“She’s still in shock,” Matt said. “She’ll be better in the morning. Then you can all make the decisions together. You need to include Jeff and Andy in this, too. They’re feeling lost right now, too.”
“I’m sure they are, but they have each other at least. I was the one who always relied on Mama. She was my role model.” Emma looked at him, a mix of hope and doubt on her face. “Do you really think she’ll be better in the morning?”
Matt wanted to believe it. He knew Emma needed to believe it, so he reminded her, “Your mother’s a strong woman.”
Emma shook her head. “I always thought so, but she’s retreated to someplace I can’t reach her.” She touched her cheek. “She slapped me.”
Matt stared, spotting the faint trace of pink in Emma’s pale complexion. “Why on earth would she do that?” he asked, genuinely shocked.
“I told her that Dad was dead, that he wasn’t coming back. I insisted that she face the truth and she slapped me.”
He reached for her hand. “I’m sorry. I really am. You know she’s distraught. She’ll feel awful tomorrow.”
“She apologized. As for tomorrow, I’m not sure she’ll feel anything. She seems determined to sleep through everything.” She regarded him with a look filled with hurt and confusion. “What do I do if she’s not better? Do I make the decisions without her?”
“Nothing has to be decided right away,” Matt reassured her. “If she’s not up to it in the morning, you, Jeff and Andy can talk things over and decide what you want. I’ll help in any way I can, too. I can talk to the funeral home, make the arrangements, whatever’s necessary.”
“It’s not your responsibility,” Emma said.
Matt met her gaze evenly, refusing to be shut out. “I loved him, too, you know.”
Her expression instantly apologetic, she squeezed his hand. “I know you did.” She sighed heavily, then glanced around. “Where are Andy and Jeff? Have you seen them?”
“Andy’s in his room. Jeff’s outside, unless he decided to take off after I came back in.”
“He’s in the old tree house, I imagine. They used to love that place. I was barred from ever going up there.” She gave him a faint smile. “I used to sneak up when they weren’t around. In fact, I had my first kiss up there.”
“Oh, really?” Matt said, feeling an unmistakable trace of envy for the lucky boy. “Who was it?”
“Owen Davis,” she announced, her voice a conspiratorial whisper.
“You’re kidding me,” he said, shocked. “You had a thing with Owen Davis? Did your father know about it?”
Emma chuckled at his reaction. “Of course not. He would have been appalled. Owen was not only two years older than me, he rode a motorcycle. He was every girl’s fantasy of a very dangerous guy.”
“More than me?” Matt inquired, wondering just where he’d shown up on her personal radar.
“You weren’t dangerous,” she said as if the idea were ludicrous.
“Your father thought I was.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You were one of the family.”
Matt wasn’t sure whether to be pleased that he’d been so readily accepted in her view or insulted by her complete lack of appreciation for the qualities he’d shared with Owen Davis. If he’d had any idea she was drawn to dangerous boys, maybe he would have made his move back then despite Don’s disapproval. He decided to leave that particular discussion for another day. It wasn’t possible to change the past, anyway.
“So,” he began, forcing a teasing challenge into his voice, “was Owen a good kisser?”
Her expression turned nostalgic. “At the time I thought he was a fantastic kisser,” she admitted.
Matt barely contained a curse at the response. He was being ridiculous. Here he was jealous of a boy Emma had kissed more than a decade ago. Obviously it had never led to anything. He doubted they’d even been in touch in years.
“Have you seen him lately?” he asked anyway.
She stared at him blankly. “Why would I have seen him?”
“You said yourself he was a fantastic kisser.”
“A short-lived opinion. I grew up and discovered that really good kissing involves more than some guy sticking his tongue down your throat,” she said, chuckling. “Owen would not even make my list of top ten kissers today. Probably not even my top hundred.”
Top hundred? What the hell had she been doing up in D.C.? More important, he wondered if he would make the cut. Under other circumstances, he would be tempted to find out. He would be tempted to sweep her into his arms and demonstrate the many nuances of a great kiss. He’d had a lot of years to practice just in case an occasion like this ever arose. He looked up and caught her staring at him curiously.
“What are you thinking?” she asked, her voice vaguely breathless, as if she had a very good idea where his thoughts had wandered.
“You don’t want to know,” he said grimly, deciding to make that coffee after all. If he was going to sit here discussing Emma’s past escapades with the hundred greatest kissers in her life, he was going to need something a whole lot stronger than tea. Liquor was out of the question, given his exhaustion and the fact that he’d have to drive home soon.
“Matt?”
“What?”
“Did I say something to upset you?”
“Of course not. You can say anything you want to me.”
“I always thought I could,” she said, sounding suddenly uncertain.
“You still can,” he insisted, even if listening killed him. He would go through the tortures of hell, if it would distract her for a while from the reality of her father’s death.
“You’re a good guy,” she said.
She said it the way she might say it to an older brother. It grated on Matt’s nerves. He’d worked damn hard to become a good guy, and now he didn’t want to hear it. How ironic was that?
“That’s me, all right.” He poured himself a cup of strong coffee, then sat back down. “Tell me about your life in Washington. You work in an antiques store?”
“Fashionable Memories,” she said at once, her eyes brightening. “It’s a great place.”
As she began to talk, the years fell away and Matt could remember sitting in the backyard by the pool, listening to her spin her dreams for the future. He was pretty sure that back then there had been more talk of Hollywood or piloting a jetliner than selling antiques.
“When did you develop this fondness for old things?” he asked. “I thought you wanted to be an actress or maybe a pilot.”
She laughed. “How on earth did you remember that? I’d almost forgotten. I guess by my senior year in high school I’d figured out I wasn’t cut out for the silver screen, since I never once got chosen for the school play. As for being a pilot, once I understood how much technology was involved, I realized I was more interested in seeing the world than in actually flying a plane.”
“It’s still a big leap from either of those careers to selling antiques,” Matt said.
“While I was in college, I used to wander around Georgetown when I had some free time. There was this great thrift shop next door to a coffee shop I liked. I started poking around in there, looking for things to decorate my dorm room. One day I found a piece of porcelain. Even under all the grime, something