Emmerson's Heart (17 page)

Going to her room, I stood in the doorway
and listening to her soft breathing and her body tucked back into the bed that she had once spent almost every night in. Tomorrow, the visitors would be coming in to see her, knowing that she would be home. And tonight, with the brothers gathered around her, she had been just exhausted and I was sure that it had taken a lot to get her to go to sleep.

Pulling my boots off, I stepped over to the bed and slid in next to her. Taking her left hand into mine, I placed it on my chest
while stroking each of her long, slender fingers. Her hair was down to her shoulders and she had hated it. I knew that for a fact, but I had to admit that the haircut that they had stopped for actually looked better on her. Soon enough, she would be able to pull it up in a ponytail like she had all the time.

“Where are you?” The whispers had come from her as she flattened her hand against my chest to feel my heart beating. “Jackson, please, come home.”

My heart was breaking and I hoped that she hadn’t felt that. Losing my dad was bad enough, but if we had lost her, too, I don’t know what I would have done. There would have been no way that I could have handled that.

Holding her close to me, I let my tears run free. God, if she had remembered that he had come to bring her home for Christmas, she would take it
as being all her fault.

It wasn’t her fault
. It was mine. It was all mine and it had started with the Thanksgiving fight. I had pushed her away. I pushed her too hard away from me and she was staying away because of me. What could I do? He had been on my case since her damn graduation about minding my distance from my “sister”. He didn’t approve of the way that I had looked at her, his own son. Hell, that man hadn’t approved of any guy that had looked at her. When he had found out that she had gone on a date while they were on their anniversary cruise that we had gifted them, he went crazy. And nothing happened. I made sure of that, though.

Something brushed my hand as she shifted a little to get more comfortable in my embrace. Fishing it out, my heart felt the glossy paper, the picture of her and my dad. She knew that he was gone. She remembered.

Chapter 16

****Past****

How could we have not noticed that she was a year older than what she was? Hell, my little follower was seventeen and just turning into something so beautiful inside and out. Her hair was down and she was stretched out on the porch with that damn dog-horse of hers right there as always. If that horse wasn’t close to her, it was panic-ville on the damn ranch. He would search and search until he found her and….well, she never had to search for him because he was always right there by her.

Shaking my head, I just sat back and watched her. Her knees swaying back and forth, her long golden hair hanging over the floor of the porch and her hand was stretched out where Ben could eas
ily have access to her fingers if needed. In all my life, I had never seen a person and a horse so connected, but as she puts it so clearly, they were one in the same.

The mounds of her chest were in that damn black tank top that she had insisted on wearing. With it being close to a hundred, I didn’t blame her, but for some
reason, it was really getting to me now. It seemed like not that long ago, she had started to lose her little-girl figure and overnight came this body that….

Turning my look away, I kicked my feet up onto the railing as I looked over the peaceful yard. I could take her camping again, but deep down, I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to for the simple fact that it was beginning to bother me with the way that I had looked at her lately. The way that I had looked at her was the same way that I had looked at plenty of other women, one in particular that I had wanted for a long time. It wasn’t right. Not by any means, should I ever look at Emmy like anything except my baby sister. After all, that was what she was to me and that
was all that I would ever see her as.

“Do you think that Rob will decide to move back home?” Her voice was so soft
, dancing in the sticky heat as she cooed under her breath and earning a little response from Ben. His ears had perked as he stepped closer to the porch, brushing his nose against her belly.

“I don’t know, kid. Probably.” Closing my eyes, I tucked my hands behind my head. The damn heat was bad, the worst
. Then again, it wasn’t just the heat in the air. That damn woman was there lying on her back, enhancing that chest of hers, and my mind was lingering with thoughts. What it would be like to feel her molded up against my body….

Cursing, I shot forward
, focusing my eyes on the truck parked in the driveway; her truck. She just had to have one and Mom wanted her to get this cute little blue car. Nope, Emmer wasn’t having it. Not at all.

Mom and Emmy were pretty close, but not as close as that girl was with my dad. Hell, you wouldn’t even know that we were actually his sons when it had come to Emmerson. That should have bothered me, but the four of us really didn’t need that connection like she needed. Sometimes, I wondered if
Mom had gotten a little sick or worried about the bond too. Emmy wasn’t their daughter, but in their hearts, I knew that birthrights didn’t mean a damn thing to those two. But after seeing my dad beat a man almost to death over Emmy, I could see how much he had loved her. That was something of which no one could ever convince me differently.

“Marc called last night and I talked to him for about an hour. He said that he would like to come home for a vacation this year. I told him that maybe we could take
him camping like we usually do. He said that he would really like that.”

“We’ll see, Tyke.” Camping? Stuck with her alone out there with nothing? No, I couldn’t have that. I couldn’t handle that until I had gotten my damn head straight. Emmy was my damn sister, the little girl that I had saved. That was all that she could ever be to me. Besides, Becky had agreed to go on a date with me and I had to take that opportunity. I had been after her for this long now.

“Over my dead body!” My dad’s voice ripped through the thick air, filling every window of the house.

Emmy rolled over onto her hands and knees
, stretching and letting that tight round ass of hers stick up in the air. Damn, why did she have to be like that? Did she not know what effect she had on a guy by doing that? The heat intensified inside of me as I fought to take my look away and get my thoughts on something else. This can’t be happening. This can’t be what I think about her. But damn!

“Where do you think that you get off doing that behind my back?” Rage of the one and only man in town that everyone backed down from came bellowing through the air.

