EMMETT (The Corbin Brothers Book 3) (16 page)

“Peyton,” I said, my heart pounding, “my family is yours, if you want it.”

“You can’t just offer to give me your family, just like that. That’s not the way those kinds of things work.”

“Think about it,” I said. “You’re already living on the ranch.”

“Just until I get better from everything.”

“Why leave? You don’t have to go anywhere else. We can start our horse rehab on the Corbin-Summers Ranch. We can do what we’ve been dreaming to do all along — and I bet we’ll still be able to screw Dax Malone out of his clients. Chance has given the green light. The rehab project is a go.”

This last prospect made the corners of Peyton’s mouth lift briefly.

“I have more family than I know what to do with,” I said, slowly grinning as I realized how true that statement was. “Four damn brothers? I’d love to share that with someone else. It gets to be downright overwhelming, when you get to thinking about it. And I don’t know what it is — if we’re just trying to fill the hole that our parents’ deaths left, or if that absence just makes us more aware of the holes in other people — but our family just keeps on growing. Hadley, Zoe and Toby, Paisley … if you want in, it’s yours, the Corbin family.”

Peyton had held herself taller and taller as I was speaking, but then she shuddered and sagged again.

“You don’t want me in this family,” she said. “I’ll screw it all up. I’m not a good person, Emmett.”

“Yes, you are.”

“You know what I am.” Her eyes darted around, like someone might be hiding out, ready to emerge and confirm what she was saying. “Everyone knows what I am. You don’t want the stain of that on your family. You’ve already done me enough favors. The charity can end already.”

Why couldn’t she see how I felt? I’d thrown the words at her long enough and in so many combinations that they made my own head spin. Why hadn’t one of those definitions fit?

“Peyton, I love you.” I kissed her to add an exclamation point on that declaration. “I want you to stay here. To be my partner in both business and life. I want you to become part of this family because, whether you’ve realized it or not, you are already.”

She swallowed hard, her fingers touching her lips gently. “Emmett, I want to love you. I … I think I even do. But goddammit, I don’t even know how to love myself.”

I cupped her face in my hands. “You listen to me, Peyton Crow. You are the most beautiful woman in the entire state of Texas. You’re a hell of a shot, you bend people to your will, you have more than a way with horses — you possess a singular knowledge that even flummoxes the veterinarian. You are full of potential, and if people can’t recognize that, then they can go fuck right off. Deep down, I know that people living in this town have to at least admire you because of the way you’ve built a life for yourself in spite of terrible odds. And you know what? Fuck them, too. Because you shouldn’t care what anyone else thinks of you. Your best days are ahead of you. And if I have to sit you down for hours on end every day and night and worship you, to hope that some of that love finally rubs off on you, that you can find just one kernel of something inside of yourself to love, then I would gladly do that.”

Peyton laughed, but it wasn’t the derisive, harsh sound I’d grown to know all too well. It was small, girlish, bubbling up from inside of her, and I slowly came to realize that she was embarrassed — pleased, but a little shy at my outpouring of praise.

“If you’re not careful, Emmett Corbin, you’re going to give a girl a huge ego. I won’t be easy to get along with then.”

“Yes, by then, you’ll be ready to move on to bigger and better things than little old me.”

She pressed her finger to my lips, then replaced it with her mouth, breathing so much longing into me it was all I could do to hold on to her, to try and preserve the feeling of this moment for all time.

“By then, I’ll know how to love you the right way,” she corrected. “The way you deserve to be loved. The way I want to love you.”

And for right now, that was enough. I knew that we had so much more growing to do, but like a sprout from a seed, our love would keep growing. And when it finally did blossom fully, no matter how much time had passed, it would be the most beautiful flower in the world.

I inhaled sharply, and turned around to try and get my bearings even though I had been here before.

Oh, yes. I had most definitely been here before.

It was just that I didn’t ever think I’d be here again, didn’t want to ever be here again.

I thought this place was so firmly wedged in my past that not even a crowbar could dislodge it.

But here it was anyway, the dark night nearly impenetrable, no help from any moon or stars above. I could only just make out the copse of trees just ahead of me, my eyes adjusted to the darkness, accustomed to the hours and hours I’d been out here searching.

I came out here to search every night, it felt like. Every goddamn night of my life ever since it had happened.

The breeze rattled through the tree branches, and I walked as gently as my combat boots would allow through the dry underbrush, turning my radio off so any careless chatter from my peers wouldn’t frighten my quarry. I’d turn it back on in a few minutes. It wouldn’t do to be wandering around out here in the wilderness while one of my fellow officers was in trouble, calling for help.

