Free Lost and Found Family by Leigh Riker Page A

cook and care for Bob—for me—you spend every minute of the day keeping busy at work and then at home all night.” He caught her arm. “Does that really help, Em? Because it doesn’t help me.”
    Emma tried to block out his words, the flurry of despair they caused. At the end of the bridge she turned right, then headed downhill toward her car. Christian stayed on her heels.
    Her legs felt too weak to run but she wouldn’t have anyway. She still loved him.
    When he’d called her at the store, he’d suggested dinner after a walk on the bridge so he could cool off first. Now all Emma wanted was to go home. In her own car.
    â€œI told you. I can’t . You want to drag everything out, rehash what happened—but what good would that do? I know what happened. I was there, as Grace pointed out.” Blindly, Emma poked her key at the door lock.
    She slipped into the car. Blinking, without looking in her rearview mirror, she pulled out of her space and left Christian standing there shaking his head.
    * * *
    E MMA DIDN ’ T SLEEP WELL . She rarely did.
    In the darkness she tiptoed from the bedroom, leaving Bob with Christian, and crept along the upstairs hall. If Christian woke to find her missing, he’d search for her, but Emma needed a chance to make sense of things however she could.
    Outside Owen’s room, she stopped and simply stood there, resting one hand against the closed door. After long moments, she laid her forehead against the cool wood. How many nights had she come here to check on him only to remember at the last second that no one was in his room?
    If she hoped to use this space, even temporarily, she had to overcome her reluctance to step inside.
    For another moment Emma listened to her rough breathing in the dark. Then she put a hand on the knob, turned it but didn’t push the door open.
    If she closed her eyes, she could imagine Owen asleep in his bed, which was shaped like a blue truck. He used to nestle among his stuffed animals, including the bear he’d named Grizzle, his model trucks lined up around their perimeter like guardians. But then, Bob would have been there, too. Her legs trembling, Emma leaned lightly into the door as if it might open without her having to decide this time.
    She hadn’t even stripped the bed. But she couldn’t sit there to inhale that lingering scent of him, soapy clean and fresh. Her favorite time of day had been just before bed when he’d come from his bath, the smell of baby shampoo still in his damp hair. Then they would curl up together while Emma read him a book.
    Stepping back, she turned and padded along the hall to the stairs and went down, taking care not to put a foot on the one board that creaked midway.
    Following her usual route, Emma didn’t have to disarm the security system. Whenever she or Christian had opened a door at night without thinking, the shrill sound had shredded every nerve in her body. So she hadn’t set it. It wasn’t as if Owen might go exploring now in the middle of the night and set off the alarm. Besides, they lived in a secluded neighborhood halfway up a mountain, and their small suburban town below had a low crime rate.
    Downstairs Emma eased out the front door. She walked aimlessly around the yard, the grass silvered by moonlight, and down the drive. From the woods across the road, a hoot owl called. Something else rustled in the fallen leaves. A raccoon, an opossum, even a fox? Or the small herd of neighborhood deer? Once, she and Christian had seen a bobcat slink from the underbrush and run along the road.
    She stared at the place where she thought she’d heard something, but no other sound came. Emma stopped at the edge of the driveway, looked back at the house she had loved and then away. She glanced at one of the flower beds. The ground was bare now, the daylilies dormant for the coming winter, the sunshine yellow daffodils Owen had helped her plant mere