Emily sighed. “Of course, I can. And I’ll put it on that list of mine for the day when I need you to understand that I have no choice but to honor a commitment I’ve made.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “As long as we remember the big picture, you and me together, we can figure this out, Em. We have to.”
She nodded, holding his gaze. “I want that more than anything, Boone. I really do.”
* * *
When Emily showed up at Sophia’s a few days after her Thanksgiving break for what she’d assumed would be a consultation on yet another of her client’s redecorating projects, she was surprised to find Marilyn Jennings there, as well.
The shelter’s board chairman smiled as she kissed Emily’s cheek. “Sophia didn’t mention I’d be here, did she?”
“No, but it’s always lovely to see you,” Emily said. “If I’d realized you were going to be here, I’d have brought along the latest information on the safe house. We came in under budget. A lot of the subcontractors wrote off all or a portion of their bills. Once they actually met some of the women and kids and understood how important this was, they all wanted to do their part.”
“That’s marvelous,” Marilyn said, just as Sophia joined them and added, “I expected nothing less of you, Emily.”
“That isn’t why we’re here, though,” Marilyn said, giving Sophia a chiding look. “Didn’t you give her so much as a clue?”
“Not necessary,” Sophia said, winking at Emily. “She always comes when I call.”
Emily laughed at her arrogance, but she couldn’t deny it. “What can I say? She’s one of my best clients.”
“And one of your most demanding, no doubt,” Marilyn suggested.
“No comment,” Emily responded tactfully.
Sophia gave her an approving look. “See how smart and tactful she is? I told you she’d be the perfect person for this.”
Emily gave them a puzzled look. “Perfect person for what?”
Marilyn glanced at Sophia, who shook her head. “I’ll defer to you on this.”
“Okay, then,” Marilyn said briskly. “Emily, we’d like to hire you full-time.”
Emily regarded her with confusion. “To do what?”
“Patience,” Sophia chided.
Emily dutifully fell silent. Clearly these two had some sort of dog-and-pony show for her and planned to draw out the suspense as long as possible. They were too rich and powerful for her not to go along with their timetable.
“We’ve recently received several very sizable donations, thanks to Sophia’s persistence,” Marilyn explained.
“And your connections,” Sophia added, then turned to Emily and added, “Her husband’s studio spearheaded an industry campaign to raise ten million dollars. Some of that will go toward day-to-day operations, but at least half of it will be for capital improvements.”
Marilyn nodded. “Meaning we’ll be able to buy more properties, renovate them and make the spaces available to families in need of temporary protection and housing. The work you’ve done on this current project has persuaded all of us that you’re the person we want to oversee this.”
Stunned and speechless, Emily sat back, trying to absorb the magnitude of the opportunity.
“You’ll be paid, of course, and I’m sure if you have the time, we’d have no objections to you taking on individual clients, but we’d need to be your first priority,” Marilyn continued, filling in the silence left by Emily’s shocked reaction.
“We’d want your help in choosing properties,” Sophia added. “You’d have to budget for the renovations, trying to get the best possible prices, of course. The more donations you could arrange, the better, but you will have funds at your disposal.”
“When?” Emily finally managed to ask, still not entirely able to form coherent sentences.
“We’re all agreed that we’d like to get started right after the first of the year,” Marilyn said.
“That should give you time to finish Derek’s ski lodge,” Sophia added. “And anything else that’s on your plate.”
An image of Boone and B.J. came to mind. They were most definitely on her plate. How on earth would she be able to juggle those relationships with what these two women were proposing? Clearly this new opportunity wasn’t something she could handle from thousands of miles away. It had been difficult enough to get this one safe house completed with her time divided between two coasts. She’d felt pressured no matter where she happened to be.
And yet she desperately wanted to say yes. She’d found the kind of professional fulfillment working on the safe house that had been missing from her other work. She wanted to contribute more, and this was her chance. She’d just had no idea how soon she might need to call in all those chits she’d told Boone he owed her for being the more accommodating partner up to now.
Could she make Boone see how important this work was to her? she wondered. Intellectually, he would probably grasp it immediately. When it came time to translate it into reality, into longer separations, how could she even ask that of him, no matter what she might think he owed her?
“I have to think about this,” she said.
“What’s to think about?” Sophia asked, regarding her with a touch of impatience. “How many times have you told me how much it’s meant to you to work on this project? We’re offering you a chance to do the same thing on a much larger scale. You can make a difference in hundreds of lives, Emily.”
Sophia frowned at her continued silence. “This isn’t about those obligations of yours in North Carolina, is it?”
“They’re more than obligations,” Emily replied, trying to keep her own annoyance out of her voice. “I finally have a chance to work things out with the man I’ve loved since we were teenagers. His life is there.”
“Is it more important than yours?” Sophia asked tartly.
Marilyn held up a hand. “Spoken exactly
