Oklahoma Starshine (The McIntyre Men Book 2) by Maggie Shayne

Author:Maggie Shayne [Shayne, Maggie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-11-21T18:30:00+00:00

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Chapter Eight

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Emily dreamed she was home again. She’d finished another year of college, of striving and working and being younger than everyone else at school and trying to live up to her father’s expectations.

He’d never gone to college. Neither had her mother. But she was a genius, according to her test scores. And her father’s every hope was riding on her small shoulders.

But coming home that summer, she almost didn’t want to go back. The little white cottage was so beloved and so familiar. The green lawn and all the pockets of color her father tended so lovingly. He was groundskeeper for the wealthiest family she knew, after all. He was very good at what he did. A genius in his own right, though he couldn’t seem to hear that when she said it to him.

That summer. God, it had been so good.

In an instant, she was back there, sneaking over the fence out behind the McIntyre’s sprawling mansion, onto the short, green grass her father kept groomed to perfection. She could feel it, cool on her bare feet, and hear the other girls giggling. Her old high school friends, Britt and Taffy and Sue. They all wore bikinis and carried towels and wine coolers as they tiptoed through the darkest part of the McIntyre’s lawn, stepping carefully to avoid the sprinklers. She knew where the motion-activated outdoor lights were and guided them around those areas.

She smelled the chlorinated water before they got close enough to see it. It was lit from beneath with soft white lights along the bottom. They made the water seem even more crystalline blue, like an aquamarine. The area around it was tiled, tiny ceramic squares, also blue with darker blue to create patterns and swirls.

Strategically placed palm trees flanked a poolside bar. A towel warmer stood beside it, plugged in 24/7. They slipped silently into the water, her girlfriends, and immediately started splashing and laughing, their voices high pitched and squeaky.

“Shhh! We’ll get caught.”

They didn’t even seem to hear her. Sighing, she sank onto one of the lawn chairs, cracked a wine cooler, drank it. She wasn’t in the mood for swimming. She wasn’t in the mood for them.

She wanted Joey. She was in love with him. She knew she was. And he was in love with her, too.

And then the dream shifted, and she was in her home, later that same summer, seeing the disappointment, the utter devastation in her father’s eyes as she told him what she’d been dreading telling him.

“I’m pregnant, Daddy.”

He’d been very still for a long moment, just a slight twitch in his jaw. So strong, her father. Short in stature but stocky and powerful. And his first question had been a predictable one. “Who?”

“Joey McIntyre,” she said.

His face had darkened, and it seemed a black cloud moved behind his eyes. “That spoiled little shit. He’s a player. How could you fall for his—”

“It wasn’t like that. We…we’re in love, Daddy.”

“Love?” He’d rolled his eyes.

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