Emerson"s heart kicked against her breastbone, which was stupid, really. She"d had nearly a decade to face facts, and a lifetime"s worth of work-faster-be-smarter-do-better to back them up.
Chasing good enough was a waste of time.
"Not to my parents, it"s not. My father may have been raised in a small town and had to work his way through community college in Camden Valley, but he always wanted the best, the biggest, and the brightest, no matter what."
"So how come he came back to Millhaven after medical school?" Hunter asked, his expression changing as he backtracked. "Don"t get me wrong-I obviously love living here. But we"re hardly big or bright. Your mom is from Richmond. Why not stay there, or head to a big city like Washington, DC? h.e.l.l, if he wanted the biggest and brightest, as a surgeon he could"ve gone anywhere."
The question was legitimate, and one that had crossed Emerson"s mind no fewer than a hundred times before she"d left Millhaven herself. After all, her father had met her mother while doing his residency in Richmond, and she"d been an administrative a.s.sistant at the hospital there.
"I asked him that once, right before I went to college," Emerson said. "He told me that in big cities, great surgeons are a dime for a baker"s dozen. Being part of a crowd-even a distinguished one-wasn"t good enough for him. He wanted to be the best, so that"s exactly what he did. He came back here and became chief of surgery at Camden Valley hospital faster than anyone before him."
She knew, because her father had made it plain as her name during that conversation that his record was her yardstick, and he fully expected her to come home after medical school and break it.
And that was the moment she"d realized that if she didn"t leave Millhaven forever, she"d never escape the pressure of her parents" expectations.
Hunter"s gaze flicked to the path in front of them, moving over the bright-green fields beyond the scattering of trees holding their bench in the shade. "Definitely sounds ambitious."
"I don"t think ambition is a bad thing when it comes to doing what you love," Emerson said, and it was the truth. After all, there had been no shortage of high expectations in her PhD program, and she"d happily worked hard in order to meet every single one, no panic attacks in sight. "But for as long as I can remember, my parents have expected me to live up to their standards, their way, no matter what. Valedictorian, homecoming queen, early admission to Swarington." The list was as long as her leg, and those were barely the highlights.
"Wait . . ." A muscle tightened in Hunter"s jaw, pulling ever so slightly beneath the sprinkling of stubble on his skin. "Didn"t you want to do all those things in high school?"
"Whether or not I wanted them didn"t matter. It was the best or nothing. My parents made that perfectly clear."
"Jesus, Emerson." Hunter turned toward her, his knee sliding against hers in a warm brush of denim on denim. "How come you never said anything? I mean, I always knew they wanted big things for you, but I had no idea the pressure was so bad. That must have been a h.e.l.l of a load to carry."
The thread of remorse whisking through his eyes sent a pang right to the center of her chest. Of course Hunter would"ve wanted to fix the mess between her and her parents. His gla.s.s-half-full mentality had been one of the things she"d loved about him the most.
Too bad it didn"t apply when the gla.s.s was broken to start with.
"For a long time, I thought if I worked hard enough, eventually my parents would be happy. Piano recitals, science fair compet.i.tions-G.o.d, I even took cotillion cla.s.ses without complaining." She laughed, because it was too late to cry over all her spent effort. "But there was always something else to win or earn or do, and none of it was ever good enough. And if I wasn"t good enough for my own parents, I thought . . ."
Emerson stopped, biting her lip hard enough to sting. But she"d already loosened the story, and anyway, she couldn"t change the past. What would it hurt to tell Hunter the truth?
"I started having panic attacks. Really bad ones, where my heart raced so fast and it was so hard to breathe, I nearly pa.s.sed out."
"Are you serious?" Hunter asked, his voice gravely matching the word in question. "The pressure was making you sick, literally, and you never said anything?"
"I know it doesn"t make much sense now," she said. "But I kept the pressure to myself for so long that after a while, it felt like a secret. I thought if I told you the truth about not being able to meet my parents" expectations, then maybe you"d think I wasn"t good enough for you, either. I was afraid to let you see all of me. That you might think I was weak because I couldn"t handle the pressure."
For a minute, Hunter sat perfectly still. "Are you kidding? I was crazy about you."
Her pulse pitched, knocking the words right out of her mouth. "I know." G.o.d, that had been half the reason she"d gotten into her car and driven away in the first place. "But between football and working on the farm, you were always so easygoing and confident and strong. I was scared to admit that I wasn"t, too, especially since you thought I was."
"Still. If the pressure was bad enough to trigger panic attacks, you should have told me."
