Eyes round with mock terror, Ethan lifted his hands, then quick-drew an imaginary gun from inside an imaginary coat. “Bang!” he said.
She clutched her chest and staggered backward, sinking to her knees. Then, despite all of the drama that had unfurled that day, she started giggling. That was one of the things she liked most about Ethan—she could be herself with him, goofy Emma Paxton of Las Vegas, Nevada. The girl who wrote a secret newspaper about her life, who kept detailed lists of snarky comebacks she should have said to people who’d been rude to her, the girl who hadn’t known Marc Jacobs from Michael Kors before she stepped into Sutton’s shoes. Ethan didn’t judge her for any of that—he liked her just the way she was. No one had ever accepted her at face value before. Even back when she’d been herself, everyone had immediately made assumptions about her because she was a foster child.
Ethan strode over to her bowlegged, like a cowboy, and drew her close. Their lips met in a brief kiss. Emma felt as though her body might melt.
When they parted, she glanced around them. “I’ve never been on a movie set before.”
Ethan turned around. “I keep forgetting you didn’t grow up here. We used to come to the studio on school trips all the time.” Ethan took her hand in his, and together they strolled down the dusty street. He pointed at the saloon, where a red-faced man with a beard was wiping down a bar covered in bottles of whiskey. “They built that for Rio Bravo. And they shot a bunch of Gunsmoke and Bonanza episodes out here in the sixties.”
“On one of the signs out front it says Little House on the Prairie was filmed here,” Emma said. “I used to love that show.”
Ethan looked surprised. “I didn’t take you for the Little House type.”
Emma shrugged. “I watched reruns of it after school. I think I liked it because even though they were poor, the family was so loving and happy. Ma and Pa would do anything for their children.”
Ethan glanced at her sideways. “And what do you think about the Mercers? Are they a good family like that?”
Emma nodded slowly, knowing that Ethan was referring to her recent discovery that the Mercers were her family, for real. It was still unbelievable that Mr. and Mrs. Mercer were her grandparents—and Laurel her aunt. She felt grateful to have finally found them, but in some ways, it had made things even more complicated. The Mercers didn’t know they had two grandchildren. Nor did they know the granddaughter they’d raised as their own child was dead. What would they do if they found out? What would they say if they discovered Emma had been impersonating Sutton, that she had known Sutton was dead all this time?
It was something I thought about a lot, too. I wanted my parents to embrace Emma, I really did. I wished that I could help explain everything to them. But lies can hurt, especially a lie this huge.
“So.” Ethan took Emma’s hand, leading her to a bench across from a church. This part of the lot looked completely abandoned. “Why did you want to meet?”
Emma took a deep breath. “I saw my mom earlier,” she admitted, biting the corner of her lip. “My real mom. Becky.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Where?”
“She drove past me. I tried to run after her, but she gunned it. I guess she didn’t want to talk.”
Ethan turned Emma so that she was facing him. “Are you okay?”
She shrugged, forcing a smile. “It’s not me she’s avoiding, right? It’s Sutton she doesn’t want to talk to.”
Ethan scratched his chin. He opened his mouth like he was about to say something, and then closed it.
“What?” Emma asked.
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
Emma cocked her head to one side. “Say it.”
He took a deep breath. “Well, you said Becky was kind of … crazy, right?”
Emma nodded slowly. She had told Ethan about how erratic her mother had seemed when Emma was just a little girl. Some days Becky would take Emma to the park, or let her have ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Other days she stayed in bed with the blinds drawn, crying into her pillow. The summer before she’d abandoned Emma, Becky had taped cardboard from cereal boxes all over the windows, certain that someone was watching them at night. Emma still cringed when she saw the Captain Crunch logo.
Ethan scuffed the edge of one Chuck Taylor against the other. “Do you have the letter she left you at the diner?”
Without speaking, Emma pulled Sutton’s wallet from the Madewell messenger bag over her shoulder and unfolded the note, wincing once more at Becky’s handwriting, which was familiar even after all these years. It didn’t say much; just I wish things had gone differently that night in the canyon, and some vague advice for Sutton not to make the same mistakes she had. Emma wished it had said more.