“Bitch, you slept with my boyfriend?!”
“I fucking did, you little bitch. Watchu gon’ DO?”
“Say that to my face!”
“What the fuck do you think I’m doing now, you dumb piece of shit tramp!!?”
Emma rubbed her eyes as she tried to keep up with yet another episode of Jerry Springer. The screaming match on the telly escalated and she turned it down lest it disturb the inhabitant of the room next door to her.
She’d awoken at around ten in the morning, after spending an excruciatingly restless night and instead of being productive and working on her art like she was supposed to, she’d turned on the little box TV in the guest room and had been binge watching trash day time television since. She hadn’t seen Jerry Springer since she was about 13 years old, and the mind numbingly simple mindedness of the people that were on it was almost refreshing. Honestly. Her life would probably just be a lot more simple if she was 19, sleeping with her brother’s girlfriends cheating ex-boyfriends baby mama’s son and being paid to fight it out on television. She would take that over her life any day.
She had barely slept, unable to get all that had happened out of her head. At first, she’d managed to convince herself that the wine had made her imagine it all. But then the wine began to wear off and she had to face the reality that what had transpired between Hunter and herself was very much very real.
She muted her internal dialogue as the two women on Jerry Springer began to lunge at each other in an attempt to pull each other’s hair out. No matter how many episodes she watched of this show, the mindless insanity of those who were on it never ceased to amaze her.
She hadn’t stepped outside of her room. Once Hunter had left, she had immediately bee-lined it for the guest bedroom, and had basically locked herself inside. Water? Who needed it. Fresh air? For the weak. Food? That was a thing of the past.
She had her banana after all.
It may be unrealistic of her, but she was basically going to try and avoid Hunter for the rest of her mortal life. Sure, living in his house made things difficult but a valiant attempt would be given if anything.
She still couldn’t believe she had kissed him. She groaned as it all came flashing back to her. Fuck! Why had she kissed him?
God, it had felt so good.
But why had she done it?
Despite forcing herself to forget about everything that had happened last night, she couldn’t help it as her mind replayed his words.
When I fuck you, because I will, it’ll be when you’re sober, and you’ll be begging for it.
Her abdomen clenched in anticipation as she remembered, and her chest took a heady breath.
But no.
Hunter had admitted to her last night that he had wanted to hurt her. To make her pay for her father’s sins. That was some messed up shit. That wasn’t just messed up. That was Freud-messed up, and it made her feel anxious, hurt, and distrustful of pretty much anybody in this town. If the God damn sheriff had it out for her (and this particular sheriff was on her police case, of all things), then who knew who else could?
She bit her nails, and almost jumped out of her skin as she heard the bathroom door creak to a close from the hallway outside. Ok. Hunter was moving.
She had fallen asleep at some point, despite feeling unnervingly edgy. So at what time Hunter came home, she didn’t know, but she hadn’t heard any movement from his side of the room until five minutes ago when she had heard him shuffling around his room. The tension was so palpable that she wondered if he could feel it on his end too. It felt like it was suffocating her.
What was she supposed to do when the very man who hated her father was the one she wanted most? It was quite literally her body against her brain.
She knew that the struggle between the two distinct forces of the human body was a struggle well documented since man could think. Fucking dinosaurs probably dealt with that shit too. Had nobody come up with a resound solution, a step-by-step guide of what to do when one was in it?
She pulled up her phone and went on Wikipedia just to see if there was in fact, a guide to a situation like this when she heard the bathroom door open and his footsteps cross the hall.
Emma held her breath as he passed her door. He paused, took a step back and lingered.
Immediately, her face flushed red. Please don’t knock. Please don’t knock. Please don’t knock.
When she heard the floorboard creak and Hunter take a step away, she was almost delirious with relief. She wasn’t particularly religious but in this moment, she’d pray to sweet baby Jesus if she knew how.
A few minutes later, she heard the front door close shut and that was when she finally turned off the TV. After a few minutes in silence, and only after hearing the engine of his car rev and fade away, was she certain that he was gone.
She had a lot to do. She needed to start painting, and then she needed to head over to the local pub to start her training as a waitress. She didn’t officially start until next weekend but the manager had sent her a text asking if she could come in today to familiarize herself with the bar, the drinks and the food. On top of that, she wanted to stop by the hospital to see if Clayton was okay, what with all those broken bones. It would only be the appropriate thing to do, and had nothing to do with, er, trying to show the town that she had a good heart and that people needed to back off. All of this – before this dinner she was supposedly going to at Hunter’s brother’s house.
