Dear Emily (8 page)

“Amy, get your things. We're
leaving,” her mother said.

“Sir,” Jack said, trying
again.

Amy turned and ran to her borrowed
room. She grabbed the worn envelope that was always
tucked in her jewelry box. The voices were loud in the
living room but she couldn't focus on them. Each
step that brought her closer to her parents and to Jack
brought her closer to cracking.

Her father yelled, moving forward as if
he was going to strike Jack.

“Listen to me!” Amy said.

Her mother wrung her hands together.
“Emily would have—”

“She killed herself,
alright? If she was so perfect...” Amy said,
her voice breaking on a sob. “If she was so
perfect, then why the hell did she kill
herself?”

Her mother slapped her hard
enough that Amy almost fell over. She felt the
heat before the sting of the pain.

“How dare you say a thing
like that?” her mother said, barely a
whisper.

“It's true, Mom. I found this note
a few months after she died.” She held the note out to her mother.
“She left it for me in my favorite book on my bookshelf.”
Amy swallowed the lump in her throat and pushed
forward. Needing to purge the horrible
truth that she'd been holding in for so long. “She
jumped in front of Jack's
car that night. It could have been
anyone driving down that road.
Jack just happened to be the one when she decided to walk
out into the street.”

Amy handed the envelope over to her
mother, who stumbled to the couch with her husband’s arms wrapped
around her. They sat and opened the purple envelope. The
paper, that Amy had unfolded and folded dozens
of times, threatened to tear under the intense pressure of Dianne's
grip.

Amy knew they've read
the note in its entirety when they collapsed in each other's
arms. Terrifying sobs reverberated between them, echoing
what Amy had known for some time.

But nothing compared to the awful
tear in her chest when she turned around to face Jack.

His face was contorted in
pain.

Betrayal.

He grabbed his keys off the counter and
left the apartment, the door swinging open in his wake. Amy
followed him down the stairs and to the parking lot.

“Jack, please. Just listen to
me. I didn't find the note until after you'd been cleared
of any negligence. Please, would you just talk to
me?”

He whirled around and
the look of disgust on his face hurt worse than her
mother's slap. “Just talk to me,” Amy said.

“Talk to you? I can't
even look at you.” He took a deep breath to control
himself. “I can understand why you didn't tell me when you
didn't know me. But how...
How could you not tell me these past few months?
How could you not be decent enough to fucking tell
me?”

“Because it was a
secret! Okay? It was a secret.” Amy's
voice was hoarse. “It was the last
secret that my sister left for me and the note asked me
not to tell. It begged me not to tell.”

Her legs gave out from under her and
she crouched down on the pavement with her head in her
hands.

“It was a secret,” she, said,
between sobs and the sound of footsteps across gravel. The opening
of the truck door. The start of an engine, and the sound of the
truck backing out of the parking spot.

Jack
Harper was gone.

Amy walked back up to Jack's
apartment. When she stepped into the apartment and found
her parents in the living room, they were standing
together in a tight embrace. Their heads jerked toward the sound of
her closing the apartment door and they opened their arms,
welcoming her in.

Her father's
scent was foreign, and yet comforting. How
long had it been since he'd held her like
this?

She expected her father to say, you
should have told us. But instead, he said, “I
wish we would have made you feel like
you could tell us.”

Amy held on tighter, and cried harder,
ruining her father's shirt. Their mother finally pulled
back and suggested they go back to the hotel. Amy wanted to wait
for Jack to return, but there was so much to tell
her parents, now that it felt like
they were listening, and it didn't seem right
to stay any longer in Jack's apartment like this.

She took several changes of
clothing, her purse, backpack, and left with her parents to their
hotel where she hoped they could start to be okay again.
No more secrets.

Dear Emily,

I forgive you.
Chapter 8

Amy spent the next three nights at the
hotel with no word from Jack. She called Terri the next morning to
check on Tom. He was recuperating and would be going
home. They were having a welcome home party, and Amy
asked if she could bring her parents along.

The drive out to the
farm was filled with non-stop talking between her and her
parents. It was like the
floodgates had opened for their relationship.

“Sweetheart, if you want to come home,
you can. Of course, you can.”

Amy frowned. “That's the thing. I
want to stay now.”

Her mother’s eyes cut to her father for
a brief moment. “Because of Jack?”

“I don't think Jack's going to want
anything to do with me anymore,” Amy said. “I want to finish my
degree. The school has a veterinary program. I want to be
a large animal Doctor so I can work with horses and
cows.”

Soon the farm, which had shaped so much
of her life, loomed ahead of them.
Everyone was there. When Terry said party, she
meant Party. The entire first floor of the house had the
doors and windows open. Tom was in one corner in a
wheelchair looking much better than he had at the
hospital.

Amy introduced her parents around, her
eyes darting around in search of Jack.
She had just approached Tom when Jack appeared from
outside. He zeroed in on Amy and her parents and walked toward
them.

Amy didn't
realize that you could actually feel your
heart skip a beat, but she did. She found that she
couldn't breathe, and her mouth went dry. “Jack,” she
said.

Jack looked at her father.
“Sir.”

“What's on your mind son?”

