Flamingo Diner by Sherryl Woods Page B

in.
    “A swim would feel good about now,” he said just to make conversation.
    “Believe me, I thought about jumping in with my clothes on, but I figured everyone would panic and think I was trying to drown myself,” Emma retorted with a wry glance in his direction.
    “Emma, no one would make comparisons withwhat happened to your father. As far as most of the people here are concerned, he died in an accident.”
    She gave him a skeptical look. “I saw you huddled with Gabe and Harley. They were good friends of Dad’s. Do they think it was an accident?”
    “Gabe and Harley are bored. They’re always looking for excitement,” he said carefully.
    “In other words, they think there’s something off with the way he died, too,” she said. “What do they know?”
    “They don’t know anything,” Matt insisted. “They’re just speculating.”
    She started to get to her feet. “I need to talk to them.”
    “Not now,” he insisted, catching her hand and pulling her back down beside him. “I know everything they know and it’s nothing we can do anything about right this second. I’ll follow up on it tomorrow. You need to get some rest.”
    “As if I can,” she said wearily. “Do you think any of us will be able to look at anyone else ever again without wondering if there’s some dark secret at work? If my dad could kill himself, is there anyone who’s not susceptible to suicide as a way out?”
    “You,” Matt said with certainty. “And I wish you would stop saying that your dad killed himself. We don’t know that.”
    “I do,” Emma said. “I don’t want to believe it, but I can’t ignore what my heart is telling me. As for me not being likely to kill myself, I don’t see how you can say that. Everyone always said Dad and I were a lot alike.”
    “And you were, but you have your mother’sstrength. Problems don’t daunt you. You pitch in and look for solutions.”
    Emma seemed surprised by his analysis. “What makes you say that?”
    Matt grinned. “Remember the time you broke your brother’s bike? You’d borrowed it without permission, then ended up smashing it into a tree. I’ve never seen such a mess, but when I came along you weren’t crying or wringing your hands. You looked me straight in the eye and asked me if I could sneak back to the house and get some tools and help you put it back together.”
    She leaned into him for a second. “You were definitely my hero that day.”
    Matt gazed into her eyes and barely resisted the desire to sigh. If only he could have stayed her hero.
    Then again, maybe he was getting a second chance now, though he wondered how she’d feel if she knew he’d carried on a brief, but torrid affair with the woman Gabe and Harley thought might also have been linked to her father.
    “You’re doing the same thing now,” he told her, forcing himself to focus on the present, not the past. “You’re trying to fix this, doing what needs to be done, even though your heart is breaking.”
    “I suppose,” she said. “But it’s one thing to come home and organize a funeral, to get meals on the table, and try to lift everyone’s spirits. It’s quite another to know what to do next.”
    “You’ll figure it out. When the time comes, the answer will come to you.”
    She regarded him skeptically. “What if I don’t like the answer?”
    He knew what she was really worried about. Shewas terrified that she was going to be needed here indefinitely, when her life—the life she loved—was elsewhere.
    “Then you’ll come up with a better one,” he said confidently. “Or if there’s only one solution, then you’ll make peace with it.”
    “You make it sound so easy,” she said, sounding wistful.
    “Not easy,” Matt corrected. “I know nothing about this is easy, but I have every confidence that you’re up to the challenge.” He glanced over and saw the sad, lost expression on her face, and decided that what Emma needed more than anything right now was