All I Need (Hearts of the South) Page 26

  “I’ll work through it.” He shuffled to his feet.

  Mystified and worried herself, she looked up at him. “Do you want some company?”

  “No, I’m sore and I’m hoping the hot water will help.”

  She watched him walk into their bedroom. Aftermath was one thing, but this was more like he was preparing himself, steeling himself against—

  Those jumbled words about safety and risk tumbled through her head. He thought she was going to pull away. Maybe because of Lacey, maybe because of Gates, maybe because his dad had left so many times… Who knew, but it was in his head.

  Well, she could lay that worry to rest.

  She stalked through the bedroom to the bathroom. A glass-block wall separated the walk-in shower, but even through the distorted glass, she could make out his silhouette, head bent under the spray, forearm pressed against the wall.

  She stripped and stepped into the shower. Hot water heated her skin, steam rising around them. The massive bruises took her breath again for a moment, and she laid gentle hands on them. He jumped under her touch.

  “I’m not leaving you.” She wrapped her arms around his waist, palms flat on his chest. She laid her lips slightly above the top bruise. “That’s what you’re worried about, isn’t it? That I’d let fear for you send me running?”

  He nodded, but didn’t speak.

  “Emmett, I work in an ER. I know anything can happen at any time.” Steady and strong, his heart beat against her palm. “I’ve seen accountants and teachers your age come in and not leave for a variety of reasons. I know your job has particular dangers, but I’m not running from that. I’m not leaving you.”

  He remained still and silent in her embrace. A tremor moved through him.

  “I’m committed, Em, no matter what.” Savannah kissed his shoulder blade. “I won’t be the one to go.”

  * * * * *

  After they showered, Savannah pulled on gray lounge pants and a loose navy long-sleeved T-shirt. “Have you eaten at all today?”

  Emmett stepped into black pajama pants. A frown pulled his brows together. “Can’t remember.”

  “Come on. We’ll make a sandwich, and after you eat, we’re icing those bruises and putting the compression bandage on.” She laid a careful arm about his waist as they walked through to the kitchen. “You get to sleep propped up too.”

  She set out sandwich makings, and Emmett settled on a barstool to put them together. Footsteps thumped on the stairs, and Clark pushed the front door open, a six-pack of Sam Adams in hand. “Hey.”

  Emmet paused in spreading mayo over whole wheat. “How’s Jim?”

  “Bitching like always and lucky as hell.” Clark set the carton on the counter and snagged a pickle from the open jar. “He’s going to be okay. The bullet missed any bones and didn’t ricochet, so he’s got minimal damage to the muscles and nerves. He’ll still be out a couple of months, probably.”

  “Sounds about right.” Savannah proffered a plate. “Want a sandwich?”

  “Heck, yeah.” Clark laid four slices of bread on the plate and reached for the mustard. He craned his neck to look at Emmett’s back. “Dude, that is some massive damage.”

  “Yep.”

  “Jim’s not the only one who’s lucky as hell.”

  They took their makeshift dinner into the living area. Clark asked a handful of questions about Stringham’s arrest, and Emmett answered while he polished off a pair of sandwiches. After setting his empty plate aside, Emmett yawned and rested his head against the sofa. Savannah rubbed above his knee, thankful for his warm presence next to her.

  “Someone’s ready for a bedtime story.” Clark stretched out his legs. “Tell us about the beauty queen and the surgeon, Mills. That has to be a fairy tale.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your mom and dad. There’s a story there, right?”

  “Um, yeah.” She never knew what to expect with this guy.

  “Tell us.” Clark lifted his beer. “You need practice for that baby of Bennett’s, right?”

  “You might as well tell him the story.” Next to her, tension slowly seeped from Emmett’s body. A smile played about his mouth. “He’ll just keep nagging until you do.”

  She lifted a hand and let it fall against her thigh. “Okay, so my mom was a music major at—”

  “You suck at storytelling. Whatever happened to ‘once upon a time’?”

  “My God, you’re obnoxious, Dempsey.” She shook her head and started over. “Once upon a time, there was a very smart boy who grew up very poor in a small Florida town. He joined the military so he could go to college and became an Air Force doctor.”

