Wake Me Up (Love Knows No Boundaries) (9 page)

Emma
gasps. She sits for a few seconds, then she jumps up and runs to her room. Her phone, it’s buzzing. I go after her and take it from her before she can press it to her ear.

“Mrs. Walker,” I say calmly
, as Emma spins around.

Her eyes are wide with fear.
She reaches for the phone, but I take hold of her hand, turning out of her reach.

“Who do you think you are?” h
er mother seethes over the line.

“Detective Hold
en. I’d be careful what you say next.” I warn. “I’m not Emma, and I sure as hell am not your husband.”

“
Who the hell do you think you are to talk to me like that?” she snaps. “I want to talk to my daughter.” More demands? She can go crazy for all I care, she’s barking up the wrong tree.

I glance
at a horrified Emma. She’s gone pale, and it’s making her eyes look even bigger. There are red spots spreading up from her collarbone to her neck. I’ve never seen one person have so much control over another.

“There will be none of that
, ma’am. I’m afraid you can’t talk to Emma. You’ve done enough. She’ll be staying with me for a while.” Right there I make the decision. Right there I decide to help her in any way I can.

“You can’t keep her
there. She’s a British citizen. She’s mine,” her mother fumes.

“I’ll keep her away from
you any way I can. I’ll find a way so you won’t see her again.” I don’t know how long I have until Emma’s visa expires. I’ll have to get it renewed.

“Tell her I’m cutting her off. You want her. You take care of her
,” her mother screams, and the line cuts off.

I
drop the phone on the bed and tug Emma closer.

“What did you do?” she whimpers. She’s
trembling all over and won’t look up at me.

“I took an oath to serve and protect. Yesterday you told me how you felt ab
out policemen. Today I’m showin’ you what the job is all about.” I take hold of her chin and nudge her face up.

“By doing more harm than good? By upsetting her more?”

“You can’t go through that
every day, Emma. Let her cut you off. I’ll help you.”

She
yanks loose and staggers back, as if I’ve actually hit her. She has that same look on her face she had last night next to the road. She looks terrified and I instinctively take a step closer.

“Cut me off? She said that?” she gasps.

“You’ll be fine,” I reassure her. “You have me.”

“I don’t know you!” She grabs
fistfuls of her hair, looking as if she’s in physical pain. “I’m … nothing. I can’t. How will I? What have you done? Do you know what it takes to calm her down? I’ll have to go back.” Her face distorts and she looks sick. “I’ll have to go back to her. Oh God, you don’t know what you’ve done.”

I grab hold of her sho
ulders and pull her in. “Emma, listen to me.”  Her eyes snap up to mine and I pin them. “You’re not going back. How long is your visa valid for?” I have to get her thinking. She’s been consumed for too long.

“Six
months. For six months,” she whispers.

He
r breaths are coming way too fast. This poor girl is really scared out of her mind. I wrap my arms around her, and press her face to my chest.

“You
’ve paid the apartment for six months. You have six months before you have to go back. You’re not going back,” I spell it out for her.

“You don’t understand, Aiden.” She shakes her head. “If she cuts me off I have nothing. How will I get around? What will
I –”

I take a breath
, I’m so not trained for this. “You said you wanted to experience new things,” I’m grasping at damn straws again. “Experience them here. Experience what it’s like to accept help from someone. Experience what good ole’ Southern hospitality is all about. Just stay and experience what it is you came to experience. Not everyone in the world is out to get you, some of us are just nice.” I lift her face up to mine and watch her, waiting and praying she’ll hear me. I’ve never wanted to help someone this bad in my life before.

~*~

Chapter Seven

Emma~

I focus on getting
my heart rate under control. My chest is aching, and if I can just breathe right the pain will go away. I still can’t believe what he just did. My mother must be having a royal fit. She saw Aiden in just his slacks. She saw his bloody tattoo! OMG!

I look at his ruffled hair, then drop my eyes
to his chest, and I take in all the ink. I try to look at him the way my mother would, but I can’t. I’m not anything like her. I see his strength, and his words “you have me” run through my mind again.

He
’s really bodged things up for me back home, and I don’t know if anything he told me yesterday is true, because he’s undercover.

“How old are you?” I finally focus on one question.

H
e tilts his head and he looks surprised. I’ve certainly gone and pulled the rug from under his feet. Well, he pulled my world from under mine.

“Twenty-s
even,” he answers carefully.

“You’re five years older than me?”
What’s another shock to add to my already disastrous day? He just looked so much younger. I thought he was twenty-four, maybe twenty-five.

I pull away from him, putt
ing a few steps between us. Crikey! He’s so much older than me. He’s not a bloke, he’s a man! My stomach does a flip-flop as the thought hits me.

“I am,” he says.

“Are you really from South Carolina?”

I need to know more about him
. There’s no way I’m staying a second longer if I don’t know everything, even his blood type.

