All I Need (Hearts of the South) (26 page)

“Boy, do I.”

“Come on.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him from the bed. “Shower or we’ll both be late for work.”

Afterward, she pulled on scrubs while he donned the uniform he’d hung in her closet after his last trip to the cleaners. All his gear was next door at his place, but she got a secret kick out of seeing some of his things hanging in her closet.

She wasn’t going to look at that too closely.

“Definitely has to go to the cleaners.” He tossed his suit jacket and shirt on the foot of her bed and fished his cell from the jacket pocket. Shoulders going rigid, he stared down at the phone screen.

A frisson of unease moved through Savannah at the hard, tight expression on his face. “Everything okay? Landra all right?”

“Yeah.” He swiped through a couple of screens and tapped the glass twice. “Everything’s good.”

The stress roughening his voice told her not to pursue the point. She slipped on her shoes. “Anything special on your agenda today?”

“Doctor’s appointment at ten for Delk to take a look at my leg.” He smiled at her, the expression doing little to dispel the tension keeping his jaw taut. “And the doc I’m sleeping with said something about blood tests.”

“Run by when you’re done at Delk’s office. We can do it then.”

“I’ve got to go get my gear.” He crossed to drop a hard kiss on her mouth, and she tasted anger in the caress. “I’ll see you later. Have a good day.”

“You too.”

With one last kiss, he strode down the hall, and moments later, the door closed behind him. Savannah ran a thumb over her lips. What was going on with him?

* * * * *

Fury pulsed in his ears, and he restrained himself from slamming his front door. He shouldn’t even let it get under his skin, but simply seeing the voicemail icon from his dad skyrocketed his blood pressure.

The son of a bitch had nothing to say that Emmett wanted or needed to hear.

“About time you came dragging in.” Coffee mug in hand, Landra wandered in from the kitchen. She jabbed his arm on the way by. “Bet I don’t have to guess where you’ve been.”

“Don’t start.” She’d been ragging him the past few days about Savannah. He’d ignored it for the most part because she was always trying to horn in on his life and because it wasn’t the right time to fight that battle, not when her own life was in shambles. “I’m not in the mood.”

“Ah, a little trouble in paradise?” Landra settled on the couch and lifted her mug in his direction. “Problems with the good doctor?”

“No. She is not the problem.” At his desk, he whipped his belt through his loops and snapped on his holster and cuffs holder. He reminded himself that beneath the nagging and probing lay sisterly love and concern, even if she was making him nuts. He’d missed her the last year, so maybe he’d just be grateful she was here and safe and acting normal with him. “Don’t you have anything better to do than give me a hard time about something that’s none of your business?”

“You are my business.”

“Landra, you’ve got to learn to stay out of my personal life. Besides, you have enough—” His phone vibrated to life in his pocket and he glanced at the screen. “Fuck.”

He would not throw the offending object across the room.

“What is wrong with you?”

“Nothing.” He silenced the phone and shoved it in his pocket. She would understand if he told her, but he didn’t want her to worry about anything more than she already was. “I’ll see you later.”

If he ignored the calls and voicemails, maybe sooner or later his father would get the message.

* * * * *

“Mills.” Mackey propped his hips against the desk and passed her a cup of coffee. “Better fuel up while there’s an opportunity.”

She took one sip of the dark liquid and set it aside. No telling how old it was—someone had probably run it before she’d dealt with the abscessed splinter, the forty-year-old male in V-fib and the guy with a toothache who couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t write him a prescription for Percocet. Mackey had matched her with a pregnant patient presenting with early labor pains, an infant with a high fever, and an elderly man with nonlocalized pain.

Mouth set, Mackey tapped a finger against the side of the counter. “You ever hear anything about our nursing numbers?”

“We’re getting two more per shift. HR is going through resumes and interviewing. They’re adding on a CNA per shift as well.”

The tension around his mouth gave enough to resemble a smile. “That’ll help.”

“It’s a start.”

“Block his number or quit bitching.” Clark Dempsey’s quiet voice drifted down the hall behind them. “Remember the prodigal son? Maybe this is the same, just in reverse.”

“This is not the same.” Emmett’s voice sent prickles of awareness over her. His words still held the same tension she’d detected earlier, and she frowned. “The prodigal son left home once. You know how many times this is?”

“Yes, I know how many, because you gripe to me each and every time.” Clark dropped his clipboard on the counter next to Mackey. “Remember…seventy times seven, my friend.”

“You’re supposed to be on my side.” On the other side of Clark, Emmett rested his forearms on the countertop, hands clasped loosely before him.

“I am on your side. An unforgiving attitude eats a person up. You don’t like my advice, go ask someone else.”

Mackey sipped at his coffee and pulled out his phone, gaze on the screen. “Your dad again?”

“Yep.” The terse syllable spoke volumes. She’d bet her next paycheck that’s what had set him off this morning.

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 did
not
bother 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.

She
really
needed 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.”

“Sounds wonderful.” Even she picked up the tremor of fear in her voice.

He reached for her hand. “It’s just today, all right? That’s all.”

“Yeah.” She wrapped her fingers around his and held on. “Just today.”

* * * * *

“Long Lonesome Road?” Savannah squinted at the street sign. “Seriously?”

“Yeah.” Emmett grinned. “When we went to enhanced 911 a few years ago, every road in the county had to have a name. The guys responsible for that got a little desperate after a while. There’s an Old Lonely Road, Smokehouse Road, Honeysuckle Trail. My personal favorite? Honeypot Trail.”

She laughed and let her hand linger along his nape. Under her easy touch, he seemed less tense this evening than he had earlier in the day. At the least the muscles under her hand weren’t taut and vibrating.

He hooked a left into a long paved driveway. Against a backdrop of pines and cypress trees lit by the setting sun, a small gray contemporary rose on stilts, blending with the surroundings. Savannah smiled at the picture it made. “Oh, that’s gorgeous.”

“Isn’t it great?” His excitement was infectious, and her smile widened as she slid from the truck.

A blonde in trim black slacks and a pink silk blouse leaned on a snazzy Lexus. She looked up from her phone with a bright smile at their approach.

“Hey, stranger. Long time no see.” She lifted her cheek for Emmett’s quick kiss and brushed a hand down his arm. “You look great.”

“Probably a hell of a lot better than the last time you saw me.” A grin played about his mouth, and he drew Savannah forward. “Ivy, this is Savannah. Savannah, my friend Ivy.”

Friend, her ass. This one was an ex as well. Savannah curved a slightly possessive hand around his biceps and nodded at the younger woman. “Nice to meet you.”