"You could've called," Emerson said with unerring calm, opening the front door to usher her mother inside her apartment. "It would've saved you a trip."

This time, the eyebrow raise was accompanied by a disdainful frown, both of which called Emerson's bluff. "It also would've allowed you the opportunity to avoid the conversation," her mother said. "Since you've been doing that for the last two weeks, your father and I thought it was time to take a different approach."

Seriously? Her father was the only man alive who could guilt a person without even being present.

Emerson shifted her weight from one foot to the other to burn off the last of the unease still threatening to send her vitals into red alert. "And how is Dad?"

"Darling, you're fidgeting. And if you'd bother to come to the house, you'd see he's quite well," her mother said, the words as crisp and tart as the Granny Smith apple Emerson had just put back in her bag. "You, on the other hand, are still dodging the topic."

Emerson stopped moving, midshift. Breathed in. Counted her heartbeats. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump . . . "I've been telling you this since I made the decision to leave Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago. I'm not avoiding anything, Mom. There's just nothing to say."

"Sweetheart, please. You up and quit your job as a medical professional for one of the most lucrative and well-established sports organizations in the United States and ended a relationship that could've become a lovely marriage to a very auspicious young man, all out of the blue. There's plenty to say. You're simply not saying it."

Emerson's knuckles went sheet white over the handle of the grocery bag looped over her palm, but she forced herself to walk calmly into the kitchen and lift it to the counter without fanfare. She needed a different channel for this conversation, and fast. "I thought you and Dad would be happy I'm back in Millhaven."

"That's not fair." Her mother followed her, running a hand over her cla.s.sic Chanel sheath in her equally cla.s.sic nervous tell. "Of course we're pleased to see you, but you're impulsively turning your back on successful endeavors. Your father and I are concerned."

Translation: Your father and I are concerned about how this looks. G.o.d, her parents hadn't changed a bit. Too bad for them, Emerson had; namely, she'd grown a backbone.

One she intended to keep, even if she had broken the vow she'd made to herself twelve years ago and come back to Millhaven.

"There's nothing to be concerned about. I'm simply here to work with Doc Sanders. I'm not turning my back on anything," she said, but her mother met the words with a noise that was as close as she'd ever get to a scoff.

"I beg to differ." After a pause, she asked, "Is this about Lance? Did he have an indiscretion?"

Emerson's urge to laugh was strong, but she caught the sound between her teeth. Lance's only love affair was the one he'd recently started with himself. He wasn't a bad guy, necessarily-he didn't kick puppies or blow past little old ladies on the highway with his middle finger held high, and he'd been attentive and sweet, especially in the beginning. But the hotter his career had grown, the more Emerson had come to realize nothing would ever matter to Lance as much as Lance. She just wished she'd grasped the magnitude of his self-absorption sooner and saved them both the trouble. "No, Mom. That's not why we broke up."

"Alright." Another pause. "Did the Lightning decide they no longer required your services?"

Of course her mother had a tidy euphemism for being s.h.i.t-canned. Nothing unpleasant or imperfect ever got an out-loud mention from Team Montgomery. "No. I resigned from my position on the training staff."

Her mother's lips thinned into a line of frustration. "And may I ask why?"

"I just needed a change of pace," Emerson said, because it was the only truth she could stick to that would keep her suit of armor in place and intact.

Unfortunately, her mother knew exactly where to slide the barbs to make said armor about as effective as a string bikini. "If you needed a change of pace, you could've taken a vacation, or even a leave of absence. But quitting? Moving across the country? It's just so permanent, Emerson."

Just like that, something deep in her belly snapped. "Believe me. I know how permanent this is. But it's done, and nothing I can do will change it."

"Oh, darling, don't be so dramatic. I'm sure if we-"

"Was there something else you needed, Mom?" Emerson's cheeks flushed in time with her quickening pulse. Okay, so she hadn't meant to be quite so terse, and she was certain she'd regret giving her mother the verbal stiff-arm. The woman made Miss Manners look like an epic rookie. But standing her ground was the only way Emerson would survive. No way was she lifting the lid on this conversation and putting a spotlight on why she'd come back to Millhaven. Not with her mother. Not with anyone.

