All I Need (Hearts of the South) Read online

  “Savannah.” Rob’s voice trembled with searing frustration. “You didn’t leave me, and I’m not leaving you. You asked me to let you help me. Why won’t you let someone help you? Tell me what we have to do, Savannah.”

  She couldn’t, because she didn’t know herself. The grief and isolation had become a habit, like a well-worn-in pair of sweats.

  “Robert.” This time, Amy caught his arm, and he whirled.

  “What?” The terse question was the closest thing Savannah had ever witnessed to him snapping at Amy. Savannah sucked in a gulping breath, relieved. At least his attention was off her for a moment.

  “We’re having a baby.”

  “What?” His brows dipped in a frown of confusion. “What are you talking about?”

  “We matched, and we’re having a baby.” Amy’s voice shuddered with awe. She extended her cell in his direction, and he took it with dazed motions. “Like today.”

  “God bless America,” he whispered, gaze on the screen. He leaned on the counter behind him and laughed, a shaky sound that mirrored Amy’s wonder. He draped an arm around Amy’s shoulders and pulled her into him, then reached for Savannah with his other arm, tugging her into their embrace. “We’re having a baby.”

  * * * * *

  Savannah really wasn’t sure what was worse—the waiting or watching Amy’s normally even emotions veer with it. Late Tuesday evening, they’d learned the baby had indeed been born, but the mother had decided she wanted a closed adoption instead of the open one Amy and Rob had sought. The result had been another twenty-four hours of killing time at their parents’ home for Amy and Rob, with periodic updates from their agency and attorney. Savannah drove over both evenings after leaving the ER in Coney and made arrangements to be with them Thursday, and with their parents, she watched Amy and Rob take a risk on another huge loss and heartbreak.

  The scenario only drove home her own cowardice.

  Finally, after lunch on Thursday, Amy’s phone dinged with a text, and she pressed both hands to her cheeks. “They’re here.”

  Under a bright sky, their attorney opened the rear door of her Lexus. “Come meet your daughter.”

  A palm over her mouth, Amy leaned down to peer inside. “Oh, my God.”

  The awed whisper and the tender support of Rob’s hand at Amy’s waist brought tears to Savannah’s eyes.

  Amy brushed at her cheeks. “Can we take her out?”

  Laurel Timmons, their attorney and longtime family friend, smiled. “Yes.”

  With a sound somewhere between a giggle and a sob, Amy straightened and fluttered both hands. “Rob, you do it. I’m afraid I’ll drop her.”

  On a deep chuckle, Rob bent to free the car seat. His chuckle bloomed into rich laughter. “Georgia? You brought her to me dressed in Georgia colors.”

  “That was my idea.” With a cheeky grin, Amy pressed into his side, an arm about his waist, and gazed at the tiny infant. “Look at her. She’s perfect.”

  From Savannah’s vantage point, she was—wisps of brown hair that matched long dark lashes, minuscule fingers curled against a red and black gingham dress emblazoned with UGA’s big “G” logo. Their mother leaned in to take a better look and sighed. “She looks like a doll.”

  “Maybe we should get her in out of the sun.” Their father stepped in as the voice of reason, and Savannah nodded, glad for the redirection before she burst into messy tears.

  In the living room, Amy lifted the baby and cradled her with infinite tenderness. With trembling fingers, she straightened the edge of the baby’s dress and touched tiny hands and feet. Rob stroked a fingertip across the infant’s elbow, both of them lost in the wonder of new parenthood. As Laurel reviewed their need-to-know information—a ten-day waiting period in which the birth parents could change their minds and then the necessity of a hearing for the final decree—Savannah found herself having to turn away from the adoration and reverence on Rob’s face as he gazed down at his wife and new child.

  Much more, and she was going to lose it for real. The moment was bittersweet—her two favorite people finally holding one of their dearest dreams, but her memory kept dredging up a similar expression on another man’s face, when she’d been the source of that love and amazement.

  And a treacherous heart wondered what it would be like to have Emmett look at her like that.

  Savannah swallowed hard, her throat hurting. “Does she have a name?”

