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“Em?” Sam stepped closer, but I moved out of reach.
“I need to be alone.”
“I don’t think—”
“I need to be alone.”
Neither of them stopped me when I walked away.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Sam
“Fuck!” Charles tangled his hands in his hair, tugging as he paced.
“It’ll be okay,” I said because I didn’t know what else to say. It always was. There wasn’t much other choice.
“You don’t know what it was like for him before, the things people said to him and about him, people who had been his friends and those who weren’t. Humans can be…horrible, mob mentality, jumping on someone without the facts and attacking. Bent—Emerson—was guilty the second Daniel was killed, and nothing changed that. Awful things were spray-painted on his car. People made signs. It was hell for him, and all it did was make him hate himself more. Things weren’t perfect here, before you at least, but it was his reprieve. It gave him peace, and in one visit I fucked that up for him.”
“Jesus,” I breathed out, turned around, and watched Em’s back as it disappeared in the tree line. I thought about what Charles said, about Em, who already hated himself and hadn’t thought he was worthy, who had cut himself off from fully giving himself to anyone even before Daniel got killed, and then to hear that, to have it all hammering into him over and over and over again… No wonder he struggled so much. “He ever go to therapy or anything?”
“What do you think?” Charles asked.
“Yeah, didn’t think so.” That didn’t sound like something Emerson would do on his own. He would just continue to hate himself.
We stood there. I wasn’t sure what Charles was doing. My back was to him, my gaze focused on where I’d seen Em last. Come back, come back, come back.
“I’ve been looking into it—the murder. I hired someone—several someones, in fact—to try and figure out who did it. Emerson doesn’t know. I didn’t want to get his hopes up. He’ll think it’s useless, and maybe it is.”
I turned to him then, saw the heartbreak in his gaze and knew how devastated he was at what had happened. How much he loved Em. “They find anything?”
“Not yet.”
“You love him?”
“Not the way you think. There was a time when I thought maybe, but no, I’m not in love with him. But he’s family to me. I want him happy, and you make him that way. I’m gonna go to a hotel tonight. I don’t want him to be alone, and it’s not me he needs right now; it’s you.”
I nodded.
“Give him some time. He’ll need to breathe a little on his own, but he’ll come back because he knows you’re here. He hates to hurt people he loves.”
“Thank you,” I said, running on instinct and pulling Charles into a hug.
“Just take care of him. Love him. He deserves it.”
Charles pulled away and went to the house. I headed to the barn and looked around for stuff to work on the fence. A few minutes later I heard Charles start the car and leave.
All I could think of was Em.
I worked on the fence and mucked out the horse stalls. When I saw the hose, I smiled, thinking about Charles walking up to see me and Em rolling around like two pigs in the mud.
It felt like a whole damn lifetime had passed since then. I was worried about Em, hoped no one came to his place. While there weren’t signs and shit like Charles said happened—at least not yet—word spread fast in Ryland, and just like in New York, they assumed he’d done it. I’d heard some ugly things.
The whole time I worked, my mind was on Em. Was he all right? Should I go find him? It was a big-ass area, and he could be anywhere. I was busting outta my skin, wondering what he was doing, feeling like I should be there with him.
I made my way to the back of the house. My skin was sticky with sweat. I stripped out of my clothes and turned on the shower outside.
I was stalling, I knew that. My gut tangled up into knots. I would give Em long enough for me to get cleaned up, and then I was going to find him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Emerson
I told myself I was walking away. I had to leave Ryland. There was no way I could stay in a place like this if everyone thought I was a murderer. It would be miserable for me.
It would hurt Sam.
I’d spent hours in the woods, saying it was for the best. That I’d come back to the house and tell him this was over. Make him leave, and then jump in my car and just drive the way I’d done when I left New York.
I couldn’t hurt other people if I was alone.
