Chapter14
1797 Words
The house felt strange without the boys in it.
Not bad.
Just strange.
Emma had spent the first twenty minutes after dropping them off resisting the urge to check her phone every thirty seconds.
No calls from the school.
No messages.
No emergencies.
Which was exactly what she wanted.
Still, every time her phone buzzed, her stomach jumped before she realized it was usually an email or some random notification she didn’t care about.
By ten-thirty, she decided sitting around waiting for something to go wrong was probably the fastest way to drive herself crazy.
So she made a list.
Groceries.
Post office.
Pick up Christian’s prescription.
Return the library books Luke had finished three days ago but insisted could not be returned until the actual due date because, according to him, that was the entire purpose of having a due date.
Emma had attempted to explain that returning them early was allowed.
Luke had informed her that it was unnecessary.
She had stopped arguing.
By eleven, Emma had made it through three of the four errands and was walking down Main Street with an iced coffee in one hand and a small pharmacy bag tucked beneath her arm.
She still had forty-five minutes before she needed to head toward the grocery store.
Forty-five minutes.
With nowhere she absolutely had to be.
No child asking for a snack.
No baseball practice.
No appointment.
No one needing her to solve anything.
Emma slowed slightly.
She could get used to this.
The thought immediately brought a flicker of guilt.
Then she remembered how hard she had worked to stop feeling guilty for enjoying moments that belonged only to her.
She took another sip of coffee.
Progress.
“Emma?”
She turned at the sound of her name.
Wade stood outside the hardware store across the sidewalk, a paper bag tucked beneath one arm and what looked like a length of copper pipe in his other hand.
He was dressed much the way he always seemed to be—faded jeans, work boots, a T-shirt, and the same worn baseball cap she had seen him in before.
Only this time he wasn’t underneath her kitchen sink.
And Emma realized that apparently made a difference.
A ridiculous difference.
“Hey.”
Wade stepped toward her.
“You look lost.”
Emma glanced around.
“I’m standing on Main Street.”
“That doesn’t mean you know where you’re going.”
“I’ll have you know I have completed three errands entirely by myself.”
His mouth twitched.
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you. It’s been a very productive morning.”
“No kids?”
“First day of school.”
Wade nodded.
“How’d that go?”
“Christian practically launched himself out of the car.”
“Sounds about right.”
Emma smiled.
“Luke made it inside.”
Wade’s expression changed slightly.
Not pity.
Not concern.
Just understanding.
“That was the goal?”
“That was the goal.”
“And?”
Emma looked down at her phone.
“School hasn’t called.”
“So far, so good.”
“So far.”
Wade adjusted the pipe beneath his arm.
“He’ll do all right.”
Emma looked back at him.
“You sound pretty confident.”
“I watched that kid inspect a six-dollar shutoff valve more thoroughly than most contractors inspect a house.”
Emma laughed.
“He does take quality control seriously.”
“I noticed.”
For a moment they stood there while people moved around them, coming and going from the handful of shops lining Main Street.
Emma’s eyes dropped toward the paper bag in his hand.
“What are you working on?”
“Rental house over on Cedar.”
“You own rental houses?”
“One.”
“One rental house.”
“And another place I’m fixing up for somebody.”
Emma nodded.
“So basically, if something breaks anywhere in Hickory Ridge, someone calls you.”
“That seems to be the system.”
“That explains why you’re always under somebody’s sink.”
Wade smiled.
“Usually they pay me.”
Emma narrowed her eyes.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“You brought it up.”
“I didn’t bring anything up.”
“You just admitted other people pay you.”
“I said usually.”
Emma pointed her coffee at him.
“You still owe me an invoice.”
“I absolutely do not.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Nope.”
“Wade.”
“Emma.”
She stared at him.
He stared back.
Neither moved.
Then Wade smiled.
Emma hated that smile.
Mostly because she had begun noticing it.
“You are incredibly irritating.”
“I’ve been told.”
“I bet.”
Wade nodded toward the coffee in her hand.
“Is that from Millie’s?”
Emma looked at the cup.
“Yeah.”
“Any good?”
“Very.”
“Then I guess now’s your chance.”
Emma frowned.
“My chance for what?”
“To pay me back.”
It took her a second.
Then she remembered.
Coffee.
When she had tried to pay him for the valve, Wade had told her to buy him coffee sometime.
Emma glanced toward the little café a few storefronts down.
“You’re serious?”
“Six-dollar valve. Four-dollar coffee. I’m still losing money.”
