Page 43 of Mine to Hold
“I’m sorry. That was rude.”
“No. It was funny.” He batted her nose. “Come on. My brothers are probably waiting.” He pushed from the car andopened the door. “But if you start calling me Mr. Saucy in front of them, it will actually stick and we don’t want that.”
“We? Or you?”
“I don’t mind it.” He winked. “But can you handle being called Mrs. Saucy this early in the game?”
“Fuck no.” She fastened the seat belt. Boy, was she in way over her head. But what she struggled with the most was she liked it. She stared out the window. Of all the places she’d lived, she still liked Lighthouse Cove the best. The streets were filled with kind souls. People who greeted her with a smile and a friendly word. Even with everything that was going on, this sleepy seaside town sang to her heart. “Do I need to be prepped for this meeting?”
“A little bit.” He pulled into his neighborhood. “I want you to know that I would have done this no matter who you were and I started the process only because you were renting my pool house.”
“Why do I get the feeling we’re about to have our first official fight?” She gripped the door handle, ready for her fast getaway.
“At least I know we’re something official.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” She shifted her gaze as he rolled to a stop in his driveway. “What did you do?”
“A background check.”
“You’re an asshole,” she muttered.
“No. I’m a landlord well within my legal rights. I just didn’t go about it the way normal people do and used my brother Rhett to dig into your background.” He held out his hand. “Before you storm off. Almost all of what we found is shit you basically told me. However, there are a couple of things we need you to connect the dots on and only because we want to keep you safe from whoever is killing people and trying to frame you for the crime.”
“Excuse me while I don’t feel as though you’re on my side right now.” She tugged on the handle.
He reached across the vehicle, holding her biceps. “I get you’re pissed. I probably would be too. But I need your help. And I also need to keep you safe.” He cocked his head. “Not to mention that I care about you.”
“You don’t know me.” She shoved his hand away. “You think you do because you read some file on me and slept with me. But you don’t. Now, I need to go change my clothes before you and your brothers rip my life apart.” She jumped from the front seat, glancing over her shoulder as the first of his brothers arrived.
She raced around the side of the house with her entire body shaking. Emmerson had checked into her past. He knew things. Maybe he knew about Tony. Other things.
Shit.
Lighthouse Cove was no safe harbor. Not for her. It had turned into her worst fucking nightmare dressed up in a sexy cop layered in betrayal.
9
Emmerson slammed the driver’s door of his police car shut. He pinched the bridge of his nose. So much for being honest.
“You look like shit,” Miles said.
“I feel worse.”
“The case? Or problems in paradise?” Miles leaned against the hood of the police car. He was two years younger and looked more like their mother with his light hair, light-brown eyes, and thinner frame.
But he had their father’s contemplative demeanor.
Miles would have made for an excellent police officer and for years Emmerson tried to get him to join, but Miles wanted nothing to do with the so-called family business. He rebelled more than anyone else in the family against being a cop. Even more so than Rhett and Jameson. Or even Seth, who had followed in their father’s footsteps and became a lawyer.
In their mother’s eyes, that was as honorable as being a cop, except Seth sat on the opposite side of the law, defending criminals, which always made for interesting conversation at the dinner table.
When Rhett had decided to become a private investigator, even though he’d studied to become a police officer, their mother had flipped out. She struggled with the career mostly because private investigators got in her way. But she warmed to the idea when Rhett aided her in a few investigations, doing things she couldn’t do because the law had tied her hands.
Jameson was always given a pass in part because firefighting was a first responder job. But mostly because Jameson wasn’t her first husband’s biological child and their mother had so much guilt over that one it damn near ate her alive.
But Miles had chosen to become a mechanic and their mother had no idea what to do with that.
Of course, he worked part-time with Rhett, taking on some PI cases, but that wasn’t good enough for their mother.
