Page 17 of Big Package

Behind me, Emmy had gone still, pretending not to listen. I turned slightly so she knew I knew.

“Have you got everything you need?” Jace asked.

“Yeah.”

He paused. “Are you alone?”

I looked at Emmy. She looked right back. “No.”

“Emmy Parker’s with you?”

“How the hell do you know that?”

“Janice.”

Emmy closed her eyes.

“She came for a delivery,” I said. “Nothing happened.”

Emmy’s eyes snapped open. Jace laughed.

“I didn’t ask if anything happened.”

I should have hung up.

“Delaney says she’ll check Emmy’s shop tomorrow if the roads clear,” Jace said, talking about his wife. “And you can tell her I told you not to be an ass.”

I ended the call without saying goodbye.

Emmy smiled. “You heard him.”

“He called about the road. It’s going to stay closed until the county treats it, and we’re supposed to get snow after midnight.”

The humor left her face. She pulled the sleeves over her hands and stared at the dark windows. Quiet didn’t seem natural for her.

“Delaney will check on the shop,” I said.

“That’s nice of her, but I hate depending on someone else to handle my business.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s my responsibility.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“It absolutely answers the question.”

“No. It tells me whose name is on the lease.”

She stared at me long enough that I wondered if I’d pushed too far. “When did you become a therapist?”

“I’m not the one pacing.”

She looked down. She’d crossed the same strip of kitchen floor three times since I got off the phone. She stopped. Her shoulders dropped.

“I spent two years planning my life around somebody else,” she said. “Where we’d live, when we’d get married, whether we’d have kids right away. Then one day he decided he wasn’t sure anymore, and suddenly I had nothing that felt like mine.” She looked toward the mudroom. “Wrapped on Main is mine. If it succeeds, that’s because I made it work. If it fails, at least I’ll know it was my choice.”

I didn’t answer right away. The way she said it told me this wasn’t really about the shop. She needed to know the choices in her life were actually hers.