He spoke without judgment, although the flash of gray in his stare betrayed the emotion beneath his calm, and Emerson didn"t think, just answered.
"Maybe. But it only would"ve made things more difficult in the end when I had to-"
Hunter"s head snapped up. "When you had to what?"
Emerson"s heart slammed in her chest, silencing her all too late, and dammit, she had defenses for a reason. But impulsive or not, she"d let the past out.
And dangerous or not, Hunter deserved to know all of it.
"When I had to leave Millhaven. I didn"t go to New York because I wanted to, Hunter. I went because I didn"t have a choice. But what I really wanted was you."
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
Hunter tried as hard as he possibly could to process Emerson"s words. Failed. Tried again.
Nope. No f.u.c.king way that was happening.
"I"m sorry," he said, and okay, at least that was accurate. "I don"t understand."
"I never wanted to leave Millhaven. I love it here. I loved . . . you." Her smile was completely bittersweet, the corners of her pretty, peach-colored mouth turning up just enough to keep his pulse jacked sky high.
"But that"s not what you said," Hunter managed, hating the sting in his tone even though he felt every inch of it. Thousands of nights had come and gone since the one when he"d asked her to stay in Millhaven and marry him, but he"d never lose her answer from his memory.
I can"t stay. I have to go to New York, and I"m not coming back. I"m sorry, but this is for the best . . .
"I know what I said." Emerson dropped her chin, her hair tumbling over her gaze, and the sweet, heady scent of honeysuckle took a potshot at his chest. "The night before you asked me to marry you, I told my father I wanted to go to community college in Camden Valley instead of going to Swarington."
Hunter knew he should feel the warm, wooden bench slats beneath him, or hear the leaves over his head rustling in the soft summer breeze. But his brain spun too hard and his heart spun too fast for him to process anything other than the bombsh.e.l.l Emerson had just dropped square in the lap of his well-worn Wranglers. "You . . . what?"
"I wanted to stay," Emerson said, her voice soft but sure. "I"d been thinking about it for weeks, trying to come up with a way to make my parents understand. I didn"t want to skip college," she clarified. "But I also didn"t want to go to New York. G.o.d, I never even chose Swarington in the first place. The university had been hand-picked for me, just like everything else."
Dozens of questions dusted up in Hunter"s mind, each of them trying to make the trip past his shock and out of his mouth. Any idiot on two legs could see Emerson"s need to get the story out, though-Christ, the look on her face alone was enough to crush him-so as much as it took effort, he bit his tongue and let her keep talking.
"I planned out my argument to the letter," she said. "Which cla.s.ses I"d take in Camden Valley, how I could supplement the curriculum by earning extra credits from the state university online, places that might be willing to let me do internships in the summer. I"d even gone to the head of admissions at the community college and gotten a letter of acceptance."
Even in the face of his uncut shock, Hunter had to huff out a tiny laugh. All that smart, savvy strategy sounded like her. "And then what happened?"
"The only thing left to do was tell my parents I wasn"t going to New York." Emerson"s fingers knotted in her lap, knuckles pale white against the navy-blue denim hugging her hips. "I thought if I told them together, they"d present a united front and I"d never have a chance at making them understand my choice to stay. So I waited until my mother had a board meeting at the hospital."
Whoa. "You told your father first?"
"Part of it was circ.u.mstance," she said over a nod. "He was home and she wasn"t. But then . . ."
She stopped, her mouth pressing into a thin, flat line, and adrenaline peppered Hunter"s gut full of holes.
"Em?" The shortened version of her name, the one only he had used throughout high school, rolled from his mouth unbidden. She blinked at the single syllable, her gaze growing stronger as she returned to the story.
"Part of me was glad it was him. My father grew up here. He knew what it was like to love Millhaven, to belong in the town. Plus, he"d gone to the community college in Camden Valley himself. I knew he"d be harder to convince, but I thought maybe, just maybe, he"d understand."
Hunter thought of the man they"d run into, with his set-in-granite jawline and his shrewd, icy stare, and the adrenaline in his gut slid into dread. "So you told him you didn"t want to go to New York."
"I did." A joyless smile crossed her lips, lasting for only a second before she said, "I knew he"d be mad, and that we"d probably argue. I did. But my father didn"t argue with me. What he did was worse."
"Worse how?" A ripple of something dark and nameless sent Hunter"s hands into fists at his sides, but Emerson was quick to defuse it.
"He"s not the type to yell or lose his cool. In fact, as weird as it sounds, I almost wish he had."
Hunter took a deep breath and tried to force his brain around what she"d said, coming up woefully short. "I don"t follow. Why would you want your father to blow his stack?"
