The Perfect Homecoming (Pine River #3)

Fortunately, things were a little more upbeat up at the ranch. Madeline and Libby were completely caught up in the last-minute preparations for Christmas and the wedding. They’d enlisted Tony D’Angelo, the de facto governor of the Homecoming Ranch Veteran’s Rehabilitation Center, and a veteran himself, to build a tent awning over the old paddock in case the barn was too small to include their guests and the buffet. Tony didn’t like that idea. If it snowed, he said, the tent would collapse. Which prompted Madeline, Libby, and Tony to relentlessly study the weather forecasts on an iPad.

When they weren’t trying to predict the weather, they were making things. Libby made sashes for the chairs just like the ones she’d seen in a magazine, and Madeline and Luke were building an arbor under which they would stand for the ceremony. There were mason jars and ribbons and sashes and candles everywhere.

And Emma?

When Emma wasn’t with Leo, she was lying on her bed, staring up at the ever-changing mountaintops, thinking of Cooper and of all the things he’d come to represent to her. Hope, for one. Normalcy. Maybe even love.

Emma had never been in love. Not real, deep love. She wasn’t even certain that was what she was feeling—what she felt seemed awfully painful to be love.

She thought of all the things she wanted with every bit of her being, but couldn’t have. This painful love she was feeling. A home. Someone to come home to, someone to share her life with. Children. All of that had seemed out of reach for her for a long time now, locked up tight as a drum in this body and brain and soul she inhabited.

For a week, Emma was lost. For a week, she hardly remembered to eat at all, unless Libby yelled at her and shoved a piece of chicken under her nose. Emma began to understand that she had no direction, and she hadn’t had one in ages. When she was a kid, she’d had these ideas of what she would become—a wife, a mother, a fashion model. A famous painter! Which was more amusing than reality, as the idea had sounded romantic to a teenage Emma, even though she’d never shown the slightest bit of talent. But at least she’d been thinking of a future, of a life. It was as if her life had shuddered to a stop the summer she turned seventeen.

How far from that girl she was now. Look at her—she’d quit her job, she’d left Los Angeles, she’d developed a torch, a flaming bonfire of a torch, for Cooper Jessup. She would be twenty-eight years old in a few months with no destination for her life, and worse, a maddening inability to maintain a single relationship. The only thing Emma had going for her was the money she’d saved and some marketable skills in a certain world. But in the greater scheme of things? She had nothing that mattered. She didn’t have anyone to care for or who cared about her.

What would she do once Luke and Madeline were married and settled here? Emma presumed they would—they had no place to go until the fate of the ranch was settled. Libby’s life had done a dramatic turnaround since last summer. She was happy now, and she was talking about moving in with Sam and maybe buying in to a partnership with Sherry Stancliff at the Tuff Tots Daycare.

None of them had said a word to Emma about her length of stay at the ranch. None of them had asked her to stay. But then again, she’d made it painfully clear she wouldn’t be around long.

Because she was going where again? To do what?

Maybe she’d head east, she mused. To New York, to bright lights and high society. Surely there was a management company that could use her experience in Hollywood. But . . . but if she went to New York, did that mean she was starting over? Or did that mean she was still hiding, or whatever the politically correct term was for running away? Would she run to London after that? Then Paris? Islamabad, Hong Kong? When, Emma whispered to herself, when would she stop? When would she find the courage to stop and face her issues?

Emma didn’t have any answers. She lay there, turning the St. Christopher medal over in her hand, reflecting back on a life that had made her afraid of rejection and disappointment. Of wanting her mother’s approval and finding nothing but criticism. You’re not as cute as you think you are. You’re pretty enough, but Laura is what I would call cute. Of wanting a father to want her. I think we should invite Laura to Vegas, don’t you, kiddo? Of believing someone could love her and want her, even once they had discovered the person beneath the face. I care about you.

Hope could be a cruel bitch.




Cooper finally called.

Leo was sleeping, and Emma was lying down on the bed in a room that was considered Luke’s on those rare occasions he stayed home with his father and brother. When Emma’s phone rang, she glanced at the number on the screen. It was an LA area code, and her heart skipped a beat or two. Before she could talk herself out of it, she hit the talk button. “Hello.”

“Hello, Emma.”

Cooper’s voice dripped into her like warm honey, and she closed her eyes, savoring it. “Cooper,” she said softly. “How did you get my number?”

“From Luke.” He sighed, sounding tired to her. “I’m guessing I don’t have to say why I’m calling, do I?”