LITMIR.BIZ

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them touch the cool hardwood. She shrank back and resisted the urge to bury under the blanket and go back to her dreams. Dreams in which she’d gone home with Stone.

      Forget about him. I’m not ready for someone like that, and maybe I never will be. No, she was never going to be “that girl.” The girl who didn’t worry about consequences. The one who took a chance. She was too sensible for all that.

      Emily showered, tried not to think of Stone, dried off and dressed in the working jeans and Fortune Ranch company shirt she wore while working on the family’s ranch. Not that it was a ranch anymore, unless one counted a petting zoo and three ponies. But Grammy insisted on keeping the name, a testament to the former glory of the Parker family’s four-hundred-acre cattle ranch of days gone by.

      After eminent domain and the freeway extension had made its way through, they’d been left with forty acres and the house. Thank God for ever-resourceful Grammy, who claimed she hadn’t lived through the depression for nothing. And even if the family business now came down to outdoor company parties, picnics and high school Sadie Hawkins dances, they still had their home.

      Thank heavens for that, because right now Emily needed home. The place where she’d grown up and the last place she’d lived with Mama. She’d been gone seventeen years, but her absence still ached if Emily thought about it too much.

      Emily made her way down the creaky steps of her second-story apartment loft above the detached garage and jogged over to the main Victorian house on the hill. She threw open the side door to the kitchen and walked in to the sounds of Molly’s high-pitched voice. “That’s it—you’ve finally taken the last train into Crazy Town, and this time I’m not sure you’ll be back.”

      “What’s up?” Emily grabbed a mug from the cupboard.

      Molly and Grammy stood before some type of large vase on the kitchen counter.

      “Grammy has done it now.” Molly looked like she’d woken only minutes ago and stood in the middle of the kitchen wearing her oversize Hairdressers Do It with Style T-shirt, hair mussed and eyes bloodshot with the after effects of too much tequila.

      “Once again, your sister is demonstrating how short-sighted she can be. This is where I’ll be buried—my ashes will be, anyway. And I want you girls to pick the perfect place where I’ll be seated for all eternity. I was thinking somewhere in the dining room.”

      That thing sitting on the kitchen counter was an urn? No wonder Molly was freaked out. Emily wasn’t sure she could ever eat food in here again. “Can we take it off the kitchen counter?”

      “For the love of Pete, you girls act like I bought a used urn. This was ordered from the most highly regarded crematorium in the state. Don’t you think it’s nice?” Grammy ran her hand along the little pink roses that decorated the border.

      Emily couldn’t look at the place where her Grammy’s bones would someday lie. “Can’t we do this another time?”

      Grammy waved a hand. “Fine. I’ll find a place in the dining room. This way I’ll be in attendance at every Thanksgiving and Christmas even after I’m gone. Now, I’ll be watching over you all, so don’t forget to say grace.”

      “Oh, Daddy is going to love this,” Molly said with an eye roll.

      “Your father isn’t any of my concern. He spends half his time in Texas pretending he’s a cowboy when he ought to be home with his family,” Grammy shouted over her shoulder as she left the room with her urn.

      The subject of their father and his reluctance to let go of the cattle ranch days was one Emily couldn’t handle before noon. Or plenty of coffee.

      She eyed the bacon and eggs Grammy had left on a warming platter, considering whether or not she still had an appetite.

      “I was thinking—” Molly said with a grin.

      “Don’t you dare.” Emily pointed a finger.

      “I’ll be good this time. Okay, I should have stayed away from the tequila shots. And Thomas.”

      “That would have been nice.”

      “But we should go see if we can find that nice man who helped us with Thomas. And then I can apologize.”

      Emily sat at the kitchen table and thought about how much she’d like to thank Stone. But she wouldn’t need Molly for that. “I’m not going back there for a while.”

      “Why? I saw you dancing with him. And you looked happy. What have you got against happy?”

      “I don’t have anything against it. I have something against starting a relationship right now. I have to work on myself.”

      “Who said anything about a relationship?” Molly drew the last word out, emphasizing every syllable. “Why does everything have to be a big deal to you? Can’t you just have fun?”

      Of course she couldn’t have fun. She had plans to make, and they didn’t involve a man. Emily opened her mouth to answer, but Grammy walked back in the kitchen and spoke first.

      “What you need to do is learn from your big sister, young lady. Sometimes a lady needs to take a good long look at her life to find out where she’s going. It wouldn’t hurt you to do the same.” Grammy reached for a mug and poured some coffee in it.

      Molly rolled her eyes. “Sorry. I forgot Little Miss Perfect does everything right.”

      Emily winced at the moniker, but what was so wrong with setting goals and controlling one’s future? For so long, she’d been the only one with any good sense in this family. Dad out in Texas playing cowboy, Molly pretending she hadn’t screwed up the best thing in her life and Grammy planning her own funeral.

      Either way, it was time for Plan B, since none of her best-laid plans had worked out.

      Like real estate. She’d bought the course on the late-night infomercial, but nothing was like the book said it would be. Her attempt at writing a historical romance hadn’t done any better. And if it wasn’t for the stage fright that kept her from returning to the stage, maybe she could get that country music career off the ground.

      Either way, she had to figure something out, because she was running out of time.

      Molly had struck a nerve when she talked about ticking clocks. It wasn’t that Emily wanted a baby—she’d given up that dream—but reminders of how little she’d accomplished in her twenty-eight years weren’t welcome. She’d recently read in one of her college alumni newsletters that a former classmate had founded her own clothing company and another was running for a congressional seat in her district.

      Emily needed something like that. Something big.

      Grammy patted Emily’s back. “Nothing wrong with being a good girl, right, dear?”

      Good Girl. Yeah, that was her. Another name might be Doormat. “Never said I was perfect.”

      “Don’t forget tomorrow is our monthly meeting with the Pink Ladies. I know you won’t want to miss it, Emily.” Grammy sat across from Emily.

      “Why are you encouraging her?” Molly slammed her coffee mug on the table. “That’s exactly what Emily needs. Hanging out with a bunch of geriatric women. That should do it.”

      “Your sister has a hobby, and maybe you can find one, too,” Grammy said with a scowl.

      “I have a hobby. It’s called dancing. Meanwhile you waste your time talking about dead people that can’t do a thing for you anymore.” Molly took a gulp from her mug and gave Emily a pointed look.

      Emily shook her head. “I love when you both talk about me like I’m not here. What if I’m interested in our family history? What’s wrong with trying to find out all about my namesake?”

      “That Emily Parker isn’t going to help you. Because there’s a little problem. She’s dead.”

      “Listen,

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