Emily and the Stranger (3 page)

"Your friend is a man being chased by demons." Reverend Wilkes reached in his pocket, pulled out a tarnished key chain and handed it to Zed. "Perhaps you can help him exorcise those demons."

Zed accepted the circular chain, the key to Mitch's motorcycle its sole occupant. "I'll make arrangements to have the Harley shipped to
Mobile
. Once Mitch gets back on his feet, he'll want that old pile of scrap metal."

Zed lifted Mitch off the bed, circling him around the waist as he draped Mitch's left arm over his shoulder. Mitch shuffled his feet when Zed took a few tentative steps.

"Let me help you with him," Reverend Wilkes said. Together the two men escorted Mitch outside, the cold January wind a sobering slap in his face. Mitch groaned.

"Where are we going?" he asked when Zed and the reverend eased him into the front seat of Zed's rental car.

"I'm taking you back to
Mobile
," Zed told him. "It's time you came to terms with the past."

"I don't want to go back to
Mobile
."

"Tough! You're going whether you want to or not. I'm finding you a place to live and giving you a job. The rest will be up to you."

"I can't go back to
Mobile
!"

"You can and you will." Zed slammed the door, then rounded the hood of the
Lincoln
. "Don't even think about getting out of this car."

"You don't understand," Mitch said. "I dream about that building collapsing, about all those people being injured, about that man dying. About her. It's all I think about, no matter where I go or what I do."

"Then it shouldn't matter whether you're in
Hong Kong
or in
Mobile
, should it?" Zed got in the car, started the engine and drove away from the homeless shelter.

"Why the hell did you bother to come get me?"

"Because I think everybody deserves a second chance," Zed said. "And you've obviously punished yourself more than enough for something that wasn't really your fault."

"It was my fault. If I hadn't been such a fool. If I hadn't—"

"Stop feeling sorry for yourself. I'll give you a couple of weeks to pull yourself together and then you'll start work on my job site in
Gulf
Shores
. It'll be a laborer's job, just like the first job I gave you twelve years ago. Use an alias if it'll make things easier for you. Believe me, you've changed so much that only your closest friends would recognize you now."

"I sure could use a drink."

Zed glared at Mitch. "What you need and what you're going to get is a bath."

Mitch grinned. "What's the matter, old pal of mine? Do I stink?"

"You smell like you fell into a mixture of rum and cow manure."

Zed glanced at Mitch and the two men broke into hearty laughter.

God, what a sorry sight Mitch was. The years since the Ocean Breeze disaster had changed him, aged him, hardened him. Zed couldn't help wondering how long it had been since Mitch Hayden had truly laughed about anything.

Zed was determined to help Mitch. He could give him a job; that was easy enough. And Mitch could live, rent-free, in one of the apartment buildings he owned.

Yeah, he could provide his friend with a job and a place to live, but it would be up to Mitch to straighten out the mess his life had become and find a way to put the past behind him.

* * *

"You've done what?" Fowler
Jordan
frowned at his niece.

"I've bought half ownership in an art supply store in Fairhope. While my partner takes care of the business details, I'm going to teach art classes."

"My dear girl, I know you had mentioned that it was time you began rebuilding your life, but I had no idea that you'd rush into anything so foolish as investing your money in some little art store." Fowler laid down the
Mobile Register,
pushed his wire-frame glasses upward on his nose and stared disapprovingly at his nephew's widow.

"I've put my life on hold long enough," Emily told him. "I've allowed you to pamper me—coddle me, really—for much too long. I should have been out on my own a couple of years ago. I can't spend the rest of my life hiding away here with you."

"Is that what you think you've been doing, Emily? Hiding away?"

Fowler couldn't bear the thought of his precious little Emily leaving his home, the sanctuary of his protection. For the past five years, ever since Stuart's tragic death, Fowler had—gladly, joyously—devoted his life to her. She had become as dear to him as a child … as a sister. The very thought that anyone or anything would ever harm her again created a burning rage inside him. But how could he keep her safe if she went back out into the cruel world, a world her fragile sensibilities weren't prepared to encounter?

Easing back her chair, Emily rose from the dining table and went over to Stuart's uncle. She placed her hand on his thin shoulder. "Yes, I've been hiding away from the world ever since Stuart died and you know it. I used the operations on my back as an excuse not to start living again. I've imposed on you for five years. You've given up far too much to take care of me. It's time I gave you back your life and it's way past time that I had a life of my own."

Fowler laid his hand over Emily's where it rested on his shoulder. Turning his head sideways, he gazed up into her beautiful face and patted her hand affectionately. Didn't she realize, he wondered, that he had given up nothing, that before she had come to live with him here in his family's big old Victorian house, he had been alone and very lonely? Didn't she know that she had given his life meaning? Surely she knew how much he loved her.

"Well, my dear, if this is what you want, of course I won't try to stop you." Fowler brought Emily's hand to his lips and placed a fatherly kiss on her knuckles. "I suppose a forty-five-minute drive from here to Fairhope every day won't be that bad. You'll need a new car, of course. I'll call Harry and have him bring over a new Mercedes for—"

Emily kissed Fowler's forehead. "You will do no such thing. My LeSabre is only six years old. Stuart and I bought it new. Besides, I won't be making a trip every day."

Fowler snapped his head around and glared at Emily. "What do you mean?"

"Now, don't go getting all upset." Emily gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. "But I've decided to move into Grammy's Point Clear beach cottage. You know I've been redecorating it for the past year."

