Chapter 22 – Emmett
Chapter Twenty-Two
EMMETT
T he words are coming out of my mouth before I can even take them back. “She’s not staying here. It’s not safe.” I look over at Charlie, who is grinning like a Cheshire cat that just caught a bird, and I want to throat punch him. “Go and pack your stuff. You’ll be staying with me.”
“Um,” she says, and before she can answer, the sheriff looks back at her.
“Is there anyone you think is behind this?” His question throws me off, and I look over at Lilah, whose face goes white as she shakes her head. “Maybe a scorned lover?” She continues to shake her head. “Someone you were seeing who you broke up with?” Her head never stops moving side to side. “Someone who you maybe led on?”
“She answered the fucking question,” Charlie snaps before I have a chance to. My eyes watch her as she fidgets with her hands. “Now she needs to pack.” He looks at her. “Do you want me to come and help you?—”
“I’ll help her,” I cut in. “You need to make some phone calls.”
“I do?” Charlie looks at me confused, and we share a look. “I do.” He nods. “I’ll walk you out, Sheriff.”
“If you find anything else while you are packing,” the sheriff says to her, “let us know.”
“I will,” she replies softly as she watches Charlie and the sheriff go out the door.
I wait for the door to be closed before I look over at her. “What are you leaving out?” I ask, and her neck moves back a bit as if she’s shocked. I saw she was hiding something. “You went white as a ghost when he asked you those questions.” She’s about to tell me she did not, so I hold up my hand. “Then you started fidgeting with your fingers, which means you’re nervous about something.” I raise my eyebrows. “I’ve been watching you a long time, Lilah.” Her eyes look a bit shocked. “So, yeah, I know you.”
“Of course I’m nervous about something!” she shrieks, trying to deflect. “Someone has been in my house”—her hands go up in the air and then come back down—“more than once, apparently.” Her voice rises and falls. “And he hasn’t broken in, so he’s either picking the lock or he’s a fucking ghost.” She yells out the last part. “Which means that this person comes in while I’m not here and goes through my stuff.” She puts one of her hands to her stomach. “Which is creepy as fuck, so that is why my face went white, and my hands started fidgeting.”
I know she isn’t telling me the truth. “Do you need help packing?”
“No, I don’t need help packing,” she snaps. “I can go stay with Courtney.”
“At her parents’ house?” I ask, but then answer for her. “No.”
She rolls her eyes. “I have four bedrooms and an alarm system. So if they want you, they have to go through that and then through me.” I fold my arms over my chest instead of doing what I want to do, and that is charging her and pulling her into my arms, forcing her to tell me what the fuck she is so scared of. “Now, go pack, or I will pack for you.”
She glares at me, and I meet her glare, my jaw tightening as I look at her. The front door opens and neither of us looks back at Charlie. “Oh, good, you two haven’t killed each other yet.” He snickers. “I’m assuming you have this taken care of, and I can go?”
“Yeah.” I still don’t let go of the stare. “I’ve got her.”
“I see that,” he retorts. “Lilah,” he calls, and she has no choice but to turn toward Charlie. “Blink once if you’re okay with going with this guy.”
“It’s silly,” she finally starts. “I can still stay here. I’ll just be more?—”
“That isn’t an option,” Charlie repeats what I just said to her. “It’s either him”—he points at me with his thumb—“or me.” He points at himself, and I’m ready to take her over my shoulder and carry her home to my fucking house.
“You have the baby at your house. The last thing you need is to be worrying about me,” she reasons, her voice soft. “I could maybe just stay in a hotel.”
“With no security?” I snap. “That isn’t going to fucking happen. This has gone on long enough. You are going to pack, and you are going to move in with me and Lucy.”
“I don’t think?—”
“Good. It’s settled,” Charlie says, breaking the tension in the room. “I’m going to get going. I’ll keep Lucy until she’s settled.”
“I’ll come and get her later on,” he says. “She has a sleepover with Saige tonight.”
Charlie tries to hide his smirk as he looks down at his feet. “See you later, then.”
He walks out, and I walk toward her bedroom instead of playing around. “Where do you keep your luggage?”
“Emmett,” she says, almost in frustration.
“Like when you say my name, baby,” I reply softly. “Liked it even more last night.” Her cheeks go pink. “Now where do you keep your luggage?”
“Under the bed.” She points at the bed, and I’m ahead of her by five steps by the time she’s come in.
“Do you want to pack your clothes, and I pack your toiletries?”
“No,” she retorts, “I don’t need you packing my stuff. I can do it.”
“Suit yourself.” I hold up my hands, stepping away from it. “I’ll watch.”
