All I Need (Hearts of the South)

by Linda Winfree

  “Holy hell,” Calvert breathed. Cook, the second investigator, lowered his mouth into his palm, smothering a chuckle.

  “Go ahead, Em. Tell the nice people what you two were doing when I got there.”

  “Drag-racing patrol cars.” Emmett blew out a long breath and glared at Clark. “Why don’t you tell them the rest of the story, Clark? Who was flagging us and who was timing us?”

  “Oh, if I remember correctly, Chief Singleton was flagging you.” Clark winked in the direction of Savannah’s table. “And Investigator Cook was timing you.”

  Calvert pinned Cook with a baleful look. “Seriously?”

  Cook shrugged. “They were young and stupid, and if you’d found out, you’d have fired Troy Lee on the spot.”

  “I might still fire him on the spot.” But a hint of humor lurked around the line of his mouth.

  “You’re my best friend, Emmy.” Clark spoke rapidly against the mike, still grinning.

  “You’re a dead man, Clark.”

  “Maybe you should sing.” He played the opening bars to “Amazing Grace,” and Emmett joined in with strong, clear notes. Quiet settled over the room except for the gentle piano melody and the purity of his voice. Laughter forgotten, Savannah let herself be pulled into the spell of that beautiful tenor. The pair segued easily into a handful of other hymns.

  When it was over, the remaining audience drifted out quietly in pairs and small groups. Savannah remained in her seat after her sister and brother-in-law hugged her goodbye and made their way out with the others. Emmett perched on his stool, one foot on the floor, and packed away his violin, sometimes slanting a smile or a comment at Clark or Troy Lee. She watched him, her heart aching for some reason she didn’t quite understand.

  Gates had been easy, the best, the love of her life.

  She didn’t know how to define Emmett, but oh, she wanted to.

  He eased down from the low stage, when she imagined in another life, he’d have leaped. An adrenaline junkie, an incredible musician, a man with depths she didn’t begin to comprehend.

  She wanted to peel all those layers away, until he was laid bare with her.

  And what exactly did that mean?

  Case in hand, he approached, a slight smile curving his mouth. He took her breath.

  That should scare her to death, send her running, and all she wanted tonight was to live, to breathe him in. She wanted him inside her, running through her veins.

  His smile widened to a grin. “Haley’s spending the night with Landra, so I can have a later curfew.”

  He held out a hand, and she rose to take it, using the leverage to pull him into her, chest to chest, abdomen to abdomen, thigh to thigh. She held his startled gaze and leaned in to whisper at his ear. “I want you.”

  A sharp inhale, and he stepped away, his eyes impossibly dark and intense, like the lime pit in the night. “You’ve got me.”

  * * * * *

  They didn’t make it all the way home. Lime Pit Road was closer, and the ridge offered darkness and a primal privacy. He stepped out of the truck, intending to grab sleeping bags and toss them on the back, but she followed him out, shrugging out of her jacket and shedding the gorgeous green blouse that made her hair and eyes shine. In kind, he pulled his sweater, soaked with sweat already, over his head and tossed it in the floorboard. Her bra went over her head, and she peeled away sleek black pants while he shoved down his jeans, forgot he had on boots, then had to fight those and his jeans off.

  Sideways on the driver’s seat, she tore the condom wrapper and sheathed him. He groaned under her firm touch around his erection. If slow and easy had ever been a consideration, it was out the window. Her knees cradled his thighs and she clutched at the back of his head with one hand.

  “Now.” Moonlight glittered off her eyes and those opal earrings. “Please.”

  He was inside her, heat and wetness closing around him, and she was all he could feel, all he could breathe. Forehead on her shoulder, he braced one hand on the dash, one on the doorframe, getting as deep inside her as he could, wanting her to forget where she ended and he began. Cool opal and gold brushed his neck, heated fingers grasped his nape, her small sounds filling his ears—a moan, a little gasp with every too-hard thrust, her murmured “Em.”

