“I hope he doesn’t intend to report that little drama in next week’s paper,” she murmured, half to herself.
“I don’t think Ford would do that,” Karen said.
“He’s a journalist, isn’t he? It’s his job to muckrake whenever the opportunity arises,” Emma replied, leaving little doubt of the contempt in which she held Ford Hamilton’s profession.
“Maybe in the city, but not here,” Cassie said. “Mom likes Ford. She met him when he came into the hair salon one day when she was there and asked if Sara Ruth cut men’s hair.”
Despite herself, Emma bit back a grin. The Twist and Curl had been strictly a women’s domain for two generations. “Oh, my. How did that go over?”
“Actually, after the initial shock, he charmed everyone in the room,” Cassie reported. “Mom’s been thinking of inviting him over for Sunday dinner. He’s a bachelor. She’s worried he might be lonely.”
“A little young for your mom, though, isn’t he?”
“Very funny,” Cassie said. “She’s just being neighborly.”
Emma turned another speculative look on the journalist. Maybe she’d judged him too harshly earlier, but she knew the type. There was no mistaking the arrogance in his stance. What she’d at first dismissed as idle curiosity was clearly the far more dangerous nosiness of a professional snoop.
Over the years Emma had had more than her share of run-ins with reporters. She didn’t have much use for them as a breed. Most of them managed to get their facts straight, but in her view they had the sensitivity and discretion of a runaway bulldozer. That alone would have been enough for her to give the press a wide berth, but there had been one incident that had come close to destroying her career with a little help from Kit. Hell would freeze over before she gave another reporter any assistance on a story, even if the story itself was as well-intentioned as the one Ford had described to her earlier.
“Didn’t I see him asking you to dance earlier?” Lauren asked, regarding her curiously. “Did he say something to upset you?”
“Not really. He was just acting on Mrs. Hawkins’s orders.” Emma wondered if she might have warmed more to the classically handsome newspaperman if she’d thought he’d been drawn to her by appreciation of her own charms, but decided no, she wasn’t that vain. Still, it irked her ever so slightly that it was Mrs. Hawkins’s prodding that had sent him her way.
“Mrs. Hawkins was matchmaking?” Cassie said, chuckling. “Imagine that. I seem to recall she spent most of my sophomore year trying to keep Cole and me separated. And we weren’t even dating at that point.”
“Maybe she just has good instincts about who belongs with whom,” Lauren said, casting a speculative gaze at Emma. “I can see you with a journalist.”
“Me? Never,” Emma said fiercely. “They’re always poking their noses in where they don’t belong. Just look at the way he’s been watching Sue Ellen and Donny, taking mental notes. If the opportunity arises, he’ll report this without giving a second thought to the consequences.”
“Which are?” Lauren asked.
“If Donny and Sue Ellen have a serious problem, putting it in the paper will only escalate the tension,” Emma predicted.
“Or maybe getting it out into the open will force them to face what they’re doing to each other,” Karen said, looking thoughtful. “Everybody tiptoes around it, because Sue Ellen clearly doesn’t want to acknowledge that Donny hits her. It’s just one of those unspoken truths that everyone knows.”
“And you think publicly humiliating her will make the situation better?” Emma demanded. “I say she needs to be able to cling to whatever dignity she can.”
The others sighed.
“I doubt we’re going to solve Sue Ellen’s problems for her,” Cassie said. “She has to want to get out of the relationship.”
“Let’s just hope she doesn’t wait too long,” Emma murmured. She glanced in Sue Ellen’s direction, but when their classmate realized she was the subject of Emma’s scrutiny, she fled, her cheeks flaming.
“Okay, enough of this,” Karen said. “I’m going to look for my husband. I want to dance.”
Gina and Cassie drifted away as well, leaving Emma alone with Lauren.
“You’re really concerned about Sue Ellen, aren’t you?” Lauren asked.
Emma nodded. “I’ve seen too many women like her in my pro bono work. They’re scared to go and they’re terrified to stay. Either way, their lives are hell. A few make it out. Too many stay and wind up severely beaten or dead.” She shuddered. “It’s the most depressing kind of case I handle. I don’t do it often, because it takes a terrible toll on me emotionally. I keep thinking, ‘there but for the grace of God go I.’”
Lauren stared at her in shock. “Kit?”
Emma nodded reluctantly. She never spoke about what the last days of her marriage had been like, but she couldn’t bring herself to skirt the truth with Lauren. “He never laid a hand on me, but the psychological abuse was almost as bad.”
“You never said a word about this,” Lauren said, her gaze filled with concern. “What did he do?”
“He did everything he could to convince me I would never make it as an attorney,” Emma said, chilled by the memory. “He wanted me dependent on him, emotionally and financially. I was lucky—I’m stubborn and strong willed. He couldn’t intimidate me. I believed I could succeed without him. After all, I had made it into one of the best colleges in the country and had finished law school at the top of my class. I refused to let Kit diminish those accomplishments.”
“Yet even now that he’s out of your life, you’re still proving yourself to him, aren’t you?” Lauren said, regarding her thoughtfully. “That’s why you work so hard.”
Emma opened her mouth to disagree vehemently, but the denial died on her lips. “You could be right,” she admitted slowly. “I never considered that before.”
“Maybe you should think about it now,” Lauren advised, “so you’ll be able to give yourself permission to slow down. You don’t want to wake up one day and realize you’ve missed every single important event in Caitlyn’s life all because you were trying to prove something to a man like Kit Rogers.”
“Caitlyn’s only six,” Emma said defensively. “She hasn’t had a lot of important events.”
“She’s had birthdays, hasn’t she? And Christmases? And school vacations? How many of those have you spent with her?” Lauren asked.
“I’ve never missed a birthday or Christmas,” Emma retorted.
“Good. But I know for a fact that this is the first trip the two of you have taken in two years. Part of the joy of being a mother is seeing things through your child’s eyes. You’re missing that.” Her expression turned wistful. “If I had what you have, I wouldn’t waste a second.”
Lauren’s words struck a nerve, which was probably why Emma felt inclined to snap at her. She resisted the urge, confining herself to a pointed question. “When did you get to be an expert on motherhood?”
“Wishful thinking,” Lauren said lightly.
“I’ve never heard you talk about kids before.”
“Maybe I just never heard my biological clock ticking quite so loudly before.” Lauren forced a smile. “Enough of this. I’m going out right this second to find myself the handsomest man in the room to dance with, even if he’s married to somebody else.”
“Just don’t forget to give him back,” Emma teased.