  “There you go.” Clark smiled and relaxed into his chair. “This story has a dragon, right?”

  “Sure. It’s called the Vietnam War, where the Air Force sent him in 1970.” She nestled deeper into Emmett’s side. “One day, a young airman was brought to him, and although he did everything he could, the surgeon couldn’t save him. In the young man’s wallet was a photo of a beautiful pageant princess, with her name and address on the back.”

  Emmett’s eyes drifted closed, although she could tell he was listening. Muted music wafted around them. She stroked her fingers across his thigh, and tightened muscles loosened under her touch.

  “Although the surgeon often found it difficult to connect to people around him, he felt badly about the pageant princess being without her young airman. He wrote her a letter of condolence, and to his surprise, many weeks later, he received a reply. They exchanged letters for the two years he stayed in Vietnam. He discovered she studied music, one of his great loves, although he didn’t have any musical talent. When he came home, he traveled to meet her. There was no one left of his own family, and he really had nowhere else to go.”

  “Was she happy to see him?” Emmett murmured, a sleepy note in his tenor.

  “To her surprise, she was. She’d mourned her airman deeply, but she was thrilled when the surgeon came to visit her. You see, although he was very brilliant, he could be very awkward with people, but over all those letters, they’d forged a friendship and found many common interests. Thus, she could see past the awkwardness that so many others perceived as distant and cold.” She dropped the fairy-tale tone. “They were married less than two weeks later.”

  “And they lived happily ever after?” Clark sipped at his beer.

  “For almost forty years, they have.” Savannah shrugged. “She gets him, so the things that drive other people nuts, like his extreme need for structure and order, don’t bother her. He has etiquette issues too, because he didn’t have any with his background. I’m pretty sure he memorized Emily Post, and he’s stickler about all of us following the rules of good manners.”

  “That’s why you freaked out about falling asleep on the couch after the christening.” Emmett sounded half-asleep. The drowsy words rumbled through her. “It wasn’t about you—it was about him. You didn’t want him upset.”

  “Yes.” She caressed his knee again. “He can handle the unpredictability of the OR and the hospital setting, but things being out of order at home distress him. His childhood was chaotic, so we have this unspoken pact to keep things smooth around the house.”

  Clark snorted. “Why am I surprised that you have a hidden soft spot?”

  “Shut up.” She tossed a throw pillow in his direction. He deflected it with one hand and chuckled.

  A quiet snore vibrated in Emmett’s throat before his body tensed and his eyes snapped open. Stress sang in him a moment, then he relaxed next to her.

  Clark slid to the edge of the chair and rose. “I’m going home. You need to get some rest.”

  Once he was gone, Savannah urged Emmett toward the bedroom. “Go lie down, but we need to ice that and put the compression bandage back on before you go to sleep for real. I’ll be right there.”

  She prepared a couple of ice packs from gallon storage bags, ice, and rubbing alcohol. In the bedroom, she found Emmett lying facedown
on the bed, arms wrapped around a pillow. She laid a towel across his back and topped it with the ice packs. She massaged the sloping muscles in his lower back. “I hate to tell you this, but you will be awfully sore tomorrow.”

  “Already am,” he mumbled, turning his head to look at her. She kissed his shoulder, then the side of his neck, and drew back to find his gaze on her face.

  The gentle quality in his expression warmed her. She sifted her hand through his hair. “What?”

  He didn’t smile. “Nothing.”

  Something in his eyes left her wondering what he saw when he looked at her.

  He shivered. “That is really cold.”

  “I know, but it works.” She played her fingers through his hair once more. “And it’s only fifteen minutes.”

  “You might have to warm me up after.”

  She rested her lips against his shoulder blade, slightly above the bruising. “That can probably be arranged.”

  When the time had elapsed, she helped him ease to a sitting position. His arms extended, she wrapped his torso in the compression bandage. His clean male scent filled her senses.

  “Does this fall under the heading of adrenaline fix?” She held the elastic band in place with one hand and made another rotation around his ribs.

