Page 93 of I'm Yours

“I still don’t know.”

“I get it. Maybe your mom sees something in him we can’t.”

“Maybe.”

We sit in silence for a little while before I grin and nudge her. “So… you really broke Justin’s heart.”

She giggles and wraps her arm around me, giving me a squeeze. “He seemed like a nice guy.”

“He is. I think he’s ready to sell the store. He told me it wasn’t as much fun without me there and I wonder if he’s just kind of burned out. Retail is a hard business to be in.”

“What would he do if he sold?”

“Not a clue. Move to Lakeside?”

“That’d be nice. Maybe he could open a store here.”

“Maybe. He’d be a good guide. Lots of folks come here, don’t know what they’re doing when they want to go fishing or hunting. He’d be a perfect wilderness guide. Loves that shit.”

I breathe in her hair. It doesn’t smell like her since she used my mom’s stuff when she got here. We haven’t gone to her place to get any of her things yet. “You should mention it to him. I have a place he can stay,” she grumbles.

“Don’t want to go home?” I try not to keep the hopefulness out of my voice.

“No. At least not yet. They ruined it.”

“I wish I’d have been there for you.”

“It wasn’t your fault. If anything, it was mine. I had these weird feelings of being watched for a while but every time I turned around or looked for who it could be, no one was there. I chalked it up to paranoia. I should have said something to someone.”

My hand tightens around her upper arm but I keep quiet. There’s nothing we can do about it now.

The screen door opens and little footsteps pound on the wood.

Sadie sits up, knowing who’s coming out to interrupt our time together. Emmy climbs onto my lap then reaches over for Sadie’s hand. We didn’t tell her much last night but Emmy has eyes and could see that Sadie had been hurt.

I didn’t want to lie to her, but knew she needed an answer as to why Sadie looked like she’d been beat up. I also didn’t want to tell her that the sheriff was a bad guy because I didn’t want her to go through life having a fear of policemen. Finally, I landed on telling her the truth, minus the parts that she’s too young to understand and the fact that one of the bad men was a policeman.

She didn’t understand how an adult could be kidnapped but her confusion wasn’t her primary concern. Not when Sadie needed a tiny little caretaker in the form of Emmy Sanders.

“I made you breakfast,” Emmy says quietly.

“You did?” I ask.

“Not for you, Daddy. For my Sadie.”

My Sadie.

She and I have the same possessive nature, it seems.

“Thank you, Emmy. That was very nice of you.”

“It’s peanut butter toast,” she announces and Sadie and I both chuckle.

“That’s one of my favorites.”

“I figured.”

Sadie smiles at me over Emmy’s head and I see it. The love we share. The life we’ll have. The future laid out before us.

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