American Made (Against the Tides #2) (24 page)

“Can we talk?” he asks quietly.

Rush looks to me and as much as I want to say no, this is just one more relationship that is sitting too close to the edge of a cliff for my liking. We both know that we need to get along with each other to make our jobs easier. I tell him it’s fine and Rush stands to leave, stopping when he’s almost past Miles.

“Don’t make me have to come back in here.” Turning only enough to make sure he knows I’m looking at him, Rush begs me with his eye. “Just think about what I said and talk to Gentry.”

I start to tell Rush that I don’t need his help if I need him removed, but Miles beats me to it so I simply nod.

“We both know that if she wants me gone, she will remove me herself. But don’t worry, I’m not here to start problems.”

Without another word, Rush leaves but Miles doesn’t take his seat, choosing to lean against the lockers instead. Not that I expected him to get closer to me than absolutely necessary.

“You can stop feelin’ sorry for me, Miles,” I gripe when I begin to grow tired of being stared at in silence. “Everyone knows I’m damaged now but what they don’t realize is I’m like a hymen: I’m better broken.”

He snorts, trying hard to not laugh but fails. I watch through narrowed eyes as he laughs and it takes me a moment to realize what I said that he found so funny. As soon as I do I drop my face into my hands and laugh with him. 

“Sorry I don’t have a filter,” I chuckle. “I needed that laugh, though.”

When Miles finally stops laughing he scratches the back of his head nervously. “I didn’t come here to tell you that I feel sorry for you. I just came to tell you that I’m sorry. The shit I’ve said to you and the way I’ve acted is ridiculous.”

“It’s fine, really. I’m used to takin’ slack for bein’ a chick and doin’ what I do. Most guys think that I shouldn’t be as good as I am because I don’t have a dick.” 

“It’s not OK, Emerson.” He shocks me with the use of my name and finally takes the spot that Rush was sitting in. “I was pissed because they passed me over but it wasn’t your fault, you’re better than I am. I get that now. But you were right to tell me to stick to bombs because I got pissed off after we fought and I tried to make the shots you did during your testing and didn’t even come close. I think it just made me mad that you could come in here and make it look so easy. You didn’t even have to work for it.”

“I didn’t say those things to make you feel bad about yourself, Miles.” Sitting up, I shift my hair over my shoulder, forgetting until his eyes get stuck on my scar that I have a tank top on. I smile sadly and run my fingers over the puckered skin on my chest, lifting my arm so he can see the rest of it before showing him my thigh. Every touch floods my mind with memories of what I went through before and after the scar got there. “Believe me when I tell you that I worked for it.”

With my hat pulled down over my eyes, I rest back against the side of the house and listen to the crickets. It’s peaceful but would be better if I was on the swing out back enjoying them with Emerson. Every time she’s walked over me since I told her I wasn’t leaving I lose a little bit of the faith that I have in her giving in and talking to me, but I refuse to give up completely. I know the second I do that it would probably be the second before she decides to give in.

The rumble of her truck disrupts the peace around me as she pulls onto the road so I sit up and take a look at the handy work I used to fix the door one last time. I figure I have about thirty seconds before it’ll be gone.

“Emerson,” I nod as she steps over me a moment later. 

She doesn’t acknowledge me but when she sees the fixed window she cocks her head to the side and studies it. Turning around, she jumps off the porch and grabs a rock, glaring at me before she smashes it through the glass. Tossing the rock back to the ground, she takes a deep breath and heads inside. Most people would be pissed off when the time and work they put into fixing something was wasted like that, but I expected it. I knew Emerson would respond like that because she needs to prove to herself that she doesn’t need anyone to do anything for her. That’s fine with me. I’d fix that damn window every day for the rest of my life if it kept me close to her and allowed me to see the satisfied smirk that was just there.

A few minutes later the door swings open and Emerson starts sweeping up the broken glass while glaring at me. “I didn’t ask you to fix this. I can do this shit myself.”

The door slams behind her and I smile. Before I even have a chance to take another breath the door swings back open.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, looking as if she is confusing herself by apologizing. “That was a bitchy thing to do and I’ll pay you back tomorrow when I go out and grab another piece of glass.”

Again she shuts the door only to pull it back open and I have to fight to keep a straight face. I’m wearing her down whether she sees it or not and that’s all I need to know. Emerson opens her mouth but snaps it shut when I hold up the extra piece of glass I had Rush bring.

“You knew I was gonna break it?” she asks, narrowing her eyes as the anger slips from her voice.

I smile slyly up at her. “Anticipation, Emerson. Fight it all you want, but I know you better than you think I do. I know you don’t need me to fix things for you, but I want to. I know you don’t need to be with me to be happy, but I want you to wanna be happy with me. I wanna be in your life, not because you need me there, but because you want me there.”

Shaking off what I said, Emerson heads back inside, leaving the door open this time. When she comes back she has a handful of tools and gets to work on the window without saying anything. I can see the wheels spinning in her head as she pulls broken glass from the frame. Halfway through, she disappears for a second but returns quickly with two beers. She passes me one without looking at me and takes a sip from the other before setting it down on the railing and getting back to work.

“Moment of weakness, peace offerin’ for the night,” she says when I don’t move to take a drink. “Call it whatever you want just don’t make a big deal out of it.”

“Thanks,” I mutter, unable to take my eyes off her hands. As she shrugs, I watch her hand slip, getting caught on a shard of glass still lodged in the door. Without thinking I jump up and pull her toward the kitchen sink.

I flip the water on, telling her to stay there with her hand under the stream and rush to the bathroom for the first aid kit. Grabbing a paper towel, I shut the water off, press it over the cut in her hand and grab her hips, hoisting her onto the counter. Emerson’s eyes widen when I situate myself between her thighs so I can be closer to what I’m doing.

