Flamingo Diner

“I do,” Emma said. “I don’t want to believe it, but I can’t ignore what my heart is telling me. As for me not being likely to kill myself, I don’t see how you can say that. Everyone always said Dad and I were a lot alike.”

“And you were, but you have your mother’s strength. Problems don’t daunt you. You pitch in and look for solutions.”

Emma seemed surprised by his analysis. “What makes you say that?”

Matt grinned. “Remember the time you broke your brother’s bike? You’d borrowed it without permission, then ended up smashing it into a tree. I’ve never seen such a mess, but when I came along you weren’t crying or wringing your hands. You looked me straight in the eye and asked me if I could sneak back to the house and get some tools and help you put it back together.”

She leaned into him for a second. “You were definitely my hero that day.”

Matt gazed into her eyes and barely resisted the desire to sigh. If only he could have stayed her hero.

Then again, maybe he was getting a second chance now, though he wondered how she’d feel if she knew he’d carried on a brief, but torrid affair with the woman Gabe and Harley thought might also have been linked to her father.

“You’re doing the same thing now,” he told her, forcing himself to focus on the present, not the past. “You’re trying to fix this, doing what needs to be done, even though your heart is breaking.”

“I suppose,” she said. “But it’s one thing to come home and organize a funeral, to get meals on the table, and try to lift everyone’s spirits. It’s quite another to know what to do next.”

“You’ll figure it out. When the time comes, the answer will come to you.”

She regarded him skeptically. “What if I don’t like the answer?”

He knew what she was really worried about. She was terrified that she was going to be needed here indefinitely, when her life—the life she loved—was elsewhere.

“Then you’ll come up with a better one,” he said confidently. “Or if there’s only one solution, then you’ll make peace with it.”

“You make it sound so easy,” she said, sounding wistful.

“Not easy,” Matt corrected. “I know nothing about this is easy, but I have every confidence that you’re up to the challenge.” He glanced over and saw the sad, lost expression on her face, and decided that what Emma needed more than anything right now was to get her mind off the future. He elbowed her gently in the ribs to get her attention.

“Last one to the other end is a rotten egg,” he taunted, already shoving off the edge of the pool.

She stared after him in shock. Then a grin slowly spread across her face and she, too, pushed off.

Emma was a strong swimmer, more than strong enough to be a match for his greater height and head start. They touched the far end of the pool at the same instant and came out of the water laughing.

“You’re crazy,” she said, but her eyes were sparkling for the first time since she’d returned home.

Matt figured that ruining his best suit pants in all that chlorine was a small price to pay to see Emma happy. It might be a very temporary fix, but at least it was a reminder to both of them that life went on, that laughter was still possible even in the face of tragedy.

Just then she reached up, her hand cool against his cheek. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

“For?”

“This. Everything.”

Matt turned his head and pressed a kiss to the palm of her hand. “Anytime, darlin’. Anytime.”

Still soaking wet and dripping all over the tile floor in the kitchen, Emma ran smack into her mother, who regarded her with a horrified expression.

“What on earth were you thinking?” Rosa demanded. “We’ve just buried your father and you’re jumping into the pool with your clothes on. What will people say?”

Before Emma could reply that she didn’t give two figs what anyone thought, she sensed Matt stepping up behind her.

“It’s my fault,” he told her mother. “I fell in and Emma had to rescue me.”

Rosa scowled at both of them as if they were fourteen again. “As if I’m likely to believe that. Emma, go change your clothes. Jack Lawrence wants to talk to us. Matthew, go up to my room and find something of Don’s to put on before you go home.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Matt said meekly, then winked at Emma as he passed by.

Emma stood where she was, shivering in the air-conditioned room. “Why does Mr. Lawrence need to see us tonight?”

Rosa sighed. “It’s about your father’s will.”

“Can’t that wait?”

“He says not.”

Emma touched her mother’s pale face. “Are you up to this?”

“No, but it appears I have no choice. Now, hurry and change, please. Let’s get this over with. Jeff and Andy are already waiting.”

Emma changed clothes quickly and ran a comb through her damp hair. She said a quick goodbye to Matt in the hallway, then drew in a deep breath before joining her mother and brothers in the living room.

Jack Lawrence, her parents’ lawyer, had a sheaf of papers in front of him and a somber expression on his face that made her catch her breath. He nodded when Emma walked in, then began to speak in what she assumed to be the tone he deliberately chose for sad occasions. No normal human being talked in such a low, falsely soothing monotone.

“As you know, I have been this family’s attorney for many years now. As soon as I heard the terrible news about Don, I began gathering the information I knew you would need to move on with your lives. I have his will here, which is simple enough. If it’s all right with all of you, I’ll dispense with a formal reading and just explain it.”

“Please,” Rosa said, as if she would agree to anything that shortened the proceedings.

“Okay, then,” the attorney said. “Everything is left in your name Rosa, with provisions that it be divided equally among Emma, Jeff and Andy after your death.”

Emma glanced at her mother and noted that she’d clenched her hands so tightly that the knuckles were white.

“What exactly are our assets?” Rosa asked. “Don had insurance policies.”

The attorney looked uncomfortable. “I’ve looked into those. Because his death hasn’t…” He stopped, censored himself, and tried again. “Because Don’s death hasn’t officially been ruled an accident, they won’t pay. Not yet, at any rate. Of course, once there’s an official ruling, I’m sure that money will come to you.”