Nothing she could do would change the truth. Her only option was to forget it and move the h.e.l.l on.

Her mother straightened as if she'd been starched on the spot. "Well, then. No. I suppose not." She removed her car keys from her purse, her words chilly and her head held high. "I'll just show myself out."

Emerson waited for the squeak of the door hinges and the controlled thump signaling her mother's departure a second later before releasing the breath holding her lungs hostage.

"Awesome. Good talk, Mom," she said, slumping against the narrow stretch of wall s.p.a.ce dividing her kitchen from the rest of the apartment's living area. Logically, she'd known her parents would react to the circ.u.mstances of her return in exactly this manner, questioning everything right down to the moving service she'd chosen to slow-boat her furniture and most of her belongings back to town, then trying to pressure her to do better, faster, more.

But Emerson held a master's degree in disappointment, especially where Dr. Bradford Montgomery, chief of surgery at Camden Valley Hospital, and his lovely wife Bitsy-who just happened to be the president of the hospital's board of trustees, thank you very much-were concerned. Her father may have had meager beginnings, growing up as the son of a farmhand and an elementary-school teacher, but he'd always aimed for the very top of the pile, and set every last one of his expectations for her even higher.

If Emerson's parents were let down by her change in locale and her disintegrated relationship, telling them the real reason she was back in Millhaven would win her a gold medal in the Defective Daughter Olympics.

Which was all the reason she needed to keep her head up, her eyes forward, and the truth buried deep.

Emerson yawned and blinked back the relentless early-morning sunshine spearing past the blinds in her bedroom, cursing the very nature of inflatable mattresses. Her spine felt as if someone had snuck in and replaced it with a rusty corkscrew overnight, and she turned to her side on the floppy, makeshift bed to try to release some of the triple-knot tension.

Nope. No go. G.o.d, she'd give her left arm and her latest paycheck for a hot tub-no, a ninety-minute ma.s.sage right now.

Sure would be nice to have someone put their capable hands in all the right places . . .

Unrepentant and unexpected heat pooled between her thighs, turning her half-sleepy state into all want. Between Lance's militant training schedule and her overwhelming fatigue, remembering the last time she'd found pleasure between the sheets was pretty much a statistical impossibility. Then her relationship with Lance had abruptly become past tense, and Lord knew the last thing she needed while she'd waded through the s.h.i.t storm of leaving Las Vegas was for another man to fall into her life.

A couple of down and dirty o.r.g.a.s.ms to satisfy her drowsy state of arousal, though? Now those wouldn't hurt.

Emerson pressed her legs together, the warmth from the covers and the friction of her panties over bare skin waking her better than any alarm clock. Her eyes drifted shut, her heart beating faster as her b.r.e.a.s.t.s grew heavy, her nipples tight. Sucking in a breath, she shifted, reaching beneath the powder-blue blanket for the hem of her nightshirt. Up the soft cotton went, brushing the sensitive skin of her thighs, her hips, her belly, until the only thing between her fingers and her aching s.e.x was a swath of satin and lace.

Oh G.o.d, it had been so long since she'd let herself feel this good. Pushing the damp material aside, she canted her hips slowly forward in search of more contact. Emerson slipped her fingers upward, shocks of undiluted pleasure sparking all the way through her as she delved into the slick heat of her folds.

More. More. She needed more.

Eyes squeezed tight, she stroked faster, imagining a pair of wide, callused hands on her needy body. Not hands hardened by agility drills or the guidance of thousand-dollar-an-hour personal trainers, uh-uh. The hands in Emerson's imagination were strong from the kind of work done with sleeves rolled up, with dirt and sweat and good, old-fashioned exertion.

Hard. Strong. Hot. Touching her in all the right places, as if they knew every inch of where she needed them most.

There. Ohhhhh, she needed them right . . . there.

A moan tore past her lips, a powerful climax brightening deep between her legs, and Emerson twisted onto her back in order to- White-hot pain shot from the base of her spine all the way down both legs, carving out a vicious path of numbness and tingling that doused her desire in an instant.