“Are you OK?” I finally ask as I pull the paper towel back.

“Gentry.” When I don’t stop looking at her hand to see if there’s any glass stuck in the cut, she squeezes my shoulder before speaking softly. “Gentry, it’s just a cut. Nothin’ major, I can barely even feel it.”

It’s more than a cut. If it was a little deeper I would be tossing her in the cab of my truck and bringing her to get stitches right now. When I don’t stop taking care of her she sighs but finally just gives in and leans back against the cupboard behind her. The fact that she willingly touched me, letting her hand linger longer than necessary, doesn’t slip past me unnoticed. It does however, make me realize how much I miss her hands on me.

“Was that so hard?” I chuckle, flicking my eyes to hers for a brief second.

“Everything with you is hard for me,” she whispers so softy that I almost miss it. When I look back at her I see how much she’s hurting and I hate that I don’t know what to do to make it better.

“They say the harder something is for you to do, the better the outcome will be.”

“Do you believe that?” she asks softly, her eyes on the hand I have wrapped around her wrist.

After covering the cut with a gauze pad and taping it in place, I stand up, placing my hands against the counter on either side of her hips.

“Yeah, I do. But personally I don’t give a shit how hard anything is as long as the outcome has you in it.”

As hard as it is, I manage to keep my eyes from dropping to her lips when that is all they want to do. Just when I think I might have a chance at finding out what Emerson is actually thinking, she pushes me away and slides off the counter. I follow her back out onto the porch, watching as she wipes her face and drops down on the steps with her beer. I sit down next to her and it takes every ounce of effort in me not to reach out and pull her into me. I want her back, but more than that I want her to know she can talk to me.

“Why are you so afraid of lettin’ people see you cry?” I ask when she turns her head away and wipes her eyes again.

“Because tears make you weak,” she finally admits.

Turning, I grab her, forcing her to look at me. All the anger that was there when she walked away from me in Maine is missing, replaced with what looks like fear. 

“No, Emerson, tears don’t make you weak. They make you human. You don’t always have to be a fuckin’ super hero, baby. I don’t need you to give up anything for me to love you, I just need you to let me in.”

Tears brim in her eyes and for the first time, other than the night on the couch, she doesn’t try to hide them. I have to remind myself that I asked for this. I asked for her to stop pushing me away every time she teared up. So even though it’s hard to watch and I want to do everything I can to make it better, I first have to watch them fall and find out why they’re there.

“I think you broke me by lovin’ me.” She laughs through the tears but it’s hollow and humorless. “Fuck tears. Fuck emotions. Fuck these damn feelings.”

“Anything else?” I ask, tucking her hair behind her ear. I know she has more pent up inside and I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere until she lets it out. Emerson begins to pull away from my touch but stops herself.

“Yeah.” She nods, making sure to look directly in my eyes and show me how much she’s hurting. “Fuck you for continuing to love me because life was so much easier before you came around and made me feel things.”

I slowly inch closer to her. I go slow because I don’t want to freak her out but I need to be as close to her as possible. “I could say the same thing to you. I was perfectly happy with meaningless relationships until you forced me to kiss you at the bar.”

“Well at least I didn’t have my friends try to convince you to do something you’re not comfortable with.”

I smile when I feel her shift forward. “No, yours just like to threaten my life.”

“Yeah, I ended up with some good ones.” Emerson smiles but it’s full of sadness and heartbreaking. “Not that I deserve them after that bullshit.”

“Nobody’s mad, Emerson. What you said when you were upset doesn’t change how anyone feels about you. Granted, Knox wasn’t entirely OK with your slip up, but he managed to smooth it out somehow.”

Not leaning in and kissing her is killing me. She’s only a few inches away but I’m not going to push her until I know that it is what she wants. After watching me from under her lashes for way too long she finally tilts her head up and leans the rest of the way into me. There’s no sexually charged energy in the kiss but there is more feeling than has ever been there before.

Finally.

When Emerson finally pulls away from me, I’m ready to grab her if she tries to run but all she does is press her forehead to mine and close her eyes. “You’re so much better at this than I am and I can’t promise that I’ll ever be good at it.

“Emerson, baby, I’m wingin’ the hell out of this whole love bullshit.” I frame her face with my hands and force her to look at me so she knows I’m telling the truth. “I don’t have a damn clue what I’m doin’ here either. What I do know is that every day that ends with you in it is a good one even if the rest of the day is complete shit. But I hate that you don’t think you can tell me everything.”

She pushes away from me, fighting me when I try to pull her back so I let her go even though I don’t want to. Her eyes squeeze shut as she drops her head into her hands. When she finally looks back at me I can see the hell she’s fighting in her eyes.

“It’s not that I can’t tell you everything, Gentry. It’s that I don’t want to. I didn’t tell you about Sam because I didn’t want you to know the hellish things I see in my head every day.”

I grab her hand, swiping my thumb across her wrist, and pull it into my lap so I have some sort of connection with her. “You shouldn’t be the only person that has that bad shit in their head. Maybe if you let someone in you’ll be able to breathe a bit easier.”

“No, I won’t. All those nights that I disappeared from bed because of nightmares… they weren’t nightmares about what happened on my deployments. They were nightmares about what I saw when I found Sam.” She pauses to shake the images out of her mind. “I don’t want anyone else to have that shit in their head.”

“Hey,” I whisper, tilting her face back toward me. Everything starts to fall into place now that I know the real reason she kept it from me. I may not like it, but at least I understand it now. “It’s gonna be fine. But you need to know that you can tell me anything you want to.”