Page 22 of Coming Home

“Let’s go find that present for Isabelle.”

“Was everything OK at work?” Emily asked as they crossed the threshold into the stationery store.

David shook his head. “Not exactly but it’s nothing that I can’t handle from Elijah’s office back at Solitaire. Don’t stress about it. You need a nap before the party tonight. I’ll take care of it then.”

“Was that OK back there?” she asked, suddenly feeling nervous about it.

“Of course. Why wouldn’t it have been?”

Emily shrugged. “I don’t know. I know that organization is kind of your charity. I didn’t want to step on any toes.”

He kissed her temple. “I thought it was very sweet. It might be my thing, but it’s still our money, sweetheart. One of these days you’re going to figure that out.”

“Well, the prenup you had me sign that is basically useless tells me that. It just still makes me uncomfortable.”

The prenup Emily signed moved all of David’s assets into a joint account that had her name on it. If they were to ever divorce, the company would go back into David’s name, but everything else would go to Emily. It was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard, but he insisted that she know there was no way for her to ever be broke again and he wanted her to get used to having money. He’d even set up an account in just her name that he kept dumping money into. Finally, she’d hired her own financial advisor to manage the account for her and help her figure out how to put it to good use for charity.

Holly Barrett had helped her get started after all the work she used to do for her father’s charity.

They spent the rest of the morning shopping and laughing until Emily’s phone rang.

She frowned. It was Hunter Novak.

“Hi Hunter, what’s up?”

“Hey sweetie, you with David?”

“I am. We’re in town at the mall.”

“If you’re going to get back in time for the party, you might want to get going. Snow is starting to come down pretty hard, and it won’t be long before the hill is hard to get up. We’ve got a private contractor coming in with a snow plow, but it will be a few hours before he can get here.”

“Is that going to affect the party tonight?”

“It might, but we’re hoping it won’t.”

Emily thanked him for calling and turned to David. “Looks like we need to wrap up our shopping and head back. Was there anyone else we needed to shop for?”

David shook his head. “I don’t think so. We’ve done well today. Let’s go home.”

Emily smiled. Solitaire really was like a second home for them. “I’m sorry if I’ve been part of the reason we haven’t spent as much time in Colorado.”

David squeezed her hand. “We’ve both been busy. We just need to make our friends a higher priority than we have been.”

“More like family,” she murmured. “We both lost our families and I think Solitaire fills that hole rather nicely.”

He stopped in the mall corridor and pulled her in for a kiss. “You’re definitely right about that. It wouldn’t be the same without you, though.”

He called Jeff, the driver he was borrowing from Garrett for the weekend and let him know they were ready for a pick-up outside the main entrance to the mall.

While they sat in the car on the way back, David made some phone calls to the Backpacks for Kids’ organization and to Lydia to arrange a special Christmas delivery for the group’s volunteers.

The rest of the trip was made in easy silence as Emily dozed against David’s shoulder.

12

“Patrick, meet me in Elijah’s office, please. Ian Warner is threatening to pull out because of some information he got. It’s not unsalvageable, but I’d like us to have a plan for dealing with it after Christmas.”

David stepped into the hallway on the upper level of Solitaire and headed for the stairs. Emily was already asleep by the time he’d gotten to the door, so he didn’t feel bad about leaving her to get some work done.

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