Emily: Sex and Sensibility (The Wilde Sisters 1)

OK.

She gave up her stranglehold on the lamppost and started toward the bus stop sign on the next block. She walked as quickly as she could, considering the height of her go-with-the-silk-dress heels, but there wasn’t any rush. The next bus wasn’t due for almost half an hour.

Plenty of time to freeze to death.

Plenty of time to try to figure out how to get through the situation.

Would Nola be home tonight? Nola had an active social life. She came and went like a butterfly. How would she take the news that Emily wouldn’t be able to meet her half of the rent on Monday?

Dammit.

They’d met a year ago when they were both waitressing at a diner on Tenth Avenue. Nola was a dancer in search of fame on Broadway. They got along well enough and one of the reasons was their unspoken rule about never borrowing money from each other.

Maybe the landlady would agree to extending the date the rent was due.

Right.

Their landlady was a woman of such warmth, charm and all-aroun

d graciousness that Nola had dubbed her Miss Hannigan, after the head of the orphanage in Annie.

Miracles could happen. Of course they could. Like the miracle of Max’s having another job to make up for the one she’d just lost.

She was chilled to the bone. Her teeth had gone from chattering to dancing the tarantella. She’d probably be blue with cold by the time the bus—

What was that? The sound of another engine. Not a car. A truck, perhaps. Or—

The bus!

A big smile swept across Emily’s face. Here she’d been thinking it would take half an hour until—

But the bus was coming too fast. Much too fast and she was still half a block from where it would stop.

She began to run. Oh God! Not easy when you added a wet, pockmarked sidewalk to the height of her heels—

“Ow!”

One heel slipped. Snapped like a twig. Frantic, she kicked off both shoes, snatched them up as the bus roared by. It reached the corner. She heard the sound of the doors opening, then closing.

“No,” she yelled, “no, come back!”

The taillights gave a merry twinkle just as she reached the sign post. Then they were swallowed up by the rain.

Panting, gasping for breath, she wrapped her arms around the cold, wet post and pressed her forehead to it.

“Emily Madison Wilde,” she whispered, “you are in trouble.”

Deep trouble. It wasn’t just her imagination that was working overtime. Reality was working overtime. Her pounding heart gave a yes vote to the possibility of pneumonia. Of hypothermia.

And only a fool would discount the imminent arrival of Jack the Ripper.

Something moved in the shadowed, boarded-up doorway across the street. A person? A dog? A cat? She hoped it wasn’t a dog or a cat; no animal should be outside on a night like this.

On the other hand, she hoped it wasn’t a person, either.

That would not be good.

“Be calm,” she whispered. “Be logical.”