Page 69 of All I Need (Hearts of the South)
Savannah decided to change the subject. She looked around the two men between her and Emmett, her gaze on his tense features. “How did your appointment go?”
“Okay.” He took a deep breath, as though trying to shed some of the stress. “Delk cleared me for duty part-time. I’m supposed to talk to Calvert this afternoon. And I can run, bike, just about everything except work out with the rope. I think she’s afraid I’ll trip over it. Well, and no basketball for another month.”
Mackey snorted. “Because she knows how you play.”
She smiled, watching some of the tightness in his face ease away with the change of topic. “That’s great.”
“Speaking of Delk…” Brows raised, Mackey slanted a questioning look at Emmett. Clark dropped his attention to his clipboard, where he was filling out a report. “They’re sending your blood samples over here. I’ll call you later with your results.”
“Thanks.” Emmett nodded at him, then shifted his attention to Savannah. “Have you got a minute?”
“Sure.” She met Mackey’s suddenly knowing gaze. “I’m going to find a real cup of coffee. I’ll be back in ten. Page if you need me.”
“Sure thing.” Laughter hovered in his voice.
On the way down the hall to the cafeteria, Savannah scowled. “It’s impossible to have a private personal life in this town, isn’t it?”
“Honey, you have no idea. You were definitely right about our being seen together. All the rumors I’m hearing now don’t have a damn thing to do with me and Lacey.”
“That is ridiculous.” She decided not to acknowledge the little twinge that “me and Lacey” created. A pair of floor nurses passed them along the way, and she caught the curious glances they cast in her and Emmett’s direction.
She looked up at him in time to catch a pensive expression flitting across his face. “How’s Landra this morning?”
“A total pain in my ass.” Affection lightened the words, and he shrugged. “She’s…I don’t know. Being in limbo is hard, and that’s where she is. Her lawyer says Frank is going to sign off on all the papers, but that doesn’t mean anything is over yet.”
In the cafeteria, they each poured coffee, and she swiped her employee badge to get them through the checkout line more quickly. Sunshine and relative privacy beckoned them to the small patio right off the cafeteria dining area. Rolling his cup between his palms, he propped against the low brick wall. Muscles flexed in his forearms with the movement, and she followed the flexion with her gaze, remembering those same muscles under her hands the night before. That memory, coupled with the lingering ache between her legs, sparked a little curl of wanting, mixed with a hint of melancholy.
He was more intense than he appeared on the surface, and he brought that intensity to their lovemaking. Being with Gates had been easy and effortless, a natural outflow of their meshed personalities. It had been simple and wonderful, but nothing like the complexity and force of being with Emmett. The realization brought a hint of guilt with it. Why did that reality make her feel disloyal? Emmett wasn’t replacing Gates. He was making his own way in her life.
Silence lingered between them a moment, and she could sense some of his earlier tension falling away. That strain she now saw was sparked by some interaction with his father, and while his reluctance to talk about it with her stung, she was glad he had an outlet, that he trusted Clark enough to confide in him.
Apparently, he trusted Mackey enough that the physician had some of the details of their father-son relationship as well. Or maybe Mackey had been privy to that relationship while he’d been with Landra. It didnotbother her that everyone knew him better than she did.
She covered that whopper with a sip of rich coffee.
This was what it meant to want him laid bare with her. She had that openness in bed with him, but not emotionally. Even admitting she might want that scared the hell out of her.
Shereallyneeded to talk to Amy. The parallel of her desire to confide in her sister about him, while he confided in Clark, wasn’t lost on her. They’d become lovers, but they still had at least one wall between them—a big one with trust written all over it.
He set his coffee aside on the wall. “Don’t freak out, okay?”
That didn’t bode well for anything he was going to say. “I’m sorry?”
His hands tightened on the edge of the wall, and he watched her with a shuttered gaze. “I found out this morning that the house next to Clark’s, which I’ve wanted forever, is up for lease with an option to buy. I’ll never get a mortgage right now with the recent job change, but I can swing the lease and then exercise the option to buy in six months or so. Landra and I talked about her possibly keeping my apartment. I’m going to look at it this evening, and I want you to come with me.”
“Why do you want me to come with you?”
“I know we’re doing this day by day, but if I’m leasing a house with the intent of buying it, and I am, it makes sense that if we end up in this long term for real that you like it, too. I want your opinion.”
This was huge. The last time she’d looked at houses with a man, she and Gates had been picking out the home they’d planned to live their married life in.
But Gates was gone, and the man before her was brightening each of her days. She breathed through the sudden sense of panic. They only had to do today, and apparently, today involved looking at a house.Looking. Not making any long-term plans.
It wasn’t like she was moving in with him.
She nodded on a long, slow exhale. “Okay.”
A smile creased his face, lighting his eyes, dispelling some of the tension he carried with him over those phone calls from his dad. “Great. Then dinner at Clark’s all right with you? Bennett and your sister are going. Probably Troy Lee and Angel. Maybe Nikki Pantone from the EMS station. Tried to get Landra to come along, but no luck.”
