Picking up the Pieces (16 page)

CHAPTER 30

EMERSON

“Is this a special occasion or something?” I asked my friends. It wasn’t uncommon for them to come into the diner, but to have each and every one of them there at the same time, at the same table, was pretty rare, considering they all had jobs and it was a Tuesday. My gut told me something was up.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, Emmy,” Lizzy said with a shit-eating grin. “Can’t a few friends enjoy a meal together every once in a while?”

“No,” I deadpanned. “You forget that I know all of you, and I can tell when something’s up, so you might as well spill it.” I scanned the faces of each one of them. I knew it was pointless to try and crack Savannah, Brett or Jeremy. Lizzy and Stacia were too busy laughing. Gavin was staring down at the menu like it was the most interesting thing on the planet. That left one person—the weakest link in my group of friends. “If you ever want to eat here again, Trevor, you’ll tell me what’s going on.”

“Oh come on!” he said as he slammed the menu down on the table. “That’s not fair, you know I can’t resist the food here. You went for the jugular on the first move!”

Lizzy reached over and rubbed his back. “Ah, leave him alone, Em, you know he’s sensitive when it comes to his food.”

“Damn straight,” he mumbled under his breath, still sulking.

“Someone better tell me what the hell is going on or I’m…” I didn’t get to finish my sentence before the bell over the door chimed. I turned and saw Luke walk in, determination clear as day on his face. He stalked straight over to me, grabbed my face and slammed his lips down on mine. His tongue teased the seam of my lips, and when I opened on a sharp inhale, he nipped my bottom lip before his tongue dove in and tangled with mine. It took a lot of strength, but I managed not to melt into him as he gave me one of the best kisses of my life. I somehow managed to keep my hands clenched at my sides, but it was so hard not to grab hold of his hair and lose myself in him.

When he pulled back, we were both breathing hard. “Kiss me back, Emmy,” he demanded as he leaned back in to me.

“No,” I whispered weakly against his lips. I knew that the longer he had me in his grip, the closer I’d be to resisting. I had to end this somehow.

“Kiss. Me .Back.” His teeth were clenched as he pushed each word out angrily.

“NO!” I tried to jerk away from him but he held tight to my biceps and wouldn’t let go. A quick glance at my friends’ table showed me that they knew this exact scenario was going to occur, and they’d come for front row seats. “I hate you guys,” I muttered to them.

“We’re gonna talk right now whether you like it or not,” Luke demanded as he dragged me to the front door of the diner.

Pulling my arm with all of my might wasn’t enough to get him to let go, so I planted my feet and tried my best not to budge. “There’s nothing to say, Luke. Let me go, and get out!”

I was looking around to see how public our little scene had become, so I didn’t notice him pulling his cuffs out of his back pocket. The clink of metal had me dragging my attention to where his hand was wrapped around my wrist. One of the cuffs was wrapped around my wrist, the other around his. “Have you gone mental? Uncuff me right now!”

“Not until you talk to me!”

I looked around frantically at the diners sitting at their tables. “Do y’all see this?” I asked, raising the hand that was cuffed to Luke in the air. “He’s gone off the reservation! Someone call the sheriff!” Everyone quickly turned their heads from me and Luke and concentrated on their tables, including my soon-to-be ex friends. “That’s it!” I hollered. “Y’all are all banned from Virgie May’s. Every damn one of you!”

Luke started dragging me to the door, and I noticed Savannah jumping up and putting on an apron. “Order up, Lenny,” she called out to my cook.

“You don’t say order up, Savannah. I say order up.”

“What the hell ever. Just get me some damn food to serve these people!” That was the last I heard before the door closed behind me and I was pulled through the parking lot. “Where are you taking me?” I asked as I jerked on the cuffs to test the resistance. I wasn’t getting away.

“Get in,” was all he said in return. Luke opened the door of his cruiser and pushed me into the back seat, not very gently I might add. He took the keys to the cuffs out of his pocket and unlocked me right before slamming the door shut.