  A smile curved Amy’s mouth. She lifted a tiny finger with her own fingertip. “Hamilton.”

  Rob’s middle name. Savannah arched one eyebrow. “Tell me you didn’t name that child Roberta Hamilton, Amy.”

  “Of course not.” Pure mischief characterized Rob’s grin. “We named her Savannah Hamilton.”

  And at that, she did cry.

  * * * * *

  Savannah woke from a dream she didn’t remember. Disoriented, she touched her tear-dampened cheek and levered up against the pillows. Moonlight streamed through the gauzy curtains in her girlhood bedroom. She was going to have to get up early anyway to be at the ER on time, but this wasn’t what she had in mind. A familiar male voice murmured from the living room. She dried wet eyes on the sheet and shoved the covers aside.

  Barefoot, she wandered down the hallway to find Rob on the couch, Hamilton tucked into one strong arm, her still-newborn-blue eyes locked on his face while he fed her.

  “Amy is going to kill you if that’s her first middle-of-the-night feeding and you didn’t wake her up for it,” Savannah whispered and sank onto the couch next to him.

  “This is our second middle-of-the-night feeding, and Amy was here for the first one around midnight.” He grinned. “Besides, my stint with nighttime feedings may be limited since your sister is researching ways to induce lactation.”

  “You poor kid.” Savannah ran her thumb along the sole of one impossibly small foot. The toes curled at the tender touch. “Your dad and I are going to have to keep your mother under control or she’ll have every aspect of your life researched and planned out until you retire.”

  “I am not that bad.” From the doorway, Amy spoke around a yawn. “I’ve only got things planned until she goes to college. No pageant life for this baby girl, and she can pick Valdosta State or UGA.”

  “Auburn has an excellent academic reputation.” Rob lifted his arm to buss Hamilton’s forehead, and her lashes drifted down. Amy perched on the sofa arm at his shoulder, sifting her fingers through his disheveled hair. “She might want to yell ‘War Damn Eagle’ instead of ‘Go Dawgs’.”

  “You can’t plan everything, Ames.” Savannah slanted a look at her sister. “She has to have some spontaneity in her life.”

  Rob made a sound in his throat. “That’s rich, coming from you, since you refuse to have a life anymore.”

  Amy tugged at his hair. “Rob, maybe this isn’t the best time.”

  Eyes narrowed, Savannah studied him. “You are not going to leave this alone, are you?”

  “No, I’m not, and you don’t want me to, not really.” He set the nearly empty bottle aside and lifted Hamilton to his shoulder to rub her back. “You know what I pray over you every day? That you’ll remember what kind of guy Gates was and realize he wouldn’t want you buried in grief. Because that’s the last thing he’d want for you, and you know it.”

  She did know, only…

  “I don’t…” She picked at the seam on the couch back. “I can’t figure out how to do things…to do life differently anymore.”

  “I know,” Rob said quietly, and she realized that he did get it, that he understood how the grief and numbness became a habit. Hamilton belched quietly against his neck. “But aren’t you tired, Savannah?”

  Her mouth quivered, and she clenched her jaw. Eyes closed, she dashed a finger across her lashes. “Yes.”

  “Then, please, take the first step to come back to us.”

  Chapter Seven

  A shrill sound penetrated the chaos around Emmett—yelling, running footst
eps, hard hands pressing down on his thigh, agony shooting through him. A siren, only sirens didn’t sound like that, one long peal.

  Suddenly awake, he stared at the ceiling, his pulse thudding in his throat. He blinked and shoved his notebook and Kouzes and Posner aside. He’d worked late for a Friday and had already been tired before even tackling the reading. Must have fallen asleep working on notes for his last big paper.

  The doorbell rang once more.

  He frowned and blinked at the clock. Who the hell was ringing his doorbell at nearly one in the morning?

  Not bothering with a shirt, he shuffled down the hall and peered through the peephole.

  Savannah.

  Hand on the knob, he paused. Did he really want to open that door again?

  Was that even a question, as miserable as he’d been the last three weeks? Hell, he’d missed simply seeing her car next to his truck the past few days, while she’d been away, he assumed, with Bennett and his wife during the birth of their child.

