suspected that Savannah finally went along out of sympathy for her. Perhaps Savannah had suddenly decided that Emily needed a diversion from the sorrow of the past few days. But Savannah probably had no idea how badly Emily needed to be distracted from fretting about the future.

Digging into the garbage bags, encrusted with dried mud that had protected the objects within the chest, Savannah extracted the three shoebox-sized plastic boxes. Each one had a name written on the top in permanent marker. Emily accepted hers with an eagerness that was notably lacking in her cousins.

She didn’t know why they were so reluctant to indulge in a bit of nostalgia. Emily had very happy memories of the day they’d buried these boxes. She’d thought the whole thing a marvelous adventure, and she’d been thrilled that her cousins had included her. She’d idolized Savannah and Tara, who’d been fifteen and almost fourteen at the time, compared to Emily’s mere eleven. They’d been surprisingly patient with her, never seeming to mind when she tagged along on their afternoons spent giggling and gossiping in this clearing in the woods.

Emily couldn’t help smiling as she pulled one item after another out of her box. A plastic clown figurine she’d won at the county fair. A perfect-attendance ribbon from school. A necklace she’d made with lacquered pasta shells. A Barbie dress...now why had she thought that would be significant fifteen years later?

Her smile faded when she discovered a photograph of her family—herself as a baby, surrounded by her father, her mother and her half brother Lucas. Emily was the only one in the photograph who looked happy to be there.

And then she found the letter she’d written to herself. Scanning the childish handwriting, she winced as she read her grandiose plans of seeing the world outside the limits of tiny Honoria, Georgia. She’d pictured a future life filled with family—her father and brother, her aunts, uncles, cousins, a husband and children.

She had never imagined being so alone in this town that had once felt like home.

She was just about to close the box when she felt something wrapped in tissue paper at the bottom. She didn’t remember putting anything else in, but it had been a long time. Mildly curious, she fumbled in the wrapping and pulled out something heavy and solid.

It was a bracelet. Gold. Fashioned of heavy, carved links, with

an ornate, solid oval clasp. It looked very old—antique, maybe.

Emily didn’t remember ever seeing this bracelet in her life.

And then she frowned and looked again at that old family photograph. Her gaze focused on her mother, Nadine Peck McBride. Specifically, she studied Nadine’s right arm, which was wrapped protectively around the baby in her lap.

Emily’s eyes widened, and her fingers clenched convulsively around the piece of jewelry.

Her mother had been missing for a long time. How had Nadine’s bracelet gotten into this box when Emily knew for certain that she hadn’t put it there?

1

“SO I SAID to Arthur, ‘Why don’t we ask Emily? I’m sure she would be happy to help us out.’ And Arthur said, ‘Of course. Ask Emily.’” Martha Godwin rattled the ice in her tea glass and smiled in sheer delight at her own cleverness.

Ask Emily. It seemed to be the unofficial motto of Honoria, Georgia, the little town in which Emily McBride had been born and raised. The town she’d rarely left in her entire twenty-six years.

Need a baby-sitter? Ask Emily.

Someone to pick up your mail and newspaper while you’re on vacation? Ask Emily.

A ride to the doctor’s office or the grocery store? Ask Emily.

Need a dress hemmed? A few dozen cookies for a bake sale? Someone to go door-to-door collecting charity donations? Someone to substitute in the three-year-olds’ Sunday-school class? Just ask Emily.

With her fixed smile masking her rebellious thoughts—or so she hoped—Emily answered genially. “Of course, Martha. I’d be happy to take care of Oliver while you and Arthur are away on your cruise.”

Martha nodded in satisfaction. “I knew you’d help us out. You’re such a sweet girl, Emily. I don’t know what we’d do without you around here.”

Well, you’re going to find out, Emily thought. Three more months, and I’m leaving. Then you and the rest of Honoria will have to find someone else to do your “little favors.”

But all she said was, “When did you say you’re leaving?”

“Monday. And, gracious, I have so much to do in only three short days! You have no idea how much packing is involved for a week-long cruise.”

Of course she didn’t. Emily had never taken a cruise. She’d never flown on an airplane or ridden a train or traveled outside the borders of her own country. But that was all going to change.

Five months ago, Emily had buried her father, the last tie holding her to this town. And she’d given herself until the end of the year to settle his affairs. Then, finally, she was going to find a life for herself. Somewhere other than Honoria, preferably. She was going to find out once and for all who she was and what she wanted out of life. She was going to see all those places she’d only read about in books during those long nights sitting by her father’s sickbed.