“The back seat? Is that really necessary, Luke?”

He shifted himself into the driver’s seat and started up the car. “At least this way, I know you won’t be able to run.”

He shifted into drive and pulled out of the parking lot. I sat in the back with my arms crossed over my chest and stared out the window. I
refused
to talk to him while he was acting like an ass hat.

I stayed that way for several minutes as he drove, completely silent and taking in the scenery… until I noticed where we were. I sat ramrod-straight in the seat back seat. “No Luke, take me back right now!”

He didn’t listen to me. He just turned off the car and got out. When he opened the back door and blocked me in so I couldn’t make a run for it, he pulled the cuffs out of his pocket and locked us back together. “I’m serious, I can’t do this. You need to take me back.” It wasn’t hard to see that my pleading with him had an effect, but he held strong to his goal, whatever that was.

He took my face in both of his hands and looked into my eyes. The love I saw behind his eyes caused me to tear up. “I need you to trust me, Emmy. I know I don’t have the right to ask that, but please, just trust me this one time, okay?”

I don’t know what came over me, but at that moment, I just knew he wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. Looking at his face, I could tell that I could trust him with what he was about to do. And what’s more, I
wanted
to trust him so badly. Not being able to speak past the lump in my throat, I just nodded my head as a few tears slipped down my cheek.

He took the hand that was cuffed to his and interlaced our fingers before he started walking. I didn’t know how he knew where he was going, and I wasn’t going to bother asking. I could walk the path with my eyes closed so I just stared at th
e ground and followed his lead.

We finally stopped on the little hill when Ella’s grave marker came into my line of vision. “Why’d you bring me here?” I asked on a whisper.

With a finger beneath my chin, he lifted my face to look at him. He wiped away my tears with his free hand and studied my expression before speaking. “Because I wanted to make a promise to you in front of
our
daughter.” I let out a strangled sob and fell into Luke’s chest. He wrapped both arms around me and pressed his lips to the top of my head. “I promise to always be here when you need me,” he stated strongly. “I don’t want to live in the past anymore, Emmy. I’m not the same stupid kid I was then, and I will
never
make brash decisions again where you’re concerned. I’m a man who knows what he wants and what he needs, and what I need is
you.
I promise that I’ll never disappear on you again. I can’t promise that I won’t hurt you ever again, because I’m a guy and it’s in our genetic makeup to do stupid-ass shit, but I will promise never to cause you any pain intentionally.”

I looked up into Luke’s beautiful emerald eyes as he continued. “When bad things happen, I promise that I’m going to be the one that you lean on, and I will do everything in my power to make it better. I promise that if you take me back, I’ll wake up every day with the single goal of making you smile, because when you smile, everything is right in my world.

“My life isn’t complete without you in it, and I want you to know that I will
always
love you. There has never been anyone else for me. I’m going to love you until the day I die, Emmy. I just hope it doesn’t have to be from a distance.”

“Luke…” He placed a finger over my lips to stop me.

“I’m not giving up, Emmy. You need to know that.” A smirk slowly spread across his lips. “You should just spare yourself the trouble, and take me back now.”

His grin was infectious; I found myself smiling back at him. “And if I don’t?” I asked as a challenge.

He ran his fingers through the length of my hair and looked at the sky as if he was contemplating his response. “Let’s just say, I’ve got a few things up my sleeve that have the potential of making you a very miserable person.”

I threw my head back and laughed. “That doesn’t make me want to give you a second chance, Luke.”

“Oh, it will. The things I have in mind will break you down completely. I’m not above cheating.”

I traced the outline of his jaw with my index finger, watching my movements as I went along. “Good to know,” I murmured to him.

“So what do you say, baby girl. You forgive me?” He started running his lips up and down the sensitive part of my neck, between my ear and shoulder.

“Depends.” My voice came out deep and filled with lust.

