Page 61 of The Hardest Part

Don’t look like it.

“I sure hope so.”

The absence of moonlight cloaked the room in murky darkness. There were no shadows. Emily could barely make out her white dresser or the blush-covered chair in the corner. She gazed toward her window. It looked even darker outside.

Must’ve stopped snowing.

It was coming down hard when Jake brought her home last night.

Drawing the covers up to her chin, Emily burrowed into the silky softness, and closing her eyes, she willed the dream to return.

But sleep evaded her.

She tried counting sheep and making a boring to-do list in her head, but neither worked. Her brain went into overdrive, and random thoughts crept in, sabotaging her efforts.

Christmas is just two weeks away. I still have to go shopping.

Finals start tomorrow. Did I study enough?

Have to plan a baby shower for Shiloh. Gah, and one for Arien, now, too.

“And my wedding.” Rolling over, Emily sighed.

Okay, so what if she hadn’t tackled her Christmas list yet? As soon as as finals were over, she and Arien could go to Jackson and knock it out in a day. She didn’t have to worry about studying. The education she’d gotten in Brookside was so advanced, her college classes were a joke. Shiloh wasn’t due until March. In the middle of Thanksgiving dinner, Kellan announced Arien was going to have a baby in July.

Plenty of time.

Not really.

Classes would start up again in January, and her wedding was in May.

For as much as her mom and Carrie Gantry had accomplished in that regard, there was so much left for Emily to do. Her dress. The cake. And where were they going to live once they were married? Jake and Billy hadn’t so much as hinted, and guarding their secret well, neither had anyone else.

With all of that on her mind, it’s no wonder she couldn’t sleep.

And she needed to, dammit.

Because at night, in Emily’s dreams, the wait was over.

Jake and Billy were there with her.

Sometimes she dreamt the silliest things, like the three of them putting together furniture from Ikea, when there wasn’t a store anywhere in Wyoming. She recalled Arien talking about it that Sunday when she made Swedish meatballs for supper. Every time she and her mom went shopping there, they’d have them in the upstairs cafe.

That might explain it.

Another time, Emily had a dream they were planting a garden. Jake dug holes in the dirt while Billy handed her pots of white blooms.As if. She wouldn’t even dream of doing that, except she did. Wasn’t there a castle in England with beautiful white gardens they’d read about in school once?

Yup, Sissinghurst Castle.

But not all of her dreams were nonsense, some were actually quite delicious. The ones where Billy and Jake kissed her, lying on a blanket beneath the stars. Waking up between them in a big brass bed, their hard, muscled bodies pressed against hers.

Emily shivered, her hand sliding under her shirt to squeeze her breast.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

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