“Good grief, she’s bright,” Logan said proudly.
“She certainly is.” Emily moved away then, walking softly. “Mind if I turn down the light?”
“No, go ahead.”
“How about a little background music?” she asked as she switched on the lamp and switched off the overhead light.
“Sure.”
Suddenly the mood was entirely altered, softened, as tinkling music filled the air.
“Keep your voice low and rock gently as you read,” Emily counseled in a whisper as she clipped Amanda Sue’s pacifier to her shoulder and placed Sugar Bear in her lap. The child immediately popped the nipple into her mouth and got a hammerlock on the toy. Logan began to rock, carefully, quietly reading and turning the pages. Soon he realized that Amanda Sue was no longer paying attention. She had dropped off, her face turned into his chest. As he watched, she pushed the pacifier out of her mouth with her tongue and sighed. Suddenly Emily was at his shoulder, whispering into his ear. “Just get up very slowly.”
He laid aside the book and slowly rose, carefully shifting his sleeping daughter as he did so. Emily floated across the room to fold back the covers on the crib. Logan followed and gently lowered Amanda Sue to the mattress. She stirred, sighed, and collapsed into deep slumber, Sugar Bear atop her chest. Logan tucked the covers around her as Emily rewound the music box. He turned on one monitor. She picked up the other and slipped from the room. Again Logan followed, gently closing the door behind him.
“She loves that room,” Logan said as they moved away, keeping his voice low. “She had to show me every little thing, and she kept saying, ‘Mimy do, Mimy do.’ I didn’t realize she was talking so much, not that I could understand much of it. She knows all the animals, though. That much, I got. Did you teach her?”
Emily shook her head. “No. You’ll have to credit her mother with that and much more. Amanda Sue has been handled with great care. She’s been read to on a regular basis and taught all the basics. Tonight when I brushed her teeth, she didn’t protest a peep, just opened her little mouth and patiently waited for me to finish, then rinsed her mouth and gave me a big smile. She kept talking about you this evening, too. ‘Daddy come? Daddy come?’ I kept assuring her that you would, but I could tell she was missing you.”
Logan felt a lump rise in his throat. “She’s amazing, isn’t she? I can’t get over how bright and loving she is.”
“When she’s getting her way,” Emily said cheekily.
He chuckled. “Too true. No one will ever run over Miss Amanda Sue, you can bet on that.”
“Not that they’re likely to get the chance,” Emily said, looking back over her shoulder at him as she began descending the stairs.
“Meaning?”
“They’d have to go through her daddy first, now wouldn’t they?”
He found that he liked the idea. A natural protectiveness seemed to come with the job. “It’s so strange,” he said. “She didn’t exist for me just days ago, and now…” He shook his head, unable to put it into words. He didn’t have to.
“I know,” Emily said, reaching the bottom of the stairs. “A child changes everything.”
He couldn’t argue with that. They walked on into the kitchen, where she had laid out plates and flatware. Emily poured the iced tea while he got the food out of the oven and set out the containers. His stomach rumbled again as the aromas of refried beans, rice, tamales, guacamole and spicy enchiladas mingled. They sat down and dug in. The first pangs of hunger were satisfied before his mind turned to other things.
“You were quick to credit her mother earlier,” he said to Emily, “but I couldn’t help noticing how well you handle Amanda Sue, as well as you do everything else, in fact. You said something yesterday about nieces and nephews, but I have a nephew, and I haven’t learned what you have about kids.”
She smiled and put down her fork. “Maybe we should put this into perspective. You see, I’m the next to youngest of seven children, and we’re pretty spread out, so I have nieces and nephews only a few years younger than me, and quite a few even younger ones. The count went to sixteen, total, this year, some of whom have children of their own.”
“Wow!” He shook his head, wondering what else he didn’t know about this woman. Funny, he’d spent more time with Emily Applegate these past two years than any other person of his acquaintance, and yet he knew next to nothing about her.
She picked up her fork and cut a piece of tamale. “That won’t last long, though,” she said.
He brought his mind back to full attention. “What’s that?”
“Sixteen.”
“Nieces and nephews, you mean.”
She nodded, chewing and swallowing her tamale. “My little sister has just announced that she’s in the family way again.”
“Your little sister?”
Emily nodded again. “Her name’s Lola. She’s twenty-three and has been married four years already. We marry young in Kentucky.”
“Kentucky,” he echoed, thoroughly irritated with himself for not knowing where she was from. Why had he never asked? “Didn’t I hire you out of Dallas?”
“That’s right. After college I worked in Kingsboro, then Memphis, Tennessee, and then Dallas.” She toyed with her guacamole, then forked up a tiny bite. “I was the only one who couldn’t wait to get out of Kentucky—well, not counting Cathy.”
“Cathy? That one of your sisters?”
Emily shook her head, a tiny smile curving her mouth. “Cathy Wazorski,” she said, eyes twinkling. “She was my very best friend. We grew up plotting ways to get out of Kentucky.”
“And you found your way out through college,” he surmised correctly.
“True. It wasn’t easy, mind you. We were poor as church mice. Mom and Dad just couldn’t afford to help, so I’m still paying off the school loans, but it’s worth it.”
Logan shifted uncomfortably. He knew the value of hard work. He’d earned his way to the top of the family company, and no one could say otherwise, but he’d never had to worry about money, certainly not as a college student. Now he wondered if Emily was not somehow a stronger or better person than he for having done it all on her own. To turn aside his thoughts he changed the subject of the conversation.
“And did Cathy make it, too?” he asked.
Emily grinned, making him feel that she’d just been waiting for him to ask. “You could say that, seeing as you probably know her as Ciara Wilde.”
He dropped his fork. “You’re kidding! The actress?” He fleetingly pictured the tall, shapely star with the flowing blond hair as he’d seen her in her last movie, enveloped in satin and furs, and tried to reconcile that with a picture of Emily’s childhood friend from Kentucky.
“The very same,” Emily confirmed proudly. “In fact, as I’m sure you’ve heard on the news, she’s filming a movie here in San Antonio right now, and we get together as often as our schedules allow.”
He shook his head. “I’m absolutely amazed.”
She laughed. “Don’t let the movie star persona fool you. Cathy’s nothing like her public image. She’s really a sweet, down-to-earth person.”
He picked up his fork. “I wasn’t talking about Cathy, or Ciara.”
“No? What