The Edge of Heaven (13 page)

Rye loomed over him. "Please, try it."

Mark got to his feet and turned back to Emma. "And you..."

"Come on," Rye said. "Give me an excuse."

They glared at each other for a long moment. Mark finally headed down the porch steps. He was halfway across the yard before he turned around once again.

"This is what you've been doing here behind my back?" he screamed. "Fooling around with him? This is how you treat me?"

Emma slid back behind Rye, closing her eyes and wishing she could block out the words as well as the sight of him. It was so humiliating. She'd welcomed this man into her life, trusted him.

"It's not over, Emma. I'm not done with you, you little slut."

Rye practically growled, the sound coming from deep within him. She thought for a minute he was going to go after Mark. It seemed every muscle in his body was hard as a rock right then.

"Let him go," she said. "Please. I just want him to go."

Rye turned halfway around. She slipped in under his arm and anchored herself to him. He felt like a mountain right then, strong and every bit as unyielding. She tucked her face against his chest. Mark kept yelling foul things, and Rye put his hand over her head, her ears, trying to muffle the sound.

Finally, the commotion ceased. She heard a car door open and close. Heard the engine start, the car screech away.

She stayed where she was, shaking so badly.

It had been so awful.

He was here in her town, and she was so afraid he was going to hurt her again.

* * *

"I'm sorry," she said again and again.

Rye brought her inside. He tucked an afghan around her once again, as he had that first day, and built up the fire, but she just couldn't get warm.

He brought hot tea, which he made her sip. She held it with hands that trembled so badly, the cup rattled against the saucer. It was a miracle she didn't spill it all over herself.

"I was so scared," she said finally, after she'd drunk half the cup. "And I hate being scared."

"Well, I don't know anybody who enjoys it," Rye said easily.

He settled himself on the floor in front of the fire, his back against the sofa. His arm was stretched along the cushions, his hand closing around her ankle. Just that made things a little better. As long as he was touching her.

She wanted to slip into that spot at his side. Maybe then she would feel safe again. Maybe she'd stop shaking. She was nearly there—to the point where she could have stopped shaking—when the phone rang.

She nearly jumped out of her skin, took a breath trying to calm herself, and then it rang again.

Rye picked it up and said hello. A moment later, he covered the mouthpiece with his hand and said, "It's your neighbor. Mrs. Wells. She heard some of that outside, and now she's worried about you. You need to tell her you're okay."

Emma did that and only that, then gave the phone back to Rye. He told Mrs. Wells that he was a friend of Sam's and that he'd look out for Emma, and then he hung up. They got another call just like it not five minutes later.

"Small-town living," Emma said, thoroughly ashamed. Rye hadn't really told them anything, but if they'd heard Mark yelling, they knew enough.

"They're looking out for you. That's good. I told them if they see anything suspicious to call the sheriff. You know, it's not a bad idea for you to tell him what's going on, Emma."

"You think so?"

"Cops don't always take trouble between a man and a woman seriously," he said softly, his thumb lightly rubbing the bottom of one of her feet. "If they know ahead of time there's been trouble... Well, if you need to call them, I want them here fast and to know what they're getting into."

"You don't think he'll leave, do you? Not after tonight?"

"We can hope. I was rough with him. Not just because I was so mad. I was trying to scare him. I want him to think twice about what might happen to him if he comes back. I hope I didn't just make him angrier," Rye said. "He thinks there's something going on between you and me, which might also make him madder."

"I thought it was all over," she said. "I mean, I was scared, but I didn't really think he'd come here."

On the porch of her house, screaming at her and trying to grab her.

She started to cry again. Rye pulled her down onto the floor beside him and then into his arms, into that spot she'd wanted. She pressed her face into his shoulder, into that warm, dark place that was so comforting and smelled of him.

She'd spent another lifetime, up until she was not quite twelve, being scared. It was like living with a time bomb, except there was no face on this particular clock. She knew it was ticking, but never knew when it would go off.

Mark was like that now. She didn't know where he was or what he would do. She didn't know if he was coming back.

"I hate this. I hate it so much," she said, weeping into the hollow between Rye's shoulder and his chin, wishing she could just crawl inside of his skin, because she knew she'd be safe there.

All these things she thought she'd forgotten... They were still inside of her. She remembered what it sounded like when her biological father hit her mother. She remembered the sounds her mother made, awful, pitiful sounds. She remembered hiding from him and trying to make herself as small as possible, trying not to even breathe.

"Your father?" Rye asked. "He didn't just hit your mother, did he?"

"No," she said.

He dipped his head to hear the whispered confession, kissed her softly on the cheek and then stayed there, his lips next to her right ear. "Tell me."

"It was just that once. I'd always been scared it would happen, but it only did once, and then we left. Not that we were done with him. The damage had been done to my mother's body then, and she was pregnant with Grace when we left. He found her one more time, after Grace was born, and that time, she never recovered. He's in prison now, and I promised myself I'd never be that scared again. That no one would ever make me feel like that again."

"Good for you," he said.

"I feel that way now, Rye. My father made me feel that way and now Mark has, and I'm so mad at myself for being in this position again. I'm falling apart, too, and I hate that even more."

"Shh." His breath brushed past her cheeks, her lips. He kissed her closed eyelids, kissed a tear from her cheek. "Emma. It's all right. It's done."