How was she supposed to avoid him for the rest of her mortal life if she had to go to his brother’s dinner party? Hopefully Jessica would come to her senses and cancel it – that would be ideal.
It was with a sense of trepidation that she finally turned the doorknob of the guest room and scurried to the bathroom for her morning shower.
x.x
She hadn’t painted in so long that she spent the first hour simply staring at the white canvas and idly running her fingers over it. Art was so much easier when you weren’t stressing about how much you could sell it for, and if it would bring in some profit. When she finally began to paint the outlines of an idea she had, her alarm rang signaling that it was time to get a move on.
It had snowed a little bit during the night, just as she’d predicted, and the roads were covered in a thin, layer of whiteness that crunched under her every footstep. The wind had become bitingly cold, and since she wasn’t ready to contract hypothermia, she had snuck into Hunter’s bedroom and stolen a jacket. She’d be back before him, and he’d be none the wiser.
The town was quieter today, which was expected since it was Sunday and everyone was probably either at Church or at home with their families. Even the local cafes and bakeries were closed, and the only people she saw were the ones walking down the sidewalk, a leashed puppy in hand. She was getting less stares this time around, and even some awkward nods of acknowledgement. As if people had begun to admit that she was in fact, here and not leaving.
But she probably did her self-image no good by simply staring back. Every single person that passed was someone who could’ve potentially sabotaged her living room, and sent her that packaged box two nights prior. When the harbor came into view, she used the sound of the crashing waves to calm herself down. She was becoming paranoid for no good reason. This wasn’t her. She was always a little strange – sure, but paranoid strange just meant creepy, and Emma was not creepy.
The town centre was a little busier than the outskirts, and she managed to find the hospital without an issue. It was a dingy, run down building with the smell of medicinal wash soaked into every surface, corner and counter. She went up to the front desk, and tried not to acknowledge the fact that the nurse was completely judging the oversized winter jacket she was wearing.
“Hi, I’m here to see Clayton…” she trailed off as she realized she didn’t know his last name. “He was admitted last night for falling down-.”
“Down the hall, to your right, room 1056.”
“Thanks,” she gave a smile anyway and then traipsed down the hall, feeling a little nervous. When she turned around the corner, she saw a gaggle of people going in and out of the room, and she blanched.
Shoot. Why hadn’t she predicted that there’d be other people here to see him? Now it looked way too strange for her to show up to see if he was doing okay.
Feet frozen, she literally did a pivot on the ground and began to walk back when she heard her name called out, “Emma?”
She cringed, and turned to see a short, small lady fussing about with a basket of something by the door. Four other people were now staring at her, intrigue and amusement in their eyes.
“Clayton said you might be coming around, I’m his ma. Go in in.”
“Okay,” was her awkwardly short response. Face burning, as it seemed to be doing a lot these days, she walked by the rest of Clayton’s family and into the room.
“Hey!” He smiled awkwardly at once, craning his head to see her properly. The room was small but brightly lit from the sunlight outside, and crowded with flowers, chocolates and teddy bears. You’d think he’d given birth or something.
“How are you?” She asked as she took him in. His leg was in a cast that went straight up to his thigh, and his hips were tightly bandaged. “Yikes, that looks painful.”
“I’m on so many drugs, I can’t even feel it.”
“Well, that’s always a good thing.”
His brown hair was tousled and his green eyes smiled warmly up at her. “You know, I’ve always said that I’d be clean until I was about eighty-five, and then I’d take up smoking, binge drinking, drugs…”
“Yeah, I think that’s the morphine talking right now,” she snorted, “but hey, if you’re 85 at living life like a rock star, all the power to you.”
His mom was lingering a little too close by the room entrance which made it really obvious she was trying to eavesdrop. Behind her, she could hear the group of ladies talking about their weekly book club, and how a supposed Sharon had wronged them all by lying about meeting the author.
“Is that Sheriff Stone’s jacket?” He asked, a befuddled look glazing over his eyes.
Emma’s cheeks went pink as she remembered what she was wearing and then quickly shrugged it off, letting it fall to the back of the chair. “Yeah, I haven’t had time to go shopping yet and I needed a winter jacket.”
