Wedding Dress

Emma's World ShattersTwenty-eight-year-old Emma McDaniel winced as she recognized the headline blazing across the tabloid a collegeaged girl was devouring in the airport baggage claim. Unfortunately, neither huddling deeper into the enveloping folds of her raincoat nor tugging the brim of her Witness Protection ball cap lower to shadow her face could shield Emma from the pain. She knew the fine print on the glossy cover by heart. Jade Star actress faces studio insiders' doubts to attempt role of a lifetime! Her beaming ex-husband brings home the baby she refused to give him. Images in living color flashed into Emma's head: The picture of Drew Lawson, the only man she'd ever loved, leaving the hospital in Whitewater, Illinois, his face aglow as he cradled his new daughter in his arms while Emma's onetime best friend, Jessie, leaned against him, her shy face luminous. The joyous new parents stood out in sharp counterpoint to the paparazzi shots of Emma back in L.A., thronged by reporters clamoring for her reaction to the news about Drew's child. She could still hear them shouting! "Emma, your fans are dying to know how you feel."How the hell do you think I feel?She'd wanted to fling back at them.Read your own damned press clippings and you should be able to figure it out. Instead, she'd given an Oscar-worthy performance, forcing a brilliant smile. "I know Drew will be a wonderful father!" She'd always known he would be. But if she had to pretend one more time it didn't hurt that he'd fathered a child with a different woman! She shoved her sunglasses farther up her nose, praying no one would recognize her before she retrieved her luggage, found her ride and dropped off the face of the earth. But then, there were times Emma barely recognized herself anymore. A tight, panicky feeling cinched Emma's lungs as she surreptitiously scanned the crowd of passengers just arrived at Glasgow's airport. And she felt suddenly, horribly exposed. Emma, traveling alone is a really bad idea,her mother's voice warned in her head.It could even be dangerous. If someone recognizes you before you meet up with this historical consultant, anything could happen. Emma could get mobbed for autographs, pounced on by photographers, stalked by an obsessed fan! God, how had life gotten so insane? And why hadn't she noticed until Drew walked out the door? I need to get out of here,Emma thought, searching for the man who was supposed to meet her. Dr. Jared Butler, experimental archaeologist--whatever that was. The brilliant scholar who had made Castle Craigmorrigan and its heroic fourteenth-century lady his life's work. Ever since she'd gotten the call telling her to hop on the next flight to Scotland, Emma had pictured Butler as a cross between Albert Einstein and her high school history teacher-- a single eyebrow crawling across his forehead like a runaway caterpillar, pop-bottle-thick glasses, frizzy white hair and rumpled tweed suits bought sometime in the 1930s. But there wasn't a genius in sight. A surly dark-haired man in a cream sweater slouched in a plastic molded chair and scowled at a book that looked heavy enough to be used as a murder weapon. A cluster of exuberant American kids on tour crowded around a teacher who was taking a head count. Businessmen with briefcases eyed their wristwatches as the luggage started spilling onto the conveyor belt. But no one held the sign Emma's director had promised would be waiting for her when she stepped off the plane. Notto be searching the crowd with that somewhat awed expression she'd come to know after six years of being swept from movie set to movie set. "Where the hell is he?" she muttered, peering past families hugging each other and vacationing trekkers ready to wallow in Scotland's wild beauty. For an instant Emma wished she'd taken her mother up on herCates, Kimberly is the author of 'Wedding Dress ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780373771899 and ISBN 0373771894.