“See you then.”
Emily ended the call, and my heart leaped for joy. She’d called me, reached out to me, and not out of desperation but to ask about something fun for her daughter.
Admittedly, she seemed a bit nervous about the whole thing, but that was to be expected. This might finally be the turning point I’d been waiting f
or. I’d thought it would be Japan, but maybe that was more the beginning.
I grinned to myself. My mother was right. I just needed to unblock things.
* * *
I’d sent Arla home early. It wasn’t that I didn’t want her to meet Emily, but I thought a more casual atmosphere would be better for Emily’s first visit to my house.
I paced in front of the door, waiting for her arrival. My patience was finally rewarded with a knock.
I opened the door to find a smiling Juniper and a much less excited Emily. I figured she must have had a tough day at work.
“Come in, come in,” I said, motioning inside. “The boys are out back. I have ice cream and ginger tea.”
“Yay,” Juniper yelled. She rushed inside and started running circles in my foyer before stopping abruptly and bouncing up and down. “Yay! Ice cream, ginger tea, and doggies.”
A laugh escaped my mouth. “Well, I see you’re definitely feeling better, back to the more hyper girl than the sick girl.” I shot a smile at Emily, but then my smile faltered when I saw the strange, distant look on her face.
I wasn’t sure what was going on, but something was off.
Chapter Thirty-one
EMILY
A few minutes later, I was sitting in a chair in Logan’s dining room sipping on some sweet tea. Juniper was chasing the dogs around in the huge living room. Both Joe and Dean barked happily, their tails wagging.
“Careful, sweet pea,” I said after she almost ran into a wall beneath a painting. She might be small and the room large, but it wasn’t a gym.
“Don’t worry about it,” Logan told me with a smile. “Just let her enjoy this. She’s had a rough time. You both have. It’s nice to hear some laughter in here for a change.” He shrugged. “It’s not exactly like I spent a lot of time laughing it up with my housekeeper.”
I gave him a nod and forced a smile on my face, praying that Logan couldn’t tell how nervous I was. He’d been giving me curious looks since we arrived, which made me think I must be giving away more than I thought.
“Thanks for letting us come over,” I said. “She’s obsessed with those dogs now. She’s been talking about them a lot.”
“You’re free to come over anytime,” Logan said. “Until you get your own dog. I think every family should have a dog.” He leaned over. “Let me tell you about the first dog I ever had growing up. She was called Goldie. I loved her, but God help her, she was the stupidest dog in the neighborhood.”
I faked another smile. I wanted to tell him the truth: that we couldn’t come over anymore. I tried to ignore this as the conversation moved to Logan telling his funny story, but I was barely listening after the start. I was too distracted by memories of Lionel’s visit to my house the night before.
* * *
I remembered Lionel glaring at Logan as he pulled away in his car.
“What was he doing here?” Lionel hissed. “He’s coming to your house now?”
I closed the front door behind me. I didn’t know what had crawled up Lionel’s butt, but I could already tell we were going to have a big argument, and I didn’t want Juniper to have to hear it. Little girls shouldn’t have to worry about their parents fighting.
“He came to check on Juniper,” I said. “Unlike you, he had time to visit. Even though he’s a busy businessman.”
Lionel squared his shoulders and marched up to me. “I was on vacation, and it wasn’t my week.” He motioned off in the direction Logan had driven. “And do you really think you can get away with that kind of behavior?”
“With what kind of behavior?” I stared at him.
“Exposing our child to that sort of thing?”