I remained silent as she walked toward me. She was in her father’s sweater and wearing her mother’s ring. The diamond caught my eye.
One day, I was going to put a different ring on that finger; I just knew it deep down in my soul. I wanted Emma for life.
“How are you?” I asked as Athena placed her head on Emma’s shoulder, like she was giving her a hug.
“I’m not sure. It varies thought to thought. Right now, I’m happy to see you.”
I took her hand.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.
She nodded, hesitantly.
I pulled her toward our hay bale. She sat down on my lap, and I held her hands in mine. She took a deep breath.
“I’m sorry I rushed out. It was just too much at once. I was falling apart, and I didn’t want to do that with an audience.”
“Don’t you dare apologize for that. I think you handled it way better than I would have,” I told her.
“I’m glad your dad told me. It was a little messed up the way he went about this. Your father has a flare for the dramatics. I needed to hear it, though. I had been wondering what my parents would have thought about us if they were still here. I had wondered if my dad would have grilled you, like your father grilled me. I wondered if my mom would have approved. Would she have been excited for our first date? Now I feel like I got the answers to those questions. I don’t have them here, but I know what they thought, and that makes me happy. I’m just sad that they don’t know that they were right, what a beautiful thing this turned into. You and I were still very much at odds when they passed,” she said.
“I have a feeling they are very proud of the people we both have become.”
She smiled at that, needing that validation.
“What else did your dad say when I walked out?”
“Well, he brought me back to what a self-centered prick I had been around that time. He was right. I knew they died, but I was too self-centered to reach out, to do anything to make you feel better. Our parents were best friends, and I had no idea. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. The past is behind us,” she said sadly.
“He also said that when he croaks, the farm is ours,” I said with a smile.
“Riley, you don’t know what’s going to happen. What if we don’t work out? You can’t lump me into that,” she said.
“No, it’s ours, fifty-fifty. Dad indicated that it’s pretty much set in stone.”
“Seriously?” she asked.
“Seriously, so even if we didn’t work out, you’d still have to deal with my sorry ass day after day.”
“Then we better work out,” she said with a smile.
“I’m counting on it,” I told her.
We sat there for a little while. Then she turned those hazel eyes up at me.
“Do you want to go back to my trailer?” she asked.
“Does a horse eat hay?”I answered back.
Twenty One
Emma
It’d been a month since our first dinner with William. We now had them weekly, and at each dinner he shared with me a new story about my parents. At each dinner, I cried, but I also smiled with happy tears.
I was hanging out in the main house with Riley. I had been spending more time here. He was adamant that I had spent too much of the past seven years by myself, and he wasn’t going to allow that anymore. When he smothered me too much, I locked myself in the bathroom in his suite and took a bubble bath.
