“I’m sorry,” she stammered, as tears suddenly sprung into her eyes. “The house belonged to my late friend. I still haven’t gotten my head around the fact he’s gone.”
“It was Trevor Mann’s house, wasn’t it?” Wayne asked, softly.
“Yes,” Emily said, dabbing her tears with her shirt sleeve. “Did you know him?”
“Of course,” Cain confirmed. “Mr. Mann was on the zoning board so we had a lot of contact with him. He was quite a guy.”
Emily could tell from the way he said it that he was being polite about the fact that Trevor was a difficult person to get along with.
“He was a curmudgeonly old so-and-so, I know,” Emily said with a wistful smile. “He hated me at first. But we were great friends by the end.”
The Erik brothers look at her kindly.
“We’ll leave the plans with you,” Wayne explained. “Then we’ll talk more when we go through the house later.”
“Thank you,” Emily said, glad that she and Daniel had chosen to go with this firm. That they were local and knew Trevor Mann was immensely reassuring. But something about Wayne Erik’s kindness made her tears come more readily. She flushed with embarrassment as she found herself suddenly unable to stop them streaming down her cheeks.
“I’m also pregnant,” she confessed with a shy giggle. “The hormones are making me crazy.”
The Erik triplets reassured her that she had nothing to apologize for. They left the plans with her so she and Daniel could look over them at a less hormonal moment and Emily told them she’d see them later that day.
Just then Chantelle ran into the room. Yvonne must have just dropped her home following her sleep-over with Bailey.
“Mommy!” she cried, running toward Emily and throwing her arms around her neck. She bestowed kisses onto her cheeks. “Wait, why are you crying?” she asked, moving away.
Emily wiped the tears away. “Pregnancy hormones,” she said in a hushed voice. Then she put a finger to her lips.
“Our secret,” Chantelle said with a nod. She jumped up off Emily’s lap. “When does the Memorial Day Parade start?”
Emily checked the time. “Not long now. Once Daddy’s back from the store we can all go together.”
Chantelle clapped her hands. She loved a parade, and anything where she got to spend time with her friends.
Emily, too, was excited. Not just because she loved the memorial parade, but because Amy was in Sunset Harbor at the moment visiting her new boyfriend, Harry, the younger brother of Daniel’s friend George. So far, Amy had kept him completely to herself. Emily was growing increasingly curious about meeting him. In fact, she’d only seen him once, before Amy had revealed they were dating, and just fleetingly. She couldn’t even remember what he looked like, other than boyish. Amy was clearly in the beginning throes of lust because she’d been keeping her relationship very private, just as she had done with Fraser. Amy had a habit of not wanting any external sources to influence her relationship decisions. It had taken ages for Emily to get Amy to relent to introducing Harry, reminding Amy that she hadn’t let her vet Fraser and that had ended disastrously. Amy had finally agreed that the parade was a suitable place for them to have an actual conversation, and now the time had finally arrived for Emily to meet the man who had managed to change Amy’s mind about her little old town so thoroughly. She couldn’t wait!