“You seem to always be wearing his clothes when I see you, and now you’re living at his house. Should I be backing off?”
“Uh, no,” her voice was a few octaves too high, but she pummeled through. “He’s just, making sure I’m taken care of.”
His mother murmured something behind her and she snapped her back to see what it was. She swore she heard her say a little too much, if you ask me but at first glance, her mother was actively engaged in a conversation with a woman named Ruth.
“How did you fall?” Emma asked, slowly turning her head back and changing the subject simultaneously, “looks like you had quite the fall.”
“Well, there’s a spot out northwest that’s good for fishing in the wintertime so I went with my dad a day ago for his 60th birthday. We were heading back that afternoon when I fell down the stairs at the dock, you know – the ones that lead up to where the cargo boats dock.”
“Hmm,” Emma hummed sympathetically, while crossing him off the suspect list at the same time. If he’d sailed out to go fishing with his dad a day ago, then he wouldn’t have been back in time to leave that package. She mentally sighed in relief. She did not want to lose the one ally she had in this town.
“The moment I’m out of this place, I’m taking you out for drinks – okay?”
“Okay,” she cocked her head to the side and smiled, wondering if he’d remember any of this once the morphine was gone.
“And Hunter Sheriff Stone has nothing on me. If we compare games, I’m a level 90 warlock and he’s a level 21 priest.”
At this point, she had no idea what he was saying but she found herself giggling along, and stayed for 30 minutes to have a conversation that went in circles. They spoke about how bright the lights were, how Clayton felt like he was floating, how annoying his mother was, and that he hospital food tasted like it was from a Michelin star restaurant that had been closed down due to a rat control problem.
She began to wrap up when her phone buzzed in her pocket, a sign that she needed to be wrapping up to go to the bar for her waitress training. After giving him an awkward hug goodbye, and an awkward smile to his mother and friends, she headed to the local pub.
Antony, the pub owner, was waiting for her the moment she got in. Sitting on a stool with a foamy jug of beer clasped in his hand, he beckoned her over once they made eye contact. He was an older man, in his mid-50s, but with a body that was still fairly in shape. Running around the bar on his feet had kept him in check, but the beer belly was slowly poking its way through. The pub itself wasn’t the grimiest pub she’d been to. It had a weird sort of cozy allure to it. The music was always something from the 50s, the wall décor was of antique record albums from the past century and the dim ceiling lamps hung low. The one time she’d stepped in yesterday, she’d seen some old grannies coming in to share a cocktail too. So the fact that it wasn’t an undercover sex ring was a relief.
Antony began talking once they reached the back office. “Hey, here’s your uniform. You’ll be shadowing Kat for the next few hours. It’s only three so it’ll be pretty dead until five, that’s when it picks up. So you’ll have time to get a hang of things.”
She nodded as he went over key details; hours, pay, tipping rules, capping someone when they’ve had too much, calling a cab, and all that fun stuff that comes with working in a bar. She found the entire exchange actually quite stress relieving. Not once did Antony mention her dad, question when she’d moved into town, or treat her with any sort of diffidence. She was just a regular new employee, at a regular bar.
Kat was a different story. Busty, blonde, and basically a bombshell, the moment Antony left the two alone, she immediately began pummelling her with questions.
“So is it true you’re sleeping with the sheriff?”
“Huh?” Emma asked, thrown completely off balance. “No, it’s not true.”
“You don’t have to lie to me. Every girl under the age of thirty has her panties in knots for the guy.”
She didn’t even feel like justifying the comment with her response. “I’m going to change into the uniform.”
“Sure,” she gave her a bright smile and showed her the bathroom.
Despite being a size too small, which she assumed as the point of the thin, the uniform was bearable and what was expected. Short, denim shorts and a white tank top that just about covered her mid-riff. It probably went against some sort of workplace law in some province of Canada, but she wasn’t offended enough to complain.
Kat was there, waiting for her, the moment she got out. “Looks good, Em. Can I call you that?”
“Sure,” she was going to be a hard one to handle.
“So you’re really not sleeping with Sheriff Stone?”
“Really,” she impressed, wanting to get out of the bathroom hallway so that they could end the conversation. “Is that what people are saying?”
“I mean, yeah. The two knows that you got evacuated from your house. People don’t think too highly of you so they assumed the worst I guess.”
