What The Heart Knows (29 page)

“No,
see... that isn't going to work for me,” Molly said, shaking
her head. “I have a reputation to uphold in this town. I clean
private residences. I wont be having people thinking I got fired.
Nope.”

“Well
you can't stay here, Molly,” Emily said, her brows drawing
together. Was the woman mental?

“Sure
I can,” Molly said, lifting her chin in a haughty way. “For
five dollars more an hour. And you keep your mouth shut about all of
this.”

“Are
you trying to... con me? Seriously? Fine,” Emily said, shaking
her head. “I'll call Aiden and let him handle it,” she
said, reaching for the phone.

“No,”
Molly said, grabbing the old paperweight, a perfect bronze replica of
the inn, and swung.

Emily
felt the crack to the side of her face, a blinding white pain that
made her scream and stumble backward. Her arms went up to her face,
trying to protect her from another strike. But the next blow came
down hard on the side of her skull, she heard the sick crack, and
then nothing else as the world went black.

Twenty-Four

There
was a tapping at the side of her face. Insistent and annoying. She
struggled against her unconsciousness , trying to break to the
surface of the darkness holding her down. “Emily, wake up,”
she heard a voice call. Dev. But it wasn't right. He sounded frantic,
stressed. Devon never got stressed about anything. “Wake up,
wake up, wake up,” he pleaded.

“She'll
come around,” she heard another voice say. Aiden. The sheriff.
His voice was calm, reassuring. Like he had seen this kind of thing a
million times before. “Stop slapping her, Dev. She's stirring.”

The
pain came on slowly. A strange throbbing at first, pushing her closer
and closer to consciousness. Then the pounding felt sharp and
excruciating. On the side of her head, her face. A headache was
slamming behind her eyes, nauseating it was so intense. “Please
tell me I'm still pretty,” she groaned through the pain.

“Gorgeous,”
a third voice said. She struggled to place it, sounding concerned and
higher pitched than usual. Dane.

“What
are we having a party?” she asked, trying to smile, not wanting
to open her eyes yet. “Did I have too many of Maude's drinks
again?”

There
was a silence for a moment and she could tell they were looking at
her, and each other, worriedly. “Emily,” Aiden's voice
spoke again. “someone knocked you out.”

The
words sounded almost funny for a moment and then the memory came
flooding back. Molly in the office. Molly admitting to stealing.
Molly wielding the paper weight.

Her
eyes flew open, the morning light was beaming in from the window and
she cringed away from it. Morning. It was morning. “What time
is it?” she asked, reaching up to touch her sore face. Her hand
came away red.

“It's
six-fifty,” Aiden told her. “We need to get you looked
at, okay?” he asked, still calm, but she could see the worry
lines between her brows. “Dane is gonna pick you up and carry
you to the car.”

Dane
came down on his knees next to her, putting an arm around her back
and underneath her knees. “It's okay if you swoon,” he
said, trying to sound light. Failing miserably. “I'm used to
it.”

Meggie
was out in the hall, tears clinging to her lashes as she worried a
dishrag between her hands. Emily offered her a weak smile before
resting the side of her face against Dane's shoulder and letting
herself escape the pain and drift back off.

She
woke up being shuffled out of the car, looking around her. She had
been right the night before, it had snowed. Only a dusting. An inch
or so, but pretty and fresh.

When she saw where they were, she laughed. It made the pain spark off
in waves inside her head, but she couldn't help it.

Stars
Landing didn't have an official doctor. They were taking her to the
vet.

Shay
was a few years older than Emily, a pretty though somewhat plain
blonde with a soft face and dark brown eyes. She had graduated
veterinary school and came back to Stars Landing to set up a much
needed practice. Since then, it hadn't been unusual for her to have
to set the occasional fractured arm or stitch up a farmer who cut
himself open while working in the field.

Emily
was rushed into an exam room, the walls full of posters about the
importance of heartworm medicine and spaying and neutering along with
a chart describing fleas and ticks. Dane walked her over to the
silver exam table, carefully sitting her down on top of it, but
keeping an arm around her waist.

Shay
rushed in a few seconds later, grabbing gloves from a box on the
counter and slipping them on. “Em, what the heck happened to
you?” she asked in the crooning voice she used to soothe
scared
animals.

“She
was hit on the head with a paperweight,” Aiden's voice
answered. “On the side of the head and by her eye.”

“I
see that,” Shay said, reaching out to probe the spot next to
her eye. “You already have a major black eye. Most of this
blood is dry,” she said, looking up at Aiden.

“We
think it happened early this morning.”

“Late
last night,” Emily supplied. “It was late last night. I
went to Alec's house to rehire him,” she said, grimacing when
Shay probed the spot on the side of her head. She struggled to
remember what time that was and then remembered that Alec had growled
about the time at her. “It was one in the morning. A little
after. Closer to two I guess. I was heading back to my room and I
noticed the office light on.”

Aiden
had moved to stand behind Shay, watching her. He had a small notebook
pulled out and a pen, scribbling as she spoke. “Go on.”

“And
so I went to see what was going on and Molly was there. I figured she
was looking for me so we started talking. And then I got a view of
the computer and I noticed that... ouch,” she said, cringing
away from Shay's fingers.

“Sorry.”

Emily
shrugged. “I noticed that she had two windows open and that
they proved that she has been the one stealing from the inn.”

Aiden's
head jerked up at that, his brows shooting upward. “What?
Someone has been stealing? Why didn't you tell me about it?”