“That sounds like poor business management.”
“Probably.”
Emma smiled.
“Fine.”
Wade shifted the supplies in his arms.
“Fine?”
“I’ll buy you a coffee.”
He glanced toward the hardware store.
“Let me throw this stuff in the truck.”
Emma suddenly became very aware that she had just agreed to sit down and have coffee with Wade.
Alone.
Without the boys.
Without Kinsley.
Without a leaking sink conveniently explaining why he was there.
Her brain immediately tried to label it.
She stopped it.
It was coffee.
She owed him coffee.
That was all.
Wade returned a minute later.
“You change your mind?”
“No.”
“You looked like you were considering escape.”
“I was considering whether buying you coffee technically counts as paying a bill.”
“It does in Hickory Ridge.”
“Of course it does.”
He held the café door open for her.
Emma walked inside.
Millie’s was quieter than it had been the few times she’d come in with the boys. A handful of people sat scattered around the room, and an older couple occupied a table near the window.
Wade ordered plain coffee.
Emma stared at him.
“That’s it?”
He looked at her.
“It’s coffee.”
“No cream?”
“No.”
“Sugar?”
“No.”
Emma shook her head.
“That’s disturbing.”
“You’re drinking something with whipped cream on it.”
“It’s caramel cold foam.”
“That sentence had too many words.”
Emma laughed.
She paid before he could object.
“There.”
She handed him the cup.
“Debt settled.”
Wade took it.
“I’ll have to find something else wrong with your house.”
Emma raised an eyebrow.
“That sounds suspiciously like a threat.”
“Depends on how good the coffee is.”
They took a small table near the window.
Emma sat across from him and immediately realized something.
She had never actually sat down and talked to Wade.
Not really.
He had always been fixing something.
Or Kinsley had been there.
Or Luke had been asking him thirty-seven questions about plumbing.
This was different.
Wade took a drink.
“So what does Emma do when she doesn’t have two boys following her around?”
The question caught her off guard.
Emma looked down at her cup.
“Apparently errands.”
“That exciting?”
“You have no idea.”
He smiled.
“No, seriously.”
Emma looked back at him.
“What?”
“What do you do?”
She opened her mouth.
Then closed it.
It was a simple question.
It shouldn’t have been difficult.
“I don’t know.”
Wade leaned back slightly.
“You don’t know?”
“I’ve been somebody’s mom for ten years.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
Emma stared at him.
There was no judgment in his expression.
No expectation either.
He was simply waiting.
And somehow that made the question harder.
“I used to read a lot.”
“Used to?”
“I’m getting back into it.”
“What else?”
Emma smiled faintly.
“Are you interviewing me?”
“Maybe.”
“For what position?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
She laughed.
Wade smiled before taking another drink.
For the next twenty minutes, they talked.
Nothing important.
Everything important.
Books.
The town.
The fact that Wade apparently hated tomatoes but would eat ketchup, which Emma informed him made absolutely no sense.
The places he had lived before coming back to Hickory Ridge.
How Emma was slowly learning which roads actually led somewhere and which ones seemed to disappear into the woods for no logical reason.
At some point, Emma forgot to check her phone.
That might have been the strangest part.
When she finally did, she realized almost half an hour had passed.
“I should probably finish my groceries before I have to pick up the boys.”
Wade nodded.
“Probably.”
Neither of them stood immediately.
Then Emma smiled.
“Thanks.”
“For what?”
“The valve.”
“You already bought the coffee.”
“I wasn’t talking about the valve.”
Wade looked at her.
Emma suddenly wasn’t sure why she had said it.
Maybe she meant the conversation.
Maybe she meant treating her like someone who existed independently of being Luke and Christian’s mother.
Maybe she didn’t entirely know.
Wade seemed to understand anyway.
“Anytime.”
Emma stood.
She told herself the warmth in her chest was from the coffee.
The iced coffee.
That she had finished twenty minutes ago.
Right.
Emma picked up her purse.
“I’ll see you around.”
Wade gave her that easy smile again.
“Hickory Ridge isn’t very big.”
She shook her head.
“I’m beginning to realize that.”
Emma walked out onto Main Street.
She made it nearly half a block before she caught herself smiling.
She immediately stopped.
“No.”
A woman walking past glanced at her strangely.
Emma pretended she had been talking into her phone.
She continued toward the grocery store.
Kinsley absolutely could not find out about this.
Which, Emma was beginning to realize, probably meant Kinsley would know by dinner.
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