Wye huffed out a ragged breath. “It will be a miracle if the whole town isn’t talking about us by nightfall.” Her voice was tight and strained, and Emerson realized she was focusing on possible gossip so as not to have to focus on what Ward had done. He was ready when her face crumpled and she began to sob. “Now what are we supposed to do?” she cried, scrubbing her free hand over her cheeks. The tears came faster than she could wipe them away, though. Emerson tried to put his arms around her and the baby, but Wye stepped back, Elise still in her arms. “I don’t have time to cry,” she told him. “I have to stop Ward. Bring him back. I just don’t know how to do that.” Her voice broke again.
“I don’t think there’s anything to do,” Emerson said. “We’ve got to give Ward time. Trust that he’ll come to his senses. He’s not your father, and I’ve seen him with Elise. He loves her.”
“He sold his house!” Wye exclaimed. “Without telling anyone. He packed up and left, Emerson. No one comes back after doing that!”
“After the wedding we’ll track him down. I promise.”
“Wedding?” Wyoming stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “What do you mean after the wedding?”
“Our wedding—the day after tomorrow,” he reminded her.
“You think I’m going to marry you? After this?” Wyoming’s voice rose. “This is what men do, Emerson. They leave—just when you need them the most. Every last one of them! There’s no way I’m marrying anyone now!” She rushed out the door and slammed it behind her, hard.
“I don’t understand why you won’t come back to the house,” Cass said later, when she arrived at the door to the room Wye had rented at the Evergreen Motel. “You need people around you. You need to talk to Emerson.”
“What’s the use? He’s a man, isn’t he? He’ll disappoint me sooner or later, so why not just get on with it?” Wye paced the floor with Elise in her arms as Cass lugged in the baby’s portable crib and set it up. When she’d stormed out of Ward’s house, she’d found Megan just pulling out and was able to flag her down. Megan was kind enough to wait while Wye retrieved Elise’s car seat from Emerson’s vehicle and drive her the five blocks to the motel. She’d gotten control of her tears only long enough to book the room and send a text to Cass. Once that was done, she’d sat down in her motel room and sobbed, drying her eyes only when Cass had knocked on her door.
She’d known something like this would happen, hadn’t she? She’d known marriage and family and a life at Two Willows with Emerson was too good to be true.
“You’re going to hate yourself if you don’t marry Emerson,” Cass said flatly. “And this isn’t like you, Wye. You’re the calm one. The practical one.”
“Because I’ve had to be,” Wye cried. “No one else was going to take care of me, were they? No one else cared!”
“Emerson cares—a lot.”
“He didn’t even try to stop me,” Wye said. It had hurt her more than she liked to admit that after she’d fled Ward’s house, Emerson hadn’t rushed out after her. She knew she wasn’t making any sense, but none of this made sense. Ward couldn’t be gone. She’d called him dozens of times, left message after message until his voice mail was full. She’d even called Mindy’s old number, but it was disconnected.
Where could he have gone? How could her brother have dismantled his life so quickly?
“I think Emerson understood going after you wasn’t going to help,” Cass countered. “He came straight home, you know, and told me he’s giving you time to simmer down, but he’s frantic, Wye. I heard him yelling at the General before I left. He never yells at the General.”
“I’m not going to simmer down! I’m—furious!” Wye burst into tears again. Hell, she hated crying. She’d cried far too many times after her mother left—and after her father moved without telling her. No one cried for her, did they?
Cass took Elise, placed her in the crib and gave her several toys to explore. She came back and sat next to Wye.
“Of course you’re furious. The men in your family have let you down all over the place, and so did your mother, but that doesn’t mean that Emerson is going to. You know what I think? I think you’re so used to people like your father and your brother punishing you, you’re punishing yourself. And I think that’s stupid!”
Wye reared back. “Thanks a lot! I’m trying to keep from getting my heart broken!”
“You’re cutting off your nose to spite your face. You need to talk to Emerson.”
“I don’t want to talk to him!” That was a lie. She’d give anything for his strong presence at the moment, but she couldn’t let down her guard. “I wish Ward was here. I’d give him a piece of my mind.”
Cass reached down, picked up one of Elise’s dolls from where she’d dropped it and shook it at Wyoming. “Pretend this is him. What do you want to say?”
“Come off it, Cass. Talk about stupid!” Wye shifted on the bed and crossed her arms.
“My name is Ward.” Cass lowered her voice to mimic Wye’s brother and moved the doll like a puppet. “I just sold my house without warning and disappeared, leaving you with my baby. What do you think about that?”
“Stop it.” This was the last thing she needed.
“Come on, Wye,” Cass growled in that same low voice. “Give it to me straight. I know you don’t have anything better to do than clean up my mess. You should be thanking me!”
“Thanking you?” Wye sputtered. “Cass!”
“That’s right, thanking me,” Cass growled like Ward again. “You don’t have a career. You never go out. You don’t do anything fun. You drive
