The Perfect Homecoming (Pine River #3)

“Leo, I’m serious,” Emma said with some exasperation. “It makes me despicable.”


“Are you kidding? You could never be despicable, Emma! Okay, so you have a screw loose. Who doesn’t?” He paused to take a deep breath.

He was frustrating her, unwilling to take her seriously. “I should never have said anything,” she said, and stood up.

“Wait, wait,” Leo said. “Please sit down. For the sake of argument, let’s just agree that you have a major screw loose. I mean, by any definition this is prime nutter territory.”

She cast a withering look at him. “You’re not helping.”

“Still, it doesn’t make you bad, Emma. It doesn’t make you despicable. It doesn’t make you unlovable.”

That word, unlovable, kicked Emma in the gut. She sucked in a sharp breath as if she’d actually been hit and pressed her palm against her abdomen. The painful twist she felt surprised her, and she slowly sank onto the stool again.

“What? What’d I say?” Leo asked. “Unlovable? Was that it? I said you weren’t unlovable.”

“Don’t, Leo,” Emma said, and swallowed. “You’re not a shrink and it’s not like I’m going to change.”

“But you’re not unlovable, Emma. Wait—is that a double negative? Look, what I’m trying to say is that you’re lovable. Totally, completely lovable, even with this crazy thing you do. I mean, look at me, I adore you!”

Emma looked at him, expecting to see the twinkle of laughter in his eyes, but Leo looked as earnest as she’d ever seen him.

“I don’t adore you in that way, I already told you. But I love you because you’re you. You’re like, drop-dead gorgeous, and you say what’s on your mind, and you think about things in a funny way, and you’ll watch a marathon of Duck Dynasty with me when I know you’re bored and you don’t make fun of me even once. You’re awesome, Emma. And just because you took a medal from some guy—okay, guys—doesn’t make you any less so.”

Damn it, her eyes were welling. “Don’t say that just to say it, okay? I can’t stand bullshit, you know that.”

“I’m not just saying it. I don’t just say stuff. Okay, that’s not totally true. I say stuff to Dad I know he wants to hear, and sometimes to set him off because it can be amusing under the right circumstances, but that’s different. You know me, Emma, and you know I would totally tell you if you were unlovable. I told you you’re a nutter, didn’t I?”

Emma couldn’t help her smile. “You did.” She wiped a lone tear from the corner of her eye. “But that’s exactly my problem, Leo. You really don’t know what I am. You really don’t know me at all. No one does.”

“Oh, come on, no one knows anyone as well as they think they do. But I know you as well as anyone can know you, right?”

She nodded. If anyone knew her, if only a little, it was Leo.

“Of course it’s true. I’m a certified genius, baby. I know this stuff backwards and forwards.”

“And you’re so modest, too,” she said. “That’s what makes you truly special.”

“Hey . . . you haven’t taken anything of mine, have you?”

Emma laughed ruefully and shook her head. “Never. I care about you.” She stood up and leaned over him to hug him, and kissed his forehead.

“Okay, all right, stop that.”

“I love you, Leo. I love you more than I’ve loved anyone in a very long time.”

A faint blush appeared in his sunken cheeks. “Give me a break,” he said, although his eyes were twinkling. “Who doesn’t? I’m, like, super charming. Okay, seriously, get out of the way. I can’t see Days with you standing right there.”

Emma moved back to the laundry.

“Just curious,” Leo said when she had started to fold towels once more. “When Jackson went out to LA to tell you about Grant dying, did he maybe happen to leave a tie behind? Purple with green spots? Because I really dug that tie, and he could never seem to find it once he came back.”

“Shut up, Leo,” Emma said, smiling.

She left later that afternoon when Leo asked to be taken to his room for a nap. He had to sleep with a breathing machine now, and she put that on him, and sat at the window, watching the elm tree sway against a cobalt-blue sky, dislodging thick, wet clumps of snow with each breeze.

When she was certain he was asleep, she stepped out onto the porch and inhaled deeply. The day was crisp but brilliant with light. She jogged down the steps and caught sight of Bob Kendrick salting the wheelchair ramp to keep it from icing over.

He glanced at his watch. “Leaving?” he asked, presumably because it was three thirty in the afternoon, a little earlier than her normal afternoon departure of four or five.

“Leo is napping,” she said.

“You got him into bed okay?”

Emma nodded.

“Breathing machine is on?”

“Of course.”