Page 12 of All I Need (Hearts of the South)
“You don’t have to work in the ER.” He laid an arm along the back of the couch and twirled a stray lock of her dark hair around his finger. “There’s always private practice.”
“Please don’t ever let my father hear you say that. He’d like nothing better than to see me join his practice. I love him, but work with him every day? No.” She shuddered, but her lips twitched with a smile. “Besides, I like working the ER. It’s never the same two shifts in a row.”
“I can relate to that.” He tucked the silky strands behind her ear. “That’s what I liked about road work.”
“You miss it a lot, don’t you?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged and trailed the back of his index finger along her cheek. “But maybe this admin job will pan out and I’ll like it just as much.”
“Do you come from a law-enforcement background?”
He laughed. “No. My dad was the sales manager at the Ford place forever, and my mama worked at the bank.”
“And you became a cop?”
“Yeah. I wouldn’t pick a topic for my senior project, and my high school English teacher assigned me one.”
“Let me guess. Law enforcement.”
“You got it. I think she was trying to be funny. Barely passed the research paper, but I spent the second semester shadowing a couple of Dougherty County PD officers.” He grinned. “I was hooked. Got my associate in criminal justice at Darton, went to the academy, got hired on at Coney PD, then finished my bachelor’s part-time while I worked.”
She rested her arm along his, tracing the line of his biceps with a single finger. “Were you good at it?”
“At the beginning? Hell, no. It’s a wonder I didn’t get fired the first month.” He laughed, the memories sweet instead of bitter this time around. “But I got better. I’d just gotten promoted to Field Training Officer when I got shot.”
He didn’t bother to mention that the whole reason he’d ended up shot—well, other than the fact Harry Nix was an awful shot when he was plastered—had been because the rookie he’d been training hadn’t bothered to listen to any directions. The guy had barely lasted a week after Emmett’s shooting.
“So I take it you are not a daddy’s girl?” He ran his fingertip along her jaw. Man, she had the smoothest skin ever.
“No.” Her laugh was closer to a snort. “That would be my sister. I’m not anybody’s girl.”
He wouldn’t mind if she was his. The thought brought him up short. She didn’t want that, and neither did he.
He’d obviously been alone too long.
“I really should be going.” Her words brought him back, and he found her watching him with an ironic gaze. She leaned in and brushed her mouth across his, a fleeting caress with none of the tenderness or fire they’d shared earlier. “We need to do this again sometime.”
“Yeah.” Somehow or another, he’d spooked her, maybe let too much admiration show on his face. He started to push to his feet, but she forestalled him with a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“Rest that leg.” Her smile didn’t quite reach her shuttered gaze. “I can see myself out. Good night.”
Long after the door had closed after her, he remained on the couch, movie playing in the background, his thoughts lingering on the softness of her skin and the way her mouth had felt against his.
* * * * *
Savannah had only been half-right about serving on an interview panel being the pits. Watching the three men in front of him scratch down notes on his last answer, Emmett stretched his leg and tried not to look like he was sweating bullets. Sitting in front of an interview panel was no cakewalk, either.
He didn’t remember being this anxious when he’d interviewed at Coney PD. Of course, he’d been young and dumb and probably too arrogant to realize he should be anxious. Silence stretched, and his nerves stretched with it.
Tick Calvert, who fulfilled the dual roles of chief investigator and chief deputy with the sheriff’s department, glanced from his notes to the other two men with him, then met Emmett’s gaze. “Would you give us a couple of minutes, Beck? You can wait in the multipurpose room. We won’t keep you long, I promise.”
“Yes, sir.” He rose from the chair and slipped from the room, letting the door close behind him. His heart couldn’t decide if it wanted to pound his ribs or sit like a stone in his gut. He crossed the hall to the nearly deserted squad room to lean awkwardly against the wall. Ignoring the curious glances from a couple of deputies wolfing down lunches while writing reports, he ran a finger under his starched collar.
Shit, this was ridiculous. Other jobs existed if he didn’t get this one.
The reassurance didn’t ease the knot in his stomach.
A soap-opera scene unfolded on the small screen across the room, a love triangle involving an emergency room staff, and he latched on to the distraction.Wonder what Savannah’s doing?He couldn’t see her indulging in any kind of workplace drama, not as no-nonsense as she was. No telling what she saw in the course of a day though—