“You are infuriating,” she accuses, not even looking at me. “Why don’t you just go and be pissed at me?”
“Oh, trust me.” I sit on her bed. “I’m plenty pissed at you.”
“What?” She stops mid-step after she opens one of her suitcases and heads to her closet. “Why?”
“For keeping this shit to yourself.” I put my index finger up and do a circle with it. “That is not fucking cool.”
“I didn’t know anything was out of the normal.” She tries to deflect as she grabs her jeans and tucks them into the side of the suitcase. “I’m only taking things for a week.”
“Whatever,” I say, thinking that we’ll just come back and get things. She walks over to the long dresser, grabbing things from the dresser and coming to put them next to her jeans. She walks back to the other side, opening her drawer and then stopping. “What is it?”
“I think they’ve been in this drawer.” She looks over her shoulder. “Usually, I have everything folded and put together by sets.”
I spring up and walk to her. “What is it?”
“It’s embarrassing.” She pushes my face away from the drawer.
“Is that?” I say, catching a glimpse of lace and what looks like twenty bras.
“Yeah, it is.” She closes the drawer, and I reach out and pull it open. “Emmett.”
“You have to check and see if anything is missing.” I try not to smile as I pick up a light pink padded bra with the matching panties that fall on the other bras. “You color code them with matching panties?” I ask, my cock getting hard.
“Would you give me that?” she hisses as she grabs her bra from me. “Not that it’s any of your business”—she puts the panties and the bra back together—“but it’s just sexy when they match.”
“Baby, if you’re wearing them…” I look down at the rows and rows of bras, thinking about what the matching panties are, especially the black ones. I use my finger to trace the lace on top of it when she pushes my hand away. “Do you see any that are missing?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “But I didn’t have the black one next to the green one. I always put the black one in the back since I’ve never worn it.”
“Why not?” I ask, and she shuts the drawers with her hip.
“I’m going to go get my toiletries.” She ignores my questions, and I grab her hand before she walks out of the room.
“Why haven’t you worn the black one?” I ask.
“I bought it for something special,” she admits, her eyes going to my lips, “and it hasn’t happened yet.” I let go of her hand. “I’ll be back. I’m almost done.”
I let her walk out of the room, my cock straining to get out and into her, which is the complete opposite of what I should do. When I watched her walk out of my house before, I felt like half my heart had left with her. I knew it was time to put a stop to all of this, heard the voice in my head loud and clear, “ You’ve got poison inside you, and everyone you love will be touched by it.”
It burned through my stomach as I watched her leave instead of chasing her. Then the call happened, the second phone call in my life that stopped my lungs from breathing. Except she didn’t call me; she called Charlie, which stung, but I also understood why.
She comes back in from the bathroom with items piled in her hands, walking to the bag and opening her arms as all of the things fall inside. “I’ll be outside.” I walk out of the bedroom and pull up my phone, calling Charlie, who answers after one ring.
“Hey,” I say when he answers the phone, “everything okay?”
“Yeah,” he confirms, “we just got to the bakery.”
“How’s Lucy?” I ask, looking back at the room when I hear the sound of the drawer being closed, seeing her grabbing some bras and panties.
“She’s good. Saige is here, so Everleigh wanted to know if you would mind Lucy hanging around with them and then going to their house.”
“She doesn’t have her things,” I say. “The bag is at the door.”
“I can go back and get it,” he offers. “How are things there?”
“Okay.” I turn when I see her go into her side table and take out a couple of things and tuck them in the bag. “I’m pretty sure this guy has been going through her drawers and shit, and it’s not a stranger.”
“Yeah, I think the same,” he agrees. “Spoke to my pops.” He mentions Casey. “We’re adding more eyes at the ranch, and we’ll brief everyone that we have to on Monday.”
“Got it,” I reply, then turn around when I hear the sounds of the zipper on the suitcase. “We should be heading out in a bit.”
“Let me know if you need anything,” he offers.
“Will do,” I tell him, hanging up the phone, as I watch her wheel the case out into the living room. “Is that it?” I ask as she looks around and heads to the door to grab a couple of hats that are on the hat rack, and then she picks up her two pairs of boots.
“Yeah,” she confirms. “I just need to put these in a bag.” She holds up the items in her hand as she avoids looking at me when she walks into the kitchen to grab a plastic bag.
Once she comes back, I look over at her. “You ready?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be, I think.” She takes a deep inhale. “Let’s go.”
She goes to grab the suitcase, her hand falling on top of mine. “I’ve got it,” I say and she quickly raises her hand from mine. I say the words that I’ve said in my dreams before but never thought I would say them out loud. “Let’s get you home.”