“Yes,
I’m from Lyman. My folks are there. My mom is in the force; my dad is in the force. My sister, Laurie, was in the force, and my younger brother, Wyatt, joined up about a year back.” I pick up the past tense he uses when he refers to his sister.

“How long have you been one?” I ask my next question. I’m asking bloody questions.
Have I lost it? I must get on the phone and beg my mother’s forgiveness! I should phone Chloe. I should pack and run. His whole family are coppers. They. All. Are!

“I served in the army
for two years. I went to college when I came back. I’ve been on the force for five,” he says, stopping for a second, “I just made detective, but it was more luck than anything else.”

“What is your blood type?” He frowns.

“B positive.” A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Is that really important?”

“If you’re bl
eeding to death and they ask me that, then yeah, I suppose it is.” I wipe the smile from his face, but I’m not happy about it. I’m not happy about any of this. I want to crawl under the bed and hide until it all just blows over.

“How did you know w
hat to do last night?” he asks a question back.

I swallow.
Of course he wouldn’t have missed that. “I just finished qualifying as a nurse.”

Oh, yeah. I
t’s my turn to shock him.

He
stares real hard at me. Seconds tick by. Long seconds. Seconds in which the panic I just managed to get rid of wells back up in my chest. I hate feeling anxious. I hate the pain it brings when it feels like your ribs are trying to squeeze the air out of your lungs. I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself down.

“I’m really confused,” he starts. “If
you qualified as a nurse, why study more?”

He’s upset.
I don’t know what to do when he’s upset. My chest tightens even more and I fold my hands at my stomach to ease the burning sensation. I can’t look at him any more, so I look down like the coward I am and always will be.

“I came here
to get away. I’m not even sure what course I enrolled for. Something to do with fables. I’ll ten to one be learning about Peter Pan,” I mumble.

“
You did what?” he snaps.

I flinch. My mother n
ever raises her voice. She gives me speeches, a lot of speeches, but she never raises her voice. She’s always either sarcastic or dripping with poison. I don’t know what to do now. I only know how to handle my mother.

“
Fables might be interesting.” I murmur. What? What the hell am I on about? I think I’m losing it. Finally going nutters.

“
Emma, are you listening to yourself?” he asks. I start to nod so he’ll see I’m listening.

“
I’m so stupid,” I agree. Maybe if I agree with him like I do with my mother he’ll stop being upset.

“No,” he exclaims
, and steps up to me. I force myself to stand still but I can’t stop the trembling as it spreads over me. I’m scared. This is new and I don’t know what to do. “No, you’re not. Just dammed desperate,” he says. His voice softens, “Why not just come here on a working visa? Is it somethin’ you wanted to do, be a nurse?”

“No
,” I answer truthfully. I swallow hard at the lump in my throat. “I studied what I was told to study.” I don’t want to talk about me any more. I’m feeling rather self-conscious.

“Hey,” he whispers, “
Emma?”

His hand brush
es softly down my arm and my heart does that thing where it scarpers right through the roof, abandoning me. I dare a glance up at him, but instead of it being a quick one, he takes hold of my chin, lifting my face to his. I start blinking fast to stop the tears. I don’t understand why he’s being nice now. His other hand takes hold of mine and he lifts it to his chest, holding it there.

“You’re gonna be fine
. You have a bed to sleep in. You have a roof over your head. You’re gonna learn about some fables on Monday,” he shakes his head and smiles. “And as soon as you’re in something more comfortable, we’re gonna go grab some breakfast, because I’m starvin’.” He leans in and presses his lips to my forehead.

I close my eyes and he
just holds us like this. I soak in his warmth for a minute, taking what I can get, because for some reason it’s easing the pain in my chest.

“You come to me if
you need somethin’. You come to me about anythin’.”

I watch
him leave me so I can change. I can’t help but wonder when he’ll change his mind about helping me.

~*~

I send Chloe an email explaining the latest happenings with my mother, and how Aiden stepped in. She’s going to be upset, I can just feel it in my gut. I didn’t tell her Aiden’s a detective, I don’t know if that would be wise.

I ch
ange into shorts and a t-shirt. I wash my face and tie my hair back into a ponytail. We step into the lounge at the same time, and I have to admit I feel insecure for a whole lot of new reasons, the main one being he’s not a student any more.

Just when I think he can’t
come across any more manly – he does, now that I know he’s older, he works, he’s ten to one independent, not dependent on anyone like me. If I weren’t upset about my mum, I’d notice how great he looks in his worn jeans that hangs low on his hips, and how the charcoal shirt brings out the gray of his eyes.

But OF COURSE,
I don’t notice any of that. I’m supposed to be upset. I’m not supposed to feel relieved, at all. I’m not supposed to feel a flutter of excitement as I leave the flat with Aiden. I’m supposed to feel guilty. Awful. Selfish. Cheap. Lost.

