Page 90 of Needing Your Love
What the fuck had happened?
Even worse, why the fuck did my brain care when my body was repulsed by her presence?
Needing space, I pushed her at arm’s length, trying to smile. “Let’s sit in the living room. You can tell me what’s going on, and we’ll see if we can get you some help, okay?”
She nodded, sniffling and shuffling where I’d motioned.
I kept a foot between us while sitting and ignored the hand she reached out in hopes I would take.
Darla might need an anchor right now, but I couldn’t give her any further piece of me, no matter my natural inclinations pushed me to lay down my life as I would for any person inside my town’s limits.
“I’m sorry for showing up like this, but you never returned my calls,” she whispered.
And she knew me well enough to trust I wouldn’t turn her away if she showed up looking like she did.
Manipulation at its finest.
Heat curled in my guts, but I couldn’t be anyone other than the caretaker of everyone who walked inside my town’s limits.
“Tell me what happened,” I muttered, ready to move this shit along so I could get on with my day with the only person I wanted in my personal space.
A shiver raised the hairs on the back of my neck, and I rubbed at them, giving Darla my full focus until I no longer could. We might have five minutes—forty. Who knew with Jimmy. But what a shit show awaited if his emotions got the best of him before I could explain her presence in the house.
“I’ve gotten in too deep with an abusive man,” she whispered, swiping a forearm across her wet cheeks.
No news there. Her voicemail woes had been confirmed the second I’d laid eyes on her face.
The front door slammed inward, smashing against the wall.
“Dad!” Jamie hollered, and I cursed, my eyes shutting for a brief second as his footsteps stomped toward us. “Dad—” He pulled up alongside the couch, dark blue eyes blazing as they landed on his mom. “What thefuckare you doing here?” He spun on me. “And why the fuck would you let her inside this house and send Jimmy packing? That boy is head over heels in love with you, and you’d give him up for…her?” The questions spewed in a low, hissed voice, his shoulders tensed, hands fisted at his sides.
“Jimmy…” I glanced over my shoulder toward the hallway and stairs beyond.
“I just saw him outside. He took off like his ass was on fire, Dad—what the actual fuck!” Jamie trembled in his anger, and I did the same but for a whole different reason.
I shot to my feet to go after my sweet boy, a swell of emotion threatening to choke the air from my lungs. My heartbeat raced, causing pain to lance through my chest. Had to find him. Hold him. Assure him I would never?—
Jamie grabbed my shoulder, keeping me in place. “Don’t bother. He’s already gone.”
My entire body stalled out, muscles sagging. “W-What?”
“Gone. Sped off in his car.”
I swayed on my feet. What thefuckhad I done? Outside my son, Jimmy was the only one that mattered. My old instincts had betrayed me, allowed a viper over the threshold of my safe place, the house that I hoped Jimmy would call home.
Jamie glared at Darla, and she hunkered in on herself further, eyes downcast. “Dad finally has shit going his way, and you come crawling back with your filthy tail between your legs?” He huffed, and had we been outside, I didn’t doubt he’d have spat on the ground. “Babs called me because she saw you driving downtown and knew she’d go to the most gracious man in this town. Babs tried your cell too, Dad, but I’m guessing you didn’t get the warning.”
Jimmy and I had both shut our phones off for the day since neither of us wanted our privacy to be intruded upon. And I’d opened the goddamned door without looking out the window. Had my sweet boy seen us hugging? Sitting on the couch together?
Jamie continued to hold me up, and I didn’t pull away.
A whine built low in my gut, and I swallowed hard as my eyes began to sting. I couldn’t break down and lose my shit. Right now, I needed to be the oak everyone saw me as—for myself. Then Jimmy. One fucking step at a time to set this shit straight.
“Darla, go upstairs and shower in the guest bathroom,” I ordered, trying but failing to use my chief’s voice. “I’ll find something for you to wear.” I grimaced at the truth that only Jimmy’s clothes would come close to fitting her small form.
“Sutton—”
“Darla!” Jamie hissed. “For once in your goddamned life, do what he tells you without arguing. And you’d better pray like fuck he’s planning to be more gracious than I am, because if shitwent my way, you’d be out the door on your ass right this second, just as awful looking as you showed up—un-fucking-invited!”
