Page 27 of Townshipped
When we get back inside, Em’s unusually quiet. I walk over to her. “Are you okay?”
“I think I’m just worn out.”
Em leans into me for a moment. I instinctively draw her closer into my side, and then I see Laura watching us with a very interested look on her face. Laura raises her eyebrows at me. I step away from Em after giving her a reassuring squeeze before dropping my arm.
I’m only comforting Em while she feels disarmed and overwhelmed. Nothing else. Laura wants to see more, as every well-meaning friend and family member will. Even if there were a flicker of attraction, I couldn’t act on it.
I don’t know if Em has someone significant in her life out there searching for her like a madman. That’s what I’d be doing. Besides, she probably doesn’t feel anything more than gratitude to me for stepping in when she needed safety and a place to heal.
“Let’s get you home,” I suggest to Laura. “Want to drive along or stay here?” I ask Em.
“I’ll come,” Em says, walking down the hall to the mudroom to grab her coat while Laura and I walk the other direction toward my front door.
Laura gives me a knowing glance.
“I’m just supporting her while she’s got no one else,” I explain in a hushed voice.
“I’m not here to judge,” Laura says. “She’s sweet. And she makes you smile.”
“And we don’t know a thing about her or her life.”
“Is all that really important? As completely weird as this is going to sound, you two seem almost made for each other. And it sounds really weird now that I said that out loud, so forget I said it. I must be hanging around with Jayme too much—starting to see romance around every corner. But still, there’s something uncanny about the way you two seem to have this connection. Don’t you think?”
“Em’s history is important,” I reiterate. “How would you like to bump your head and forget Rob? Then find out he existed but the guy who saved you … Anyway, she’s not in a position for me to even think about something like that.”
“Gotcha,” Laura says. “Good point.”
Em walks toward us, looking like warmth in the middle of winter, unaware how my hairdresser just suggested she was basically some sort of cosmically ordained match, coincidentally landing on my farm out of nowhere.
It makes sense that I would be attracted to her. We’ve been forced into close proximity and endured a crisis together. She’s beautiful, and she’s easy to be around.
Maybe I am developing feelings for Em at some level. It doesn’t matter if I am. For her sake, I can’t act on them.
10
“EM”
The next few days Aiden and I fall into what I assume is his normal routine. He wakes and feeds the animals. I’m usually asleep during the morning feed, but I rouse when the back door shuts. We share breakfast and then he gets to work while I do a whole lot of nothing. I still nap at least once a day. Something tells me I wasn’t much of a napper before I arrived at Aiden’s
Saturday night I wake to screaming. As I gain consciousness, I realize the cries are mine. I’m yelling at the top of my lungs and thrashing around in the twisted sheets on my bed. Aiden comes running into my bedroom, the hall light flooding the doorway behind him as he strides toward me and flicks on the bedside lamp.
“Em, are you alright?”
“I don’t know,” I say, holding my trembling hand out in front of me.
I tuck my arm back under the covers, trying to subdue the nervous tremors. The hazy recollection of what frightened me starts to crystalize.
“I had a dream about a woman yelling at me over the phone. She was calling me names and saying I ruined someone’s life. She said I was selfish and didn’t deserve happiness after robbing someone else of so much of their happiness.”
I dab my cheek and feel tears. Aiden takes a seat on the edge of my bed, facing me. I lean into him, and he holds me.
“You’re not selfish,” he murmurs into the top of my head. His hand runs down my hair in a comforting rhythm. “It was just a dream.”
“I don’t think it was,” I say between sobs. “I think it was a memory, only I can’t get a hold of all of the details.”
“I’m sorry,” Aiden says.
He doesn’t release me. I collapse into his broad chest. He anchors me and comforts me with soft caresses to my hair and an occasional shushing sound like you’d make to a child if they had a nightmare.