Jack looked at Amy again. His
entire body was tense, and his eyes tight and focused.
Amy became aware that everyone was looking at
them. Everyone was waiting to see what would
happen next, but none more than Amy.

“I meant what I said. I'm in love with
your daughter, and if it's okay with her, I don't ever
want to leave her side.” Jack took a deep breath and sighed.
“But it's important to
her that she have a good relationship with both
of you,” he said, looking at Amy’s mother. “I need
to know that we can make this work.”

Her father looked at
Jack pointedly and then placed his hand on
Jack's shoulder, before pulling him toward his body, enveloping him
in an embrace. Amy's eyes filled with tears, as
she watched her father hold Jack, before releasing
him.

“Son, everything will be
okay,” he said nodding.

Jack turned to Amy then, and
she could hardly see through her tears. “I'm so
sorry,” Amy said. “I'm so sorry I kept the truth from
you.”

Jack nodded, but his
lips were set in a tight line. He was still
hurting. “I forgive you.”

“But how? How can you forgive
me?”

He shrugged. “I love you,
Amy.”

“Oh God, Jack. I love you
too.”

Jack slid his arms around
Amy's body, and she felt triumphant warmth spread all
through her. He crushed his mouth to hers in a breathtaking kiss,
to the sound of applause from their friends and
family that surrounded them.

Later that night, after the
party, and after Amy's parents had left town, she and
Jack lay in his bed, wrapped up in each other's arms. He didn't
think he'd ever get over the joy of having Amy
next to him.

“I have something I want to
give you,” he said. He reached over and opened his nightstand, to
retrieve a small book.

“What's that?” she asked, taking
the book that he offered.

“It's a journal that I
write in when I remember. After the
accident, it was supposed to be something
therapeutic. It sort of stuck, though I
should probably write in it more often.” He
shrugged. “Go to the day that's marked.”

Amy did so, turning to a dog-eared page
in the book. “What date is this?”

His kissed her temple
and then settled in next to her so
they could both read the page. “It's the day I met
you at the pub.”

Amy turned away and focused on the
journal entry. She read aloud:
Dear Emily,
None of this was supposed to happen.

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Chapter 1 preview

Chapter 1

Natalie Rey didn’t know the first
thing about wielding the wrench in her hand, but not knowing things
had never stopped her before. Like hell would a leaky faucet get in
the way of securing a tenant. And all interested parties had
expected their showers to be in working order.

Silly people, with their basic
needs...like indoor plumbing.

No worries, Natalie was perfectly
capable of watching videos of people who did know things. The woman
in the video made it look so easy. But of course, it was easy for
her. She built her house by herself and probably forged the very
steel that framed the house.

Natalie repeated the instructions
aloud. “Just replace the stem, tighten things back up, and no more
leak.”

She did these things, intent on using
the most precise movements. Except when she tightened the faucet,
water shot out in a jet stream, hitting her right in the face. She
screamed, more like gargled, and placed her hands in front of her
body in a weak attempt to stop the water with her hands.

What made her think she could do this
without the use of a real plumber? She turned the knob, only to
have it come off in her hand. “Easy, my ass,” she said through her
teeth.

“Nat? What are you doing?”

Natalie turned, and her posture
stiffened at the sight of Chase Hammond filling the doorway like he
was holding the house up with his big, strong body.

Not now. Even as water
sprayed wildly around her, she looked up at the ceiling, asking God
why. 
Why would you bring Chase
Hammond to my door at this moment?

Or ever for that matter.

“Obviously...” She cleared her throat.
“I don't know what I'm doing. What are you doing? Here? In my
bathroom?”

“Where's the valve to shut off the
water?” Chase asked, focused and on track, responding to the
situation as if she were in way over her head.

For the record, she was.

Looking even better than she
remembered, he was glorious in his relaxed jeans and threadbare
T-shirt, tight across his chest and loose around his flat
stomach.

“The what?” Natalie asked, still
standing in the spray, pretending like she wasn't just ogling
him.

“Outside, Nat.” He offered her a
bemused smile, giving Natalie the impression that he knew exactly
what she was doing. “There should be a valve to shut off all the
water to the house.”

“Should I have turned that off before
working on the faucet?”

He rewarded her with a broad grin, and
Natalie's brain went fuzzy, all neurons getting lost in a wave of
static. She'd seen pictures of him, but she forgot how mind
crippling his smile could be in real time.

“Nat, the valve?”

Natalie pushed her shoulders back and
lifted her chin. “Under the bushes. On the... west side of the
house.”

He grimaced. “Of course it's under the
bushes. Get out of the tub. You're soaked.”

Natalie's eyes widened, and she shook
her head at the spot where Chase once stood. He sounded so bossy
that she almost stayed put just to spite him. Instead, she climbed
out of the tub and chastised herself for not turning the valve off
in the first place.

The water slowed and then stopped
running altogether. She breathed a shaky sigh of relief. This
didn't fix the faucet, but at least the meter wasn't running up at
breakneck speed anymore. Besides, she had other things to worry
about. Natalie hadn’t seen Chase Hammond in eight years. Not that
she was counting.

Chase returned to the bathroom and
stared at her bedraggled state. She warmed as his eyes swept up and
down her body.