Page 22 of Here With You

“Then why am I wasting my good stuff if you don’t care?”

Em sat up taller. “Investing in your friends is never a waste. Besides, don’t forget the travel critic could be here, and we don’t want her seeing me and writing something about the old crone who runs The Brown.” She picked up a nearby mirror. “I’ll tell everyone who will listen that you do my makeup.”

Charlotte gasped and rose from her seat. She studied Em the way an artist scrutinizes a canvas. “We’d better get to work. I’m no Picasso, and you’re no Mona Lisa.”

“It’s a good thing because da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa. Picasso painted his lover, and I swear she had two noses and several eyes,” Em said.

While Charlotte worked on her makeup, Marybeth went upstairs to rummage through her closet. At the mention of a fashion show, Tilly rushed for the door, claiming that she expected a major lunch rush.

When Charlotte finished, she wouldn’t let Em see the final results. She said it was better to look at the finished product as a whole. A cake wasn’t as lovely without the frosting. Em tried to make the case that Charlotte’s contribution was the cake and the frosting, but she didn’t win.

In her room, Marybeth displayed two outfits and a frown. “You and I are going shopping. There isn’t one label I recognize except Levi.” She shook the hanger in her right hand which held a pair of jeans, a white eyelet shirt and a pink cardigan. It was sweet and reminded her of her more youthful days. She knew precisely what Marybeth was going for. In her other hand was a little black dress. It was so tiny that if she bent over, she would become an underwear model.

“I’ll take the jeans.”

Marybeth smiled. “Wise choice. You don’t want to put everything you got on the showroom floor. Save a little magic for the test drive.”

“I’ve test-driven him before. Don’t forget that man put his truck in gear and raced from town.”

Marybeth clucked. “Have you forgotten that your daddy was pointing a shotgun at him?”

“Was he?”

She stared at Marybeth and then at Charlotte.

“We’re talking about your father. If he wanted Miles gone, he’d see to it that he left,” Charlotte said.

“Your father may have had the gun, but you’re the one who shot the bullet straight through that boy’s heart.”

Why did she keep forgetting that she told him to leave?Because it was so much easier to blame someone else when she made a mistake.

She dressed and was allowed to look in the mirror. She wasn’t wearing fancy clothes, but when she put on her pageant smile, she was pleased.

“If he wants you back, what will you do?”

She stared at the woman in the mirror who reminded her of the girl she used to be. Once again, her heart said yes, but her mind said she didn’t need a man to define her.

“I honestly don’t know.” And that was the truth. She was at war with herself. When it came to a battle within, there were no winners.

CHAPTERTEN

As he walked into Carter and Brie’s place, Miles wondered how people did that work daily. He’d had a lot of hard jobs in his life. Ranching was the most exhausting thing he’d ever done until he’d worked a full day at the Kessler cleaning rooms and taking care of their guests’ needs. He’d hauled luggage, delivered meals from The Brown’s kitchen because apparently, they were short-staffed too, and cleaned all ten rooms with the help of Margot, who wasn’t much help because she was told to supervise him. He was grateful they’d only opened the resort’s first floor because he didn’t have it in him to clean another ten rooms.

If he hadn’t invited his mother and Cormac to The Brown for dinner, he would have microwaved a frozen burrito and called it a night. Everything on him, from his toes to his hair, hurt. How did hair hurt? Then he remembered looking under the beds for left-behind items and whacking his noggin on the bedside table on his way up.

He took off his shirt and tossed it on a nearby chair before heading down the hallway. He made a beeline for the refrigerator, took one of Carter’s beers, twisted the cap off, and drank half of it down.

Ollie stood next to him, wagging his tail. He looked a little worn, too, given that his daily naps had to occur in several locations.

“Hey, buddy.” He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out one of the treats he always had on him. “You earned this.” Ollie found the only left-behind item today. It was a shoe. Not a left shoe, but a right one, so he brought it to Miles and dropped it at his feet. Had it been a left, Miles would have had to fight him for it, and to be honest, he probably would have let Ollie keep it because he didn’t have the energy for a game of tug-of-war.

With about forty minutes to relax before his mother and Cormac showed up, he flopped onto the sofa and leaned back on the cushions. He’d been there for only a minute when someone knocked at the door.

If it was Margot wanting to rub his back again, he would have a fit. They’d talked at length about appropriate behavior, but she had her own set of rules.

He tried two times to get off the sofa before he dragged himself to the door. The last person he expected to find was Emmaline when he opened it. She stood there looking pretty in a pink sweater, a white blouse, and jeans that fit her like a glove. On her feet were bejeweled sandals that showed her pretty painted toes.

“Emmaline.” His voice cracked like a pubescent teen. His body responded because she looked exactly like she had decades ago. Everything on the outside was spun sugar, but her eyes danced with mischief, and he remembered what being around her then felt like. It was heavenly.

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