She sobbed, clinging to him even harder. "What makes a man think he can do that? That he has the right?"

"I don't know. But you're not going to let anyone treat you like this. This is going to be over, and you'll put it behind you."

"I don't feel fine right now. I feel like Mark could come barging in here any minute."

"Hey." He took her face in the palm of his hand and tilted it up to his. "I've got you. I'll stay right here."

"You said you had to leave."

"Well, now I've got to stay, as long as you need me." His forehead came down to rest against hers. He kissed the tip of her nose. "Promise."

"You must think I'm awful," she said, not quite able to meet his gaze. "That I'm such a mess."

"No. Just scared. You're caught up in something crazy. It happens. Life can just explode around you, and all of a sudden, nothing makes sense. You really can't do anything except hang on and try to ride it out."

"You know that?" she asked, the tears running down her face faster than he could catch them and wipe them away. "It's happened to you?"

"Yes."

"But you made it," she said. "You're okay."

"I think I'm still caught up in it, too. That really crazy time. That maybe I'm just starting to come out on the other side of it."

"Then you can hang on to me," she said.

"Emma—"

"I feel safe with you. I feel perfectly safe right here with you."

She felt the tension coming into his body. They'd been close, still were, and he'd been kind and so very tender, gentle and heartbreakingly sweet. It had been intimate without being sexual at all, and now it seemed she'd crossed that line, as she kept doing with him, and made it something else.

"I need you," she said. "I forget to be afraid when I'm this close to you. I forget how bad things are and how stupid I must have been. I can lose everything, all the bad things. In you."

And then, despite all his protests, she leaned over once again and pressed her mouth to his.

* * *

He didn't mean to let her draw him in one more time, but dammit, the woman had the sweetest-tasting mouth he'd ever known.

She was so soft, so good. Sometimes she felt like everything good in the world, all wrapped up in a tiny package and handed to him.

He'd warned her about himself every way he knew how—except to blurt out the brutal truth of who he was and what he'd done. That would solve all of this She'd run so fast in the other direction, he'd never have to worry about her being this close to him again.

But he didn't tell her, because he wanted her hands on him and her mouth. God, how he wanted it.

He tried telling himself he could have just a little bit of her, took that innocent, thank-you kiss and tried very hard to keep it light.

Necking in front of the fire with Emma.

He could do that.

Rye angled her body around until she was facing him and leaning into him, until he had her pressed securely against his body, and he could drink from her mouth, long, sweet, drugging kisses. Taste after taste after taste.

It started a slow burn deep inside of him, but he could handle slow bum. He'd wanted her right from the start and been just as determined he wouldn't ever have her. But he could have a taste of her.

"Emma." He pulled away long before he was satisfied.

She blinked up at him, looking like a woman drugged into the kind of lazy, soothing happiness that came from pure sexual pleasure. "Yes."

"Stop that," he said. "Stop tempting me."

"How do I do that?" she asked.

"God," he muttered. "You'd have to be in another state to stop."

"Well, I'm not leaving, and you promised you wouldn't, either."

"No, I won't," he reassured her. He could suffer through a little sexual frustration for the sake of keeping her safe. No problem. He knew all about sexual frustration.

And then he kissed her again. Her mouth was moist and warm, her lips the same, from all the kisses they'd already shared. Her arms slid around his rib cage and pressed against his back. It wouldn't take much to lift her onto his lap and enjoy sexual frustration at a whole new level, or maybe go to work on the buttons of her blouse. He started to sweat just thinking about it.

Long, satisfying, frustrating moments later, he lifted his head once more. "I don't think I'm going to be spending the night in the carriage house."

"I don't want you to. I want you right here."

It was probably the only place he could be where he'd know she was safe.

"Nothing's going to happen," he insisted. They'd neck in front of the fire. She could crawl all over him, if she had to, and he'd hang on tight, but nothing else.

"Okay," she agreed.

Yes, the woman needed a keeper.

"You know, you never did tell me how old you are," he said. "I'm wondering more and more just how bad that's going to be."

"It's not like I'm jailbait," she insisted.

"So we've got that going for us," he said. "But it's bad. I know it. Otherwise, you'd have told me already."

"Does it really matter? You keep insisting nothing's going to happen."

"And I keep ending up right back here. You're hard to resist, Emma."

"I think you're doing a fine job of it, myself."

"No, I'm not." He kissed her as softly and leisurely as he could manage. "Give me this, Em. Just your mouth. Wrap your arms around me and lie here in my arms and kiss me until we can't stand it anymore, until you aren't so afraid."

"You're doing this because I'm afraid?" she asked.

"No, I'm doing this because I want to. Because it's going to be a long night, and you're probably going to spend it right here in my arms. You haven't slept since the day that jerk hit you, have you?"

"No," she admitted.

"Well, you'll sleep tonight. Right here."

"I don't know what I'd have done without you."

She raised her face once again to his, so trusting, so needy. Just a kiss, he told himself. Sweet, soft Emma kisses. He'd draw them inside of him, and they'd be all the softness he knew. If a woman could ever change him, ease the hurt, squeeze out all the bad times, it would be her.

For tonight, he'd hold her close. He'd kiss her until he couldn't stand to anymore, and he'd make sure she was safe.

Chapter 7