Prince Charming Can Wait (Ever After) by Stephanie Rowe Read Free Book Online

cabin that he realized Emma had never arrived for breakfast. He wasn't going to see her again before he left.
    Suddenly, his bad mood got even darker.
***
    Mattie Williams wasn't in class.
    The five year old's empty seat haunted Emma for the entire two hours, though no doubt her mood wasn't helped by the fact she couldn't help thinking of the fact she'd skipped out on morning coffee to avoid Harlan. She'd wanted to go so she could see him, but the intensity of her need to see him had convinced her that she was already getting in way too deep, so she'd headed in early to work, and regretting the decision every moment since.
    Emma sighed as she looked again at Mattie's empty seat. Although her day job was a curator at an art museum, Emma volunteered as an art teacher on Monday afternoons at a local youth center in Portland, Maine. In the ten months since Emma had picked up the class when the previous teacher had decided she didn't have time, Mattie had never missed the class. Not once. Even when she broke her arm. Even when her mother had finally died after a long illness. Even the day that her brother had run away.
    Even on the days when tears streaked her cheeks and her pigtails looked like no one had combed them in weeks, Mattie was always there, her canvas bag of markers and paper that Emma had given her clutched tightly in her little fist. Every time she slipped in the door, her dark brown eyes would hungrily search out Emma as she crept to her seat at the front of the room directly in front of Emma's desk.
    But today, she wasn't there, and Emma couldn't think of a single reason for Mattie's absence that didn't scare her to death.
    The minute the last child left, Emma grabbed her phone out of her bag and dialed Chloe Dalton, the social worker who had been assigned to Mattie.
    Chloe answered on the first ring. "Em! How was your weekend? I have to tell you—"
    "Where's Mattie?"
    "Mattie?" Chloe repeated. "What do you mean? Wasn't she in class today?"
    "No. Where is she? Did she—" Emma's voice tightened up and she had to clear her throat. "She didn't leave, did she? To South Carolina?" Ever since Mattie's mother had died, her grandparents in South Carolina had been trying to gain custody of Mattie and her brother, Robbie. Emma had heard stories from Mattie about trips to her grandparents, stories that still haunted her, as well as the little girl, and she prayed that Mattie wouldn't end up there.
    "No, no, she's still in town. She's in a foster home—"
    "Foster home?" Emma gripped the phone more tightly. "Why?"
    "Her aunt and uncle ran into some issues and can't have her in the house anymore. The foster home is just temporary until her future gets sorted out—"
    "Where's the house? What's the address?"
    Chloe hesitated. "Emma, I can't give out that info—"
    "Chloe! What if she's in trouble? She never misses class, and you know it."
    The social worker sighed. "Okay, look, I can meet you there in twenty minutes. Don't go in until I get there, okay?"
    "Fine." Emma jotted down the address, and then was in her car two minutes later, her heart pounding. Something was wrong. Mattie was in trouble, she was sure of it.
    When she reached the address eight minutes later, her heart froze. Sitting on a narrow ledge on the third story roof of the multi-family house was Mattie. A woman was leaning out a dormer, apparently talking to her, but every time she leaned out, Mattie scooted further away...and closer to the edge. "Oh, dear God."
    Emma leapt out of the car and raced up the steps. "Mattie," she shouted. "Mattie, it's me. Don't go anywhere, I'm coming up!" Without even knocking, she yanked open the screen door and ran for the stairs, her feet pounding as she raced upstairs in what felt like the longest run of her life.
    At the third floor, it took an agonizingly long minute for her to find the room with the open window, but at last she saw the woman leaning out. Emma sprinted over to it and shoved her shoulders out the window, not