When the main course and dessert were finished, Grammy and her aunts started gathering up some of the dishes. Emma rose out of her chair. “Here, I’ll help you clean up,” she said.
“Thanks, honey,” Virginia replied.
While the rest of the men started vacating the table to duck-out of cleanup duty, Earl nodded at Aidan. “Come on out on the porch with me and the boys, son,” he suggested.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
Earl nodded. “We can leave the women folk to the dishes while you tell me a little more about yourself.”
Emma couldn’t fight the smile spreading across her cheeks. She knew if Granddaddy wanted to know more about Aidan, then he had really made an impression. At his momentary hesitation, she gave him a gentle nudge. Aidan finally put one foot in front of the other to follow Granddaddy outside.
Once the dishes were done and the kitchen cleaned, Emma hurried to check on Aidan. She skidded to a stop at the sight of him lounging in the porch swing with a pocketknife in one hand and a piece of wood in the other. Her mouth gaped open. Before she could ask what the hell a city boy like himself was doing whittling, he grinned. “Your granddaddy is teaching me.”
She laughed. “I see.” She motioned towards the gleaming knife. “Just be careful, okay?”
“Aw, he’ll be fine. He’s not quite the sissified city boy I originally thought he was,” Earl replied.
“High praise indeed,” Emma mused, easing down next to Aidan. In a hushed voice, she murmured, “Don’t even think about taking up chewing tobacco to impress Granddaddy. I won’t let you anywhere near my mouth with a chaw of nastiness.”
He chuckled. “You have nothing to worry about.”
As the afternoon wore on, Aidan put aside his whittling and wrapped her in his arms. A happy sigh escaped her lips as she snuggled against his chest. She tried ignoring the flashback that assaulted her of sitting the same way with Travis after Sunday lunch many years before.
While Grammy filled her in on some of the local gossip she had missed in the last two weeks, Emma watched as Aidan’s eyes grew heavy. It wasn’t long before the heave and sigh of the porch swing caused him to nod off. She kissed his cheek and rose out of his embrace. There was somewhere she wanted to return to before they had to leave.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Aidan woke up to Beau’s tongue slurping across his face. Rubbing his eyes, he peered around the front porch. The rest of Emma’s extended family had left. Only Virginia sat in one of the rockers, working on a quilt for the baby while Earl read a newspaper. Aidan fought the urge to shake himself at how he felt like he was in a scene straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting.
“Well, hello there, sleepyhead. Decide to finally wake up?” Virginia asked.
“Yes, ma’am. I apologize for nodding off.”
She waved her hand dismissively at him. “Why naps are the best parts of lazy Sunday afternoons.”
Aidan gazed around the porch. “Where’s Emma?”
“Down at the dock.”
He nodded and motioned for Beau. After pounding down the porch steps, he followed the winding path around the house to the pond. When he got to the shoreline, he froze.
Emma sat on the end of the dock, dangling her legs over the edge. Her sundress was hiked up to her thighs, and she swirled her feet and calves around in the water. She leaned back with one hand while the other rubbed wide circles around her belly. A serene smile curved on her lips.
The mere sight of her sent a stabbing pain ripping through his chest. It was a pang of true and pure emotion. In that single instant, it was like the Earth shifted on its axis, and every molecule in his body shuddered to a stop.
He was in love.
A suffocating panic crippled him, causing his lungs to burn. He had never felt like this before. Not even what he had with Amy could compare. The feelings flickering within him the last few months had grown from a tiny ember into a raging fire. And now that inferno of emotions threatened to consume him.
He loved Emma.
Fuck. He absolutely and completely loved her with every fiber of his being. And that very fact scared the hell out of him.
Aidan raked a trembling hand through his hair. God, how had he let this happen? They had just been having fun spending time together, enjoying each other’s company, not to mention having great sex. He had done it dozens of other times with assorted women. Of course, he had never gotten to this level of emotion for them either. He always ended it way before that could happen.
His foolish offer to give Emma more had ended up taking more from him than he could have ever bargained for. It felt like he was submerged in an undertow of his feelings and was drowning hard and fast.