“My daddy said you can help me get my own bank account. I brought money. Twenty whole dollars,” he added with a hint of awe. “My aunt sent it to me and I want to put it in the bank and save it for something big.”
“Twenty whole dollars?” Emily acted suitably impressed. “Goodness, that’s a lot of money. And, yes, I can certainly help you open your own account. Come with me.”
Feeling as if she were running a gauntlet of approving smiles, Emily took Clay’s hand and led him to her desk, with Wade following closely behind them.
This, she thought, was no way to convince the townspeople that there was nothing serious going on between her and the Davenport males.
WADE AND CLAY hadn’t been out of the bank for five minutes before Emily’s co-workers pounced on her.
“What a sweet little boy. And he’s so obviously crazy about you.”
“The chief is definitely interested, Emily. We saw the way he was looking at you.”
“You’re so good with that little boy, Emily. You’d be such a wonderful mother to him.”
“That Wade Davenport’s no fool,” one of the older workers declared with a look of satisfaction. “He probably took one look at you and saw what a good wife and mother you would be.”
Emily knew they weren’t deliberately trying to be insulting. She was sure they considered their personal remarks to be complimentary, rather than intrusive. Maybe they even thought they were being encouraging, giving her support at a time when she needed it. After
all, folks around here were accustomed to speaking their minds, making their neighbors’ business their own, giving advice whether it was asked for or not. It was the way Honoria had functioned for decades, and a few more circumspect newcomers hadn’t made any great headway in changing things, particularly among the older citizens.
They probably would have been surprised to learn that everything they said only frightened her more. It had worried her enough that Wade might be considering a permanent relationship based simply on attraction. But to think that part of his interest in her could be based on her qualifications as a stepmother for his son gave her an all-new basis for concern.
Her main reason behind selling her house and leaving Honoria had been that she’d grown tired of taking care of other people. She needed to be responsible for no one except herself for a while. She’d thought of having a family someday—she loved children. But she’d decided that she wanted to take time to tend to her own needs before she committed herself to a lifetime of tending to others.
Though her own parents had hardly served as examples, Emily had never doubted that when she had children of her own, she would dedicate herself to them fully. She’d watched her aunts and uncle with their children, had studied other happy families in town, and she knew how much love, time and effort it took to raise children successfully. She had no intention of deserting them when things became difficult, as her mother had. Nor would she hold herself so distant from them that they were never certain whether she even loved them, the way Emily’s father had treated her.
Taking on a ready-made family at this point of her life—well, she just didn’t know if she could handle that.
She couldn’t help thinking about her mother again as she drove home from work that evening. Nadine had married a widower with a young son. She’d been miserable, even after having a child of her own.
Granted, Wade was very different from Josiah McBride, Jr. More open and affectionate, less demanding and bitter. From gossip Emily had heard, she wasn’t certain that Nadine had ever loved her husband, but had married him for his comfortable income—a motive that almost guaranteed disaster. But Emily had known Wade only six weeks, not nearly enough time to think about a permanent arrangement. And she had plans she couldn’t simply change on a whim.
Where would she live if she remained here, now that she’d sold her house? How could she risk losing this one opportunity to get away, to travel and see the world, to be single, carefree, totally unfettered for the first time in her twenty-six years?
She entered her house warily, looking around for signs of entry before she walked in—another new experience for her. She wondered if she would ever come home confidently again...for the few remaining weeks she would live here.
Her phone rang. Closing and locking the door behind her, she hurried to answer it out of habit, though the answering machine was still on. “Hello?”
“Hi. Everything okay there?”
Everything except her pulse rate, which had suddenly skyrocketed in response to Wade’s deep drawl. “Yes, it’s fine.”
“I’m still at the office. Came back after I dropped Clay off at home. Thanks for your patience with him this afternoon, by the way. He was tickled pink to have his own bank account. Not to mention the football you gave him.”
“Everyone who opens a new account with us this month gets one,” she reminded him. “You’d be amazed how many people open accounts just for the giveaway.”
“Yeah, well, I’m waiting for you to offer a free bass boat with every new account before I change banks.”
She chuckled. “Hang on to that dream, pal.”
“Not likely; huh?”
“Not unless the banking wars get a lot more competitive than they are now.”
“Listen, I’m going to be finishing up here in a couple of hours. Why don’t you and I go out for dinner afterward? You probably don’t feel like cooking tonight, and I can call home and tell them I won’t be eating there this evening.”
She couldn’t deny that she wanted to say yes. That she wanted to be with Wade again. That she wanted the evening to end exactly as it had the night before... in her bedroom.