Free Strangers When We Meet by Marisa Carroll

the carpet as they begged and pleaded to be allowed to stay up a little longer. But Maureen was firm, and soon the girls, lower lips trembling just a little, were busily putting the dominoes back in the tin. As they worked, Emma teased and cajoled, and by the time the game was put away, the pouts had disappeared and smiles wreathed the girls’ chubby faces. They each gave Emma a hug and kiss and followed their mother out of the room into the small library, where Blake had noticed the lower shelves were filled with children’s book. They’d obviously cajoled their mother into reading them a bedtime story. Sure enough, a minute or two later they emerged, each clutching a story book in her pudgy hands.
    Emma stood up, dusting off the seat of her jeans, and Blake felt himself stir and harden. He felt the same strong pull of attraction he had at their first meeting. An afternoon spent avoiding her company had done little to lessen the intensity. He doubted anything would. Something about her called to him. She was everything in a woman he’d always wanted, strong yet feminine, smart, witty and sure of her own mind. As different from Heather as night from day. Heather’s dalliance with Daryl Tubb had enabled him to break off a relationship that would only have ended in disaster, and for that he was grateful.
    But what of Emma? Should he be the one to bring her dreams of a future with Daryl crashing about her ears? She sure as hell wouldn’t want anything to do with Blake after that. He was caught on the horns of a dilemma. Stay silent and watch her get hurt by a man unworthy of her, or tell her of Daryl’s unfaithfulness and be forever connected in her mind with heartbreak and betrayal? It was a no-win situation as far as he was concerned.
    Maybe he should just get in his car and head to the city.
    But if he did that, it would mean giving up his plan to buy the old McGillicuddy farm. He didn’t think he could stand running into Daryl Tubb whenever he ventured into town—not if the bastard ended up marrying Emma Hart.

CHAPTER FIVE
    “I T ’ S GOOD to have you with us again, Emma.”
    “Thank you, Father.” Emma shook hands with the minister of Cooper’s Corner’s Episcopal church. “I always enjoy the service.”
    “That’s what we like to hear. Come again, soon.” Father Tom Christen smiled and turned to greet the person in line behind Emma, his robe and stole blowing in the breeze coming down off the hills.
    “Father Tom’s been a real blessing to the church,” Martha Dorn confided as they paused for her to pull the hood of her all-weather coat over her hair. It was a cool morning, with a bite in the wind but a promise of warmth in the afternoon. Emma took her grandmother’s arm to help her down the steps of the white clapboard church, whose steeple soared into the blue New England sky. “Not that I don’t miss Father Ude, I do. But he was ninety-six, God bless him, and it was his time. And the work was getting to be too much for him. Some people had started to fall away. Now it’s more like the days when your grandfather and I first moved here. Young couples with children, families with teenagers. Enough bodies in the pew every Sunday to resurrect the youth group and start two new Sunday school classes.”
    “He certainly has a great rapport with the congregation.”
    “And he’s not hard on the eyes, either.”
    “Nana,” Emma said, pretending to be shocked. “What a thing to say about your minister.” Privately she agreed with her grandmother. Father Tom wasn’t hard to look at early on a Sunday morning, with his sunshine blond hair and sky blue eyes that twinkled with good humor and compassion.
    “I really do enjoy coming to church when I’m here with you.”
    “When you and Daryl are married you’ll be able to attend more often, I hope.” Martha looked at Emma as they moved onto the sidewalk and turned toward her grandparents’ home, just a block away. “You are planning to live in