“I’m sorry, did anyone ask you?”
The question was asked with a touch of humor, but when Carol looked up, the blue eyes held no trace of teasing.
“Mom, Daddy, I want you to meet Cain Casey. Cain, my parents, Carol and Ross Verde.” Emma stepped next to Cain and put her arm around her waist. “Try and behave, baby.” They had been seeing each other for over a year, and Emma felt comfortable prodding the mobster when it was warranted. Emma laughed at the way Cain’s brow arched at her comment.
“Miss Casey, it’s nice to meet a friend of Emma’s.” Ross held out his hand, unable to turn away from the sight of his daughter leaning against the tall, strong-looking body. The image was making his brain freeze temporarily, since he’d never seen Emma act like this with anyone before.
“Thank you, sir. I know she’s been looking forward to you two making it down for this auspicious occasion.”
After Cain saw the way Emma’s mother inspected the crowd, she was amazed Emma was as carefree as she was. The woman looked like someone was following her around holding a piece of crap under her nose.
“Are we ready to go out to dinner?” asked Cain.
Emma tried to act relaxed, but watching her mother size Cain up was making her nervous. “Cain made a reservation at one of the city’s best restaurants, so I hope you guys are hungry.”
Without one word Carol turned and walked away, leaving her husband no choice but to follow her. In all the years that followed, she never asked about Cain Casey. When she got the news of Hayden’s birth, she had simply handed the phone to an overjoyed Ross.
Watching her grandson make his way down the stairs brought that day back to the forefront of Carol’s memories. One look at Cain and she’d known she and Ross had lost Emma. When she saw the size of her daughter’s smile and how comfortable she looked in that viper’s arms, she knew exactly what was going on. Loving another woman went against everything she believed in, a lesson she thought she’d firmly instilled in Emma.
From that day she couldn’t bring herself to forgive her daughter the mistake Cain had been. To see the proof of that mistake in her house was more than she should have to endure.
*
Hayden detoured into the living room after he bounced off the last step, wanting to see who had driven up. Peering out the window he could see he was mistaken; actually someone was pulling away from the bunkhouse. It struck him as odd that anyone living in the area would be driving a dark sedan instead of a truck or SUV.
“Problem?” Emma asked, studying Hayden’s back as he looked out the window. She was wiping flour off her hands, wondering what he found so fascinating in a place where almost nothing ever happened. As a child she’d never wasted time gazing out windows to the empty fields beyond. She spent her time reading and expanding her horizons through books like Little Women and The Secret Garden.
Her life in Haywood tempered the different lessons in those pages, and her mother had filled in the gaps of what was right and wrong, and good and evil. Though Cain had added to Emma’s experiences, her moniker of Hayseed was never too far off.
“Are we expecting company?” Hayden didn’t really need an answer as he watched the car drive to the gate and take a left onto the road. He was more interested in what Emma’s response would be.
“Not that I’m aware of. Why, is someone out there?”
“Not anymore.” He turned away from the window and went to sit at the kitchen table with Mook.
Behind him Emma glanced out the window to try and see what Hayden was talking about. The only thing moving in the yard was her father on his tractor, hauling a load of feed to the fence line.
She washed the breakfast dishes and put them away. A couple of hours later she stepped out on the porch to search for Hayden and found him reading a book, while Mook kept an eye on the road as if he were expecting someone.
“Would you like to go for a walk?” asked Emma.
Hayden put his book down and shrugged. “Sure, there’s some stuff I’d like to ask you.”
“That’d be great. What would you like to talk about?”
Mook put his sunglasses on and followed far enough behind to ensure their conversation would be private as long as they didn’t start screaming at each other. The three followed the dirt road Hayden had jogged on that morning.
Emma put her hands in the pockets of her coat to keep them warm and waited to hear what Hayden had on his mind. The crunch of dead leaves under their feet sounded almost magnified as they walked up the path behind the house. It led to an open field Ross used to grow hay for his animals in the summer. Now the ground was frozen and covered in leaves from the nearby woods.
“Why did you leave us?”
Emma hadn’t expected the question, even though she’d listened in on his conversation with Cain the night before. She would have thought Cain had settled this issue long ago in her blunt, forthright manner. “I’m sure Cain told you the answer to that already, Hayden, so are you just testing me?”
Hayden sighed in frustration. Emma was going to give him the same runaround Cain always did on the subject. “Unlike you, I don’t ask questions just to make conversation. I want to know. Did Mom hurt you or something? Is that it? Because she won’t tell me.”
“Really? And please don’t ever think that about Cain. I don’t like what she does, but she never hurt me.” She waved her hands to emphasize the denial.
It surprised him, though, how quickly Emma had come to his mother’s defense. “Cain thought it best for you to answer that question, not her.”
“The Cain I knew would’ve answered something so simple easily enough, so it just surprises me she didn’t.”
“Maybe that’s what your problem is—you don’t know my mother at all. Maybe you never did.”
Emma stuffed her hands into her coat again and looked back at the big blond trailing them. Mook was far enough away so he couldn’t hear what she had to say and report it back to Cain. “I’m not stupid enough to think Cain has sheltered you from what the Casey family does for a living. I just hope you know it doesn’t have to be your destiny.”
“I didn’t ask what you thought about my mother. I asked why you left us.”
Emma sighed, knowing he wasn’t going to let it go. As much as she didn’t want to, she was going to have to answer him. Her memories of that day, every grotesque moment of it, were still a raw spot in her soul. She still grappled with the consequences when the events played in her mind.
Chapter Seven
Four Years Earlier at the Casey Residence
“Mrs. Casey?” Carmen the housekeeper stood in the doorway of the sunroom waiting to be acknowledged. She had seen Emma make her way into the house and away from the mob in the yard.
Emma’s attention jumped from the cake table to the door. Carmen was, as always, quiet as a cat. “Please, Carmen, I’ve been here long enough for you to start calling me Emma. We certainly spend enough time together.”
“And as enjoyable as it is, your name to me is Mrs. Casey,” she said with a smile. “I need the key to the cellar, ma’am. We’ve gone through more liquor than we put out, and there’s a couple of hours to go yet.”
The basement, a rarity in New Orleans, was filled with cases of the best brands on the market, and in this case all of them legal. Cain was a gambler by nature when it came to business, but in her home everything was legitimate.