A Baby for the Bachelor by Victoria Pade

Author:Victoria Pade
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Silhouette
Published: 2009-09-05T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

“So where does Emmalina Dewell live?” Marti asked on Thursday evening as they drove to see the former minister’s wife.

Noah kept his eyes on the road as he answered. “Emmalina is eighty-nine now. She has a small house on the very edge of town, right next door to her daughter’s house. Lila keeps an eye on her, but Emmalina does all right for herself.”

“Is Lila her only child?”

“Nooo, Lila and three others are the kids Emmalina had with her first husband—the minister. A year after he died, Emmalina married Harvey Forester and had two more kids. She married at least two more times over the next thirty years or so.”

“So after all that, do you think she’ll remember as far back as my grandmother?”

“I wouldn’t be wasting your time if I didn’t think so. Emmalina is as sharp as you or I. And when I called her and told her you were Theresa Hobbs’s granddaughter, that you wanted to talk about Theresa from before she left Northbridge, Emmalina didn’t even need reminding who Theresa might be. Of course there’s been a lot of talk about Theresa since she showed up in Northbridge, so I’m sure my call wasn’t the first Emmalina has heard about Theresa being back. But yeah, I trust her memory.”

He made a U-turn then and parked at the curb in front of the second to the last house on South Street, before open road and cornfields marked the beginning of the farm-and ranchland that also made up Northbridge. The house was no bigger than a double garage, painted bright pink with white trim.

Noah must have seen Marti’s shock at the color because he laughed. “Yep, this is Emmalina’s place,” he said as he got out of the truck and came around to the curbside to open Marti’s door. “But don’t let the color of her house or the number of husbands she’s had fool you. Emmalina is a little old grandma through and through.”

Marti wasn’t sure what that meant but she stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of the pristine white picket fence that surrounded the front yard of the flamboyantly painted residence anyway.

Noah opened the gate and waited for Marti to go ahead of him, closing the gate behind them once they were both within the perimeter. Then they went side by side up onto the porch.

The front door was open so he knocked on the frame of the screen door and called, “Emmalina? It’s Noah.”

“Come in, sweetheart! Come in! I’m in the kitchen,” a lilting voice called back.

Noah opened the screen door for Marti and she entered a tiny living room decorated in dated furniture that didn’t at all reflect the bold color choice on the outside of the house. He led Marti to the tiny kitchen.

“What do I smell?” he asked, smiling.

“You know…” was the answer from the woman who turned to them when they joined her.

Emmalina was tiny. At least three inches under five feet tall, she was roly-poly, her well-lined

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