“You are being unreasonable!” And there it was; Mom’s voice raised to a new level. Hell, I couldn’t ever remember hearing her raise her voice to my dad. Never. No one raised their voice to him. No one would be in their right mind to ever do such a thing. Well, one person, but she had that nice firm ass up in the air while sticking her head through the rungs of the porch railing and pressing her forehead to Ben the dog in the horse’s body.

Ugh, I really needed to go out and do….something. It had been so long that I had been with a woman, too long in fact. That’s where all these thoughts
were coming from. The last time that I had picked up a woman for the night, Emmy had barged into the bar looking for me and she had seen me out back. Yeah, try and explain that one as she was giving me that look of complete hurt. What could I tell her? Not to be like that woman, but it was okay for me to want that kind of woman? I would absolutely kill any man that had used her just to satisfy his needs like I had done with what’s-her-face. No, I just needed to take my chance with Becky and get these thoughts about Emmy out of my damn mind. She was supposed to be my sister-like for crissakes.

“You are the one that disobeyed me! How can you even think that this is right?” The thump inside had echoed
, causing Ben to lift his head a little. “As I said, over my dead body!”

“Jackson, you are being….”

Hell, Mom hadn’t even been able to finish her sentence when Emmy jerked her head out from the rungs and looked back at me with her eyes opened wide and the fear sinking in deep.

“She is not! She is my daughter!”

Within a blink of my eye, Emmer had her body up on those feet and Ben turned to give her full access to his back. She had flown over the railing so fast that I was shocked that she hadn’t tripped. Instead, she had landed on Ben’s back as the bear came out of the den, charging after her. Jumping from my chair, my heart stopped hard when he had caught her arm before she was able to take off on her knight in shining dark gray fur.

Tugging her off the back, he flipped her over his shoulder
and took her right into the house before she had the chance to fight back. Following, my stomach turned as he brought her straight to the couch and then put her down. His chest was heaving as the anger and rage was flowing through his veins. The last time that I had ever seen him like that, in that deep of a rage, he had beat her father within an inch of that man’s life.

“What in the hell are you thinking?” His dark eyes narrowed in on her
, making her cringe a little.

“Dad, just…” I had to stop him. I still had no idea what she had done this time to earn his wrath, but she was getting it.

“I was going to take Ben out for a little….” Leaning forward, she went to get up when his hand came out to stop her. Biting her bottom lip, her eyes shifted over to me before they landed back to my mom. “How come you told him?”

“Emmy, I didn’t tell him. Your doctor called.” Rubbing her forehead, she dropped her hands. “He doesn’t understand.”

“Like hell I don’t! You are just giving her the okay to go out and have sex! She is my damn daughter!” His rage intensified, making my mom jump back a little.

“Whoa!” Looking at Emmy, my heart sank hard. Sex? No. Not my little Emmer. Not my Tyke. Jealousy hit me hard as I felt myself rising to my dad’s rage. Who in the hell would ever be good enough to deserve her? Certainly
not anyone that I know of. And who the hell had she wanted to sleep with, anyway? What in the hell was this all about? “What in the hell are you thinking?”

“You two are unreal.” Shaking her head, she plopped back into the cushions and instead of getting mad, she laughed. She had actually laughed. When my dad gets mad, and that raging mad, you do not laugh at him. “God, Jackson. I was talking with the doctor on my last appointment about birth control. It’s no big deal.”

“No….” His fingers thrusted through his hair and I could actually hear some being ripped out of his scalp. “No big deal! Emmerson!” Her name ripped through his throat, making her laugh harder. “Like hell you will ever leave this house again! You are going to start home schooling!”

“No, Jackson, you are being…” Just as
Mom stepped forward, Dad’s eyes hit her knocking her back into me.

“Why in the hell do you think that I am going to stand back and let some punk ass kid use her like that? Huh? She will NOT leave this house!” Red pooled in his face
, eating his tanned skin down to his neck. Nope, this rage certainly topped the rage that he had held that night with her father. “What the hell are you thinking, Emmy!?”

“First of all, the doctor said that it would help regulate my periods. That’s the only reason why I want it. I’m tired of it being all over the place.” Jumping up, she ignored his warning
and stood toe to toe with him. All of her five-foot-five to his six-four. Her shoulders were back and her jaw was set firm. “And secondly, if something ever happened, I would rather be smart and double protected. Isn’t that what you taught me, Jackson? You automatically jump to the conclusion that I want to go out and have sex, but I don’t want to. I am happy with just hanging out here and I want to work with more horses. I just don’t want to be out there and be like….oh no. I got my period. I’m just going to have to bleed all over until we get back to the house.”

“Stop! Stop! I don’t want to hear about….”

“Like last month. We were stuck out in the field with that…”

“Emmy!”

“It was like bam, I had my period and I wasn’t even protected because I had it three weeks earlier. Talk about un….”

“Emmerson!”

“…prepared. I mean, wow. Was that a total shocker? So, I talked to Connie because that’s what you want me to start doing, right? I didn’t want to come to you about it, because well….” She looked him over, taking a step closer to him; her chest coming against his as the anger grew inside of him. “You can see why. And we talked to my doctor and he suggested that it would be a good idea.”

“How dare you even get it!
? You are my little girl!”

“I’m still your little girl and I will always be your little girl. Just not the one that bleeds all over because that bitch of mother nature shit came sneaking up on me again.” And then she swore on top of it. If that wasn’t enough to send that man into a fit like we had never seen before was shocking. I didn’t know whether to grab him and hold him back or just grab her and take off running. “I am just doing what you taught me to do. Instead of hiding, I talked to Connie about this issue
, seeing as….I must have made the wrong decision because I think that you are having your period right now. I do have some tampons….”