Songbird(4)

“It’s still there. Relegated to the work truck now. She’s seen better days.”

He waited patiently for her to climb in, and then he reached for a pillow lying on the floor behind the driver’s seat. He plumped it and tossed it on the seat.

“Lay down, sweet pea. Get some sleep. You look like you’re in another world. I’ll wake you up when we get home.”

Her eyes were so heavy, she wasn’t sure she could keep them open if she tried, so she settled down on the seat, snuggling her face into the soft pillow.

She dimly registered doors shutting, the engine starting and the SUV rocking into motion. Tagg’s and Greer’s low voices buzzed warmly in her ears, but she couldn’t decipher what they were saying.

Home.

She was going home.

It terrified her and offered her sweet comfort all at the same time.

“I hope we’re doing the right thing,” Greer murmured as he turned to look over his shoulder at a sleeping Emily.

“We are,” Taggert said grimly. “You saw her. Hell, Greer, how much longer was she going to last like that? Did you see the locks she had on the door?”

“Well at least she was smart about her safety,” Greer said.

Taggert scowled. “She should have damn well come home a long time ago. She should have never left.”

“You and I both know why she did,” Greer muttered.

Taggert glanced away, his fingers tight around the steering wheel. Yeah, he knew why she’d left. Why she couldn’t stay. Why she and Sean made a life away from the ranch. Why she’d ended up Sean’s wife in the first place.

He’d made mistakes. No question. But that didn’t mean Emily was going to keep paying for them. Four years was a long time. The last year had been hell on all of them, but especially Emily. Sweet, delicate Emily with the voice of an angel and a heart to match.

Goddamn, it hurt him to see her so defeated. She wouldn’t even sing, and she’d always sung. Always. He couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t weaving words into beautiful music.

“We shouldn’t have let this go on for so long,” Taggert said. “We should have dragged her ass home months ago.”

Greer nodded. “Agreed. But we can’t change the past.” He rubbed a tired hand over his face. “God, if we could. All we can do is make damn sure Emily feels safe with us, that she knows the ranch is her home.”

“And that this time we aren’t going to give her up like we did before,” Taggert vowed.

“She may not want us now,” Greer said carefully. “Time changes things. She married Sean. She’s a different woman now.”

Taggert turned fiercely to Greer, slowing down as he did. “You look at that girl back there and you tell me she’s a different woman. She’s hurting like hell. She’s grieving. She’s tried to stop living, but she’s still the same sweet, giving girl we’ve known all our lives. She loved us, Greer. We shit on that love, but she loved us, and I don’t believe for a minute she gave that love lightly. We can get her back. I didn’t say it would be easy, and it shouldn’t be after we turned her away, but I won’t give up.”

“I hear you, man. She needs time, and she’ll have all the time in the world at the ranch where we can take care of her and end this path to self destruction she’s on.”

Grief and regret, so much regret, swirled in Taggert’s stomach. Sean shouldn’t have died protecting Emily. His older brothers let him down—let him and Emily both down. Taggert would have to live with that for the rest of his life. But he wouldn’t surrender Emily the same way. She was alive, damn it, and she was going to start acting like it.

Chapter Three

Emily woke in Taggert’s arms as he strode from the SUV toward the front porch of the two-story frame house. She’d always loved this house. Whitewashed, it could have existed a hundred years before, a farm house on a fledgling cattle spread. And it did, she reminded herself ruefully. This land had been in the Donovan family for over a century, built when the west was still new, when people with big dreams came to settle the raw, untamed land.

The sun was sliding over the mountains, and the chill of the spring air elicited a trail of goose bumps over her arms.

Tagg looked down at her as he mounted the steps, and his eyes softened. “We’re home, Emmy.”

He set her down, almost as if he knew how important it was that she walk inside on her own. Greer opened the door, and Emily stepped into the living room.

The first thing that hit her was the smell. It was hard to put a name on the smell of home. It was older, musty but not unpleasant, just the reality of an aged house. There was a hint of tobacco, the scent of leather and a faint whisper of daffodils.

Nothing had changed. The furniture was the same down to Taggert’s favorite threadbare armchair with ottoman. The old television had been replaced and a flatscreen was mounted on the wall catty-corner to the stone fireplace.

Through the adjacent door, she knew she’d find the kitchen the same as she’d left it, its large open floor plan inviting and homey, the wraparound bar that hugged the entire kitchen a place for people to gather, talk and eat at the end of a long day.

She could almost hear the laughter echoing through the hallways.

“Emily, my dear! It’s so good to see you.”