“On what?” he asked as he traced the shell of my ear.

I pulled away from him and lifted our hands in front of his face. “On whether or not you plan on uncuffing me anytime soon!” I punched him on his arm for good measure.

He looked at the cuffs curiously. “I don’t know, baby girl. I can think of a few things we both might have fun with involving these cuffs.”

A shiver worked its way down my spine. I really liked where his mind was going. He could tell what I was thinking by the look on my face and leaned down to give me a kiss. “I’ll love you forever, baby girl.”

Grabbing hold of his hair tightly, I lifted up onto the balls of my feet to intensify the kiss. “I’ll love you forever, too, Luke.”

EPILOGUE

THREE MONTHS LATER

“Oh God, baby, that’s so good.” My head collapsed onto the pillow beneath it as Luke slowly moved up from between my thighs. I caught the cocky glint in his eyes as he hovered over me. “Proud of yourself?” I asked sarcastically.

“Mmm,” he buried his face in my neck. “I love how ready for me you always are.” He moved back to my lips and gave me a feverish kiss as he pushed inside of me.

“Ooohhhh, Luke,” I moaned before realizing something important. I put my hands on his shoulders in order to halt his movement. “Condom baby. You forgot a condom.”

He kept up his relentless pace, in and out, in and out, it felt amazing. “Didn’t forget, baby girl. I don’t want anything between us from now on.”

It was so hard to pull myself out of the lust-filled haze Luke was pulling me into, but what he was saying was insane! “Are you crazy? You know I’m not on the pill, Luke.”

He pushed in to the hilt and stopped thrusting. He stared down at me with such seriousness that it freaked me out a little. “I know, baby. I want this with you. I want to be here with you every day while you get bigger and bigger with my baby in your belly.”

That shocked the shit out of me. “First off, you can’t just decide to knock me up without my consent. Secondly, referring to me as getting bigger and bigger makes me want to punch you in the face.”

I knew it was weird to have this kind of conversation in the middle of sex, but that was just the kind of relationship Luke and I had. Everything about it was passionate. We fought with passion, and we loved with passion. It had gotten to the point where our public displays of affection made our friends gag, but our public fights were pure entertainment for everyone around us. It was how we were, and we were both cool with it.

“I’m not going to knock you up without your consent, Emmy. I fully intend on putting a ring on it first.”

I slapped him in his shoulder as hard as I could. “You did
not
just quote Beyonce while you’re still inside me! That better not have been a proposal. If that’s how you ask me to marry you, I’m telling you right now, I’ll say no.”

“Woman, can we finish this conversation after we’ve finished? You’re so much more agreeable after I’ve given it to you good.”

I almost smacked him again, but he started moving his hips, all powerful and fast; I totally lost all train of thought.

***

A while later, Luke and I were laying in my bed trying to catch our breath. I was resting my head on his chest and had one arm draped across his torso. He was running one hand up and down my spine in a slow, leisurely pace while his other hand played with my left ring finger. “That wasn’t the real proposal, you know,” he said after several minutes of quiet.

I smiled and pressed a kiss into his stomach. “Good. Because there’s no way in hell I would have accepted. Informing me you’re trying to knock me up and saying you’re gonna
put a ring on it
while you’re nailing me doesn’t exactly scream romance, Luke.”

I felt his chest rise and fall as he laughed at me. “Trust me, when I propose for real, you’re gonna freak. I’ve got it all planned out. No way you’ll turn me down.”

I rested both hands on his chest and placed my chin on them so I could look into those eyes I loved so much. “You sound confident,” I chided.

“Oh, baby girl. You’ve got no clue.” He leaned forward and placed a kiss on my lips before laying back against the pillow. “And it’s comin’ soon, so you better be prepared.”

I laughed at the beautiful man in front of me. “I consider myself warned, Deputy Allen.”

