Page 53 of All I Need (Hearts of the South)
She turned her face into his neck and linked her arm around his nape. Tears dampened his skin. “It’s not you, Emmett, it’s not. It’s me, and I don’t know how to…I know I keep saying that, but it’s true and I don’twantto hurt you.”
“I know.” He tossed his half-eaten burger behind them and folded both arms around her, rocking her into him at an awkward angle. She moved her head, seeking his mouth, and he let her kiss him, let her mesh their lips. The desperation in her kiss wasn’t for him, and he eased his hands up to cradle her head, gentling the contact to a soft halt. He brushed his mouth across hers once and pulled back.
He shifted to retrieve his burger and linked his free hand with hers. Confusion radiated off her in palpable waves. He squeezed her fingers. “When you asked me if I trusted you and I said no, that wasn’t a fair answer. I don’t really trust anyone.”
“Anyone?”
“Well, Landra, when she’s not hiding shit from me,” he conceded. “Clark, mostly because we’ve been running together forever, and Troy Lee because I don’t think he could lie to save his life. Other than that? Yeah, I have trust issues.”
She was silent and he laced their fingers together.
“My dad is an asshole and has cheated on my mom since day one. He’s not the marrying type, but she was pregnant with Landra so they got married. I was supposed to be the thing that saved their marriage a few years later.” He exhaled sharply. “It didn’t work. In this town, everybody knows everything, and what they don’t know, they make up. So Mama had to live with that every day. She kept saying she wasn’t going to take him back, but she did. Every single time.”
“And you had to live with that.” Her quiet sympathy washed over him.
“Yeah, and I didn’t make it easier on her.” He splayed his palm against hers, measuring the length of their fingers. “I only made it worse.”
She brushed his cheek with the back of her other hand. “Don’t say it like that.”
“Anyway, I try not to have anything to do with him, and he makes that pretty easy.” He cleared his throat against a rough tightening. “He didn’t show up at all when I got shot, and I was good with that.”
“It was hard on Landra.”
“Oh, yeah. She’s a total control freak. Mackey couldn’t take it anymore, and they broke up right after the shooting. She quit her job, went to work in Tallahassee and married Frank on the rebound.” He shook his head. “I tried to tell her it wasn’t a good idea, but she wasn’t listening. She hasn’t talked to me in almost a year, but I’m pretty sure that was more about Frank and less about me. So yeah, my family is totally fucked up and I’ve never wanted a real relationship with any woman, and now I’m in this…thisthingwith you and I want it so bad it scares me and I know that’s the last thing you want.”
“It’s hard.” She rubbed her palm along his, a rueful note in her voice. “I’m afraid to open up again, and it was so easy with Gates—”
“Gates Melbourne?” The name clicked in his brain, and he groaned. He really couldn’t win.
“Yes.” The word wobbled, and he cringed. “Why?”
“He was a good guy. I met him a few times when he was working swing. He and Clark got on like a house on fire.” Melbourne had patched him up in the back of a rig after he and Troy Lee had busted up a bar fight and some drunk asshole had laid him upside the head with a beer bottle. Emmett hadn’t wanted to waste half his shift in the ER…or listen to Landra gripe about how dangerous his job was. A couple of weekends later, Melbourne had been dead after a semi plowed into his ambulance on a run.
“He was the best.” Wistfulness colored the words, and he winced, feeling like a selfish bastard. He couldn’t compete with that.
“And I don’t make it easy.” The words hurt his throat. He wanted to throw something because he didn’t know how to function in this.
“I don’t expect it to be that way with you.” Again, she slid their palms together, a warm point of contact between them. “I’m not the same person I was. I can’t do this the way I did that.”
“Makes sense.” He released her hand, crumpled his hamburger wrapper, and shoved it in the bag with the unopened beers.
“I think you had it right when you said we do today, then tomorrow, then figure out where we are.” A small sigh vibrated through her body. “Although I really hate that idea.”
He made a sound in his throat. As far as conversations went, this one was about as hopeless as he’d ever seen. They were a sad pair.
“And it’s probably not fair for me to stay connected to you like this.” She shoved her own wrapper in the bag and pulled her knees to her chest, arms wrapped around them. “You sister and Clark and Rob all seem to think I should let you go.”
“What?” His anger surged so hard that lights danced against the night before him. Landra he got—she was always trying to mess with his life. He didn’t give a damn about Bennett, not really, but Clark? “What the hell?”
“They’re probably all right.”
This was unbelievable. Did no one get the concept ofhispersonal life? Hell, he stayed out of theirs unless they invited him in. But everyone wanted a say in his.
He lifted his phone. “Hey, let’s text Troy Lee and get his opinion. Maybe your sister and, why the hell not, my boss too. Better yet, my mama and your parents, since everybody seems to get a voice but me.”
She laughed. She honest-to-God laughed, and the clear, gorgeous sound defused his ire.
“What?” he asked around a chuckle. Damn it, he didn’t want to find this funny.