“I
don't know. I thought I could handle it in-house. I thought it was
Alec. And I fired him. But... it was Molly all along.”

“She
admitted to it?”

“Yeah,
she was mad because I was made manager ahead of her. So she started
skimming out of the employee benefits. The guy from EM Corp found out
and brought it to my attention.”

Aiden
nodded. “Okay. So she admitted it and then hit you?”

“She
admitted it and then thought she could convince me to keep her there
as a maid if I paid her more per hour.”

“Seriously?”
Aiden asked, smiling a little.

“Yeah.
I think she's lost it,” Emily said. “And then I said I
was going to call you... and she picked up the paperweight and hit me
here,” she said, touching her eye. “I stumbled back and
she hit me on the side of the head. I think I blacked out
immediately.”

“You're
gonna need stitches. On both sites,” Shay said when she had
finished speaking.

“Oh
joy,” Emily grumbled.

“Look,
Em,” Aiden said. “I need to go and see if Molly is still
around. Get her before she skips town and this becomes a big thing.
Are you gonna be alright here?”

“Yeah,
I'm fine,” she said, giving him a tight smile.

“Okay.
Do you mind if I steal Dane? I could use another set of hands just in
case.”

“Take
him,” she said, winking with her good eye at Dane.

“I'm
not fucking leaving you,” Dane said, crossing his arms.

“Go.
I'll call Dev or Meggie to come get me. Go get the bad guy.”

Dane
snorted. “I'm the bad guy, but fine. I'll come check on you as
soon as I'm done,” he said, leaning down and kissing the top of
her head.

The
door closed, sounding like a bomb going off in her head. Alone, Shay
reached for the phone. “No,” Emily said, waving a hand.
“I'm not calling anyone.”

“Emily...”

“I'm
fine, Shay,” Emily insisted. “I just cant deal with any
more talking. I feel like there's a jackhammer in my head right now.”

“Okay,”
Shay said, nodding. Understanding. She went into a cabinet, grabbing
and arranging a bunch of items onto a rolling tray. “I will
numb the spots then clean and stitch them. You'll be good as new in a
few weeks. But you might have a concussion so I think you should stay
in bed for a few days. Rest up. You've had quite a time of it
lately.”

If
she only knew.

Emily
sat as still as possible, gripping the cold stainless steel in her
hands as Shay went about tending to her wounds.

There
were a lot of thoughts that popped into her head in that silence.
Thoughts about the night before. About Alec and Molly. About how
stupid she had been being, slinking around the inn dressed like some
homeless person, shirking her responsibilities. Maybe if she had been
doing her job, she would have caught her own mistake. Long before he
came to bite her in the ass. She thought about the massive thank you
she owed to Devon. Who had stepped up and into her shoes, doing so
with so much ease that it was clear he had always been capable. Just
lacking ambition.

She
thought about Dane. Good, bad boy Dane. Weren't those the best kinds
of bad boys? The ones with good hearts?

Maybe
it was time to seriously start considering him. As cliché as
it sounded, he wasn't the same guy who had left six months ago. He
was more open and supportive. He seemed to actually give a damn if
she was doing alright or not. A complete one-eighty to how things
used to be. He had said he was interested. He had said he would be
there. Essentially, waiting. Until she gave him a second chance.
Until she realized he was a better man.

And
they had history. It would be easy. Easy to fall right back into his
arms. He knew all her weird little quirks. She knew which buttons not
to push. Or which ones to push for fun. They could be good for one
another. Would it be wild about each other, cant eat without you,
cant sleep without you love? No. No it wouldn't. But that love
probably didn't exist. And even if it did exist, she was not the kind
of girl who got to have that.

So
what would be wrong with their kind of relationship. She remembered
hearing once that love was friendship set on fire. Well, they had the
friendship. And when they had sex, there was definitely fire. Who
could really expect more than that?

But,
the thoughts she kept coming back to weren't about the inn. Or Dane.

They
were about James.

When
Aiden had left and she said she would call someone, the face that
popped into her mind was James. Which was so stupid. Because he
couldn't care less if she was even alive. Let alone hurt. But
regardless of the rational side to things, she wanted him there. She
wanted him to hold her hand while she got stitched up. She wanted him
to pack her into that stupid car of his and drive her back to the
inn. She wanted him to snuggle into bed with her for days until she
felt better. Then, when she was, she wanted him to fuck her into next
year. Literally. She wanted to stay in bed from Christmas to New
Years.

When
she wasn't thinking about wanting him, she was replaying all the
events of their little fling. The foot-in-mouth meeting. The first
kiss in the apple orchard, the sheer perfection of that moment. Then
the making out in the haunted corn maze. Then the lodge. Oh, the
lodge. She replayed those scenes over and over. And then, lastly, the
image of them in Hannah's kitchen.

As
Shay snipped her thread and moved to toss the used goods, Emily had
an acute sense of sadness. Not akin to the funk she had been in. This
felt different. Final. Like it was something she would always have to
feel. Like it could never be overcome. It would always be there, like
her own personal gray cloud.

She
had a one that got away.

“So
you need to keep those clean, but don't use anything harsh on them.
No alcohol or peroxide. They will eat away at the healing skin. Just
a mild soap. Maybe a salt water rinse the first day or two. But very
diluted. Don't be surprised if you feel a little nausea or light
headedness. That is natural.”
Shay
shrugged a shoulder. “I'm sorry I cant give you anything for
the pain. You can call the dentist when you leave here. He might make
an exception for this kind of situation. Or have someone take you to
the hospital when you feel up to it.”