Read Online One Mountain Away by Emilie Richards - Free Book Online Page B

“He’s older, and his hair’s turning gray.”
    “I forgot you were teaching this evening. I popped by on my way back from Mom’s, so I told him I’d wait for you. He looked tired. I think he was glad to go.”
    Taylor felt a twinge of guilt. Her father adored Maddie, but she wondered if she was taking advantage of his devotion. By drawing constantly on his support and help, was she keeping him from finding a woman he could share his life with?
    She tossed her backpack on the coffee table and flopped down beside her friend. “Where’s Edna?”
    “Mom’s got her. Tomorrow’s a field trip to a local farm, and Mom’s on spring vacation, so she said she’d chaperone.”
    Taylor lowered her voice. “Maddie’s already asleep?”
    “For a good hour. She was exhausted.”
    “Dad told you what happened?”
    “He said she had a generalized tonic-clonic seizure.”
    Samantha’s medical training made it so easy to talk to her. Taylor was always grateful not to have to mince words. “Maybe it was an anomaly,” she said.
    Samantha nodded. “It’s hard to know.”
    Normally Taylor might have treated herself to a glass of wine after a long day, but Samantha didn’t drink, and the two women were such old friends that if Samantha had wanted anything else, she would have gotten it.
    “She seemed okay?” Taylor probed.
    “A little disoriented. I don’t think she got much homework done.”
    “I’ll have to call her teacher. They try not to give homework over the weekend. Maybe Maddie can make up whatever she didn’t do on Saturday.”
    Samantha was half lying, half sitting, with her dark hair spread against the back of the old sofa. She was of mixed ancestry, as if the continents of the world had huddled together at her creation. Her father had been half Korean, half African-American. Her mother’s heritage was unknown but likely European. Samantha’s face was long and elegant, her huge eyes slightly tilted, her hair wild, her complexion the color of almonds. She wasn’t classically beautiful, and exotic was too charged a word to describe her. She was distinctive, extraordinary. At twenty-nine, she’d already lived harder and faster than most people twice her age.
    “Maddie told me she talked to Jeremy,” she said.
    “Did she tell you what they talked about?” Taylor didn’t even try to mask a grimace.
    “She told him about the seizure. She said he asked a lot of questions.”
    “He’s good at questions. It makes him feel involved, like he’s actually participating in her life.”
    “By my standards, sweet pea, he’s Father of the Year. He pays child support, and puts money aside for her college.”
    There was something to be said for that. Samantha refused to even discuss Edna’s father, who she claimed was completely out of the picture. In contrast, last year, after one of his songs had sold to a recording company, Jeremy had sent Taylor an unexpected bonus check to sock away for emergencies. Taylor had to give the man some credit.
    “Getting checks is great,” she said. “But he’s around just enough to remind Maddie that she has a father, and gone just enough to make her yearn for a real one.”
    “What would you do if he was around all the time?” Samantha asked. “Would you really like that better?”
    Taylor shrugged that off. “Not worth worrying about, since it’s never going to happen. He’s got Nashville in his blood, and that’s where the money is for the band. I’d better hope he doesn’t move here, or he’ll be writing ballads about being too broke to support his baby girl.”
    The phone rang just in time to prevent Samantha from answering. She got up and ambled into the kitchen to give Taylor privacy. “I’d love some tea,” Taylor called after her, before she picked up the telephone.
    The male voice was unmistakable, but he identified himself, just in case. “Taylor, Jeremy.”
    It might be relatively early, but she was tired, and she wondered if he knew it. Jeremy