Dandelion Wishes. Melinda Curtis
free. Turning, she hit Emma on the head with the Elvis umbrella.
Emma crumpled beneath one of the best Sedona landscapes she’d ever painted. The orchestra swelled.
“Granny Rose.” She lifted her head. “It’s me. Emma. Your granddaughter?”
Gene Kelly closed the song softly. Granny Rose lowered the umbrella and stared in bewilderment. “Emma?”
Emma nodded. Blood pounded in her foot and at her temple. “Is that the tutu from my dance recital when I was twelve?”
Granny Rose’s gaze dropped to the stiff white tulle. She looked around the cluttered living room, taking in the phonograph needle butting against the record label. “My raincoat is at the dry cleaners.” Her breathless voice lacked its usual confidence. “Is it time for cocktails?”
“Yes.” Emma could use a stiff drink.
“I didn’t expect you.” Granny Rose steadied Emma as she stood, although the eighty-year-old needed a bit of shoring up herself. Her huffing as she caught her breath seemed to bow her shoulders. “If you stay until next weekend you can come to the Grand Marshal Selection Ceremony.”
“I’d like that,” Emma said, studying her grandmother cautiously. “Tracy moved back home today,” she added. “I was hoping—”
Someone knocked on the door.
Granny Rose straightened instantly. “I bet it’s that computer nerd again. He should know it’ll be a daisy-wilting day in winter before he gets my vote.”
“Who?”
“You know, what’s-his-name.” Rose in her duck boots headed toward the door, thrusting the Elvis umbrella ahead of her like a sword.
“No, no, no.” Emma didn’t know how a computer nerd could set Granny Rose off, but she hooked Rose’s bony elbow and spun her around. “You can’t answer the door like that.”
“It would be rude of me not to answer the door.” She spoke in a tone one could only learn from a semester at Vassar.
“I may not have been a debutant,” Emma protested, “but even I know you can’t greet guests in Grandpa’s underwear.”
Granny Rose looked at herself. Her hands flitted over the tutu. And then she handed Emma the umbrella. “Don’t be fooled by the way he looks. He’s got an agenda and he’s not above charming you out of your pants to get to me.”
* * *
IN THE TIME he and his partners had been trying to get their property rezoned for the winery, Will had encountered both support and opposition in Harmony Valley. But the real wild card was Rose Cascia. Most days, she was a hellion on wheels, running roughshod over Will’s efforts to garner support for their winery. But on Sundays...
Her Sunday-afternoon hobby involved dressing up and performing musicals in her antique-filled living room. And on Sundays, Rose was usually in a good mood and seemed happy to see him. Will always made a point to stop by.
But this Sunday, as he powered off his music and removed his iPhone earbuds, it wasn’t Rose who answered the door. It was a disheveled woman in a red dress leaning on an umbrella as if it was a cane. As soon as she saw him, she seemed to do a double take.
A warning bell went off in his head, urging him to pay attention, access his memory banks.
“I’m so glad you stopped by.” She gave him a tentative smile. “I was going to come over to your house tomorrow. So I could apologize to Tracy and your family in person.”
Memory clicked into place. He hadn’t seen her in four years. Her cheekbones were more prominent, her makeup more subtle, but her dark eyes were the same.
Emma Willoughby.
Will’s ears rang. He couldn’t help himself; he clambered for something his father disapproved of.
Retribution.
He’d waited six months to rip into Emma for nearly killing his sister. The first two weeks he’d sat at Tracy’s bedside, wondering if she was going to die from the injuries Emma’s careless driving had inflicted. And after Tracy had turned the corner to recovery, he’d spent more than five months trying to imagine every excuse Emma might give for the accident.
And yet Will stood on the porch, staring at the woman, unable to speak.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
Was he all right?
“Are you kidding me?” he exploded. “No one in my family will ever be all right. Tracy came this close to dying.” Will thrust his hand in front of Emma’s face, his thumb and forefinger almost touching.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her face pale. “It was an accident.”
He drew a deep, shuddering breath and stared over Emma’s shoulder.
In the living room, the tiny wood-trimmed love seat sat cockeyed in a corner. The delicately carved walnut coffee table tilted on two legs against a bookshelf.
“Is Rose hurt?” Will pushed past her and called, “Rose? Rose, where are you?”
Rose’s voice warbled a show tune from somewhere in the back. Thank God.
“Granny’s changing.” Emma released her ribs to brush her dark bangs off her forehead with one hand, flinching. Her fingers came away bloody.
What on earth had happened in here?
Will’s conscience warred with his need for retribution. Emma would live. But she needed something to stop the bleeding and possibly an ice pack. Without asking what had happened, in two strides he was at the narrow hall table. He reached into a porcelain vase for a bandage, which Rose kept close at hand, he knew, for emergencies.
Emma stared up at him as he lifted her bangs out of the way and bandaged her wound. Her hair smelled like flowers and felt like silk. “Is Rose getting ready to perform?”
“No more performances today.” Guarded dark eyes caught his skeptical glance. She backed away to thread the umbrella carefully into the stand on one side of the door. And then she gave him a small, apologetic smile. “I’d like to visit Tracy.”
Will didn’t hesitate. “She doesn’t want to see you.”
“She...she said that?”
He looked away and didn’t say anything.
“You haven’t asked her,” Emma said. It wasn’t a question. Color returned to her face in a slow creep of pink that seemed to fortify her. “You haven’t asked her, but I will.”
Will crossed to stand very close to Emma, so close he registered a green fleck in her dark chocolate eyes. “Let me be clear. My sister trusted you with her life. An apology isn’t enough, could never be enough.”
Rose swept into the room in low-heeled pumps and a black skirt that fell just below her knobby knees. Her white hair was in a tight bun. Her hard gaze landed on Will.
“I don’t think I’ve had time to tell you, Emma,” the older woman said. “But this man wants to convert Harmony Valley from a peaceful small town into a soulless tourist destination.”
So much for being welcome on Sundays.
CHAPTER THREE
WILL JACKSON KNEW how to push Emma’s buttons.
He hadn’t always. When she was a kid, he’d been her and Tracy’s reluctant rescuer. When she was a teenager, he’d been like a nosy, overprotective older brother, one who’d had the potential to be attractive, if he’d removed his braces and learned how to use hair product. And then he’d gone away to college and transformed himself into a serious hunk, determined that Tracy never have any fun.
Today, authority exuded from Will