Close To Home (Westen Series) (4 page)

“Hey guys, what’re you two doing here?”

He seemed genuinely happy to see her sons. For that she’d cut him a little slack—maybe a centimeter’s worth.

“Helping mommy...” Brian started.

“...work and make money,” Ben finished.

Clint glanced at her with one eyebrow lifted in a silent sardonic question.

Great! Now he thinks I have the boys employed in child slave labor.

“Actually,” Emma lifted her waitress pad from her skirt, “they’re simply having dinner while I man the counter and register. Can I take your order?”

“We got tips.” Brian whispered.

Ben nodded his head in unison.

Emma wanted to groan.

Clint picked up the plastic covered menu, glancing up and down, then over at the boys. “I seem to remember Lorna made the best pies this side of a bakery. What’s in the case tonight?”

Both boys ran to the pie display case where slices of the pies could be viewed and the names written on cards beside them.

“Apple.” Ben found a word he knew first.

“Cherry.” Brian knew his favorite.

“Lem...” Ben looked back at Emma for help.

“Lemon Meringue.”

Brian grinned. “That’s mom’s favorite.”

Could the floor just open and swallow me?

“Okay guys, that’s enough help. Finish your burgers.” Emma watched with pride as her sons ran back to their counter seats. They were bright boys, and read on the level two years ahead of their grade. She turned her attention on Clint. “And what would you like?”

“I’ll have cherry, with a large glass of milk, please.”

Emma wrote down his order then went to fill it. She prayed he’d simply eat and go away. But when she returned, she found the boys telling him all about their T-ball team and explaining that Mama always went out with friends on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Great. Now he knew their family schedule.

Setting the plate and glass before him, she cleared the boys’ dinner plates.

“Thank you.”

The sincerity in his simple reply surprised Emma, who blushed for no reason. “You’re welcome,” she muttered before moving down the counter to continue cleaning.

The only customers left were her sons, Clint, and Violet and Nola Miller, the pastor’s two sisters. The sisters ate dinner every Tuesday together while their husbands attended the deacons’ meeting at the Baptist church. Even though the sisters had each celebrated their thirtieth wedding anniversaries the entire town still called them the Miller twins.

Emma glanced at the clock. Seven-thirty. Thirty more minutes and then she could close. If she managed to finish the mopping while Rachel, Lorna, and Billy, the teenager who washed dishes every night, finished in the kitchen, they could go home early. Of course, she’d have to convince Clint to finish his dessert.

Maybe the smell of bleach and the sound of a swishing mop will give him the idea, or at least ruin his appetite.
For the first time she could ever remember Emma went to retrieve her mopping supplies with a happy heart.

When she returned, the Miller twins stood in front of the register, admiring Ben and Brian’s casts.

“Oh dear, you climbed all the way up Mr. Thompson’s tree?” Violet held Ben’s arm in her hands.

“And we jumped way out.” He exaggerated the word way.

Nola patted Brian’s arm. “Weren’t you scared?”

“Just a little,” he confessed.

Emma set the bucket behind the counter, making sure it lay beneath Clint’s plate, where most of the pie had already disappeared. She stood for a moment, watching the oldest set of twins in town interact with the youngest. The foursome had developed a unique relationship the day she brought the boys home as babies to live with her parents. Both sisters, aunts of the local minister, were now married, but the whole town still referred to them as “the Miller twins”.

“Suzie called us as soon as she heard from Harriett about what happened to the boys.” Nola smiled softly at Emma, her head tilted slightly to one side. Apparently Suzie had also told them all of the doctor’s threat to report her as a neglectful mother.

Violet, the more flirtatious of the two sisters, laid her hand on Clint’s arm and turned on her most cheerful smile. “We’re so glad you were there to set our little friends’ arms. The boys are so dear to us.”

“I didn’t do anything my uncle wouldn’t have, ladies.” He flashed them a smile equal to any Hollywood hunk.

When Violet giggled in response, Emma rolled her eyes then busied herself ringing up the ladies’ bill. She wanted to tell him that his uncle wouldn’t have taken out the boys’ misbehavior on her, but given them a stern lecture on taking responsibility about obeying rules.

