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friend. Paul’s friendship with her father was what probably saved her ass from being dropped like poop from a flock of pigeons when Trish asked for an indefinite extension on her production deadline for her current record.
    He opened the screen door into the kitchen. “I also know where Gabe’s coming from. We’re both getting old.”
    She moved into the kitchen and shook her head. “You’re still making number one records. Gabe is too.”
    “True. But there will come a time when we’ll stop selling out stadiums and stop racing up the charts. There’s a lot of young, hot talent out there.” Grinning, he looked over his shoulder at her as they headed down the hall to the stairs. “I know what it’s like to be upstaged by my opening act. I don’t want that to happen again.”
    She laughed because she’d been that opening act. “What can I say? Sorry I stole your fans.”
    At the painful thought that none of those fans were hers anymore, she lost the smile. People still wanted her autograph, and she couldn’t go anywhere without someone noticing her and making a fuss, but most of her earlier supporters had deserted her. The groupies and media following her now simply wanted a piece of her because she was famous.
    Swallowing, she turned to him at the open door of her old bedroom. “Dad, I think you’d make a wonderful music executive. You have a great ear for talent and you care about what people want to hear.”
    He set her case inside her room, then drew her into his arms and kissed her forehead. “I love you, sunshine.”
    “I love you, too, Daddy.” She had to swallow the lump forming in her throat as the tears she’d been holding in came rushing back.
    Her mother finished fluffing her pillows and moved in beside them. She took Emily into her arms after Dad stepped away, hugging her close and hoarsely whispering in her ear, “I’m happy you came home. I love you and I’m proud of you.”
    “I love you.” She clung to her mother. The torrent of tears was too much, and they gushed from her hot and utterly liberating. Why had she held them back?
    Her father wrapped his arms around both her and Momma and held them as she cried until there was nothing left. Emily slowly moved away from them and had never felt freer.
    She was home.
    Now, she could truly heal.
     

Chapter 4
     
    After showering in her en suite bathroom, Emily dressed in a pair of jean shorts she couldn’t button anymore and a baggy sleeveless shirt. As she looked at herself in the full-length mirror on her closet door, she tied a knot in the bottom of the shirt, hoping to make the thing look less sack-like, without giving away her belly’s distinctive curve. She fussed with the slack in the material until she was satisfied with the result.
    Hiding the pregnancy was getting harder and harder, but she wasn’t ready to go public. What if she couldn’t take the criticisms she knew would be waiting for her when the world learned her secret? Although she probably deserved the ugliness sure to follow her reveal, she didn’t need more people telling her she was a fucking idiot. She was good at that all by herself.
    Giving up the battle with her flyaway short hair, she set her brush on dresser and stuck her tongue out at her still groggy reflection, then headed out to face the world--and to find something to eat. Her last meal had been a fast food burger and a chocolate milkshake she’d bought in a truck stop outside Oklahoma City.
    She opened the door of her bedroom and stopped dead. Her baby brother sat on the carpeted floor of the hallway. His legs crossed as he pretended to be flying a plane, which at closer inspection proved to be an X-wing fighter from Star Wars , and held a toy lightsaber in his right hand. He looked up with large hazel eyes, dropped the fighter, and scrambled to his feet. “Sissy! Momma said you came home, but I didn’t beweeve her.”
    He had the same trouble with L s she’d had as a little kid. She still