Their Divine Doctor(Divine Creek Ranch 9)(37)
It didn’t really interest him tonight, either. It was more of a fallback option since Emma was tied up. Duke sat back on the couch and put his boots up on the coffee table, feeling a funk coming on. It had only been a couple of weeks, but it felt like a month. He missed Emma.
* * * *
“Go big or go home, right?” Rachel asked as she stood next to Emma, gazing at her now blessedly empty closet. It had been packed from floor to ceiling with odds and ends from two decades of buying and not wearing. She’d get brave, buy something, be too afraid to wear it for fear of being noticed, and then let it languish in her closet until it went out of style.
“The vintage clothing store in Morehead is going to love you, Emma,” Rachel said. “Now you have room for the things that worked and room to buy some new things. Want to open your box from Hips and Curves?”
Emma squealed, “It came?”
“Yeah, UPS just brought it,” Rachel replied then chuckled. “Duke and Gage are wondering what is going on down here, I bet.”
“How do you know that?”
“Camilla said one of them peeked over the railing when she opened the door for the UPS man.”
Emma fought the urgent need to rush upstairs. She knew the old saying that “absence makes the heart fonder” was true because she was missing her men like crazy this week. In order to accomplish her makeover, she’d needed the evenings free and wanted it to be a surprise for her men, so she had been keeping them in the dark for the time being.
“Aw, you miss them, don’t you?” Rachel asked as she rubbed her lower back.
Emma nodded, “I do. You okay?”
“Yes, my back aches, that’s all. This little guy has been jumping on my bladder all day long. I’ll bet you have more than your fair share of aches and pains too, don’t you?” Rachel asked knowingly.
“Mostly in my legs. Camilla really knows her stuff.”
“It will help with your balance and walking too. How is it coming with the shoes?”
Emma giggled thinking of last night as she rubbed her aching hip. “It was great. I only fell one time! And you’re right. The lessons are helping with my balance and poise. I never learned how to walk in heels properly.”
“Practice makes perfect. Ready to get to work?”
Emma smiled and nodded. If she was going to do this thing, she was going to do it right. She could keep doing what she’d been doing and accept her own personal status quo, or she could make some changes that might knock her men, and maybe herself, for a loop.
Rachel cut the tape on the box and dumped the contents on the bed. Soon Maya, Summer, Camilla, and Emma were squealing over the contents.
Later, after everyone had gone home, Emma looked around her bedroom with fresh eyes. Her closet was positively spartan now, but she looked forward to her shopping excursion with Summer and Maya. They were hitting Discretion, Macy’s, and points beyond the next day.
She slipped her unreasonably priced, but fairly comfortable, high heels from her feet and placed them on their shelf then removed her clothing and put on her comfy SpongeBob SquarePants pajama bottoms and a snug white T-shirt that she’d been sleeping in.
She’d bargained with Rachel to keep these two pieces. Emma let them take everything else they thought didn’t work for her, but she’d held her ground on her jammies. Rachel gave in, making her promise that since the satin pajama pants and camisoles had arrived from Hips and Curves she would save the jammies for emergencies only. This wasn’t technically an emergency, but she didn’t want to go upstairs in her scrubs and she didn’t want to give her surprises away.
She took one last look in the mirror and smiled at what she’d accomplished with her hair and makeup on her own tonight, without any help, then brushed out her hair and washed her face. Slipping her feet into her bunny slippers, which she’d hidden in the pantry because she knew there was no way the girls would let those stay behind, she grabbed her keys and looked at the clock. She heard a soft thump directly above her, so Duke and Gage must have been up late watching television.
Quietly, she slipped out of her apartment and tiptoed up the stairs, her bunny-ear slippers flopping with every movement. She rapped lightly on the door and giggled to herself when she felt the vibrations as they must’ve both jumped up and ran for the door.
The door jerked open, and they both stood there, looking so happy to see her all she could do was fling herself at them. “How have you been?”
They simultaneously wrapped their arms around her and buried their noses in her hair. Duke growled, “Better, now. We missed you.”
Gage chuckled and murmured, “Emma’s feeling frisky tonight.”