"Yes, I know you have, but…" Fowler let his words trail off as his mind considered the reality of Emily's announcement. She intended to move out of his house, away from him, to live on her own. How could he bear to live alone again, to live without Emily's sweet smile and loving presence? "Hannah's cottage was built as a summer retreat, not as a year-round residence."

"Dozens of families have turned the old summer cottages on the eastern shore into year-round homes. I love Grammy's cottage. Some of the happiest days of my childhood were spent there with her. I think that's why she left it to me in her will."

"But you'll be all alone out there. Aren't the two nearest cottages both still rental houses?"

"Oh, Uncle Fowler, you're such a worrywart."

Emily smiled and Fowler thought his heart would break. She was the most beautiful creature on earth. He'd thought so the first time he'd seen her, when Stuart had brought her home and introduced her as his girlfriend. He'd been so pleased when his nephew had married Emily and they had generously made him a part of their lives. Stuart's death and Emily's miscarriage had destroyed their happy family. But he had moved heaven and earth to help Emily. He had forced her to live when she wanted to die. He had held her hand and wiped her tears through countless surgeries that had been unable to erase the hideous scars from her back. He wanted her to be happy again, to live again, but…

"Have you told Charles that you're moving?" Fowler asked.

Emily groaned. "No, of course I haven't told Charles. Why should I? It's not as if—"

"He's very fond of you, you know. And I certainly approve of him as a … a suitor for you."

Charles Tolbert was an up-and-coming young accountant in Fowler's firm, a man Fowler had taken under his wing. He had chosen Charles as his protégé, after Stuart's death, and it was his heartfelt wish that someday Emily would agree to marry Charles. They had been dating on and off for the past year. Charles was quite smitten, but Emily's feelings for Charles remained rather lukewarm.

"You can tell him today," Emily said. "There's no reason Charles and I can't continue being friends. After all, I'm just moving across the bay."

"I wish you had discussed this with me before you decided to move out on your own. It isn't too late for you to change your mind. We could—"

"Everything is settled," Emily said. "I've signed the papers. I am now co-owner of the Paint Box. I start work next Monday, so I'm going to move into the cottage this weekend."

"So soon?"

Emily laughed. Fowler loved her warm, genuine laughter. He would miss everything about Emily, but most of all, he would miss her laughter.

"I shall miss you terribly, my dear." He sighed. Tears glazed his eyes. "But of course, you know what's best for you. I want only your happiness, and if buying into this business and giving art lessons will make you happy, then I'll support you one hundred percent. But I thought you were happy working on your children's book—your Hannah book."

"I'm not going to give up work on my Hannah book," Emily said. "As a matter of fact, living on the beach, in the cottage where the book is set, will make doing the watercolors much easier. I won't have to do them from memory."

"I see. Well, you seem to have everything planned." If he thought he could talk her out of leaving, he would, but he knew Emily well enough to know that once she set her mind to do something, she did it. He saw no alternative but to go along with what she wanted, even though he felt it was a mistake for her to leave him. "If you're determined to move, I'll help you. And it goes without saying that if there's anything here at the house you'd like to take with you…"

Leaning over, Emily grabbed Fowler and hugged him tightly. "You're wonderful. You know that, don't you? I love you, Uncle Fowler."

"And I love you, my dear."

* * *

"Well, what did he say?" Nikki Griffin asked, peering at Emily over a stack of boxes in the middle of the storeroom floor. "Does he know that I'm the person you're going into business with?"

Emily looked directly into Nikki's hazel brown eyes, expressive eyes that gave away Nikki's feelings far more readily than she ever did by word or action. "No, he doesn't, but I didn't see any reason to tell him … yet. After all, he's having a difficult enough time adjusting to my leaving his house, after my living there the past five years."

"Well, he's going to throw a fit when he finds out that you and I are partners in the Paint Box," Nikki said. "Your Uncle Fowler doesn't approve of me. He thinks I'm a shameless hussy."

"Well, you have to admit that you didn't make a very good impression the first time he met you."

"Ah, yes." Nikki sighed dramatically, then threw back her head and laughed, shaking her short, saucy red curls. "That was what … eight months ago? I'd just moved back to
Alabama
and I went to that charity do with Chip Walters." Biting down on her bottom lip, Nikki grinned mischievously. "It wasn't my fault that Chip and Lance Dunham got into a fight over me."

Emily couldn't control the tiny curving of her lips, the almost smile. "I thought Uncle Fowler would die when I told him that the woman at the center of the ruckus had been one of my best friends in college."

"Oh, Em, college seems like a lifetime ago, doesn't it?" Nikki lifted the top box off the stack. "I don't like to think about the past. It's too painful."

Emily knew a little about her old friend's past, just as Nikki knew a little about hers. They hadn't seen each other in nearly eight years when they'd run into each other at the infamous charity function. Since then, they had renewed their old friendship and a few weeks ago decided to go into business together. For entirely different reasons, both she and Nikki wanted to put their pasts behind them.

"I brought a bottle of champagne," Emily said. "Why don't we postpone opening these supplies and go open the bubbly? I think we should make a toast to new beginnings. Yours and mine."

"Well, I can't say it'll be the first time I've had champagne before
noon
." Nikki lowered the box back down on the stack, came over to Emily and laced their arms together. "But it will be the first time I've shared champagne before
noon
with another woman."

Emily chuckled. "Nikki, you're awful—you know that, don't you? No wonder Uncle Fowler thinks you're a hussy. And no wonder people assume you're a…a…"

"A loose woman?"

"What an expression! Let's say a woman of the world." Nikki escorted Emily over to the compact refrigerator in the corner of the makeshift kitchen in the back room of the store. "We're a pair, aren't we?"