But something about those trees, that rattle of the wind, the way the clouds continued to creep closer to the ground, foreshadowing a foggy morning ahead, made my intuition prick and sing.

Trust your gut. It is never wrong.

I swallowed hard and unsnapped the cover of my holster, resting my hand against the gun that lay snug within the leather. It was a comfort, but not a guarantee. Nothing was guaranteed. Not for me, not for anyone.

Not for who I was looking for.

The wind rose again and I stopped short, cocking my head into it, then out of it again. I wasn’t mistaken. There was something more than wind there. There was a voice. A cry for help.

I was torn with indecision. There were too many choices to make right now. Did I turn my radio on to call for backup, and risk discovery? Did I hurry ahead and see if I could make the arrest that the entirety of my department had been focusing on for the last year-and-a-half of my life? Did I call back, tell that voice I was here, that I was coming to help or hurt or avenge or whatever needed to be done?

I did the only thing I could do, the only plan that carried the fewest chances of fucking all of this up. I kept going, quiet as a mouse, stepping sure and true. I’d walked out on the ranch at night with my brothers for both work and play. I knew how to stay quiet in the great outdoors when it was important.

And this was so important — the culmination of so many hours of work by both myself and my colleagues. This could really be it. We could really get him this time.

The voice reached my ears again as the wind picked up, and I quickened my pace, hoping that the rattling in the trees would mask any twigs I snapped in my haste. I could tell the voice was female. I could tell she was afraid. I could tell that she was weak with either injury or exhaustion, or perhaps some combination of the two.

I could tell I needed to hurry.

It was always the same, that last desperate slog through the long grass and thorny bushes and soft sand beneath my boots. It always took too long, always one second too late, always failing.

I couldn’t help but speed up to a run, discretion be damned, as I could make out a lone figure at work among the trees. I shouldn’t have been able to see him, shouldn’t have known exactly who it was, but I did. It just made me run harder, especially when I realized what he was doing.

He was filling in an open grave.

It could’ve been anyone at work out there — a farmer digging a post, someone working the land just like my family had for generations. But it was too late for that kind of work. And the screams didn’t fit, either.

I couldn’t wait any longer. This had to stop. I was going to have to be the one to stop it.

“Drop the shovel,” I said loudly and as calmly as I could manage. “This is the police. This is over. You are through.”

“
You
are through, Tucker Corbin.”

There was the jerk of recognition as I heard my name on the lips of a serial killer. It wasn’t shock — it went way beyond that. I knew that he knew my name. He’d been sending me taunts for months on end. It was abject horror, the realization that I was face to face with the man who had been terrorizing the Dallas-Fort Worth area for all this time. There was no relief, at least not in the way I imagined this moment might contain. It was only horror.

Then again, it could’ve been the gun leveled at me.

I tried to draw my own gun, but a shot rang out too quickly, hitting me in the gut so suddenly that it didn’t even hurt. It was just a dull impact, like a sucker punch, and I was looking down at the front of my uniform, halfway expecting to see a slow spread of blood blossoming from my front like a flower. Then another bullet hit me in the chest, making me lose my wind, and another in the arm. That one did bleed, slicking down my arm like thick, red water.

“Piece of shit,” he remarked, right in front of me, his face devoid of expression in the dark, swinging.

It wasn’t until I was on the ground that I realized he’d hit me with the shovel, my head only dully registering the ringing in my ears. He was saying something, but I couldn’t understand what it was. All I could do was focus on the cries for help coming from the hole in front of me. I crawled as best I could to see if I could peer over the edge, and was surprised again by a kick to the ribs. Right away, I knew one of them was broken. At least one of them. But that didn’t matter anymore, because I was going to die. I’d been shot three times, and I couldn’t stand up to save my life — or the life of the woman I knew he had.

“All of you cops are pieces of shit,” he said again. “Stupid pieces of shit. If you’re so eager to see that grave, let me help you. You can join her. Keep her eternal company.”

I got exactly one shot off before he finished kicking me into the hole he’d been filling, and he cursed, but I couldn’t be sure of my aim. I was tired, and I couldn’t seem to figure out which way was up or down, or what I was supposed to be doing, until I landed hard on something soft, the cry of pain right next to my ear.

I rolled, wincing, trying to find the words to reassure the person I was sharing a grave with, still holding my gun and ready for the worst, and looked into her face.

I expected a woman down there, suffering, but it wasn’t.

It was a man.

It was me.

Me. Tucker Corbin.

~~~