Waiting for Wyatt (Red Dirt #1) (27 page)

I jumped, feeling a wet nose pressing into my cheek. Gus reached his tongue out for a lick. I stared into his black eyes. The little guy was concerned for me this morning.

“I’m okay, Gus,” I mumbled. Blinking a few times, I tried to brush off the ghosts that still lingered in my thoughts. Climbing out of bed, I went to the trailer door and let the two dogs outside. The internal darkness followed me to the bathroom as I got dressed to go running.

I slowly lost my grip on reality as I trotted along the trail of the perimeter. The sun rose in the sky, but I only saw the gray shadows from my dream. I couldn’t shake the feeling it had left inside my chest.

I wasn’t the person who had crammed a handful of pills down his throat. And there were no charges against me for Trevor. No
mayor
fighting for him. But I knew the hand I’d played in his death. And it ate away at me, little by little, dream by dream as my subconscious made sure I never forgot him.

I found myself lying on my back in the grass. Somewhere in my thoughts, my body had shut down, causing me to fall to the ground. As the clouds passed over my head, I struggled to remember the day of the week. Was it bath day or lawn day or Tuesday?

Sweat beaded up on my forehead as I stared at the sky. I tried to swallow, but my throat was too dry to cooperate. The sun got hotter and brighter. Maybe the sun would burn so hot, I would catch on fire and disintegrate into a puff of smoke. If I just stayed in this very spot, I wondered how long it would take for someone to find my burned-up body.

Diana had already come and gone again—this time taking Ricky Bobby. She had found the energetic, three-legged dog a family with three boys. Even those thoughts hurt today. I shouldn’t be sad to see him leave. But something about it made me think of Emma. She wouldn’t like the fact that I’d sent him away without letting her say goodbye.

I allowed myself to think about Emma. I allowed myself to want her. To hear her voice. Kiss her skin. I wanted to see her sweet face and those lips. I wanted to bury my nose in her hair, and bury myself inside her body as she whispered my name.

That beautiful girl consumed my last thoughts as I waited for the black birds to come pick me clean. But that was the thing about the darkness. Once you allowed the light inside, the shadows exploded into a million pieces.

“
Ahhhhh!
” I screamed up into the sky.

I had to snap out of it before I lost my damn mind. Even in my insanity, I still had a job to do at the kennel. Dogs to be fed. Pens to be cleaned. I had responsibilities.

I crawled up from the ground, walking slowly back to the trailer. My shoes moved at the speed of a sleepwalker. Getting in the shower, I let the cold water shock my skin. I shaved. I ate my cereal, doing my best to hold it all together.

Some days were tougher than others. Some were darker as I clung to the fringes of sanity. But I always snapped out of it. Sometimes it took hours and sometimes those feelings lingered for days. And sometimes I prolonged it by reading Poe.

I left the trailer, shutting the metal door softly behind me. As I reached the side entrance of the kennel, I paused, hearing the sound of a motor. I turned around just as the cloud of dirt spit out of a little white car.

Emma.

The tires got closer, and I struggled to think straight. Was she real or had I imagined Emma on this dark morning? The car skidded to a stop just a few feet from where I stood in the dirt. As the car door opened, my lungs stopped working. I held my breath, seeing my angel of mercy come into view.

My thoughts were still jumbled. It was hard to transition from the gray nightmares to seeing actual people. To seeing her. I’m sure everything about me screamed crazy as I stared at her.

But I couldn’t help it. Emma held me captive as she leaned against the hood of the car in her cutoff shorts and pink shirt. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. The way she smiled. The way her hair touched her neck.

As she stared back at me, the darkness seemed to fade away and the ghosts disappeared into the shadows. I saw the light of the sun shining down from the sky.

And then I moved. My legs moved faster than they had all morning. They took me over to Emma. My heart pulsed in frantic beats in my chest as my nerves took over, strangling the words in my throat.

Her eyes flashed uncertainty and fear and happiness and worry. “Wyatt, before you say anything—”

But I didn’t let her speak. I wrapped my arms around her body, holding Emma in a death grip against my chest. I needed to feel her. I needed to know she was real. The thoughts I heard banging around inside my head scared the shit out of me.

Placing my hands on her cheeks, I stared into her eyes. Emma looked back at me with her usual open heart full of compassion and desire and tenderness. It flowed with every breath as she let me hold on to her body. And then I felt a glimmer of peace. She was the one person who seemed to make this shit inside of my head better.