“Emma, your mother and the boys will spend the day with Sister and I on Thursday, correct?” Nola asked.

Emma handed her the change. She felt Clint watching the entire exchange. “Yes, Miss Nola, they are. I’ll have them at your house about eight.”

She waved to the two ladies as they left, then ignoring Clint, she heaved the heavy bucket to the far side of the café. She sloshed the bleach solution on the black and white linoleum, working it under the booths with the long strings of the mop. The heavy work stretched and pulled her muscles, but it beat doing aerobics with all those skinny models on TV any day.

She worked her way from one corner of the dining area, across to the other, then toward the counter space and the rear booths. As she passed her sons and Clint the conversation stopped her dead in her tracks.

“Petey calls us the immacurate contraption,” Brian announced out of the blue.

Emma stared at her youngest son.

“You know, coz we don’t got a daddy,” his brother explained.

“You mean the Immaculate Conception?” Clint clarified as his gaze drifted from the boys to meet and hold hers.

Now would be a really good time for an earthquake or tornado. Anything to make me disappear.
Emma broke the connection and resumed her mopping with a vengeance. She didn’t need to justify her life or her past to anyone, certainly not Clint Preston.

Clint ate his last forkful of pie, watching the twins’ mother out of the corner of his eye. With each new fact he learned about her, Emma Lewis seemed more of a puzzle. He knew she’d listened in on their conversation and heard Brian’s announcement. The blush that had quickly covered her face made him wonder about her relationship with the boys’ father. Obviously they thought they didn’t have one. Had she completely hid their existence from their father, or just cut him totally out of their lives?

Surely Emma wouldn’t have hidden the boys from their father, would she? If she had, then why?

The Miller sisters’ suggestion that Emma’s mother and the boys visited them on a regular basis surprised him. Had they already been scheduled to spend Thursday with them, or had his threat this afternoon scared the little redhead into finding additional childcare to help her mother watch the boys? And if so, how temporary of a time had she arranged?

“You finished with that, Doc?” Lorna stood in the doorway, her frame nearly filling it. “I need to finish and get closed. Jeopardy is on in ten minutes.”

Clint finished off his milk, then carried his dishes to the café owner and cook, just like he had as a kid. “You still make the best cherry pie in the whole world, Lorna.”

“Oh hush, you.” She took the plate then moved out of the way for Emma to carry the mop and bucket through the door. “If you’re finished, Em, I’ll count down the register. You can go a little early.”

“Yippee!” Both boys danced around as their mother dumped the contents of the bucket, then washed her hands.

“Okay guys, settle down,” she called, gathering her bag. “Thanks, Lorna. See you Thursday night.”

Clint stepped around the counter so Emma could get through. The fresh scent of lemon soap wafted past as she walked by him. He leaned on the counter, as the threesome left and headed in the direction of their house.

He didn’t know why they intrigued him. After all, his only reason for being here was to help his uncle and get his own head on straight. Once his six month commitment to his uncle was finished, he’d return to the fast paced ER medicine, and the promotion he’d been offered.

The last thing he needed was get involved with anyone in this town on more than a professional basis—especially not someone with as much baggage as Emma Lewis.

“If you were a gentleman, you’d walk that little girl home.”

Clint gave Lorna a rueful smile. “I’m not so sure she’d want my company.”

“Nonsense. Emma’s got a heart of gold. You go make sure she gets those boys home in one piece.”

“What do I owe you for the pie?” He reached for his wallet.

“Not a thing, Doc. We’ll call it professional courtesy.”

He flashed her a smile and hurried out the door, surprised at how much he really wanted to catch up with Emma and her sons. Wanting to be around the boys didn’t surprise him. So far, every conversation with them had been entertaining and rather surprising. Certainly, that was the reason he wanted to join the little family, not the missing puzzle pieces about their mother.

The trio had stopped at the toy store two shops from the Café. Both boys had their noses pressed against the glass. Emma listened to them, laughing at something they said.

Clint slowed his pace, coming to a stop behind them.