  It was on them too fast, her body clutching around his, so he didn’t know what was her orgasm and what was his, except the release tore a yell from his throat and for a long moment he really couldn’t breathe. His turn to gasp, his knees weak, and he kept his forehead pressed to her shoulder because, damn it, his eyes burned with tears.

  She cupped her hand across the back of his head, and he felt the laughter build in her, curves shaking against his angles. He pulled back enough to dash a hand across his eyes, and a rueful chuckle lifted his chest. “This is not what I had in mind. I feel like I should apologize or something.”

  “Never.” She pulled him to her, skin on skin, and she kissed his neck. “This was perfect.”

  No one had ever referred to anything he’d done as perfect. He rested his chin atop her head and splayed a hand across her spine. She was strong and soft at the same time, and he relished the way her curves yielded where his own body was hard.

  Troy Lee was right about performance and comfort, but damned if he was going to be stupid enough to say it aloud. A laugh worked its way up from his chest.

  “What?” She trailed her fingers along his nape and over his shoulder.

  “Nothing.” He smiled into her hair. “Do you want me to take you home?”

  “Not yet.” She tugged his mouth down to hers. “Are those sleeping bags still behind the seat?”

  The second time was slower and lazier. With one sleeping bag spread across the bed and the other providing shelter from the chilly night air, he stretched out beside her and took his time. He traced the line of her shoulder and down her arm, following the indentation of toned muscle. Lost in her, he palmed the curve of her hip and thigh.

  “Beautiful,” he murmured beneath her ear, one glittering earring tickling his nose.

  She fanned her fingertips across his abs and outlined the lower curve of his pecs. “Should I put the shoes back on?”

  “I don’t care about those shoes.” He laid a nipping kiss on her shoulder and played a hand along the smoothness of her waist. “Everything I need is right here.”

  In silence, broken only by the softest of moans and the low buzz of crickets, they explored, hands and lips charting every secret, desire twining about them in the velvety dark. He rose over her, so her thighs bracketed his waist, and he cupped the sweet little curve where her ass met her thigh. She rolled her head to one side, giving him access to the vulnerable line of her throat.

  “I want you inside me.” Her whisper shivered over him. He rocked into her, sliding the head of his erection along the wet heat between her legs. On a moan, she bowed against him.

  He tightened his hand on her flesh. “I thought you liked the top.”

  She bracketed his face with her palms, eyes glittering in the starlight. “I want you like this tonight.”

  Her voice promised other nights, and he reached for a condom, his hands shaking with need. If she wanted this, he’d give her this.

  He’d give her anything she wanted.

  An arm braced by her head, he returned his hold to her leg and slowly joined his body to hers. Her groan vibrated through him, and he slid almost out, then home again, establishing a slow rhythm, savoring the sensation of her body taking his, over and over. The tension stretched and receded, a curling thread of connection that drew tauter and tauter, until she bowed under him once more, his name spilling from her lips on a broken cry that claimed him as hers.

  He dropped his head, breathing hard through his own climax.

  After this, she had all of him for real. There wasn’t any going back.

  And he knew, deep inside, that all of him wasn’t what she wanted.

  Hell, deep down inside where it mattered, he knew tha
t he wasn’t what she wanted at all.

  * * * * *

  “Emmett, this really isn’t a big deal.” Savannah folded her jacket over her arm and frowned. “We’ll grab a shower together, and you can ride over with me.”

  “I know it’s not a big deal.” He pulled his keys from the ignition and draped his wrist over the wheel, spinning the keys on his finger. He didn’t look at her, his gaze trained on the walkway before their apartments. “I’m gonna check on Landra, then I’ll catch a ride with Clark.”

  Frustration curled through her, heating her chest and neck. There was no need for him to ride with Clark, but he’d been weird and quiet ever since she’d woken, alone but tucked warmly into the sleeping bags in the truck bed. Sunrise had peeked over the lime pit, painting the vivid white lime and red clay in shades of pink and gold, and she’d found him sitting on the truck hood, watching the sun come up.

