Page 51 of All I Need (Hearts of the South)
“Do you trust him?” Rob’s quiet question cut across her confused thoughts.
“Yes.” She did. He’d promised not to let her fall, had shown her he could be depended on, and look at how he was with his family. He was a stand-up guy, the kind a woman could trust herself to.
“Then what’s the problem?”
She grimaced. “I don’t trust life.”
“There’s that being-buried thing again.” He lifted his free hand and let it drop to his thigh. “Why don’t you try letting go, just a little, and living again? Maybe then Emmett can find his way to trusting you.”
* * * * *
Emmett made himself close the truck door with a quiet snick. He wasn’t going to slam the door, he wasn’t going to knock the apartment door open, he wasn’t going to yell at Landra.
He for damn sure wasn’t going to yell at Landra.
But he was going to get to the bottom of the photos that had shown up in Tick Calvert’s cloud-sharing folders that afternoon, the photos of bruises and lacerations and contusions, photos that had Landra’s name attached to them and turned his stomach.
He was pretty sure he already knew the story, and he was fucking mad about it.
His key scraped in the lock, and he pushed the door in with a soft touch. Landra, curled into one end of the couch with one of his Maxwell leadership texts, looked up. A smile died on her lips.
“You want to explain these?” He held the file, with copies of the photos, aloft and let it hit the coffee table. Pictures scattered across the glass top. The one on top—he was certain the mark it highlighted came from a belt buckle striking tender skin.
She hissed in a breath, her expression pained. “Oh, Emmy, I didn’t want you to see.”
Protectinghim. Son of a bitch. That only made him angrier.
“You weren’t supposed to see these.” She gathered the photographs and slipped them back into the folder. “How did you get them?”
“I coordinate all the reports for the department. I have access to everything, and I get a notification whenever Calvert uploads something new.” He rested his hands at his hips. “Hell, Landra, the question is why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you—”
“Let me guess. You were afraid of what I’d do.” He shook his head, disgusted. “You and Mama are never going to let me forget any of it, are you? Shit.”
“Em, it’s not that.” On her feet, she faced him, one hand a shield over the lower curve of her abdomen. The memory of the bruises darkening that area of her body pulsed in his head, and he wanted to vomit. “You’ve been through so much, and you have so much going on right now. I didn’t want to add to that.”
“You’re mysister.” He didn’t know how to push everything that meant into two small syllables. “You’re all I have left.”
He could say that honestly because he damn sure didn’t have Savannah.
“And you’re all I have too.” Jaw set, she blinked hard. “Your first reaction last night was to go after Frank. You can’t deny that.”
“Every guy I know would have the same instinct.” He threw up his hands. “But I didn’t and I won’t, even without Mama or you to run interference. I know what I have to lose, and I’m not going to risk that, not even for the satisfaction of watching Frank hurt for what he did to you.”
“Emmett, I couldn’t take that chance—”
Ignoring her, he stalked down the hall to his bedroom and opened the gun locker in his closet. He grabbed the shotgun and strode back to the living room.
She frowned at the gun, a sudden stillness about her. “What are you doing?”
Fuck, she didn’t trust him to do the right thing. He could talk until Jesus came back, and they’d still see him as the hotheaded boy he’d been.
Hell, maybe if they’d tried less to control him and more to mold him, it wouldn’t have taken so long for him to outgrow it.
“I’m supposed to be able to trust you, Landra. You’re the only one I can trust—you and Clark. Because Dad’s always going to be a cheating prick and Mama’s always going to take him back. But now you’re keeping secrets too, out of some misguided idea that you have to protect me from myself.” He passed the gun into her startled hold. “Eight in the magazine. If Frank shows up, shoot his ass. I’m going out.”
He closed and locked the door behind him with quiet, controlled movements. A familiar engine purred to a stop behind him, and he gathered a breath before turning, keys in hand.