“Wyatt, I was so afraid you would think that I wasn’t coming back. I wanted—”

I kissed her. I needed to feel her again. My mouth pressed hard against her lips. Emma needed to know how much I wanted her. It was rough and hard and slightly possessive as my tongue pressed into her mouth. But I couldn’t stop. I needed to taste her. Crush her. Hold her. My hands moved over her arms and waist, digging into her skin to the point she would have finger-shaped bruises.

I loosened my grip, not wanting to hurt Emma. I couldn’t bear the thought of causing any type of pain to anyone again. Letting go of her lips, I buried my nose in her hair. She smelled like honeysuckles.

“I don’t know what scared me more when you left,” I finally whispered. “That you wouldn’t come back. Or that you would.”

I felt a stab of panic as I admitted my fear, but I couldn’t stop the words. She brought it out of me. Her sweet face and those lips that tasted like cinnamon.

“I wanted to come back. Like, the moment I left. I wanted to turn back around.”

Staring down at Emma, something sparked inside my chest.
Hope.
It came out of nowhere. My mind struggled to comprehend the thought.

“You did?” I asked, assuming she’d spent the last couple of weeks processing some internal and moral conflict of coming back to see me.

“Remember?” she whispered. “You can’t get rid of me that easy.”

I slowly grinned as I remembered the day she’d stood on the trailer steps, yelling all that shit through the door. I’d watched Emma through the curtain, seeing her face get all red and angry. I’d pissed her off good that time, but she had the resilience of an MMA fighter. She had never given up on me.

“You’re right. He’s got some serious dimples.” Hearing the voice, I froze as I looked over Emma’s head to the parked car. My eyes darted back and forth between them.
What the hell?

“Wyatt, um, this is Blaire. My sister.”

Emma’s twin shut the driver’s side door and came over to us. Her piercing glare seemed friendly and menacing all at the same time. They were just alike, yet very different. I felt it radiating from their personalities as well as their looks. She had the same little turned-up nose and sexy lips. But Emma’s shiny blonde hair fell in curls around her shoulders while her sister’s was held up in some stringy blob on top of her head.

“I didn’t think you drove,” I asked in confusion.

“I don’t. But she’s been driving me crazy. Wyatt. Wyatt. Wyatt. Blah. Blah. I finally just said fuck it. I’ll waste my morning in that death trap.”

“Blaire!” A nasty look passed between the girls. “Sorry, she can be an
acquired
taste.”

I laughed a little, seeing Emma with Blaire. They were both so animated and full of life. So different than me. But it felt good to be around them. They made this dark day come alive and seem real. I hated that feeling and craved it all at the same time.

“What?” Emma stared up at me and I got nervous, knowing I’d slipped away into one of my trances.

“Nothing. It’s just funny seeing both of you together.”

“Not him too.” Blaire rolled her eyes. “Please tell me you won’t fixate on it like Kurt.”

“Who’s Kurt?” I asked, feeling surprised at the sudden pang of jealousy in my chest. I shouldn’t be upset by another guy in Emma’s life. What did I really know about her or who she spent time with outside of here?

“She’s never told you about Kurt? Typical Emma.” She shook her head, making the messy blob of hair fall to the side. “Kurt is the reason her knee got messed up,
again
. And the reason I had to drive out here today because his little
obsession
put Emma in the hospital.”

13 days ago

I
CRIED. I DIDN’T WANT
to cry, but I couldn’t stop the tears. They poured down my cheeks, blocking the sun and my view of the road. I came to a complete stop in the middle of nowhere and put my car in park. Snot dripped out of my nose. Opening the center console, I found an old Sonic Drive-In napkin with traces of dried ketchup on the edges. I wiped my face with it anyway, smelling the stench of tater tots.

I’d known he was messed up. I’d known something terrible was haunting Wyatt. But I think in the back of my mind, I’d created a romantic fantasy story—one where he was the wounded hero who had lost the girl. He had loved her so deeply that it had wrecked him. And I was going to put him back together. I was going to show Wyatt that it was okay to have feelings for someone again.

But this was a different kind of tragedy. His pain was so much deeper and complex than I’d ever imagined. And he wasn’t any hero. By most people’s standards, Wyatt
was
a bad guy—just like he’d warned on all my visits.

I wrestled with my thoughts. What if I’d done something like that to Blaire? What if I’d gotten high and cracked her skull open? Just the idea caused a flash of deep guilt in my chest, which I knew she would feel all the way back into town. And I seriously doubted my twin would be as forgiving as Willa if I’d messed up
her
head.

All the twisted bits of truth caused every emotion inside my body to come alive. I thought about the rest of his story and all the people who had suffered because of his reckless stupidity. Some guy was currently sitting in a wheelchair because of Wyatt. Some guy who had been his best friend.