He
opens the car door for me, and I brush past him to get in. I catch his spicy scent, and remind myself I should feel guilty for running away from home, for making my problem his. I tell myself this, otherwise I will feel hope, maybe even a glimmer of happiness, and we all know what happens then – the shit hits the fan.

So I just
slip on my safety belt and tell myself to be nervous, because something should go wrong soon. Aiden could change his mind in the next hour, and realize he’s made a mistake.

But he doesn’t. We pick up breakfast
, and the only thing I really should feel guilty about is the coke I get, while he takes a bottle of water. He drives us out to a lake. We drive past some students settling in for a day of fun, families, couples in love, and he keeps going until I should start thinking
Lake Placid
,
Wrong Turn
, maybe even
Jason
and
Scream
, and then I laugh, because now I’m being really daft.

Aiden glances
at me and must see the word panic written all over my face. “I’m not going to kill you. Stop looking so nervous.”

I smile brightly
, although I should worry about the fact that he can read me so easily. But that thought flies out the back door when he parks the car.

WOW.

I’ve seen lakes. I’ve seen views. A couple. Maybe this is stunning because I wanted to see this specific one.

The
glassy sheen of water is smooth beyond the trees, and I push the door open so I can take in the full sight in front of me. Most of the trees are still green, but some of the leaves have turned to gold and orange, submitting to the coming winter. The ones that have fallen are still soft, not crunchy.

I walk slowly, my stomach buzzing with excitement
, and I can’t help but reach for a tree. I need to touch one, to prove to myself that I am here. I am at Jordan Lake. And I know there are eagles here, somewhere.

I glance up at the tall
treetops, smiling, and it’s silly, really. They will be deeper in, nesting in the higher ones. But I’m so close, as close as I’ll ever get to a Bald Eagle, a bird that was almost extinct. With a little help and a lot of determination, they aren’t any more, and that’s where my hope lies. If an eagle can come back from such devastation, then maybe I can, too.

That’s what makes this place so special
. I’m finally here - I’m here experiencing hope.

~*~

“Come on, if we don’t eat now I will starve.”

Aiden takes my hand and pulls me throu
gh the trees to an open patch of sand. It’s quiet, and everything stills in me, finally.

We eat in silence
. He takes our wrappers back to the car, and returns with a blanket which he spreads wide. We don’t disturb the nature around us with words. He tugs me closer, to lie next to him on the blanket. As soon as I do, the easy ambience is gone. Maybe it’s because of what I know of him now, what I’ve seen. I don’t understand myself, though. When I didn’t know him, I was willing to throw myself at him, now that I do know him I’m not? How in the bloody hell does my wonky mind work?

I wonder what he’s
thinking. Is he regretting yesterday? Is he regretting helping me?

What if he’s
upset? The thought detonates in my mind, sending a fresh wave of anxiety though my chest. What do I do if he gets angry? My stomach drops, as if the very core of the earth is trying to suck it in. I take slow, deep breaths so my chest won’t start to ache.

He moves and I flinch. I didn’t mean to. I freeze. I really didn’t mean to move. I feel my blood drain from
my face and I close my eyes. It’s one thing facing my mother. I’ve faced her all my life. It’s another facing other people. I don’t know how they will react. My body is so tense I’m going to start shaking if I don’t move.

H
e moves again, and this time I manage to keep still. I don’t even breathe. I’m going to go blue. I need to breathe. Oh, ouch, the intense pain builds up fast in my chest. I hate the suffocating feeling. If he’ll just be angry and get it over with so I can breathe!

“Please open your eyes,” he
whispers, close to my ear. His breath rushes over my neck and it warms my skin, it doesn’t stick to me like my mother’s would’ve.

I snap them open and stare up at the blue sky. There are no clouds. There’s noth
ing to focus on, just blue. I suck in a deep breath, as slowly as I possibly can.

“Tell me what you’re thinkin
g right now,” he says.

“B
lue.” It’s really the last word on my mind.

“
Okay, before that.”

“I’m sorry if you’re angry
, Aiden. I’m sorry for bringing this on you. It’s really alright, you don’t have to-“ The tips of his fingers push lightly against my lips, stopping me from going on, and he leans closer.

“I want
to ask you somethin’,” he breathes the words over my jaw, and I nod. Then he does it again – just by placing his hand over my heart my stomach uncurls. “Stop thinkin’. I don’t ever want to hear the words ‘I’m sorry’ from you again. You’re banned from using them. Use this.” He presses lightly against my chest and some of the pain starts to ease up. With every breath I can feel his hand against my skin. “You have a heart and instinct of your own, find it and use it. Live your own life.”

I
turn my face slightly. His eyes look deep into mine, not to intimidate me – I see only strength. The last of the fear ebbs away and I become highly aware of his palm pressing over the side of my breast.

That gut and heart
he wants me to use? They want to kiss him real bad. Like BAD, bad. Yummy bad! Right now.