He hit the red button to disconnect the call and handed her back her phone. “Don’t let that asshole upset you.”
She gaped at him, wondering how Ethan was going to respond to that.
Her phone buzzed. Ethan.
Who just called me? Are you seeing someone else already? Tell that bastard I’m not afraid of him.
You should be, she wrote back.
“What’s he saying now?” Dallas reached for her phone again, but she was afraid the two would wind up having a serious conflict if she allowed this to escalate.
“Nothing,” she said and was relieved when Aiyana walked in.
“You’re finally back?” she said to Dallas, distracting him.
“Just pulled in.”
“Did everything go okay in Santa Barbara?”
“It did.”
“Thanks for going.” She put down her purse and crossed to the fridge. “What should we do for dinner?”
“It’s my turn to cook,” Emery announced. “I was going to make stuffed bell peppers—a recipe of my mother’s—if you think the boys will eat it.”
“The boys will eat anything,” Aiyana said.
“Then you go rest—or do whatever you need to do to keep the wedding on track. I’ll call everyone when the food’s ready.”
“Really?” she said gratefully.
Emery smiled in spite of her recent exchange with Ethan. “Really.”
“Thank you,” Aiyana said. “That’s very nice.”
“It’s my pleasure.”
Aiyana looked at her son. “I still don’t have all of my Christmas decorations up. Maybe I’ll take this opportunity to finish. Dallas, would you mind lifting a few things down for me in the garage?”
“Of course not.” He walked out with his mother as Emery got the groceries she’d brought home out of the fridge. She made some good progress on the meal, but after about fifteen minutes, she couldn’t help taking another peek at her phone.
Ethan hadn’t typed another word.
Her mother needed more money. Already. The request came via text after dinner, when the boys were helping Aiyana finish decorating for Christmas in the living room and Emery was doing the dishes. Connie was probably humiliated that she had to ask yet again, and it was easier to type such an unwelcome entreaty than to ask over the phone. She did add that a better offer would be coming from Emery’s father soon—that she’d been promised as much by her attorney—but after talking to Marvin, Emery wasn’t convinced it would be significantly improved.
Sure, I’ll Venmo you another couple hundred. It’s no problem.
She added the last words so that her poor mother wouldn’t have to worry about her dwindling reserves along with everything else. Emery had never been a spendthrift, but it was expensive to live in LA, her job hadn’t paid all that much to begin with—she hadn’t been there long enough to work her way up the pay scale—and she hadn’t anticipated losing it. She hadn’t been prepared for such an unexpected and serious setback.
Her phone rang. Apparently, she’d been so nice her mother now felt safe to call.
“Thank you, honey,” Connie said as soon as Emery picked up.
“Of course. No worries at all.”
“Grandma is only getting worse,” her mother complained. “Each day, she slips a little further away. It’s so difficult to watch the woman who raised me regress into someone so childlike and lost. I’m just...beside myself,” she admitted.
It was hard to hear about her grandmother, but the hurt and bewilderment in her mother’s voice was even more difficult. “That’s terrible.”
“And someone broke the window out of my car last night. There wasn’t even anything in it to steal! I hate to accuse anyone, but I wouldn’t put it past that tramp your father has taken up with. Deseret seems to think he shouldn’t have to pay me anything—as if his money is her money, and she’s the one who can call the shots. After more than thirty years of marriage, this is what I get. She’s what’s making everything so much more difficult than it has to be.”
Emery recalled her father saying that he had more people to consider then just his original family and had to admit her mother could be right. Deseret wasn’t helping. But would her father’s new girlfriend really go so far as to vandalize Connie’s car?
Maybe it wasn’t Deseret. Maybe Marvin had done it. It could be that he was so frustrated that he couldn’t please the new woman in his life—and so afraid he might lose her—he’d broken the window himself.
Where would it all end? Emery asked herself. “I’m sorry, Mom. You don’t deserve what you’re going through.”
“How are you doing?” Connie asked, but that question came across as somewhat timid—as though she was afraid of what she was about to hear.
Emery thought of Ethan’s vile texts only an hour earlier but put some energy into her voice to make her response believable when she said, “I’m doing better. Much better. I’m going to be fine. Don’t worry about me.”
“What’s changed?” her mother asked in surprise.
Dallas. Emery now had someone she could lean on. He’d come into her life right when she needed him most—but she wasn’t about to mention him to her mother. She was afraid Connie would read too much into it. “Staying with Aiyana has given me a chance to catch my breath and recoup.”
“Any word from Ethan?”
“No,” she lied.
“Are you still going to sue him and the station?”
“Yeah, but my attorney will take care of that. I don’t have to do anything, except wait to see how it all turns out.”
“That’s a relief.”
“It is. And you know I’m working again. So...see? Everything’s looking up. You don’t have to worry because you have me. Just let me know if you need more money.”
Her mother started to cry, which made Emery cry, too. “I love you, Mom.”
“I love you, too, honey.”
“We’ll both get through this.”
“I hope so.”
Emery had hung up and was just blowing her nose and wiping her eyes when Dallas ducked into the