"Ow! Oh, ow." The pain nailed Emerson into place, tears p.r.i.c.king the backs of her eyelids like tiny, scalpel-sharp daggers. She sc.r.a.ped a ragged inhale, then another into her lungs, metering her breath until the pain coalesced into a dull, thudding ache. Frustration burned in her chest, tightening around each of her ribs like a steel band. Had she seriously been fantasizing about mind-scrambling s.e.x with a rough and tumble man? Was she insane? She couldn't even get herself off painlessly, for G.o.d's sake.

And here Emerson had thought she'd already hit all the benchmarks for being a complete failure. But the thought of being with a man, any man, ranked right up there with sprouting wings and learning how to fly.

Emerson flung the blanket from her body, welcoming the shock of cool air as she pushed herself off the mattress and into the bathroom. She was a smart woman, logical and well trained. There was no sense not admitting the facts.

Multiple sclerosis was going to make having a normal life impossible. The best thing she could do for herself was change her expectations and move the h.e.l.l on.

CHAPTER FIVE.

Hunter leaned against the top rail of rough-hewn horse fence behind him, his eyes on the sunrise even though his mind was conservatively a trillion miles away. His shoulder had come up with a whole new definition of sore over the past four days of physical therapy, making even limited work difficult and sleep downright impossible. In theory, Hunter got the whole "use it or lose it" aspect of rehabbing an injury like his. He didn't mind some blood, sweat, and tears-literal or figurative-if it meant grabbing his goal of returning to the farm. But the twelve years that had ticked by since his last round of PT, plus all the daily wear and tear that had gone with them, was making this second go-round a whole lot more challenging.

Add in the near-constant arguing his brothers had thrown down and the "just the facts, ma'am" nature of the four sessions he'd had with Emerson this week? Yeah, Hunter had his toes on the edge of bats.h.i.t crazy.

"Don't be an idiot," he muttered, his breath scattering the steam from his coffee as he raised the mug to his mouth for a long draw. Emerson had made it clear as the summer sky above him that she wanted to keep things strictly on the level, and, in truth, doing just that made sense. She'd been gone for over a decade, and while he hadn't done the first-comes-love-then-comes-marriage thing with anyone else, Hunter definitely hadn't sat around pining for her return, either. He'd gotten over Emerson's leaving ages ago.

Not that he'd had a choice in the matter.

"Hey." His brother's voice floated over his shoulder, fast-tracking Hunter back to reality. Approaching from the side of the main house, Owen covered the gra.s.sy s.p.a.ce, leaning both palms against the top rail of the fence and gesturing to the field in front of them with a lift of his chin. "I thought you had three more weeks on desk duty. What're you doing out here?"

Hunter blew out a slow exhale. Might as well come out with the truth. There wasn't much point in lying, and anyway, even if he tried, his brother would know he was chock-full of s.h.i.t.

"Honestly? I don't know. But my eyes popped open at o'dark-thirty just like always, and staying in bed seemed kind of pointless if I wasn't gonna sleep. So here I am."

"Ah." The short response was pretty much par for the course from Owen. The guy was as frugal with his words as their other brother Eli was loose with 'em. "Dad and I just finished breakfast. We'd have made room at the table if we'd known you were out here."

"It's all good." Hunter waved Owen off with ease he had to work for. He'd been awake with plenty of time to make the six a.m. family breakfast where the four of them planned their daily work schedules together. But talking work was kind of pointless when he couldn't do any, and as much as Hunter had wanted to keep to his routine, hearing the rest of them talk shop f.u.c.king stung. "You said breakfast was you and Pop. What about Eli?"

Owen's irritation escaped by way of a snort. "What do you think?"

Dammit. Eli didn't have the best relationship with timeliness, especially in the morning. "I'm sure he has a good reason for running behind."

"I'm sure he doesn't," Owen said, letting a minute tick by before shaking his head on the subject. "Your shoulder feeling any better?"

Ah h.e.l.l, Owen was batting a thousand with all the hard topics this morning. "I'm doing everything I'm supposed to," Hunter said, cherry-picking his words in order to stick with the path of least resistance.