  “Kinda, although I was the only one who thought so. Bennett bitched me out.” He tucked her hair behind her ear. “And I was worried you’d be upset. I didn’t want that.”

  “I think doing today means taking whatever it brings.” She pulled the bandage taut and fastened it under along his side. She let her hand linger on the skin exposed between the binding and his pajama pants. “I’m going to be concerned about you because apparently Mackey is right and you’re going to need to be stitched up more than once—”

  “I told you, this is a total fluke. Usually, I go months without anything physical happening.”

  She didn’t miss the hint of desperation in his voice. With gentle hands, she framed his face. “Emmett, I wouldn’t change any of this. You love it the way I love ER medicine. Your being a cop is not going to change anything between us. I promise.”

  * * * * *

  Intense movement and a hard elbow to the chest pulled Savannah from a deep sleep. Startled and fighting off the sharp pain, she struggled to orient herself. Moonlight poured in the tall windows, casting silver over the room. Beside her, Emmett groaned, a deep sound of distress in his throat. She caught his flailing arm with a firm grip about his forearm.

  “Emmett.” She moved both hands to his biceps, holding him still. Under her palms, sweat dampened his skin. She shook him. “Em, wake up.”

  His eyes snapped open. He stared at her a moment, panic visible on his face in the dim light. His chest heaved, but his expression relaxed. He sat up with stiff movements, a hand cradling his ribs. “I hate that dream.”

  She stroked his hair and across his nape. “Your shooting?”

  “Yeah.” He rested his forehead on his hand. “I knew he’d hit close to my femoral artery, and I was damned scared I’d bleed out. That’s the part I always dream about, feeling the blood and Clark and Singleton pushing down on my leg and how bad it hurt. Thinking I was going to die.”

  “I’m sorry.” Fingers tangled in his hair, she kissed his neck. She knew better than anyone that she couldn’t take the memories away, but she could comfort him through the bitter taste of aftermath.

  “You dream about Melbourne.”

  She stilled. “I do. Like yours, it’s almost always the same. Gates is in that damned bloody uniform, but he’s whole. He sits on the side of the bed and he tells me it’s okay and he has to go.”

  Emmett didn’t lift his head, and she knew with a fierce certainty that he’d heard her call out for Gates in her sleep the other night.

  Savannah pulled in a breath. “The last time, in the dream, I wanted to talk to him about you. I guess I wanted him to tell me it was okay, but I really don’t need him to. Rob’s right—Gates wouldn’t want me buried with him.”

  She caressed his nape, and he nodded under her touch. Leaning in, she rested her mouth against his shoulder. “I guess this is where you harass me to tell you I love you.”

  “No.” He rotated his head on his hand to look at her, unsmiling and with an expression in his eyes that made her think of the vast void that had been life with Gates that first year. He looked lost. “You don’t have to.”

  The quiet words, his constant tendency to put her needs before his own, drove home the reality she’d been trying to dodge all day. He could very easily have been killed. Tears filled her eyes, and her chin trembled. For the life of her, she couldn’t get any words out.

  “Hey, don’t.” He moved to wrap his arms around her and stopped on a low groan. “Ow.”

  With a pained laugh, he embraced her anyway. Savannah buried her face in the curve of his shoulder and wound her arms about his neck. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

  “I know. You have no idea how thankful I am for that.” He rubbed his cheek on her hair. “I love you, Savannah.”

  The damned tears spilled over. Beyond words, she took his face in her hands and pressed her mouth to his. He was here, and for now, he was hers.

  Chapter Eighteen

  She loved him. After what he’d seen in her face the night before, Emmett was sure of it, and while he wanted to hold that knowledge close, hang on to how it warmed him, bask in the way she looked at him, at the same time, the knowledge scared him shitless.

  He uploaded training modules and pushed them out via the online training program. She said she wouldn’t leave him, but that was now, when she thought… Hell, who knew what she thought? What if she figured out how she felt? Fuck, she’d be gone so fast…

  The idea twisted his stomach and made him want to vomit.

