"Bennett, Cherie - Sunset Island 009 - Sunset Scandal" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bennett Cherie)

"Just like it wasnt true last summer?" Emma asked her mother. "You didn't believe me then, either, until the truth got
shoved in your face." The summer before, Kat had actually caught Austin with another woman, after accusing Emma of lying when Emma told her that he was cheating on her.
"That was then, this is now," Kat said evenly. "We're here for our engagement party. Things are quite different."
I'm so sick of her calling me a liar! Emma cried inside. "Don't you get it, Mother?" she said, her voice harsh with pain and turmoil. "Austin was practically molesting Diana De Witt at a party last night!"
"Emma, I am not going to listen to this blathering nonsense about the man who's going to be my husband!"
"It's true, Mother," Emma said quietly.
"It's nonsense!" Kat said, her voice cracking. "And I don't intend to let you hurt me again!"
Emma heard the click of the receiver as the phone went dead in her hands. So she's hung up on me again, she thought. Emma was surprised to find tears streaming down her face as she hung up her phone.
Well, I told her the truth, Emma thought. Carrie would say that the truth sets you
free. What I want to know is, why don't I feel any better?
But there weren't any answers, only the tears that fell as if they would never stop.
Emma awoke with a start. The room was pitch-black. Her clock told her it was past midnight. After crying for what seemed like hours, she'd fallen into a dreamless sleep without ever getting under the covers.
She crawled under the covers and closed her eyes, but now that she was awake all her problems flooded her mind again, making sleep impossible.
Okay, then, she thought, throwing the covers back off, I'll go for a walk until I'm too exhausted even to think anymore.
She got up, pulled on some sweatpants and a sweatshirt, and laced her feet into some Nikes. Then she headed downstairs and out to the beach.
Don't think, she commanded herself as she put one foot in front of the other.
Twenty minutes later, the sound of a voice shook her from her trance.
"Emma! Is that you?" a voice called from the boardwalk.
Emma looked up to see the outlines of two young women, one walking, one in a wheel-chair.
"Hi," Emma said, going over to Darcy and Molly. "I certainly didn't expect to see anyone out here at this time of night."
"Neither did we," Molly said snippily. "That's why we came."
"We have a fondness for the witching hour," Darcy said with a smile. She gave Emma a look of concern. "Couldn't sleep, huh?"
"I'm exhausted," Emma said, falling into step with Darcy, Molly working the controls of her electric wheelchair. "I know I need to sleep, but I can't seem to stop my mind from working overtime."
"It's terrible about Kurt," Molly said.
Emma looked over at her with surprise. This was the first civil thing she had ever heard Molly say.
"I know Kurt from the country club," Molly continued, brushing some of her windswept brown curls from her cheek. "After the accident, he arranged for me to use the pool when the club was closed. He's a good guy."
They walkedЧand wheeledЧalong in silence for a moment. "I feel so ... so inadequate," Emma finally said. "If I could buy him his freedom, I would."
"But you can't," Darcy said knowingly.
"No," Emma agreed. "Money won't do it this time. Jane won't even take any money for defending him."
"She probably knows what a good guy he is, too," Molly said.
"Thank you, Molly," Emma said gratefully. This was a whole other side to Molly, and she liked this one much better.
"You know what's really terrible?" Emma continued. "So many people who should know better are perfectly willing to believe Kurt is guilty."
"It's partly because he's poor, I think," Darcy said thoughtfully. "Some people just love to judge other people on the basis of economics. I should know."
Emma looked at Darcy's face in the moonlight and waited for her to continue.
"Hey, let's stop for a while," Molly suggested. "It's hard for me to hear you two when this stupid chair is going."
They stopped and sat on a bench overlooking the ocean.
"You were saying?" Emma prompted Darcy.
"I come from what people call the wrong side of the tracks," Darcy explained. "My dad was sick for quite a while and couldn't work, and my mom had to support six kids on a waitress's pay. It was tough."
"I can imagine," Emma murmured.
"Kids called us white trash because we got our clothes at the Salvation Army one year. And this girl started a rumor that I'd slept with every guy in school even though I was about the only girl around who was still a virgin."
"That's really terrible," Emma sympathized.
"What's terrible is that everyone believed her because I was poor and powerless." Darcy flicked her long black hair away from her face. "See, it's not so different from how
things are with Kurt. I was guilty unless I could prove myself innocent, and that's what's happening to him, too."
"There are a lot of very screwed-up, cruel people in this world," Molly added bitterly.
"Anyway, enough moping," Darcy said firmly. "What we need to do to help Kurt is to come up with an action plan."
"We?" Emma repeated.
"Molly and I talked about it," Darcy said. "We want to help any way we can."
Emma smiled and thanked them.
Darcy stood up and looked out at the ocean. Then she turned to Emma. "Sometimes I get . . . feelings about things, know what I mean?"
"Not really," Emma admitted.