“I see,” Emma gave a lopsided shrug. “Well, sorry that I have no gossip for you.”
“That’s okay,” Kat gave a hearty shrug back, “I’ve always wanted to know what he’s like in bed but he’s shut me down more times than I can count now.”
Wow, she was an over-sharer. “How long have you been working here?”
“Since I was nineteen. People tip well when they’re drunk so it’s a good gig to have. Let me go over the drinks with you.”
Kat spent the next thirty minutes going over the most popular cocktails, the beers they usually have on tap, and all the liquors they kept under the counter. Despite being incredibly nosy, and sort of out of it, she had a sort of ‘what you see is what you get,’ personality which was refreshing to say the least.
“Why did you move back?” She asked abruptly, once they were done with going over the range of alcohol the place had to offer. “I mean, I’ve been dying to move away from this shit hole since I could think. Why on earth would you come back here?”
For reasons she couldn’t understand, she found herself telling the girl the truth. “I’m broke and my dad left me his house.”
“Shitty.”
“Yeah.”
“Is it a good place?”
“It’s fine.”
“Oh, right. It got vandalized right?”
“You heard about that?
“Yeah, I forget who was talking about it. I felt bad for you but then I thought you got a good gig out of it seeing as the sheriff invited you to stay at his house.”
Emma actually laughed, “Do you have that much of a crush on him?”
“Have you seen him? He could be in sports illustrated. And he’s actually nice. Men that look like him usually don’t behave the way he does.”
Oh, if Kat knew how Hunter actually behaved…
“He’s not my type.”
“Girl, please,” she rolled her dazzling blue eyes and pursed her red-stained lips, “he’s everyone type. And his brother? I had a day of mourning the day Ernest got engaged.”
Emma found herself giggling and then followed Kat who then named off the numbers of the table, and went over the food menu items. She filled her in on the bar’s busiest days (the weekends), the regulars (basically all the men, and a few women of the town), and odd things that had happened here and there.
By the time she was done going over a few things, people had begun to mill in and Kat divided half of the bar and pub to Emma.
And for the first time in forever, she wasn’t even nervous or filled with apprehension. The stares and quiet murmuring she was used to, the menu and drinks were easy enough to get a hold of, and it finally felt like she was beginning to get her plan of ‘save money to get out of here’ started. Sure, she was about 90% slower than Kat was at running around and completing orders but today was just her training. She’d get used to it.
And literally one hour later, she was biting her own words. Her face felt like it was permanently flushed as she was running around, filling glasses, getting orders, checking them in at the kitchen, and mixing up the table numbers. Wasn’t today supposed to be training and job shadowing only!!? She’d been thrown into the deep end without warning.
At half past seven, she bumped into Kat again behind the bar. Emma was pretty sure her back was damp with sweat (thank God that shirt was white), but Kat looked like she’d just been lounging in the sun. As an aside, she couldn’t understand how Kat was so tanned. Who was that shade of orange in the dead of winter?
“Is it always this busy?”
“No, not at all actually,” Kat shaved the froth off of the Stella she’d poured. “I think it’s you.”
Emma raised an eyebrow in disbelief, “are you joking me right now?”
“You’re a celebrity, don’t you know?”
Emma took a moment to level her breathing and then grabbed a bottle of Heineken so that she could busy her hands and not punch somebody. “What exactly is my dad infamous for?”
“Girl, you don’t know?” She whistled under her breath, “What isn’t he famous for? Climbing up telephone poles and cutting town wires because he was pissed off, sleeping with the mayor’s wife, being in the drunk tank more times than anyone can count, but I guess what really got everyone really stinkin’ upset was the lighthouse accident.”
“What was that?”
Kat shifted uncomfortably, “Girl, should I even be telling you these things? I hope you’re not going to go home and do some depressing shit because of daddy issues. I have enough of those in my life, I don’t need yours.”
“Kat, you don’t have to worry about me.”
“Right, because you’re sleeping with the Sheriff.”
“I am not.”
“Then maybe you should be.”
Antony came out from the back office, “Emma, can you cover table 4? They’ve been waiting for a while.”
She sighed, “Kat. We are not done with this conversation.”
“Can you sleep with him? For me, at least?” she whispered in jest before Emma went to the table by the window with menus in hand.
As she approached, she wondered which bad Hollywood movie someone had plunked her in. She took a steady breath before basically slamming the menus down on the table.