  He wanted it so damn bad, wanted her to love him with a visceral ache. And he never wanted her to see it, because while she could live with a little fear about his physical well-being, he didn’t think she could do the fear over her own emotional well-being.

  Wonder if he could get her to do fifty more years of doing today? Maybe by then, she’d be over the need to self-protect.

  He could live without the words.

  He could.

  Words didn’t matter a damn anyway. He knew that better than most. She only had to keep looking at him like she did and stay with him, and he’d have everything he needed.

  Damn it, he had to expend some of this, somehow. He glanced at his watch. Technically, he could go to lunch, but the idea of eating, as keyed up as he was? Nope. Not happening. However, he could spend some time in the training room with the heavy bag and then shower and change.

  In the training room, he stripped his polo and undershirt over his head, torso screaming, and dropped them on a bench. He toed out of his shoes and set them aside. He put his earbuds in, cranked up Imagine Dragons, and attacked the bag with a punishing rhythm that elevated his heartbeat and made his knuckles sting. Every punch sent agony through the bruised areas of his back, but he could handle a little hurt.

  Sweat dripped down his face and chest.

  He could do this. He really could.

  God, please, let her not figure this out.

  He could do physical hurt, he could do being second best, he could do never hearing her say what he meant.

  He couldn’t do her leaving him. That would have him on his knees.

  “Man, are you crazy?” Troy Lee pulled the earbuds from his ears and made a grab for the bag. “Are you supposed to be doing this?”

  Chest heaving with exertion, Emmett shrugged. His back ached, but the burn in his arms made up for it. “Mackey said no road duty and no major physical activity. He didn’t say I couldn’t work out a little.”

  “In the middle of the day? At work?” Troy Lee looked at him askance. “What is wrong with you?”

  Emmett swiped sweat from his brow and shrugged again. The thoughts in his head were too scary, too private, to share.

&nbs
p; Frowning, Troy Lee eyed him for a long moment. “Screwed up from yesterday?”

  “No.” Emmett scowled.

  “It’s normal if you are.”

  “It’s not…” Maybe it was easier to let Troy Lee think the shooting incident was bothering him. No way Emmett could articulate this right now, but Troy Lee was unshakeable when he thought a friend needed help. Normally, Emmett appreciated the hell out of that trait, but not today. “I’ll be okay.”

  After one more searching look, Troy Lee nodded. He rested his hands at his gun belt. “Listen, you know anything about that school-resource officer position Calvert posted yesterday?”

  “Yeah.” Emmett leaned down for his water bottle and took a swig. Hell, he’d written the job description and posted it for Calvert before going out on duty with Walker. “It’s mostly with the middle and elementary schools, delivering drug education, being a positive mentor on campus, supervising the schools’ dad mentor programs. Why?”

  Troy Lee glanced away. A muscle flicked in his jaw. “I think I’m going to put in for it.”

  “You’re kidding.” Troy Lee, off the road and walking school hallways every day? “What the hell?”

  “Yesterday… Angel is all shaken up by that. She’s my wife and the mother of my children, man. She’s pregnant and upset, and I’ll do whatever I have to in order to make her feel secure.” Troy Lee blew out an audible breath. “If I come off the road, I come off the road.”

  If it came down to riding a desk permanently to keep Savannah secure, Emmett would do the same thing. “I get that.”

  One corner of Troy Lee’s mouth lifted in a ghost of his customary grin. “I figured you would.”

  Emmett glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to shower and get back in the office. Post for the job and I’ll forward it to Calvert.”

  “Thanks.” Troy Lee frowned at him. “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Not really.” He settled for partial honesty. “But I will be.”

  * * * * *

  Savannah woke alone, wrapped in sheets that bore Emmett’s clean scent. Her awareness was foggy and dense, much like the mist wrapped around the pine trees lining the river. With the ER slammed, she’d pulled a double shift, and when she’d arrived home well after one in the morning, he’d already been in bed, asleep with one of his grad-school leadership texts splayed across his chest. Exhausted, she’d grabbed a five-minute shower, laid the book aside, and crawled in next to him.