It was what Declan was half expecting.
More than half, really. He already knew how changeable she could be.
She’d been friendly when they’d first met in Afghanistan. But after digging her out of that bombed school, she wouldn’t even let him visit her in the hospital. Instead she’d sent a thank-you note with her sister. Her sister, who hadn’t been inside the school when it was blown up and had escaped injury.
After leaving the hospital, when Mandy and Topher were still keeping as constant company as they could, Emmy had had her sister tell him that she still wasn’t up for any visits.
And during Mandy and Topher’s lengthy parting at the airport? Emmy had hidden aboard the plane and Declan had been left hanging on the tarmac, not even allotted a goodbye.
Message received—that was what he’d thought. Apparently sharing a couple of laughs had meant more to him than it had to her and she didn’t want anything to do with him. Okay, fine.
But then there was the wedding.
She’d been weird toward him initially. She hadn’t done anything but raise her chin to say hello before taking off as if her tail was on fire. And she’d kept her distance from him through the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, through the pre-wedding pictures.
Then at the reception she’d approached him. She’d said she wanted to thank him again for unburying her from the school debris. She’d even stuck around to chat and that friendly, fun side of her had come out again. To the extent that he’d started to think they might hit it off after all.
They’d spent almost the entire reception together, doing a lot of drinking, dancing, laughing. He’d had a great time with her. But she’d been pretty drunk by the end of it, so he’d walked her to her room. He hadn’t so much as kissed her because he hadn’t wanted it to seem as if he was taking any kind of advantage.
What he had done was make a date for breakfast the next morning.
But by breakfast she’d turned on him again—she’d stood him up, and when he’d happened to run into her in the hotel lobby and asked if she’d forgotten about it, she’d said, “Are you kidding? You really thought I’d have breakfast with you after last night?”
Then she’d turned her back on him, stormed off and not spoken to him the two other times their paths had crossed post-wedding.
So yeah, he wasn’t putting much stock in her agreement to his help now. She was a Jekyll and Hyde if ever he’d seen one.
But despite that, he did hope that she accepted his help.
Not because he had any desire at all to deal with her but because helping with the farm and the kids until a leaser could step in or until he passed his medical review and was deployed again was something he could do for Topher.
For Topher he would do anything. For Topher nothing would ever be enough...
“You don’t say her name like you like her,” Kinsey observed, bringing him out of his reverie.
“I don’t dislike her,” he said, though it didn’t sound altogether believable even to him. “I don’t know... For some reason things just don’t gel between us.”
“I’ve heard that she’s really pretty, though. I met Greg Kravitz in town and he asked if I knew her—he sounded interested.”
“Kravitz? He’s still here?” Declan said through nearly clenched teeth.
“Yeah, he has a landscaping business—mostly I think he mows lawns, shovels snow in the winter... I forgot, you guys really hated each other, didn’t you? You were like archenemies.”
Kinsey had no idea...
“He’s a jerk” was all Declan said. He’d always kept things to himself when it had come to Kravitz. And maybe his own long and ugly history with him was the reason that it rubbed him so wrong to think of Kravitz being interested in Emmy Tate. But it did. It rubbed him really, really wrong...
“I wouldn’t wish Kravitz on anyone,” he grumbled.
“But especially not on Emmy Tate?” his sister probed.
Declan sighed and shook his head. “You know what happens when everybody in your family finds someone and you’re single? They all think they have to pair you up with someone. But let’s just put any idea of me and Emmy Tate to rest once and for all, huh? I don’t know what makes her tick, but I do know that it doesn’t work for me.”
Sure, she was great-looking, there was no doubt about that—even when she was as dirty as a farmhand after a day’s hard work yesterday he’d still seen that. And then she’d cleaned up and...
Okay, yeah, great-looking.
She had the creamiest skin he’d ever seen and a face like some kind of enticing girl next door, with gorgeous, big, doe-brown eyes, a straight little nose, kissably full lips that he’d never had the chance to kiss and dimples—she had the damn sexiest dimples...
Plus she had smooth, shiny reddish-brown hair that turned toward her chin on the bottom, with a long wisp of bangs that sometimes fell like a see-through silk scarf over one eye in a way that was shy and coy and seductive all at once.
And her body?
Yeah, that was great, too. Trim and tight with just enough oomph in all the right places.
So sure, he’d been interested when he’d come across what had seemed like a little breath of fresh air from home in Afghanistan.
And yeah, she’d been intriguing enough for him to drop his guard again with her when she’d warmed up at the wedding reception.
But those cold shoulders she’d thrown his way the rest of the time—including yesterday? That definitely didn’t work for him.
“I’m here because we lost Topher and there are things that have to be taken care of on his behalf,” he said firmly then. “And from here the only place I’m headed for is where I belong—back to the marines and my unit. So don’t go hoping for some kind of romance with anyone while I’m here.”
“It might do you some good,” his sister suggested with a different tone that he also recognized—the worried-about-him-and-his-state-of-mind-since-Topher’s-death look and sound that he’d met from Kinsey and Conor and Liam.
“I’m good enough,” he proclaimed, even if he was finding it hard to be the old Declan. “So all you happy lovebirds can roost here and I’ll go down the road and hope I can do some good there. But don’t be putting some other kind of spin on it because it isn’t gonna happen.”
“Declan...” his sister said, sounding more worried still.
“I’m good, Kinsey,” he cut her off, his tone more reprimand than anything. He knew that wasn’t going to reassure her, but it was still the best he could manage.
And feeling the weight of his sister’s concern heaped on top of what he’d been carrying around since Topher’s death—over Topher’s death—had him thinking that weathering the ups and downs of Topher’s sister-in-law was preferable to hanging around here and weathering concern from all three siblings.
At least he hoped it would be.
But with Emmy Tate?
He couldn’t be sure of anything.
* * *
“The guy whose gorgeous face gave you nightmares, the guy who turned out to be a player, will be moving in with you?” Carla Figarello demanded.
“I don’t know...” Emmy said uncertainly. “It’s my mother’s idea... A really bad one...”
Saturday had been a loss in terms of getting anything done beyond the usual morning chores—water and feed the animals, collect the eggs, milk the