Ernest looked up from cooing to his baby boy to give her a widespread grin, “hey Emma!”
“Emma!” Molly nearly jumped across her father’s lap to give Emma a hug. “I MISSED YOU.”
“Hey,” she said weakly and then gave both Hunter and Jessica a tight smile. “The whole family’s here.”
Jessica seemed unfazed by her enthusiasm, “yeah, well when we heard you were working here today, we thought, why not just surprise you here instead? We don’t usually come down here, so it was a nice chance.”
“Nice uniform,” Hunter muttered, and Emma was then excruciatingly aware of a trickle of sweat slipping down the middle of her back. She felt her abdomen clench, and suddenly wished she wasn’t in something so fucking tight and nearly see-through. “How’s day 1 going?”
Emma let go of Molly and carefully plonked her next to her older brother, who was busy chewing his nails. “It’s fine,” well – it was, until they got here. She was even OK with the fact the entire town was here to see the daughter of her infamous devil-like dad. “You guys didn’t have to come all the way here. My shift is done in two hours, I would’ve made it to dinner.”
“Oh, no but we wanted to see you in your element,” Jessica said, and then looked around as she saw that a few eyes in the bar were on them, “I think people are waiting. Don’t worry about us, we’ll wave when we’re ready to order!”
Thank God she could leave.
From then, it was downhill.
She kept trying to get Kat’s attention, so that she could finish the story and tell her about this supposed lighthouse incident but whenever the two would meet up at the bar, somebody else needed a drink, or a refill, or an appetizer, or a meal.
And then, things began to get strange. As people began to get drunker, lips began to get looser. She ignored the first few times someone muttered something derogatory to her in passing, but when it changed to hidden chuckles and snickering, she felt something chip away at the armor she always had in placed around her heart.
One table, of four twenty-something year olds in particular, kept sending back all she’d bring them, complaining about the color, look, texture and smell of everything from the dessert to the drinks.
Another table kept dropping their cutlery on the floor, asking her to pick it up. Another table kept changing their orders, so that she was constantly running around. She heard someone call her a little tramp, another told her to go back to where she belonged.
Throughout it all, her face felt hotter and her spirit felt dampened, but she began to feel a new thing entirely. A complete defiance, and strength that the last thing anybody here would see would be a clink in her reserve. She’d break before she’d bend, and the only thing that the townsfolk were accomplishing was making her believe that they deserved whatever hell her father had thrown at him.
“Emma, that’s enough,” it was Hunter’s voice and it was right behind her. She turned, feeling caught off guard. “Let’s go home.”
“What are you talking about?” she was in the middle of wiping down a table, and didn’t stop to acknowledge him further.
His voice softened, sounded wary and tired. “I’m not going to make you go through this. You don’t deserve it.”
“I’m going to finish my shift.”
“I’ll get you a job at the station. You don’t need to let these people torture you.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“For God’s sake, I’m not trying to help you, I’m doing what’s right.”
“So that you can feel better about yourself?” She snapped at him, and then rearranged the new place mats. “You came here yourself to watch the spectacle. You’re whole family did.”
“That’s the last thing they came here to do.”
“Emma,” this time it was Antony, and Emma turned to see Kat watching from afar, “end early tonight. The Sheriff is right.”
She sighed, and her shoulders dropped. “Antony, I’m fine -.”
His crinkled face tightened in sternness, “I’m not asking you. I’m instructing you. You brought in the business, now leave before they drive you out.”
She gritted her teeth, and didn’t look at Hunter as she dropped the cloth on the table and headed to the back office to grab her things.
What a miserable, miserable, miserable day.
“Hey girl,” it was Kat, who had followed her back there. “You okay? Drugs were clearly pumped into the town’s water today.”
She was sick of everyone asking her if she was fine. “Yeah Kat, I’m okay.”
“These people can be mean, but they can also be really nice. They just don’t know how to deal with their issues, that’s all. It’s the first time a lot of them are seeing you. It’ll get better.”
“Thanks, you’re really sweet,” and that was true. For some reason, Kat lived in her own oblivious little bubble, away from the let’s-get-Emma-out-of-here bubble that everyone else did. “Appreciate it.”
“Of course. Now you sure you don’t want to steal a bottle of vodka from the back? It’s what I do when things get hard.”
Emma let out a dry laugh, “maybe tomorrow night.”