Owen opened his mouth, presumably to throw the bulls.h.i.t flag on Hunter's verbal evasion, but his words stopped short at the bang of the screen door and the thump of work boots on the porch boards behind them.

Owen's auto frown sent a fresh twist through Hunter's gut, but he kept his expression as laid back as possible. He was getting way too used to doing double duty as a referee between his brothers lately. Hopefully, they'd cut him a break by actually keeping things civil this time.

"Morning, Eli," Hunter said after a beat, aiming the words at a bleary-eyed, sleep-rumpled version of his younger brother approaching from the side yard of the main house.

"Morning," Eli replied into his coffee mug, although the drowsy murmur suggested he might as well still be hogging the covers and snoring like a lumberjack.

"Nice of you to join us." Owen sent a pointed stare at the sky, where the brightening shades of pink and orange signaled a good six thirty a.m.

But Eli met the obvious censure in Owen's voice with a slow smile that was just as challenging. "My pleasure." He hung on to Owen's stare just long enough to hammer home the unspoken kiss my a.s.s in his tone, and Christ, Hunter so wasn't in the mood for this.

"Thanks for helping me out in the south barn yesterday," he said to Eli. Maybe the mention of the two hours Eli had spent hauling around feed and equipment while Hunter had done nothing but make nice, neat check marks on their inventory lists would knock Owen's irritation down a rung.

Not today, big man. His older brother's frown refused to let up. "You don't have to cover for him, Hunt," Owen said. "His actions speak for themselves."

A muscle ticked in Eli's clean-shaven jaw as he looked at Hunter with a humorless laugh. "And his actions are always perfect, of course. Our brother here is so flawless, his s.h.i.t is nothing but roses and pure gold."

"Look, you guys-" Hunter tried, but Owen lifted one palm with a noise of disgust.

"No, you know what? Let's not sugarcoat this. He's always thought working the farm is a joke, rolling out of bed whenever the spirit moves him, doing the bare minimum to sc.r.a.pe by while you and Dad and I bust our a.s.ses day in and day out. I get that you're trying to be the peacekeeper, Hunter." Owen took a step back on the gra.s.s, his frame rigid, limbs locked beneath the denim and cotton covering them. "But I'm just about out of slack for someone who doesn't give a rat's a.s.s about anything other than himself. If you need me, I'll be in the cornfields with Dad. Working."

Eli waited until the sound of Owen's footsteps turned into the soft rumble of his truck engine, watching the taillights fade up the dirt path before lifting his shoulders in a shrug. "Looks like he's got me all figured out."

Whether it was his lack of sleep or his br.i.m.m.i.n.g frustration with the matter at hand, Hunter couldn't be sure, but something made an uncharacteristic thread of anger tug at his belly. "You've gotta admit, you didn't really help matters by oversleeping."

"Guess not," Eli said after a heartbeat's worth of a pause. "Anyhow, I'd better find something to do before Mr. Stick Up His a.s.s strokes out over tomorrow's Watermelon Festival." He turned toward the barn adjacent to the main house, making it exactly two paces before Hunter's voice brought his movements to a halt.

"Whoa." Hunter's gaze raked over the cl.u.s.ter of angry red scratches showing on Eli's triceps from beneath the sleeve of his T-shirt. "What'd you do to your arm?"

Eli angled his chin to examine the injury in question with the same expression he'd use to watch soybeans germinate. "Ah, it's nothin' but a thing. I was working on the fence out by the perimeter of the east field after I helped you in the barn yesterday, and I got a little personal with the rough edge of one of the wood posts."

Wait . . . "You repaired the fence out in the east field after you hauled all that stuff around the barn yesterday afternoon?" Hunter asked, his thoughts clicking together like magnets. Mending fences was the most boring grunt work the farm could offer up. The one in question had been halfway to falling down for weeks, and that was before a nasty storm a few days ago had knocked down a handful of sections completely.

"Dad mentioned the thing was in bad shape, and he had both hands full with prep for the festival, so yeah," Eli said.

"How many of the busted sections did you get to?"

One shoulder rose halfway. "All of 'em."

