Page 110 of Starcrossed Colorado

As promised, Emma had texted once she arrived in Hartley.I’m with my family, and I’m safe. I’m sorry about that article.But I will try to make it right.I miss you so much, Ashford. You and Maisie both.

Which sounded very reasonable, if completely unsatisfying.

I wanted to put my fist through a wall, but I couldn’t act like an impulsive teenager. I was a father. Had to set an example. But it would’ve felt good. Better yet, I might put my fist through some reporter’s face. That article had lumped me in with my older brother. I had aviolent family history.

Well, I could show them violence.Just give me an opportunity.

Grace opened the fridge and came back to the table with a takeout container and two forks. “Eat something.”

“Not hungry.”

“That wasn’t a suggestion, O’Neal.” She handed me a utensil and opened the lid. We both dug into cold leftover noodles.

“Have you spoken to Emma?” Grace asked.

“A little. On the phone. She won’t tell me where she is.”

“Because she knows you’d show up there.”

“Hell yes, I would.”

I’d tried to find out where exactly Emma was. Grace had dropped her off at a diner on Hartley’s Main Street, so that wasn’t much help. I didn’t know her Uncle Aiden’s last name. It wasn’t Jennings, because I’d looked for an Aiden Jennings, and there wasn’t one in Hartley.

If I’d known where Emma was, I would’ve followed her out there already. Screw being patient. Screw all these reporters. Screw three days.

I shoveled noodles into my mouth, barely tasting them.

Yesterday, I’d received a call from Emma’s lawyer friend in California. Jane Holt. I assumed that was what Emma meant by “making it right.” She was still trying to help me and Maisie, after everything.

Jane had offered to find me a lawyer in Colorado who had expertise in media relations and privacy laws. Not something I’d ever wanted to know about. But from what Jane had told me, we probably couldn’t get that article taken down. All the facts it had stated were technically true, even though it had drawn ridiculous implications.

Not like it mattered at this point, anyway. That article was out there. People were talking about us. Posting about us. Coming up with wild theories about Ayla’s lyrics and how they were about me and the awful things I’d supposedly done to Lori.

It was pure madness. I didn’t want my kid to have to deal with this. But the constant ache in my chest wasn’t really concern for Maisie. She was safe here surrounded by me, Grace, and Callum. Jane Holt had assured me there was very little Ayla could do in a court of law to take Maisie away from me.

I couldn’t sleep because Emma was out there, and she was hurting. I got the feeling she blamed herself for somehow making the situation worse, and it couldn’t be further from the truth.

I wanted to make it better. I wanted her with me.

“I think I’m in love with her.” My voice sounded like it was made of a thousand broken pieces. Missing her had me in a chokehold. I couldn’t breathe.

“Oh, Ashford.” Grace set her fork down and rested her hand on mine. “I already figured.”

I’d realized it that last night we were together. In the hotel. I’d almost told her. And again the next morning, when she wokeup in my arms and I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. I wanted to tell her now, but I refused to do it over the phone.

“It snuck up on me,” I said to my sister. “Falling in love with her. I’d never felt anything like that.”

Being Maisie’s father was fulfilling, but loving Emma was a different kind of happiness. She’d stitched together the broody, rough-hewn parts of me into a whole person. A whole man.

All those evenings we’d had dinner together, laughing. Afternoons in the park with Stella. Reading Maisie stories at bedtime. Sharing things I’d never confessed to anyone.

Lingering kisses and hours spent in my bed, skin to skin. Burning up the sheets. Burning away all my resistance. I’d made her mine in every way. How had I ever thought I could let her go?

Emma had suggested she could come back and visit. It had been an opening, right? Maybe she wanted us to keep seeing each other after the summer ended. There had to be a way to make this work.

But why would Emma want to keep seeing me now that her private business had been splashed in front of the entire world, and it was because of me?

Grace rubbed my hand. “What can I get you? Some of that whiskey Callum brought?”

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