Emma watched her mother’s face as the attorney spoke. She showed no reaction to his pointed remark about the death not having been ruled an accident. Once again she wondered if her mother shared her suspicions about it being deliberate. Was that why she’d been so angry, why she’d refused to see her friends? Because she didn’t want to voice her fear that her husband had committed suicide?

“I see,” Rosa said, her voice weak and clearly strained. “What do we have?”

“There’s your joint checking account. A small retirement account. This house and, of course, Flamingo Diner. Rosa, I’m sure you have a better sense of your cash flow than I do, but as long as the diner stays operating, I imagine you’ll be just fine financially. The mortgage payment is a little higher than I anticipated, but you’ve been managing for months now, so there’s no reason to assume you won’t be able to continue to do so.”

Her mother’s complexion paled. “We can’t possibly have a high mortgage payment on the diner. We took out that loan nearly thirty years ago. We should be within months, maybe a year, of paying it off.”

The attorney looked taken aback by her claim. “Rosa, I’m afraid there’s been some mistake. According to the records I have, the loan won’t be paid off for another fourteen years. Don refinanced and took out a fifteen-year note on the diner just a year ago.”

Emma reached for her mother’s hand, found it to be cold as ice. “How can that be?” she asked. “Surely my mother wouldn’t be mistaken about something like that.”

“All I know is what the bank reported to me,” Jack said defensively. “The loan on the house should be paid off about the same time. It was refinanced last year as well.”

“Oh, my God,” Rosa whispered, looking shocked. “What did he do to us?”

Emma, Jeff and Andy watched helplessly as their mother ran from the room, listened as the door slammed shut behind her. Her sobs echoed through the stunned silence.

“I’m sorry,” Jack said, looking at Emma. “I had no idea she didn’t know.” He gathered his papers together, then met Emma’s gaze. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do, anything at all.”

Emma doubted she would be calling on him. For the moment, he’d done quite enough to further shatter their once secure world. As for her, any last hope she’d had of being able to go back to Washington in the near future was pretty much dashed to bits. Far worse, with the revelations about the financial mess her father had created and hidden from her mother, any slim shred of hope she’d clung to that her father’s death had been an accident had been snapped in two.

7

Emma wished with everything in her that she could follow Jack Lawrence out into the night and never come back. She dreaded going back inside to face the million questions her brothers were bound to have. How could she calm their fears when she had so many of her own? As for her mother, she had no idea how to deal with her at all.

When she finally drew in a deep breath and went into the dining room, she walked into the middle of a heated argument between Andy and Jeff.

“Leave it to the old man to throw us a curve,” Jeff said angrily. “Did you see mom’s face? She didn’t know about those mortgages. I’ll bet dad was throwing all that money away on some woman.”

“He was not!” Andy said, obviously near tears. “Don’t you dare say that.”

“Andy’s right,” Emma said quietly. “I won’t let you talk about our father that way.”

“Then you explain where all that money went,” Jeff retorted.

“I don’t know,” Emma said. “But I do intend to find out.”

Andy ignored her and turned to Jeff. “Are we broke?”

Fearful of what Jeff might say, she stepped in. “No. As long as we have the diner, we’ll never be broke.”

“What are we going to do?” Andy asked, still looking to his brother. He swallowed hard, then squared his shoulders and said bravely, “I can drop out of football this fall and work another job. I can put off college for another year, too.”

Emma wasn’t surprised that Andy was immediately willing to make sacrifices. It was his nature, but she couldn’t allow him to do it.

Before she could say a word, though, Jeff spoke up. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said fiercely. “This is not your problem to solve.”

“Then who will?” Andy asked.

“We’ll all pitch in, I guess,” Jeff said, sounding less certain.

“Even Emma?” Andy asked as if she weren’t sitting right there. His skepticism was plain.

Emma sighed. Until now, things had been so hectic that she’d been able to avoid the fact that her brother was furious with her for not coming home sooner. Clearly, she had some fence-mending to do with Andy.

“Of course, I’ll pitch in,” Emma said emphatically.

“You planning on sending a check from D.C. every so often?” Jeff asked bitterly, then added mockingly, “Big deal.”

So, it was two against one, she thought. Maybe she deserved their attitude. She returned Jeff’s angry gaze with an unflinching look. “What would you like me to do?”

Jeff faltered at that. “Honestly, I don’t give a rat’s ass what you do,” he retorted, heading for the door.

“Jeff!”

Emma’s impatient, slightly frantic voice carried after him, but he ignored her. She turned to Andy.

“Why don’t you go ahead and say it,” she suggested quietly.

He squirmed uncomfortably. He was not the kind of kid who enjoyed confrontation.

“Well?”

“Say what?” he asked.

“I know you’re angry with me. I know you think if I had come home sooner things might have turned out differently.”

“That’s right,” he said, his voice climbing. “If you’d been here, Dad might not be dead. It’s your fault, Emma.” His voice caught on a sob. “I hate you! I hate you!”

She stopped him as he tried to run from the room and held him tightly. “I wish I’d been here,” she told him, her own tears streaking down her cheeks. “I wish I’d listened to you.” He had no idea how much she regretted the choice she’d made to wait to come home.

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