“We could play catch with that football, mommy.” Ben pointed to the window.

“It’s nearly as big as you are, boys.” Their mother glanced into the window, the smile dying on her lips as she saw him reflected in the glass standing behind them all. “Good evening, Doctor.”

Icicles hung from those three words.

Yep, she didn’t want him to walk them home. Too damn bad. Lorna was right. Dark had descended quickly and his mother trained him to be a gentleman at all times. “I thought since we were all headed the same way, I might walk along with you.”

“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the dark? This is Weston you know, not the big bad city.” Sarcasm edged her words.

“You’re afraid of the bogieman, too, Doc Clint?” Brian asked his face full of knowing sympathy.

Great! How did he correct their mother’s opinion of him without embarrassing the kid for his own fears? Emma crossed her arms under her breasts waiting to see how he’d get out of this.

“I used to be when I was a kid, Brian. But tonight I just thought you guys could point out your favorite stars to me while we walk. We don’t see this many of them in Columbus.”

Emma shrugged, and he swore he heard her snort. He mentally patted himself on the back. He got out of that pretty good.

“You don’t have stars in Col...”

“...umbus?”

Clint blinked. Would he ever get used to the twins finishing each other’s sentences?

He turned in the direction of their homes, the boys quickly falling in on either side of him. It took a moment, but he finally heard Emma a step or two behind them. He slowed his pace so they all strolled down the block as one group—Ben closest to the store windows, himself, then Brian, and finally Emma on the outside.

Clint stopped and pointed through a clearing in the trees to the brightest star close to the moon. “See that one there?”

“What one’s that?” Brian asked.

“It’s called Venus.”

“Venus is a planet, Mommy told us so.” Ben spoke with the authority of all six-year-olds who believe their parents are infallible.

A soft snicker sounded from Emma.

“Well,” Clint glanced at their mother. Even in the moonlight he could see the sarcastic lift of her lips in a challenge. He’d get no help from her on this subject. “Your mom is right, Venus is a planet. But the sun shines on it and we can see it in the sky at night.” There, that explanation would work.

“The sun don’t shine at night.” Both boys studied him with skepticism.

Clint scratched the back of his neck. “True, it doesn’t. But see, the sun is always...”

“Enough, guys,” Emma interrupted him, putting her hands on both of her sons’ heads and steering them toward home. “Let’s just say that Venus is a planet that looks like a star at night.”

Clint fell into step beside them, a bit stunned from the bright kids’ brief interrogation.

They walked on to the end of the block, where Emma made a big issue of her sons looking both ways before crossing. The lady did seem to be interested in their safety. The way she interacted with them showed she enjoyed their company. Rather odd behavior for a neglectful mother.

A dark sedan was slowly approaching on their side, so she made a point of waiting for it to pass. The boys slipped their unbroken hands into hers as they waited to cross. Their trust in her, as well as their defense of her, was without question.

Maybe he’d been a little quick to accuse her of neglecting them. Still, her lack of adequate childcare concerned him. She might depend on her mother’s help, but the elderly lady didn’t seem quite up to the task of chasing these two boys to him.

Lost in his thoughts about Emma and her situation, it took Clint a minute to realize the car was speeding up and appeared to be veering towards the family.

“Watch out!” he shouted as he jumped in front of them and pushed them away from the curb, barely getting out of the car’s path himself.

“Oh, my God!” Emma clutched her sons to her as she stumbled backward and landed on her butt, her eyes huge with fright.

The car weaved at the last minute nearly taking Clint out at the knees. If not for a move he’d perfected in high school football, he’d be laid out on the concrete sidewalk. As it was, he managed to slap both hands on the sedan’s hood before it sped off through the deserted street and through town.

“What kind of car was it?” Emma asked, her attention already focused on checking out the well-being of her sons.

Clint ran a few yards to try and read the license plate as it passed under the last streetlight before the end of Main Street. “Too dark to see.”

Clenching his fists in frustration, he cursed under his breath. Well aware the boys were watching him with eyes as wide and frightened as their mother’s had been moments earlier, he extended his hand to help Emma from the sidewalk. “Are you all okay?”