“I want a family with you, Emmy,” he said seriously. My laughter stopped at his tone and I became as serious as he was. “I wasn’t here for Ella, and I wish I’d been there for the good and the bad. I want you as my wife, and I want us to have a family.”

“Okay,” I whispered. There was nothing else to say. Everything he’d just told me he wanted was exactly what I wanted also. I wanted a wedding. I wanted to marry Luke and have his children. I couldn’t picture a life without him in it. It might be fast for some people, but for me and Luke, it felt like the logical next step.

About a month into our “official” relationship, Luke decided it was time we lived together. So one day he showed up at my house with all his shit packed in boxes and went about moving himself in. I didn’t really have a problem with that seeing as I hated his rat-hole apartment, and staying the night with Luke while Trevor was in the next room, wasn’t exactly a turn on. Trevor didn’t seem to mind the condition of the apartment so he was happily staying there, roommate free.

“Okay?” he asked, shocked that I agreed so easily.

“Yeah,” I smiled. “I said okay. But you still have to propose all proper like, Lucas Allen!”

“You got it, Emerson Grace soon-to-be-Allen.”

With that settled, we fell back into a companionable silence for a few more minutes. “How’s Savannah doing?” Luke finally asked.

I took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds before releasing it. “She’s okay, I guess. She still won’t talk about it and acts like everything is okay, but I know it’s all an act. I hate seeing her like this.” About a month ago I hired a new waitress at the diner. No one expected for Jeremy to ever move on from Savannah, but when he walked into the diner on her first day, he spotted Charlotte and there seemed to be an instant attraction. The two of them had been attached at the hip for the past three weeks. Savannah had been trying to act like it didn’t bother her, but I’d caught her looking in their direction several times; the expression on her face breaks my heart.

Luke started the hair thing again. He knew it was soothing for me when he ran his fingers along my scalp and through my hair. “I know, baby. I’m sure it’ll all work out.”

Pushing the sad thought to the back of my mind, I pushed off Luke and climbed out of bed. “Speaking of Savannah… If I don’t get my ass in gear, I’m gonna be late, and you know she’ll kill me if I make her late for a sale at Nordstrom’s.”

I quickly pulled on my clothes and started running a brush through my mussed-up hair.

“You sure I can’t talk you into staying?” Luke asked. I glanced over at him lying in my bed. Correction…
our
bed. His hands were behind his head, accentuating his sexy biceps. My eyes roamed over his pecs and all the way down his chiseled abs to where the sheet was covering him. He really was mouthwatering.

But I had something else planned. I loved Luke, and because of that, there were things about him that I had to put up with. But there was one situation in particular that still required my retaliation. I made my way back to the bed with a little extra sway in my hips. “Baby, I’d love to join you in bed all day,” I pouted. “But Savannah will kill me if I don’t show.”

I watched him watch me as I placed my knee on the bed and straddled his waist. I leaned in for a kiss as he took my hands in his and laced our fingers together like he always does. It was perfect. I moved our joined hands above his head, and he was so consumed with the kiss that he didn’t even register the metal clinking against the brass frame of the headboard.

I quickly pulled away and hopped off the bed. Luke looked at me with a confused expression; I could practically see all the pieces clicking together in his mind. “Emmy, what do you think you’re doin’?” he asked as he jerked his hands against the cuffs that kept him attached to the bed.

“This’ll teach you to cuff my ass to you in public.” I walked back to the bathroom and put a coat of gloss on my lips before grabbing my purse and slinging it over my shoulder.

“Emmy, you can’t leave my cuffed to the bed while you go shopping. You’ll be gone for hours!” The irritation in his face made it an even sweeter victory.

I hopped over him and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “I’ll try not to be too long, baby, but I can’t make any promises. I love you.”

I headed out the door laughing hysterically as he yelled my name over and over, cussing me very colorfully. I was asking for it. I knew his payback would be brutal, but I loved this. I couldn’t wait to spend the rest of my life with Luke. We were going to have so much fun.

THE END!