Chapter 61
GEMMA
Deciding against cheesecake, I settle on whipping up a batch of one-bowl brownies while Emily takes a shower. Even though it’s almost three o’clock in the morning, there’s no way either of us is going to sleep until she tells me what the hell is going on.
“She didn’t tell you she was coming?” Riggs asks quietly, brow furrowed at the back stairs Emily just climbed to the second-floor bathroom.
“No.” I shake my head while I measure out cocoa power and dump it in my bowl. “We FaceTimed yesterday like we always do and she didn’t say a word about it.”
Still frowning, Riggs looks at me. “She looks scared.”
“Well yeah,” I say laughing, even though his observation bothers me because I noticed it too. “Cade just charged the porch with a baseball bat and dragged her off the porch swing—she probably wet herself.”
When I say it, Riggs’s frown melts into a crooked grin. “Did you really bite him?”
“He grabbed me and started hauling me around like a sack of potatoes,” I tell him, my tone indignant while I crack eggs into the bowl. “You’re fuckin’ right I did.”
“Well, damn…” Reaching for me, Riggs turns me away from my task and wraps his arms around me. “Now I’m jealous.”
“You’re always jealous,” I remind him, the corner of my mouth quirking into a smirk at his sullen tone.
“I am,” he admits, fingers digging into my hip so he can pull me closer. “When it comes to you, I’m jealous of everyone and everything—I’m even jealous of my own damn cat.”
“Don’t worry.” Laughing, I pull his hand off my hip to press a kiss against the scars I left on his palm, with a barely suppressed grin. “It meant nothing to me.”
“It better not,” he growls down at me, pulling his hand out of my grip to resettle it on my waist. Before I know what’s happening, Riggs digs his fingers into my hips and turns, lifting me up to set me on the counter next to my half mixed brownies.
“This mouth of yours doesn’t belong on anyone but me.
” He murmurs it against my lips between kisses, each one more insistently possessive than the last, until his tongue is sweeping past the loose seam of them to lick and tangle against mine.
This is temporary, Gemma.
It won’t last.
It can’t last.
No matter what he says, Riggs won’t let it.
Shoving the truth away, I lift my hands to push them into his hair, wrapping my legs around his hips on a soft, desperate moan that tightens his grip against my skin and grinds the hard length of his cock into the juncture of my thighs.
Tearing my mouth away from his, I let my head fall back on my neck, the crown of it banging against one of the upper cabinets, while his mouth nips and sucks its way along the length of my neck. “Emily…”
“Shower’s still running,” he groans in my ear while one of his hands lifts itself to wrap its fingers around my ponytail. Giving it a hard jerk that shoots a mind-numbing tingle down my spine, Riggs licks and nips his way along the tight line of my jaw. “We’ve got time.”
“Time…” I parrot it back to him, hissing softly when I feel his teeth scrape against the underside of my chin.
The sting of it arching my back to brush my stiff, achy nipples against his chest, even while the word squeezes painfully against my heart because it sounds like another promise and I don’t know how many more of them I can take. “Riggs…”
“I’m here,” he whispers against my lips between kisses. “I’m right here, Gem. I’m?—”
Abuse
Abuse
Abuse
Behind us, Janet starts slapping her buttons, letting us know exactly what she thinks about what’s happening in front of her.
Pulling his mouth away from mine, Riggs drops his head to bury his head in the crook of my neck, harsh breath skating across my flushed chest. Hands loosening in my hair, he pressed a soft kiss to my collarbone before he lifts his head to skewer his dark gaze into mine. “Gemma…”
“Now.” I say it softly, trailing a hand along the side of his neck to cradle his jaw. “That’s all I asked for, Riggs. It’s all I need.” It’s a lie. It isn’t all I need. As brave and strong as I want to be, I know that I need more. I know that now is going to break me when it’s gone.
Looking at me, I know that Riggs knows it too but instead of calling me a liar, he just leans in and brushes a soft, careful kiss across my lips. “I’m going to go to bed. Take care of your friend.” Giving me another kiss, Riggs pulls himself away from me with a sad smile.
“I’ll save you a brownie,” I tell him, my heart already twisting and pulling against the loss of him.
He quirks his mouth at me. “Liar.” Moving across the kitchen, taking careful steps without his walker, Riggs pauses in the doorway between the kitchen and the sunroom. “Come on, asshole—let’s go make some biscuits.”
Janet reaches out and slaps her reply.
Rude.
But she abandons her buttons and follows him.
By the time Emily comes down, the brownies are baking in the oven and I have the wine—a bottle of red I keep stashed for emergencies—poured into glasses.
Deciding that if I’m going to be awake, I might as well work, I’ve got Scarlett’s birthday cupcakes laid out on the counter while I pipe large, decorative rosettes onto each one.
When I hear her, I look up and smile. “Better?”
Tugging at the long sleeve of her pajama top, she smiles. “Much.” Moving closer, she leans against the counter to watch while I start piping again.
“I broke out my emergency wine,” I tell her, tipping my chin at the jelly glass on the counter. “Stop-N-Shop’s finest offering, just for you.”
“Thanks.” She looks at the wine but doesn’t reach for it.
For a moment, neither of us say anything.
I have a million questions but I can’t ask any of them until she tells me what she’s doing here because Riggs was right.
