Page 46 of Inevitable
Chapter 14
Marshall
“You don’t have to tell me that Wren is your kid,” Brock stated as I opened the door the next morning.
Emma had run to the store because she’d emptied everything perishable out of her refrigerator before she’d left for Lania.
I’d been working in the living room until the knock on the door of the cottage.
I watched as Brock, Nate, Gage, and Seth strode into Emma’s place like they knew it well, which they probably did.
There was an enormous painting that I knew Nate had done for Emma in her living room, and pictures of the men everywhere.
I wasn’t sure why it irritated me just a little that these men had been part of Emma and Wren’s life before I’d ever known that Wren existed.
“Make yourself comfortable,” I said drily as the men did exactly that.
Nate, Gage, and Seth flopped onto the large sofa while Brock took the recliner next to the one I’d been occupying.
The cottage was small, and the door basically led directly into the living room.
There was a small dining table in the space between the kitchen and the living room.
The hallway led to the bedrooms and a full bathroom.
Emma had laughingly told me yesterday that she was glad she had her own bathroom attached to her bedroom so she didn’t have to share a bathroom with a teenager.
Emma’s house and my place in San Diego couldn’t be more different.
Although the cottage was clean, it was cluttered with pictures of everyone she knew and loved.
It also held a lot of mementos of Wren’s childhood and things Emma and Wren had done together.
She had all of her history in this cottage, and Emma had never been a woman where everything had a specific place.
I was a minimalist who had almost nothing personal in my home.
I was also anal about everything having a specific place. My neatness was probably a remnant of my military career.
I hated clutter.
Emma, however, seemed to wallow in it.
Strangely, it was an endearing habit of hers that had never really bothered me.
When we’d been at the beach house years ago, I’d happily just picked up the things she’d dropped to put away later.
I closed the door and seated myself back in my recliner.
“How did you know that Wren was my child?” I asked Brock.
“I knew it the minute you said that you and Emma had met fourteen years ago. We’ve all known that Emma had no way to contact Wren’s father because it was a Virginia Beach fling. Wren looks just like you. She’s also always reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t put a finger on who it was until that moment. She has your genius IQ and she’s serious for a kid her age.”
I looked at the four men, and their expressions were all somber.
I’d been working with them closely for years, but I knew very little about their personal lives.
It wasn’t completely comfortable for me to be talking to them about personal subjects even though I’d known them for a long time.
