clearly couldn’t be trusted with her safety.
“If that was the only time you were missing around here, then I wouldn’t mind so much. But you’ve barely been home the past few days, which is why you didn’t know about me moving out. Instead, I was stuck talking to Mom about what was going on, and she never listens to anything she doesn’t want to hear.”
“I’m here now, Emmeline. Please, talk to me,” her dad begged.
Emme gave him a quick rundown of the crap her mom had pulled and why I was so freaked out about the rumors going around school about the dead body found on the bluff. By the time she finished, he seemed resigned to his daughter living with me. “I’m not happy about your decision, but I suppose there isn’t much I can do to change your mind at this point.”
“It won’t be too bad. I’ll just be down the street. Maybe with me out of the house, we’ll actually see more of each other because we’ll need to find time to spend together,” she suggested with a hopeful gleam in her pretty brown eyes.
I didn’t like how her dad’s inattention had hurt Emme, but I was willing to give the guy a chance if rebuilding their relationship was what she really wanted. Stepping forward, I held out my hand. “Mr. Cushing, I’m sorry we’re meeting like this, but I promise to take good care of Emme.”
“You’d better,” he growled, a muscle jumping in his jaw as he gripped my hand and gave it a brief shake. Then he turned to Emme and pulled her close for a hug. “You can come home tomorrow if you don’t like it at the Whitney’s. Tonight, even.”
“I know, Dad.” She gave him a squeeze before stepping away. “If Mom was even a smidge understanding of my relationship with Corby, then maybe this would’ve turned out differently. But probably not since she’s the reason all my college applications went out to schools that aren’t anywhere near Black Mountain.”
“Dammit.” Mr. Cushing’s chin went to his chest, and his shoulders slumped. He seemed devastated by Emme’s admission.
Emme gave him another hug and whispered, “I’m sorry, Daddy.”
“You’re not the one who needs to apologize here, sweetheart. I am.” He brushed a kiss against the top of her head and met my gaze. “Please take better care of her than I did.”
I didn’t want to kick him while he was down, so I was careful with my response. “She’ll always be safe with me.”
He gave me a curt nod and helped us bring the rest of Emme’s stuff out to the vehicles. Once we had everything loaded, they had a tearful goodbye. With her dad looking on from the doorway to his house, I leaned into Emme’s car to say, “Drive carefully.”
“We’re only going a mile down the street,” she reminded me.
“One mile or one hundred, it doesn’t matter. When you’re in the car, there’s precious cargo.” She sniffled and nodded, giving me a wobbly smile as I shut the door. I hopped into the Jeep to follow her down the street and hauled ass to get her shit in the pool house. I’d moved my stuff over earlier this morning, and I wanted to get her settled in quickly so we could enjoy a few hours of downtime before I had to be at the rink for practice. Our timing had been great because the team didn’t have any games this weekend.
“Start unpacking while I get the rest,” I suggested when Emme went to follow me out.
“Why am I not surprised?” Emme mumbled with a roll of her eyes.
I dropped a quick kiss on her mouth. “Because you know there’s no reason for you to carry heavy shit when I’m around to do it.”
It didn’t take me long to carry her stuff inside. I found Emme unpacking her clothes in the closet. Her tight ass was in the air while she grabbed some shirts from the bottom of her bag. After giving one of her cheeks a light slap, I picked her up and headed for the bed. “Hey, I’m not done yet.”
“We celebrate everything now, remember?” I asked as I dropped her on the mattress and started pulling her pants off her legs. “You can finish after.”
“When you put it like that, I guess I can’t resist.” She tugged my shirt over my head before removing her own.
In no time at all, we were both naked, and I was pressing her curvy body