“Let me know if you want me to fight some assholes for you.”
“I will,” she changed back into her clothes. She left through the back and began her walk back to Hunters. Within seconds, his car pulled up.
She rolled her eyes, but was too tired to fight with him. She opened the passenger door and got in.
He didn’t say anything for the first few minutes. When they hit a red light, he quietly asked, “Is that my jacket?”
“Yeah, so?”
He only looked at her from the side of his eye before shaking his head. “Just wondering.”
The ride was quick, or maybe it just felt that way since all Emma could think about was how the night had transpired. It felt like she’d gone through more in two weeks than she had in all twenty-two years of her life. If there was something that she was learning however, it was that she was stubborn as steel, and that she would never let anyone bring her down.
It was only after they parked that she realized that Hunter hadn’t parked in his driveway, and had stopped halfway up the little hillside that led to his house. The branches of the tree blocked out the moonlight, the twigs shivering in the cold wind.
“Why are we stopping?”
His ran a hand over the scruff that lined his jaw, “because my brother and his family is waiting inside, and I want to talk to you alone.”
“Is that a good idea?”
“Well, considering you locked yourself up in your room until I left, I think a talk is much needed.”
“Ok,” she folded her arms across her chest and looked at him poignantly. “Well then, talk.”
“Firstly,” he killed the engine, and the road fell silent around them. “I want you to quit this silly waitress job you’ve taken.”
“Sorry, I refuse to entertain that subject.”
“Do you enjoy leaving yourself open to ridicule?”
“I won’t let them see it affects me.”
“But of course it affects you, you’re human. Why would you want to do that yourself?”
“You can talk about this all you want, but I’m not going to agree with you,” since when had their relationship changed from a mere acquaintance to one where he thought he had the right to influence her decisions? Jerk.
Hunter sighed, and pressed the bridge of his nose to relieve some of the stress. “Fine.”
“Thank you.”
They sat there in silence before Emma spoke again, “Was that all you had to say?”
“No, there’s more.”
“Well…?”
“You’re free to decline this offer,” he began hesitantly, his jaw clenching as he prepared himself to say the rest, “but I think we should spend one night together.”
Emma’s mouth went dry. It was the last thing she was expecting. “What?”
“Just one night. There’s clearly physical chemistry between us and I think we should get it out of our systems. Every time you turn around, all I can think about is bending you over my kitchen table and making you beg for me to finish. Seeing you today, walking around in those shorts - all I wanted to do was fuck you senseless. I’ve seen the way you look at me and I know you feel it too. So what I’m proposing is, one night - however many times. And then that’s it. Clearly, you can’t stand my guts most of the time, and you’re the most stubborn woman I’ve met, so what I’m offering is something that’s no strings attached. And we’ll be satisfied, and go back to being normal. To be clear, this is entirely up to you. If you want to do this, then great, I’ll get my family out as soon as possible. If not, great, we’ll finish the night with some good wine and music.”
Emma was speechless or rather, felt like she’d been thrown from one parallel reality to another. She simply stared at him blankly, before turning way to stare at the road. Her groin had already ached at the idea, but her nerves were ablaze with nervousness.
But she had known her answer immediately. “Ok, that sounds good to me. But I want to make it clear that this doesn’t change the fact that I don’t like you very much.”
“The feeling is mutual.”
The two jumped as Hunter’s phone rang loudly then, breaking the moment entirely. He fished for his cell in his pocket and pulled it out, punching the accept button before putting it to his ear. “Stone.” His face was guarded as he listened to the person on the other line, and slowly his eyebrows began to furrow. After a minute of silence, he nodded, “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“What happened?” Emma asked the moment he hung up. She hoped it hadn’t been something too serious, since she was ready to get started on this deal of his. But in the back of her head, she was already preparing herself for the worst scenario possible.
“Somebody’s been murdered. A girl. Early twenties,” was all he said, before revving up the engine of his car. “Looks like the crazy is being unhinged in this town because that’s the first murder in 157 years.”
Emma sat in shock as Hunter drove the car quickly to his driveway and parked it.
“Go inside and stay inside,” he instructed. In a daze, Emma unbuckled and got out without question.
“And Emma?” He waited until she turned around, “we’re going to finish this conversation the moment I’m back.”
Emma bit her lip and blushed as she shut the door, and then watched in a nervous apprehensiveness as Hunter backed up and drove away.