She looks scared and I don’t think it has anything to do with the fact that the boy who drove her out of Barrett over a decade ago is also the man she just faced down on my porch.
“Are these for Scarlett’s party tomorrow? ”
“They are,” I confirm with a lopsided grin. “I don’t know why, but I’m actually pretty nervous about it. Which is dumb considering it’s just cupcakes.”
“It’s more than that,” Emily says, letting me know she gets it. Shifting her gaze away from mine for a moment, she quirks her mouth before she speaks again. “I didn’t know he was still driving you home.”
After the FaceTime debacle on my front porch with Cade and his mother, I decided to come clean to her about everything.
What happened with Bret at the Mill. That Cade nearly killed him.
That Jensen insisted he drive me to and from work from now on.
“According to Cade, it’s gonna keep happening, whether I like it or not, until Jen says stop.
” Remembering the rest of our conversation tonight—that Cade pretty much confirmed that the rumors about him murdering Gunner’s mother are true—I open my mouth to tell her that too but before I can, the oven timer goes off behind me.
Moving to set my piping bag down to pull the brownies out, Emily shakes her head.
“I’ve got them,” she says, moving past me to the oven.
Finding an oven mitt in the same drawer they’ve been in since we were kids, Emily turns the oven off before bending over to open it and retrieving the brownies baking inside.
When she does, the sleeve of her pajama top rides up to give me a glimpse of her arm.
Not a lot. Just a flash before she’s straightening herself, baked brownies in hand, to set them on the stovetop to cool.
But it was enough.
“Em…”
She must hear it in my voice, what I saw, because her shoulders tense and she doesn’t turn around. She just stands there, facing the cooling oven, her stiff shoulders beginning to shake with the effort to contain herself.
Dropping the piping bag, I practically lunge at her. Hands gripped around her shoulders, I almost burst into tears because she doesn’t just look thin, she feels it. She feels so hollow and frail I want to scream when I spin her around to look at me. “Emily.”
She’s wearing the same expression Cade was wearing earlier when he realized who he was looking at. Like her life is gone. Like everything she every wanted or worked hard for has been destroyed and there’s nothing she can do about it. “Em?—”
“I’m fine.” Giving me a bright, brittle smile, Emily shakes her head. “Really. I’m just being dramatic. It’s?—”
“not as bad as it looks?” I finish for her, my tone garbled with the kind of useless, impotent anger that will poison me if I let it. When all she does is stare down at me, I drop my hands away from her shoulders to grip them around her arm. Shoving her sleeve up, I see them.
Bruises.
Deep, ugly bruises. The kind of ugly that can only be beaten into a person. Black and purple, standing out in livid contrast to her pale, milky skin.
“Kevin.” When I say her husband’s name, she visibly flinches. Not a lot but enough to tell me I’m right. Swallowing hard against the rush of nausea that surges through me, I look up at my best friend. “How long?”
She tilts her head, her generous mouth wobbling against the answer before she gives it to me. “Almost from the beginning.”
Seven years.
She married that monster seven years ago.
I was supposed to be her maid of honor, but Dent had another stroke—a really bad one—that landed him in the ICU and I couldn’t bring myself to leave him.
She was so understanding about it. So supportive.
It’s okay, Gemmie. Please don’t worry about me.
Stay home and take care of Dent. He needs you more than I do.
Now I know how much of a lie that really was.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Shaking her head, Emily pulls her arm out of my grip.
“How could I?” she says, her face falling into a frown.
Gaze aimed down, she tugs her sleeve back into place.
“You’ve been dealing with so much—taking care of Dent, alone.
Burying him, alone. Trying to save this place, alone.
Working three jobs…” Dropping her arm, she looks up at me.
“I haven’t been here for you for any of it. How could I possibly expect you to?—”
“I’m your friend,” I say, cutting her off before she can say it.
“I’m your best friend—you know that, right?
” I’m suddenly terrified that I haven’t been.
That I’ve been a burden this entire time.
That all I’ve done is complain and bitch about how hard my life is while she was living a nightmare between phone calls.
“Of course, I do.” She gives me a trembling smile, her violet blue eyes filling with tears. “Why do you think I’m here?”
“Okay.” Bobbing my head, I swallow the lump in my throat, forcing myself to get a grip.
“Well, you’re not going back.” I give her a shrug like it’s already decided because it is.
I’ll tie her up and put her in the bath tub if I have to.
“There’s no way in hell that’s happening.
” Looking up at her, I practically dare her to argue with me.
“You’ll stay here, with me. You’ll write your books and maybe teach my cat some manners.
Hell, you can even get a job teaching at the elementary?—”
“I can’t go back,” she says, cutting off my tirade while the ghost of a smile quirking against the corner of her mouth. “I’m your new neighbor—but I would be more than happy to teach your cat some manners.”
I stare at her for a moment, her statement filtering through my adrenaline soaked brain until it finally clicks. “You’re the creeker who bought the Wilsons’ house?”
“Guilty.” The smile quirking against her mouth stretches for just a moment before it fades. “But that’s not the reason I can’t go back.”
“Did you kill him?” I ask, grabbing her hand. “Please tell me you killed him.”
“No…” Shaking her head on a sad laugh, she turns her hand in mine so she can lace her fingers between my own. Squeezing them tight, she sigh. “I can’t go back because I’m pregnant.”