  And considering she had to be dressed and in Valdosta ready to be the perfect daughter in a short while, she didn’t have time to diagnose this particular mood of his.

  She must have made some sort of agitated sound because he slanted a soothing smile in her direction. “Savannah, you need to be with your family. I’ll ride with Clark.”

  You are family. The words trembled on her tongue and brought her up short. That made no sense, and what was she thinking? Except she was trying to take him home, and he wasn’t cooperating.

  Take him home? The idea left her shaken. So different from inviting him home, from having him join a planned celebration. Without even realizing, she’d been envisioning…God. Seeing what her parents thought of him, having him take up a role at her side, being the other half of a couple with him.

  “You really have to get moving or you’ll be late.” His voice oddly gentle, he leaned across to open her door. The scents of night air and sweat mingled with a muted whiskey aroma and wrapped around her. She knew that smell intimately because he’d left it all over her. “I need some coffee and a shower, and I’ll see you later.”

  “Em.” She wasn’t even sure what she needed to say to him, but something was shifting and the reality made her throat tight and achy.

  “Savannah, it’s all right.” He tucked her hair behind her ear, fingertip brushing one earring for the briefest of moments, and he gestured toward her door. “You’ve got to go.”

  Something—something—about those words falling from his lips caught at her consciousness.

  She nodded and slipped from the truck. “I’ll see you later, right?”

  “Yeah, of course.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair and smiled. “I’ll be there for you.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “So, you slept with her, but you’re riding to Valdosta with me?” Even behind his sunglasses, Clark’s intense frown was obvious.

  “Yes.” Emmett slumped in the seat, balancing a half-cup of lukewarm coffee on his thigh. For once, his leg wasn’t bothering him. Instead, his head and throat hurt. And maybe his heart, although he was pretty certain that wasn’t a physical ache. It only felt like one. “You already asked me that.”

  “I’m trying to wrap my mind around it.”

  “There is nothing to wrap your mind around.” Irritable, he stretched. He should have simply driven his own vehicle. “I need some time and space to think.”

  “You can’t do that when she’s around?”

  “No.” Not clearly, anyway. Not the kind that counted. All she’d had to say was “I want you”, and all his good intentions about waiting until he was more sure of her went out the window.

  Silence descended for a couple of miles. Emmett closed his eyes and waited.

  “Em, you are going to have to break this down for me.”

  “What is there to break down?” He grimaced over a swill of tepid brew. “You know how I feel about her, and now I’ve gone to bed with her.”

  “And you’re over there feeling all committed and everything. Am I right?”

  “Pretty much.” He set the cup in the console. Resting his elbow on the windowsill, he gazed out at the rolling countryside of Brooks County—green pastures, pine forests, swampy wetlands, all meshed together.

  “That’s weird.” Clark rubbed a knuckle over the end of his nose. “Because you’re usually Mr. She’s-Great-and-All-But-Neither-of-Us-Wants-Anything-Serious. This is so not that. I’m not sure…wow.”

  “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “I didn’t think about it, you know, during, because—”

  “Who would?”

  “But after…it’s like all I could think about was that if things were different, she wouldn’t even be there with me. I’m not the guy.” He rubbed a hand down his thigh. “I’m never going to be that guy.”

  Clark glanced his way, opened his mouth, closed it, and shook his head. His silence was answer enough. He got it.

  They crossed the line into Lowndes County, the Withlacoochee River lazing under the bridge. A state trooper sat in the median on the other side, and Clark lowered his speed a couple of miles per hour.

  “So you’re brooding or thinking?”

  “Thinking.” Maybe a little of both, but damned if he’d admit it. “I have to decide if I can live with that—can I be committed, knowing she doesn’t love me and that there’s always someone she wants more than me.”

  “Man, you need to be having this conversation with her, not me.”

