The calamity Janes Read Free Page B

mother held up her hand. “Okay, Matt, enough. Let your sister at least get something to eat before you start all this doom-and-gloom stuff over the fate of Winding River. That kind of thing is bad for the digestion.”
    Nevertheless, over lunch Emma got an earful on the changes in the town in the past few years—none of them good, to hear Matt tell it. She also heard quite a lot about this man, Ford Hamilton, whose first two editions of the paper had been the talk of Winding River.
    “Took out the local columns that Ron had been running for years,” Matt groused.
    “Everybody around here already knew what everybody else was doing,” Martha argued. “We didn’t need to read about it in the paper.” She regarded her husband defiantly. “Besides, I think he’s gorgeous. It’sabout time somebody exciting and available moved into town.”
    “Why do you care? You’re married to me, ” Matt reminded her.
    Martha rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t mean I’m dead. Besides, a man like Ford Hamilton could be just what it takes to persuade Emma to move back here.”
    Emma held up a hand. “ Whoa! Don’t even go there. I am not looking for a man and I am not coming back here. Don’t go getting any crazy ideas on that score, Martha—or any of the rest of you, either.”
    “Well, we can all dream,” her mother said. “I, for one, think it would be wonderful if you’d at least give the idea some thought.”
    “Don’t push the girl,” her father said. “She just walked in the door.”
    “Oh, be still. You’re just as anxious to have her back here as I am,” her mother retorted. “That’s what that pony is all about.”
    Emma stared at them. “What pony?”
    “That was the surprise,” Caitlyn said, her eyes glowing. “Grandpa got me a pony.”
    Emma’s father grinned at her. “That was supposed to be a secret till after lunch, cupcake.”
    Caitlyn’s face fell. “Oh, yeah. I forgot.”
    “That’s okay, sweetie. Somebody needed to tell me,” Emma said, giving her hand a squeeze, even as she shot a reproachful look at her father.
    “You had one when you were her age,” her father pointed out.
    “But I lived here,” she retorted, then let the subject drop. She was not going to ruin lunch by getting into an argument at the table.
    “Let’s get back to Ford Hamilton,” Martha suggested diplomatically.
    “Yes, let’s,” Lauren agreed. “If Emma’s not interested in a gorgeous, available newspaper editor, maybe I’ll check him out.”
    “Right,” Wayne scoffed. “As if you’d ever come back here to stay.”
    “You never know,” Lauren said so seriously that it drew stares from every adult at the table.
    “Lauren?” Emma said, regarding her curiously. This was the first she’d heard of any disenchantment Lauren felt with her glamorous lifestyle.
    “Oh, don’t mind me,” Lauren said, pushing back from the table. “I’ve got to run. I promised Karen I’d drive over to the ranch this afternoon and help with the horses.”
    “Now there’s a picture the tabloids would pay to have,” Emma’s father teased. “Millie, where’s my camera? I could probably make enough from this shot to pay for a couple of new bulls.”
    “You don’t want to do that, Dad,” Emma warned. “I’d have to advise Lauren to sue you.”
    “As if I could ever sue my favorite surrogate dad,” Lauren said, pressing a kiss to his cheek that made him blush.
    He shook his head. “Who knew that one of Emma’s friends would grow up to become one of the most famous beauties in the world? I remember when you wore your hair in pigtails and made mud pies in my backyard.”
    “Now that is a picture the tabloids would love,” Wayne said. “And I think I know where one is.”
    “In the scrapbook,” Matt said, grinning for the firsttime since Emma had arrived. “Shall I get it? We can split the profits.”
    “You do and you’re a dead man,” Emma warned. “I’m in that picture, too. If Lauren doesn’t