  He swung the door open and leaned his forearm along the frame.

  “Hey.” She didn’t smile, but her fingers fidgeted with the hem of the snug black camisole she wore with some kind of stretchy black pants. Her nervous movements revealed a pale strip of skin along her abdomen and hip.

  He waited. He’d opened the door. The next move was hers.

  She moistened her lips, and her throat moved with a hard swallow. On a deep inhale, she straightened her shoulders, and she released her shirt hem.

  “You were right. I do want you.”

  He stilled, a weird fight, flight, or freeze instinct, scared as hell he’d say or do the wrong thing. Desperation glinted in her dark eyes.

  “The thing is, I don’t want to want you. I don’t want to want this.” She closed her eyes, her mouth quivering. “It hurts.”

  He tried to catch his breath, because suddenly all the oxygen was merely gone. He wrapped his fingers around the doorframe until his knuckles ached with the pressure. “Why are you here, Savannah?”

  “Because I’m tired of being buried.” Her voice cracked on the whispered words, and she lifted a hand to cover her eyes, glittering with tears. “Because as much as it hurts to want this, it hurts more to stay away.”

  He reached for her wrist and drew her into him. Arms about her, he cradled her close, near enough that he felt the shivery sobs that wracked her. She wrapped her arms about his neck and leaned into him, her face pressed to the curve between his neck and shoulder. Eyes closed, he rested his cheek against her temple and soaked in the sensation of having her in his arms again—soft curves yielding to the harder planes of his body, the clean just-showered scent of her warm skin, the way having her near stopped his heart and electrified his nerves all at the same time.

  A slight turn of his head allowed him to nuzzle her cheek, to press a kiss to her temple, to whisper against her ear. “I’ve missed you.”

  She cried harder. He flexed his arms, cradling her head in his hands, tilting her face to his.

  “Don’t,” he murmured and brushed his mouth over hers. With his thumbs, he smoothed glistening tears from her cheeks. “Don’t cry.”

  On a choked laugh that was more of a sob, she shook her head. “I don’t know what to do.”

  He continued stroking the pads of his thumbs across her cheekbones. “Stay with me.”

  For some reason, that renewed her weeping, and he drew her closer, backing them inside. He’d never glimpsed this vulnerability, and Bennett’s assertion that she wasn’t as tough as she appeared beat in his head. Somehow, this openness seemed rooted in a soul-deep weariness that made his chest hurt. He rotated to nudge the door closed with his elbow and turned them toward the bedroom. “Come on.”

  She went, leaning into him. With shaking fingers, she brushed more tears away. “This is ridiculous.”

  “No.” He stroked his palm over her hair above her nape. “It’s not.”

  He really didn’t get why she was crying, but he knew she wasn’t crying over him. Whatever it was, though, it had brought her to him tonight, and he was grateful. He leaned down and tossed his school materials onto the chair in the corner of the room. She’d turned slightly away, a hand over her eyes, trying to get herself together. Behind her, he laid gentle hands on the curve of her bare shoulders and pressed his mouth to the slope between neck and shoulder.

  He massaged the tense muscles under his hands and trailed kisses up her neck. “You’re tired.”

  Silently, she nodded, and he wrapped a protective arm across her sternum.

  “You can rest with me,” he murmured. With his other hand, he hooked her hair behind her ear. Eyes closed, he mapped the line of her neck with his fingertips, then the slope of her shoulder, his thumb playing over her camisole strap. Cheek against her hair, he nuzzled at the curve of her ear. Some of the tension drained from her body, and she relaxed into him. He traced the back of one finger down her arm and back up, and gooseflesh rose in the wake of the easy caress. He stroked the little prickles away, then let his hands trail to her waist. Still rubbing his nose along her ear, he hooked the waistband of her pants and eased them down until they puddled on the floor and she stepped free.

  The muscles in his leg protested, but damned if he was going to let her go. He eased to sit on the edge of the bed and brought her onto his lap, his chest to her spine. With an arm draped easily across her waist, he returned to caressing her arm and shoulder with the back of his finger. Her own hands lay loosely against his outer thighs.

