Her head shot up. “You did?” Clifton had taken an active part in his son’s life? Maybe, just maybe, this was a start.
“I did. I made him very aware of just how ugly I can make things for him with the kind of connections Gina has.”
“You threatened him? Oh, Clifton, is that really the way to handle it?”
“Sometimes you gotta get down in the mud, Em. I won’t stand by and let Clifton get hurt. The boy who hit him will be punished, and a better eye will be kept on Clifton. I won’t have my boy end up like one of those kids on the internet with a Facebook page dedicated to him because he did the unthinkable.”
Em had to close her eyes at the thought. Close them and squeeze. But he was right about running away. She’d been planning to do the same. Quit her job, take the boys and leave Plum Orchard. Move closer to Clifton in the hope that he’d drop the custody suit if he saw the boys more outside of Plum Orchard. “What about Call Girls?”
He scuffed his feet, looking away from her. “I was being a jackass. I know you keep the boys away from the sex talk, and I know Dixie and the girls love them. I just wanted to protect them, but I didn’t think it through very well. Just like I haven’t thought a lot of my life through very well. I’m still trying to figure this all out, Em. Me. Gina. How to deal with the boys, the people who turned their back on me. You got caught in the cross fire.”
Relief washed over her, so much relief, her legs felt weak. “So where do we go from here, Clifton?”
He finally smiled at her under the twinkling lights of the tree. “Well, you go finish up your date with your new beau, and I spend some long-overdue time with my boys. Boys I promise to be there for, and we move forward and try to work this parenting thing out.”
“Thank you, Clifton.”
Clifton pulled her in and dropped a quick kiss on her cheek. “I hope Jax makes you really happy, Em. You deserve it.”
He left her with those words and for the second time in a day, she felt like everything made perfect sense.
Twenty-Two
Which lasted all of ten seconds. “How sweet, you and Clifton makin’ nice. Did he ask to borrow your nail polish?”
“Louella Palmer, I have a bone to pick with you!” Dixie hollered from across the square. The clack of her heels as she stormed over to them was matched only by the silencing of the crowd and the turn of heads.
And here they went again. Another loud, public display wherein Dixie would take up for poor, can’t-stick-up-for-herself Emmaline Without A Spine.
No. More.
Marybell and LaDawn were right behind Dixie, ready to help her protect their friend.
And she loved them for it. She just didn’t want it anymore. It was time to take a new tack with Louella. One she’d thought over while driving to the festival.
Em stepped in front of Dixie and smiled. “This one’s on me.”
Dixie’s eyebrow rose in silent question, but she backed right off, rolling her hand and giving Em the floor.
“Louella? Walk with me, won’t you?” Em said, sticking her arm through Louella’s. “And keep smiling or I’ll tell everyone what you did in the corner of that hayfield with that summer worker Coon Ryder hired. In detail. While your mother listens.”
Louella’s body language said she hated Em’s guts, but she strolled alongside her, smiling as they made their way through the surprised crowd. Em stopped at the benches, located just outside the perimeter of the square, and pointed. “Sit.”
“How dare you tell me what to do?”
Em pointed to the bench. “Sit, Louella. Sit now. The summer of ’93 hayfield hijinks are callin’.”
Louella dropped down on the bench, crossing her legging-clad thighs and folding her hands in her lap. “So?”
Em sat next to her. Right up close. “I don’t like you, Louella. You’re mean and ugly and bitter about things you no longer have control over. Has all this, all that you’ve done, gotten you anything but some lonely satisfaction? Who do you celebrate your wicked victories with? Who pops the champagne and pours the bubbly with you?”
Louella glared at her.
“That’s what I thought. No one. Who wants to celebrate little boys bein’ beat up at school? Isn’t that like pickin’ the wings off moths?”
“That wasn’t my fault, Em.”
Em leaned into her, nudging her shoulder. “But it is your fault. If you hadn’t wanted to exact revenge on Dixie through me and something very private, none of this would have happened.”
“Dixie deserves every rotten thing that happens to her.”
“Because she stole a man who would have never been yours anyway?”
Louella’s lips tightened.
“That’s the truth, isn’t it? Caine never loved you, and he never will. You’ll always be second fiddle to Dixie Davis.”
“Dixie Davis doesn’t deserve Caine.”