  “I tell her I love her and she’s gone.” He passed a hand over his jaw. Hell, big-ass chickens were coming home to roost, from every time he’d chastised his mother about her relationship with his dad. In his arrogant teenage anger, he’d thought he had all the answers. “This is how Mama felt all those years.”

  “Maybe.” The speed limit dropped at the far outskirts of Valdosta, and Clark slowed. “This isn’t quite the same thing as your dad not being able to keep it in his pants and your mama deciding to stay around. You’re not the guy, but you could be the guy eventually.”

  “What the hell does that even mean?”

  “It means that she might not love you now, but she might love you later. People do that, you know—fall for someone else after a loss. Your problem is you go hyperaware on certain details and then you lose the big picture. Take care of the details with her, and maybe the big picture will take care of itself.”

  * * * * *

  The old panic wanted to take up residence in Savannah’s chest. Standing with Rob and Amy as the pastor took them through the questions preceding Hamilton’s baptism into their church family, Savannah tried to put the pressure and inability to breathe down to the fact two years had elapsed since she’d been in this church…in any church for that matter. She was angry at God, He knew she was angry at Him, and she knew He would be waiting when she came out on the other side of that anger.

  Even so, she simply wasn’t there yet.

  She wanted to scan the crowded sanctuary to see if someone else was waiting, but she refused, instead keeping her gaze on the tableau before her—Hamilton in Amy’s arms, Rob’s hand at the small of Amy’s back, Reverend Camp’s familiar gnarled fingers sprinkling water across Hamilton’s tiny head.

  He’d said he’d be there for her, and she believed. She didn’t have to look.

  Afterward, she didn’t see him in the crowd, but with multiple infant baptisms on that Sunday, families and vehicles spilled outside the parking lot and onto the side streets. She’d simply missed him.

  Her parents’ home was soon nearly as packed. Friends and relatives pulled her attention from looking for the face she most wanted to see. Once more, she smoothed over her own uneasiness. He’d said he be there, and she believed.

  Their cousin Jen, a photographer by profession, gathered Amy, their mother, and their grandmother under the weeping willow for a multigenerational photo.

  “Wait.” Amy shifted a sleeping Hamilton, clad in the same white gown in which she and Savannah had been baptized, in her hold. “Savannah, I want you with us.”

  She laughed and crossed her arms.
“I think that kind of messes with the idea of the photo.”

  Amy tucked a loose strand of hair behind one ear and fixed her with a look. “Come on. I’m not doing this without you.”

  Acquiescing was easier than arguing. She stood to Amy’s left, next to their grandmother, completely messing up the numbers. “Amy, this is ridiculous.”

  “Savannah, hush and smile.” Grandmother gently pinched her waist. “If you need a reason to smile, look over there at those four young men in well-cut suits.”

  Jen laughed, camera in one hand, the other curved over her very pregnant belly. “Gran.”

  “I’m older, dear, not blind or dead. Any woman can appreciate a man who makes a suit look good.”

  Savannah ignored the banter, finally able to breathe again. Making a trim, basic black suit look better than good, Emmett stood on the far side of the expansive yard with Clark, Troy Lee, and Rob. Hands in his pockets, he was the only one of the four not laughing, but a slight smile played about his mouth. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so glad to see someone. Nerves, a blend of anticipation and remembered desire, trembled in her abdomen.

  Jen clicked off a rapid series of shots, camera whirring, and Savannah frowned at her. With a helpless shrug, Jen waved a hand in the air. “I couldn’t resist. You had the most sublime look on your face just then.”

  “I love it.” Amy grinned at her, almost vibrating with excitement, and Savannah found herself the center of affectionately curious attention from her female relatives.

  “Amy, please.” She fiddled with one pearl stud, a nervous gesture she would never have succumbed to during her pageant days.

  “I’m assuming one of them is the young man who had you in such a tizzy the last time you were here,” her grandmother said dryly. “Which one is he, Amy?”

  Savannah didn’t even bother not to roll her eyes. Let Jen take a photo of that.

  “The black suit.”

  Grandmother smiled. “Oh, my.”