  He eased her camisole strap to one side, letting it fall down her arm, and pressed his mouth to her shoulder. He traced the top edge of the garment with a fingertip, barely stroking the smooth skin at the swell of her breast. She rewarded him with the quietest of exhales, relaxing further into him.

  He wanted her boneless, wanted all the hard edges between them gone.

  With that intent in mind, he lowered his mouth to her neck once more, suckling a little, and skimmed a caress across the curve of her breast. He dipped his fingertip into her cleavage, danced a shadowy touch under the edge of her camisole.

  Tonight, he was going to be all she needed—soft and easy and slow.

  He took his sweet time, simply learning her softness and curves. Every so often, one of those quiet, breathless sighs escaped her, and he touched and stroked and loved until she was melted into him. He circled her knee with two fingertips, then slid them slowly along her inner thigh. Muscles quivered under the feathery contact. He skimmed a fingernail up and down the smooth hem of silken panties, and she drew in a breath. With the index finger of his opposite hand, he circled over the jut of a hardening nipple.

  “Oh.” That breathless exclamation greeted him delving his fingers under the silk. She was wet and warm and open, and her head fell against his shoulder. He played and toyed and teased, one hand between her thighs, the other at her breast. Nuzzling her neck, he listened as her breathing became sharp and shallow. She tilted her hips, rocking into his hand.

  On a quiet moan, she tightened her hold on his thighs. Under his fingers, her orgasm trembled, and somehow he kept himself from squeezing her against him as it receded.

  Holding on to her too tight was the worst thing he could do. She’d come to him, and he had to hold her with the gentlest touch possible. Truly melted into him, draped against his chest, she barely breathed. He tightened his arms for one brief moment and laid his mouth against her temple.

  No way was he risking this with words.

  * * * * *

  Awareness came to Savannah in layers. Strong arms embraced her, and her nose mashed against a warm male throat, the carotid pulse steady against her skin. For a moment, her exhaustion-fogged brain expected for her to open her eyes and find Gates holding her, to find them wrapped up in the bright, sunny bedroom they’d shared in Valdosta.

  Only Gates was gone, and the man holding her was very much alive. She kept her eyes closed a moment, not yet ready for the reality of sharing another man’s bed. />
  What had happened last night, those soft kisses and softer caresses, a wash of fulfillment…that went so far beyond sex without emotion that she wasn’t sure how to process it.

  “Quit thinking so hard.” Emmett flexed an arm and tugged her closer. “You’re giving me a headache.”

  Against her will, she smiled, her lips moving against his throat.

  He tangled his hand in her hair, massaging her scalp.

  She opened her eyes, but all she could see was the too-close, blurry line of his chin. “This is weird.”

  A noncommittal sound that rumbled under her nose was his only reply.

  “I’m serious.” A milder form of the familiar panic tried to stir to life. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “You said that last night.” He draped his other hand over her hip and squeezed. “You’ll notice I did know what to do.”

  “That is not what I meant.” She wedged her hands between them and tried to ease away.

  “Stop.” He kept her close with a ridiculous lack of effort. “Stop pulling away and stop overthinking everything. Just be for now.”

  Just be. Seriously? She didn’t have the right angle to elbow him or she would.

  He trailed a hand along her side, from hip to the indention of her waist to the curve of her breast and back down again. “You’re not going to relax.”

  “I can’t.” She absolutely detested the desperate note in her voice. She knew how crazy all this was, but she couldn’t handle being out of control. Not again.

  He tightened his fingers on her hip, then heaved a rough sigh. “All right, you want to know what to do? I’ll tell you. You do today with me. We do today. Then we do tomorrow.”

  “That is insane.”

  “Not any more insane than ‘hey, let’s be friends and have sex’.” He shifted to rest on his elbow, an ironic twist to his mouth. “That worked real well for us.”

  “I don’t—”

  He kissed her, opening his mouth to swallow the protest. His tongue tangled with hers, and with that hand at her hip, he urged her closer. The kiss turned teasing, his tongue darting and retreating, and he pressed his thigh between her legs. He pulled her into him and danced his fingers over her labia. The light touch melted her all over so an ache pooled in her lower belly.