The Perfect Homecoming (Pine River #3)

That was another thing Emma didn’t get—why did people ask questions when they didn’t really want to hear the answers?

That awful gravy was another reason Emma liked this room—in here, she couldn’t smell it, or any of the other nutritionally useless food Libby made. And the room was far from her half sisters, who had taken rooms across from each other at the top of the stairs. It was far from the living and dining area, where Libby and Madeline gathered with their men at night. It was far from Los Angeles, which Emma had left behind, maybe for good (she was still mulling that over, still meandering through the options for the next phase of her life), and it was far from the rest of her family, which consisted of her mother, her stepfather, and the fair-haired, most-favored daughter, Emma’s stepsister, Laura.

The bottom line was that Homecoming Ranch was far from everything Emma didn’t want in her life anymore and, bonus, it had a view of the mountains. Beautiful, majestic mountains, their peaks as old as the earth, their ability to withstand the force of the universe unconquerable. She wanted to be unconquerable.

She reached for one of the many blankets on her bed and wrapped it around her shoulders, then unzipped her bag and peered inside.

There wasn’t much to see. Some underwear and hair things. A blue silk tie. A small picture of a dog, a black Lab with the obligatory red bandana around his neck. An engraved pen—15 years of service. A gold cuff link, a marathon medal, and two military medals still in their boxes. Did ex-military really wear those things, or did they stick them in drawers? Two tie clips; one onyx, one silver.

Emma took the items out one by one, laying them out in a row. These were her reminders of who she was, of the Emma she’d left behind in LA. These things were little pieces of her now, embedded in her aura, all traded for the bits of her soul she’d left in their place. All of them equally important to her now, and yet none of them adding up to the whole her. There were still so many pieces of her that were missing, either permanently lost or as yet unformed. So many holes in her, so many tiny parts that were ill-fitting and odd. Emma had no illusions about that—she knew what she was, how awkwardly she’d been constructed, how off-kilter she lived her life. She’d always known that beneath the pretty fa?ade was something that wasn’t quite right. Looks truly were deceiving.

She heard the sound of women laughing drifting up through the wooden floorboards and glanced at the clock on her bedside table. It was ten after eleven and she needed to get ready for work.

She had a part-time job helping with the care of Leo Kendrick, Luke’s brother. Well . . . perhaps job was too generous of a word. She had a part-time commitment. Yes, that was it. A commitment. She’d needed something to do when she’d decided to stick around, and Leo had captured her heart.

Leo was chair-bound, his body twisted with Motor Neuron Disease. His regular caretaker, a nurse, was out on maternity leave. Emma wasn’t a nurse by any stretch, and Leo’s father, Bob, had been very concerned about that when Emma had casually suggested that she take care of Leo until Marisol could come back to work. “Leo needs specialized care,” he’d said gruffly. “This ain’t happy hour.”

But Emma was fairly persuasive when she wanted to be and had talked her way into spending afternoons with Leo, sandwiched in between two temporary nurses with proper credentials who came to take care of the important things, like meds and feedings and cleanings. Emma was Leo’s companion, the one who watched TV with him and rolled him out onto the deck for a taste of the sun.

Emma put her things back in the small tote bag and zipped it up. She leaned over the bed once more and shoved it underneath, pushing it to the wall. And then she made a mental note to stop in at Tag’s Outfitters and get a lock for her bag.

She didn’t want anyone to ever see these pieces of her. They were her secret, her ugly little secret.

She showered and dressed in tights and boots, and a long, boxy sweater. She pulled her hair into a messy ponytail that looked more like art, a trick she’d learned from a famous hairdresser she’d slept with. At least he’d said he was famous. It was one night; she hadn’t bothered to check it out.