What the h.e.l.l. "Jesus, Eli. That must've taken you 'til sundown."

Eli's truck had disappeared shortly after they'd finished in the barn. Hunter-like Owen, and even their father-had just a.s.sumed he'd called it quits for the day.

"A little before," Eli said. "But, really, the scratches are no big deal."

Hunter shook his head. "Forget the scratches. Why didn't you say something to Owen just now?" After hauling equipment all over the barn and repairing the fence? Even Paul flipping Bunyan would need a little extra shut-eye.

"Because it doesn't matter. Owen's gonna believe what he wants. He always has." Eli's words arrived with nothing more than honesty, hanging between them in the morning air for just a second before he boomeranged the subject. "Meant to ask-how's your shoulder feeling?"

"It's okay." Hunter was halfway through a shrug to match Eli's before he realized the movement fell into the Very Bad Plan category. Pain streaked across the back of his upper arm and neck, digging in hard enough to make his wince inevitable.

"Yeah, you look like it." Mischief lit bright blue in his brother's eyes, spreading to a smirk Hunter knew all too well. "Hey, speaking of which, I didn't know you were doing your physical therapy with Emerson Montgomery."

"Ummm." Hunter drew out the word in a caution-laden question. "Who told you that?"

"Have you looked at Facebook at all this week?" Eli held up his iPhone, the backlit screen glinting in the morning sunlight. "Amber Ca.s.sidy apparently ran into Emerson at the Corner Market a few days ago and posted all about it. I overheard a couple of the guys at the farming co-op talking about her when I ran over there yesterday for some fencing supplies, saying how she's working for Doc Sanders now. With her area of expertise, it wasn't tough to figure that one and one probably equaled the two of you doin' PT together."

Great. No wonder Amber and Mollie Mae had been looking at him sideways when he'd walked past the Hair Lair to get to his truck after his therapy session yesterday. Between those two and Billy Masterson down at the co-op, more than half the town probably knew Emerson was back in Millhaven by now. Along with the fact that Hunter had seen her. "Emerson's the only physical therapist in Millhaven, so yeah. I'm doing my PT with her. But it's really not a big deal."

His brother shot him a look as if he'd just asked why someone would choose to breathe air instead of apple b.u.t.ter. "Is your a.s.s on crooked? According to Amber, the woman came back from Las Vegas clear out of the blue, and word around the campfire at the co-op is that she's hotter than an August afternoon. I'm half tempted to bust something in my shoulder just to get her hands on me."

Something unexpected and sharp turned over in Hunter's chest, sizzling a straight path out of his mouth. "Keep talking," Hunter said past clenched teeth, "and I'll be happy to help you out with getting banged up."

Eli's dark-gold brows winged upward, and s.h.i.t. s.h.i.t. If Hunter couldn't keep his own cool around his brothers, then they sure as h.e.l.l weren't going to keep theirs. "Sorry," he mumbled. "Guess being on restricted duty is starting to get to me."

"No worries, brother. I was just being flip. I didn't mean to overstep my bounds." Eli readjusted the brim of his red baseball hat, but not before Hunter caught the genuine remorse in his younger brother's normally c.o.c.ky expression.

He forced his good shoulder into a shrug, although his usually easy-to-find nonchalance took effort. But the truth was, he had no claim to Emerson, no matter how in love with her he'd once been or how hard her leaving had smarted. h.e.l.l, for all intents and purposes, he didn't even know her now. "That's past tense by over a decade. Don't worry about it."

But Eli's half-c.o.c.ked grin didn't make a repeat appearance. "I know you really used to dig her. You cool with her being back?"

"Yep." Okay, so "cool" might not be the first word Hunter would use to describe the way he felt about Emerson's return to Millhaven, but for Chrissake, all this high-intensity stuff was making him twitch. Emerson was back in town. Hunter needed her in order to rehab his shoulder. It was as simple as that.

Fortunately, Eli was about as comfy talking Deep Thoughts as Hunter was, and he went for a full-throttle subject swap. "If anyone can get you patched up quick, I bet Emerson can," he said hopefully. "She always was really smart. Except for dating What's His Name, that running back."