In Your Dreams (Blue Heron #4)(40)

“How did you get in here?” he asked when she came back in the room.

“I did knock,” she said, handing him the glass. “You didn’t answer, so I climbed onto your balcony. Very cat burglar of me. By the way, you should lock your doors at night.”

“Figured the odds of an intruder would be low.”

“Not low enough,” she said with a grin. She bent down and picked up the lamp, turned it on, then started picking up the pieces of glass.

“I’ll get that,” he said.

“You stay in that bed,” she said. “I bet you sleep na**d as a frog, and I don’t want a show just now.”

He would’ve made a joke, except Josh’s face was still burned in his mind, that unforgiving, ruthless smile.

Emmaline put the fragments of the glass on the table. “Do you have nightmares a lot?” she asked.

“No. Not really.”

“Sounded like a doozy.”

“I don’t remember what it was about.”

She gave him a look as if she knew he was lying. Better that than having her go all Dr. Freud on him.

He should be over this by now. The accident had taken place twenty days ago. Three of the kids were as right as rain.

Josh Deiner was holding his own.

If you could call a coma holding your own.

“Move over,” she said, and he did.

She sat next to him, on top of the covers, and took one of the many pillows the hotel provided, holding it on her lap. Looked at him. Pushed her hair off her face. It was a utilitarian gesture—hair is obscuring vision: fix. So different from Hadley’s sex-kitteny moves.

But Emmaline had something going on nonetheless. Her hair was dark and thick, and she had on sock-monkey pajama bottoms and a tank top. Nice rack. He tried not to notice.

He sensed he was about to be lectured on the importance of getting counseling, maybe something on post-traumatic stress disorder, or a pat on the shoulder and a reminder that all four kids would’ve drowned without him, not just Josh, and even Josh was holding his own, and he couldn’t beat himself up.

“Want some chocolate?” she asked. “I’m starving.”

Without waiting, she got up, unlocked the door that apparently connected their rooms—Jack had hardly noticed it—and came back a second later with a Hershey bar. With almonds, no less. She plunked herself down next to him and unwrapped the candy bar. “I brought a stash. Don’t tell on me, or they’ll make me do sit-ups or something.” She broke the bar in half and handed him his chunk.

He took a bite of the chocolate. Hadn’t had one of these in a long time. “So why did you say yes to this wedding, Emmaline?” he asked. Yes. Talk about something other than him.

She shrugged. “Stupid pride. Morbid curiosity, too.” She took a bite of the Hershey bar. Her half was bigger, and it made him like her more for some reason. “You know. Is your ex really over you? Are you really over him?” She shot him a glance. “You must know what that’s like.”

“Not really.”

“Does it bother you, having Hadley back in town?”

He finished his half (his third, really). “I’d rather she wasn’t, but she is.”

“Does she want to get back together?”

“Yeah.”

She nodded. “Think you’ll give her a chance?”

“No. Would you give Kevin another chance?” he asked.

She finished her candy bar and licked the wrapper, and Jack felt a jolt straight to his groin.

“I probably would,” she said. “The Kevin I fell in love with would be worth a second chance, blah blah, who cares.” She was quiet a second. “But he’s New Kevin now. I guess people change. Right?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did Hadley?”

Maybe it was the dim light and the late hour or the intimacy of sharing a candy bar, or just to think about something else, but Jack found himself answering. “She probably didn’t,” he said. “But I saw what I wanted to see.”

“Men are stupid that way,” Emmaline concurred, and, much to his surprise, he laughed.

“How are women stupid, then?”

“They go to their ex-fiancé’s wedding, hoping for something that will probably never happen.”

“And what would you like to happen? For him to leave the trainer and beg you to take him back?”

“That’s fun to picture,” she admitted. “But no. I guess just some kind of...apology, maybe?” She blushed.

Funny. She wasn’t bothered by him lying on top of her or the fact that he was indeed na**d as a frog under the covers, or the fact that he’d been thrashing around breaking things. But she blushed admitting all she wanted was a simple “I’m sorry.”

“What does he have to be sorry for?” Jack asked.

She wadded up the candy wrapper and tossed it neatly into the wastebasket. “Three pointer.” Another shrug. “I don’t know. Nothing. The comment in People, maybe.”

“What comment in People?”

“God, Jack, with three sisters, I figured you’d be up on town gossip.”

“They’re white noise as far as I’m concerned.”

Another blush. “He said I was unsupportive.”