So she wished herself good luck, and she kept a steady stream of silent prayers running through her mind as she made the solitary drive to town. Somehow, she knew where she and Robert had agreed to meet, and she saw him waiting beside a huge black truck when she turned into the parking lot, driving her decade-old car.
Everything about the two of them was opposite, and she wondered what she’d ever seen in him. Had she once envisioned a future with him? If so, how had she thought that would work?
When she thought of next year, or five years from now, she wanted just two things: Ted and Missy.
Well, and her job at the ranch, and maybe that teacup piglet.
She’d never looked forward to the future the way she was now, and she knew that switch had been flipped by Ted Burrows.
Emma got out of the car and approached Robert, her pulse pounding in her ears.
“Emma.” Robert laughed, and his deep, rich voice struck a chord in Emma. She let him swoop her into a hug, as if no time at all had passed between them. As if he hadn’t simply left town one day without a word. As if she hadn’t then hidden her pregnancy from everyone and lived the last ten years as a near-hermit while she paid someone else to raise her daughter.
“Hello, Robert,” she said. “Should we go in?” It was much too hot to stand around outside, and she wanted to get down to business.
“Sure.” He tried to take her hand as they walked toward the restaurant, but Emma deftly slipped it away from him.
“How long are you going to be in town?” she asked while he held the door open for her.
“Oh, I don’t know.” He blew his breath out, and Emma had heard that before. I don’t know for Robert meant he wasn’t there to stay. He could come or go, according to his whims—and he did.
“Jason’s graduating,” Emma said.
“Yes.” He signaled to the hostess that there would be two of them, and she led them to a table. Emma kept breathing in and out while they settled down, looked at the menu, and ordered drinks.
Then she leaned toward him and said, “Listen, Robert, the reason I wanted to meet with you is because I have to tell you something.”
He reached for his water glass, his keen eyes missing nothing. “Okay.”
Emma swallowed, finding her throat beyond dry. She too reached for her water and took a small sip. Her stomach raged at her to flee from this place. Keep her mouth shut, and just go back to the system they’d been using before. It had worked. No one had gotten hurt.
At the same time, her heart wailed at her that it had been hurt. She was terribly lonely, and she wanted her daughter with her. She wanted to build a family with Ted.
In that moment, she realized just how right Ginger had been. Maybe she had started to fall in love with Ted Burrows.
That thought gave her the confidence and strength she needed to open her mouth and say, “We have a ten-year-old daughter, and I thought you should finally know.”
Chapter Nineteen
Ted’s phone rang as he put the last bite of his turkey sandwich in his mouth. Paula huffed and laid down, and Ted felt a bit bad that he hadn’t shared with the dog. He’d meant to, but his mind had been a maze the past few days.
The only thing anchoring him to the earth right now was his job. And Nate and Connor.
He looked at his phone, his heartbeat stuttering over itself. Emma’s name sat on the screen.
He knocked the phone off his leg in his haste to answer it, and he muttered under his breath as he picked it up and swiped the call on. “Emma?”
“…I just think you should try to see reason,” Emma said, her voice quite high-pitched. “Think about it, Robert. What are you going to do? Keep me locked up in your huge house? Until when? My friends will know I’m gone. They know I went to lunch with you today.”
Ted hadn’t known that, but he sprang to his feet and started toward the homestead. He needed another phone to call the police, because Emma was in trouble.
Emma was with Robert.
Robert was not happy, if the curt, blunt tone of his voice was any indication. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he said. “But you don’t get to make decisions for me, Emma.”
Ted wasn’t sure what that meant, and he broke into a jog. “Get him to say where you are,” he said, hoping Emma could hear him but Robert couldn’t. “I need an address, Emma.”
“How long have you had this house?” she asked him. “It’s nice, out here in the hills.”
Out in the hills.
Huge house.
There couldn’t be that many of those, could there?
Ted had obviously forgotten he lived in Texas.
“Rockwood Estates,” Emma said. “These are new. How long have you lived here?”
“I don’t live here,” Robert said, his voice dark and cold. “I have fractional ownership in a cabin here. My son and I are staying here for a couple of days until he leaves on his senior trip with his mother.”
“Fractional ownership?’
“Yes, it means I can use the cabin for seventeen weeks out of the year. I just have to arrange it with the other owners.”
Ted didn’t know how to call for help on one phone and listen to the conversation on the other. But he picked up the landline in the Annex and dialed 911 anyway. “Hang on, Emma,” he mumbled, muting his end of the call. He could still hear her, but she couldn’t hear him.
“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?’
“Yes, hi,” Ted said, pacing in the kitchen. The run from the river to the Annex had taken something from him too. “My…this woman I know is
