“No! It was because she was... I thought she was a danger to herself. And possibly others. She was very aggressive. She—”

“You probably outweigh her by forty pounds, Em. You couldn’t handle that?”

The stutter opened its skeleton eyes.

“I was acting in my capacity as a police officer,” Emmaline said stiffly.

“Sounds like you were acting like a jealous bully,” he said, his voice calm and flat, and the words actually made her head jerk back.

Oh, God. Was he right? Her stomach curled in on itself. Hadley looked so small and ruined and...vulnerable. Her face was white. A person couldn’t fake that.

“Jack,” Everett began.

“I don’t have time for this,” Jack said tightly. “My grandfather is at death’s door, and I have to get back to the hospital. But now I have to take care of her, because look at her! She’s a wreck. Thanks, Emmaline.”

“J-J-Jack, I d-d-didn’t—” Her voice stopped cold.

The stutter, her old enemy, laughed and squeezed.

“I have to go,” Jack said.

Then he opened the door, looked at Hadley’s feet and scooped her into his arms so she wouldn’t have to walk barefoot to the truck.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

THE GOOD NEWS was, Pops was still alive.

The bad news was everything else.

The past few days had passed in a tense blur of bad coffee and worse sleep. Jack went to the hospital, always careful to check the corridor for Mr. and Mrs. Deiner, not wanting to cause them any further upset than he had already. When he’d finally returned home late that first night, he’d found a broken window in the yellow room upstairs.

He’d taped a sheet of plastic over it, the silence of his house pressing down on him, grateful for Lazarus’s weird little croaks. Then he lay down on the couch and fell asleep, his phone on the coffee table set on the highest volume, and woke around five o’clock, his cat sleeping on his chest.

There was a coffee cake on the counter, and the coffeepot was set up and ready to go.

That would’ve been Emmaline’s work.

He felt a pang of guilt, but goddamn it, he was tired of feeling guilty. The woman had turned off his phone. He didn’t have a landline. She knew that. What if Pops hadn’t made it? What if she’d taken away his chance to say goodbye to his funny, crusty old grandfather?

Em had no right to decide when he could get calls. None.

Yeah, okay, taken by itself, it wasn’t that big a deal. She hadn’t known Pops was going to have a heart attack.

But what about arresting Hadley? Had all that really been necessary? Jack was well aware that his ex-wife was a drama queen, but she’d been genuinely traumatized, and when Jack saw her there in the oversize clothes, tears streaming out of her eyes, he... Ah, screw it. Jack didn’t know what. But he couldn’t just leave her there.

He’d driven her from the police station to her place at the Opera House, called Frankie and asked her to come. While Hadley was in the shower, he made her a grilled cheese sandwich and then waited till Frankie arrived. Hadley was pale and didn’t seem to want to talk. She seemed, in fact, embarrassed. And something more, too. Whatever it was, Jack just wanted to get back to his grandfather, and the second Frankie arrived, he got back in his truck and returned to the hospital.

Since then, he’d been swamped with family responsibilities. Dad was quite a softy, as everyone knew, and Jack spent as much time as he could with him, the two younger John Hollands keeping vigil over the eldest. Jack also made sure to check on the business end of Blue Heron, Honor’s domain, to make sure his sister wasn’t too swamped, but the ever-capable Jessica Dunn seemed to be holding down the fort just fine. He called Faith twice a day, because she was due momentarily, and he wanted to make sure she wasn’t overdoing it, because she’d been staying with Goggy. He dropped by Pru’s house to see how Abby was; she’d never lost anyone close to her.

Then he drove back to Blue Heron to filter the wine and check the sediment, because it was almost time to bottle and those things couldn’t wait. He made his calls, stopped by Hadley’s (she’d been doing a lot of sleeping, according to Frankie), then went back to the hospital, then home.

Three days after the heart attack, Pops went back to the apartment at Rushing Creek. He was now on Lipitor and Coumadin with instructions to stop eating cheese, ice cream, whole milk and “anything good,” in his words. He was weaker, but Jeremy called him “ridiculously healthy” despite his horrifying cholesterol level. Jack checked in with him and Goggy every night, because, despite his grandmother’s protestations, he was worried about her, too. Neither grandparent was young, and Pops’s scare had reminded everyone of that.

And now, four days after Pops’s heart attack, Jack found himself driving from the hospital to Emmaline’s little house on Water Street. Dusk was falling, and the lake was cobalt, a fat moon rising over the ridge.

He had the feeling he owed her an apology.

Being wrong wasn’t a feeling Jack was used to. His sisters liked to call him the prince, the son and heir, and there was some truth to that. He knew his father had wanted a son—Mom, too—and he wasn’t named John Noble Holland IV for nothing. All his life, he’d tried to do the right thing. He’d been an A student, an Eagle Scout, as good a brother as he could manage, having the occasional tea party with Faith, teaching Honor to drive, babysitting for Pru and Carl when Ned was a baby. His mom had thought he was pretty damn perfect, and Dad didn’t think it—he believed it with his whole heart.

In truth, Jack could think of two times he’d made a significant mistake. One, the time he’d jumped off the falls up near the ruins of the old stone barn and broken his arm. Two, marrying Hadley.

Calling Emmaline a bully...yeah, okay. That was number three.

* * *

“CAN I SEE you a minute?” Emmaline asked, standing in the doorway of Levi’s office. It was nearly quitting time.

“Sure. Come on in.”

She did, closing the door behind her. Levi had heard about the incident with Hadley...and Jack’s reaction. Of course he had. Carol had told him the second he walked through the door, and Gerard had come over five minutes later with the same gossip.

She opened her mouth to speak, then found that her throat was tight. Not with the stutter. With tears. The stutter had slunk back to its hole, though last night, when Angela had practically goose-stepped her to O’Rourke’s, Em’s heart had been thundering, positive someone was going to say “H-h-hi, Eh-Eh-Emmaline,” same as they had back in the day.

No one did. But people knew, anyway. Colleen even sent drinks on the house.

“What can I do for you, Deputy?” Levi asked.

“How’s Mr. Holland?” she asked, even though she already knew. Word was out that the old guy was back at Rushing Creek, complaining that he already missed the pretty cardiologist who’d taken care of him.

“He’s fine,” Levi said. “He’s doing really well, actually.”

“Good. And Faith?”

“Very ripe.” His mouth tugged up.

“You’ll make a great dad, Levi.”

“Thanks.” He kept looking at her—it was a trick of his, that patient stare—and she broke.