The Life She Wants. Robyn Carr

the dark of night, but then things got out of control and before she knew it, her shirt was pushed up, her jeans were around her knees and they’d gone all the way. Before they’d been honest with Emma.

      “Oh, God, I wanted us to tell Emma before something like that happened.”

      “Baby, Emma could care less.”

      “But I think I’m falling in love with my best friend’s boyfriend!”

      “Whoa, whoa,” he said. “Riley, let’s just slow down here...”

      “Aren’t we in love?” she asked. “All those things you were saying, that you couldn’t get through this without me and I’m the best thing that’s happened to you and you probably should’ve hit on me first...”

      “Hey, shoot me for being nice, huh? Of course I care about you—who said I didn’t? That was totally up to you. You were totally into it. Just don’t say anything, all right? You don’t have to make an announcement, for God’s sake. I won’t tell her. I just don’t know if I’d call it love. Yet.”

      “You have to break up with her. Tell her about us. You’re the one who started things with me, not the other way around. Aren’t you breaking up with her?” Riley asked.

      “I don’t think I’m going to have to,” he said. “I think she broke up with me about three months ago. She’s partying her ass off in Seattle.”

      “And there’s no grass growing under your ass, now, is there?” she threw back at him.

      Four weeks later, right before Emma came home for Christmas break, she told Jock she was pregnant. She’d taken the home test and it was positive.

      “You sure it’s mine?” he said. “I used a condom.”

      “I haven’t been with anyone else,” she informed him hotly.

      “But I don’t know that for sure, do I? Since I wasn’t with you every minute. And like I said, I had protection.”

      “What am I supposed to do?”

      “I don’t know. I guess what anyone would do. You need a little money?”

      She was so filled with shame, disappointment and rage she wanted to die, but she lifted her chin and said, “Go to hell, Jock.”

      But really, when it happened, she had thought she loved him. And she struggled with that feeling, on and off, for a few years after that.

      * * *

      Adam left Riley in her office and got in his car. He thought he’d drive by his mother’s house and ask if there was anything she needed him to do, see what her plans were for the evening. He might tell her about Emma, but he hadn’t decided yet. Those dozen or so times he had gotten in touch with Emma before she got married, when she was in college and then living in New York in the city, well, he never mentioned that to his family. Or to Lyle. And it seemed as though Emma hadn’t talked about it, either. But maybe it hadn’t left that much of an impression on her.

      What’s that about? Do you have a thing for her?

      Oh, yeah. He had since she was about fifteen. That summer she’d gone from fourteen to fifteen—man, that was the pivotal summer in a young woman’s life—and Emma had gone from the little sister to a woman of interest.

      I see the way you’re looking at Emma, his mother had said. Do not touch that girl, do you hear me? She’s like a daughter to me, like a sister to you and Riley and you’re eighteen. She is off-limits. At least until you’re both adults. This is non-negotiable. Her evil stepmother would love to throw you in jail!

      But not long after she passed her eighteenth birthday, she was gone to Seattle. Soon after that Riley was expecting Jock’s baby. There was a significant part of Adam’s heart that was very happy Jock was no longer Emma’s guy, but he was smart enough to know that until Emma recovered from her broken heart, he’d better not step forward.

      The next six years were a blur. Emma didn’t return to Santa Rosa except for very brief visits and he didn’t see her. He worked two jobs and went to school, his grandparents both died, he was helping his mother and Riley as much as he could. He grew very attached to Maddie, and Emma moved to New York. He always thought, one of these days...

      While he was thinking that, she got married. And not to just anybody, but some internationally known millionaire.

      All that had changed. And she was back.

       Chapter Five

      Emma didn’t qualify for unemployment, as hers had been a part-time job. She did qualify for food stamps, which weren’t called food stamps anymore. Although she had applied online, she had to invest four hours in the county welfare office, completed forms in hand. It was now a debit card that would come in the mail. Soon, they said—in about thirty days. If things went well. After her application was approved.

      She judged herself against the great throng of people gathered in the county welfare office. She’d heard her husband rant about how many undeserving and entitled people took advantage of the welfare system, got all this free money without hardly trying. She felt like one of them and wondered if she deserved help. Probably not. She’d been married to him, after all. She also wondered where all that free money was and where those people who worked the system were. She’d always had visions of slick con men sauntering in and with the flick of a form, walking out with money or some other assistance. Most of the people in the office were women, more than half with small children hanging on their legs or sitting on their laps. At least half were Hispanic but as she’d read in the guidelines, they had to be documented to qualify. None looked like the type she expected. And no one looked at ease or comfortable about being there. As for Emma, she felt a little ill. Demoralized and ashamed, like further proof she’d done something wrong. But she looked better than anyone in the place. She still had some good clothes, expensive shoes and a couple of nice handbags, unlike everyone else there.

      Her clothes didn’t fit so well these days. It hadn’t taken long for the extra pounds she’d gained from Burger Hell to fall off. Job searching, the stress of it and the sheer calisthenics of tromping all over hell and gone ate up a lot of calories. Not to mention the worry that she’d never be able to support herself again.

      There seemed to be a lot of hair in her hairbrush these days. Was she losing her hair? She’d been grinding her teeth at night for a couple of years and she dreamed about losing her teeth. Awake, she worried about falling apart one batch of cells at a time.

      She wondered what Rosemary, Anna and Lauren thought she was doing right now. How did they not have the slightest concern that she might be struggling? None of them reached out or asked her how she was getting by. When she’d been comfortable, before Richard’s investigation began, they were always front and center, her family. They’d wrangled first class trips to New York on Richard’s dime and just to save himself the annoyance of having them about, he’d put them up in a suite at the Plaza Athenee. It quickly became expected. Rosemary, the woman who couldn’t even have been bothered to take her shopping when she was a girl, called and in her sweetest voice would say, “It’s time for our annual trip to the city, dear. Will you book it for us?” And Emma had given them such generous, beautiful birthday and holiday gifts. They never even thanked her. They thought it was nothing to her. They probably thought one of her servants bought and shipped them.

      The only jobs she seemed to qualify for were laborer’s positions. Waitressing paid far less than minimum wage because of the tips, which waitstaff were obligated to report to the IRS. In the end she did better for herself by not mentioning her degree; she said she was educated through high school. Stealing a little bit from Riley, she said she’d cleaned houses for work and the only reference she had was Adam Kerrigan because she hadn’t lived around here since high school.

      So she took a job on the housekeeping staff of a hospital in Petaluma. After four days of training she began on the day shift,