Well Matched (Well Met #3)(15)

“Yeah, I know that, but Caitlin is barely speaking to me right now. No way am I putting her down for manual labor. I don’t want to—”

“I didn’t mean Caitlin.” Emily pressed her lips together like she was trying to hide a smile. “I mean me. When do you want to do this? Evenings? Weekends?”

“Either? Both?” I shrugged. “I don’t think Cait will notice either way. She’s spending a lot of time in her room these days.”

Emily sighed. “You get the paint, we’ll get started tomorrow afternoon. I’ll come by after I close up the store.”

Relief coursed through me in a wave. My sister was on my side after all. I wasn’t alone in all of this. “You’re a lifesaver.”

“That’s what I do,” she said with a grin, and I had to laugh.

“Some things never change.” Emily was a fixer, and during the months she’d spent living with Caitlin and me, she’d been in charge of the both of us. It was an essential part of Emily’s personality: identifying what people needed to make their lives better, and then doing everything in her power to make that happen.

I looked down at the paint chips, shuffling them in my hands like cards. “I think I like the Eggshell,” I said. “It’s warmer than the others.”

“Then that’s the one you get.” The bell over the front door chimed, and Emily looked up with a Pavlovian greeting-a-new-customer smile. The customer waved her off with a just browsing gesture and Emily turned back to me. “But take it easy on Cait, okay? This is a big year for her—prom, graduating, college, and all that—she’s probably feeling a little overwhelmed, and her mom talking about selling the house out from under her is probably stressing her out.”

She wasn’t wrong. How had she seen this when I hadn’t? “Well, hell.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “I guess you’re a better mom than I am right now.”

“Nah.” Emily shook her head. “I’m married to a high school teacher. Lots of teenage hormones in our life.”

I had to concede that. “You’re pretty good at this whole mom thing. You planning on doing it yourself soon?”

“What, kids?” A look of horror came over Emily’s face. “God, no.”

“Not yet, huh?” That made sense. They hadn’t even been married a year yet. Not everyone got pregnant super fast like I had.

“Maybe not ever. Who knows.” She shrugged. “We’ve talked about it once or twice, but I think Simon gets enough kid time with his students. Not to mention all the ones doing the Ren Faire in the summer. I think he likes the quiet at home.”

“And you’re okay with that?” I didn’t want my little sister accommodating Simon’s wishes if she didn’t agree with them.

But I should have known better. “Oh, God, yes,” she said. “Kids are great and all—especially yours—but I don’t know if they’re necessarily my thing. But we’ve been talking about adopting a dog later this summer. Maybe after Faire’s over? The summer is so busy, I think waiting for fall might be better. But I don’t know. I’ve never had a dog before and—”

“We had a dog.” I blinked at her. How had she forgotten?

Emily closed her mouth with a snap, looking confused. “We did?”

“Yeah. Rusty, remember? Our golden retriever?” My childhood had been defined by him. Running around the backyard with Rusty like he was the little brother I never . . . Oh. “Wait. We got him when I was really little, and I was fourteen when he died.”

“Yeah. So I was what, two?” She shook her head. “I think I remember seeing pictures but . . .”

“Crap. Sorry.” I dropped my elbows to the counter, leaning on them. I’d always thought of our age difference in the abstract, but this was more immediate. My childhood had been filled with a canine companion who had died not long after Emily started talking. Mom had been inconsolable, and Dad had forbidden us to have another pet. Of course she didn’t remember. “Sorry,” I said again, giving her arm a squeeze.

“It’s okay.” But she leaned into my comfort anyway. “You could always get a dog too. Someone to keep you company when Caitlin goes to college? Then we can . . . I don’t know. Take them to the dog park together or something.”

I laughed, not wanting to admit how appealing that idea was. But . . . “I don’t know where I’ll be living by the fall, much less if I can bring a pet with me.” I ignored the part where Emily seemed to offer this dog-filled life as an alternative to leaving town. “Let me get settled in my new place first.”

Emily took my refusal with good grace. “That does seem like the more responsible thing to do.” Her ready smile was back. “Anyway, I’m much more excited about the prospect of getting a dog than having kids. How sad is that?”

“Not sad at all.” It was very possible that Emily had the right idea. After all, it wasn’t like I was the best mother in the world . . . hadn’t I just proven that?

One more thing to add to the to-do list. Paint house. Replace carpets. Repair relationship with daughter.





Five





Problem was, I had no idea how to fix things with Caitlin. It was probably a good thing that she was starting to assert her independence—no one wants their kid to be a doormat at almost eighteen. But while we’d always been almost preternaturally close, it had always been very clear that we weren’t BFFs here. We were mother and daughter, and she listened to me. Rarely argued back.