Her pause stretched into silence. Just when Hunter was about to press his luck, patience be d.a.m.ned, she said, "Because if he"d yelled and carried on, then maybe later I"d have been able to blame what he said on the heat of the moment and tell myself he didn"t really mean it. But he did."
A glint of raw emotion whisked through her eyes, then Hunter"s chest, but Emerson pushed forward, as if she wanted nothing more than to keep talking before she lost her nerve.
"He told me he"d worked too hard to get me into Swarington, and all that time and money wouldn"t go to waste just because I was weak and I thought I"d be a little homesick. Turns out, my father not only went to medical school with a member of the school"s board of trustees, but he also made a sizable donation three days before my early-acceptance letter arrived."
"Holy s.h.i.t," Hunter breathed. He"d always found Emerson"s father kind of stiff and standoffish, but stooping to bribery? That was a whole new flavor of belly-in-the-dirt.
"My father said I was just being foolish and emotional, that I had no idea what I really wanted. But he was perfectly clear," Emerson said. "What he wanted was more important, anyway, and staying here-G.o.d, going anywhere other than New York and becoming a doctor and living my life exactly how he saw fit just wasn"t good enough. And that was when I knew. Leaving Millhaven for good was the only way I would ever escape the pressure of my parents ruling the rest of my life, and going to Swarington was the only chance I"d ever have to get out."
Her voice, which had stayed characteristically steady until now, wavered as she added, "And breaking your heart was the only way I could guarantee you"d be happy."
"I wasn"t happy," Hunter argued, low and quick. f.u.c.k, he"d been so miserable and miserable to be around after Emerson had left Millhaven, even his brothers had cut a wide berth around him for weeks. "Jesus, Em. The stress must have been . . . dammit, I wish you"d told me."
"Don"t you see? I couldn"t have."
A sudden spurt of anger filled his veins. They"d been in love with each other-he"d freaking proposed. He got that she"d felt insecure in the face of the pressure, and her hesitation to confide in him made sense now that he understood how crushing that pressure had been. But how could she not have trusted him with something so huge? "I could have helped," he insisted.
Emerson steeled her spine, her shoulder blades. .h.i.tting the back of the bench with a soft thump. Of course, he should"ve known better than to think she"d let go of her moxie entirely, even in a vulnerable moment. "There is no fixing my parents" opinion of me, Hunter, especially since I chose physical therapy over med school. You just saw that for yourself. Anyway, what would you have done if you"d known that leaving was my only option?"
"We could"ve figured something out. h.e.l.l, Emerson, even if you couldn"t have stayed, I could have . . ."
As if all the dots had connected like stars in a constellation, the fragmented pieces of the past that he"d once thought had nothing to do with each other-h.e.l.l, with anything-fell into sharp, startling focus.
"You left the way you did so I wouldn"t go with you."
The barely-there smile ghosting over her mouth answered him before she spoke a word. "You belong here. This town, the farm, your family. I wanted to be with you, Hunter. But I couldn"t stay. I knew that if I told you why, you"d want to come with me. Just like I knew that if you"d left, you"d have been miserable."
Hunter"s heart twisted, his rib cage going tight. "I already told you, I was pretty miserable here."
Remorse covered Emerson"s face in a deep flush. "I"m sorry. Hurting you was the hardest thing I"ve ever done. But I knew that eventually, you"d get over the heartbreak of our relationship ending. If you"d lost your livelihood by leaving Cross Creek behind, I didn"t think you"d ever recover, and I just couldn"t do that to you. So that"s why I left."
He sat for a minute, inhaling deep breaths of slow summer sunshine that felt completely at odds with the emotions pumping through his chest and veins and mind. Everything about his past tilted and tumbled into a new light, and finally, he turned toward Emerson with a nod.
"I suppose that makes sense," Hunter said, brushing his fingers over her forearm to keep hold of the conversation for a minute longer. "I"m not saying it"s not going to take me awhile to really let the truth sink in, or that I like it. I still wish you"d told me what was going on between you and your parents."
He paused, unable to really even wrap his head around what her father had said and done. The man was her father, for Chrissake. Her family. "But just because I don"t like what happened doesn"t mean I don"t understand why you left."
"I never wanted to hurt you," she whispered. "I didn"t even want to go."
"I believe you," he said, because there was no point in denying that her leaving had hurt. But there was also no purpose in dragging out a past that was behind them. "We were eighteen years old. Young and impulsive. I mean, I even proposed. Not that I didn"t mean it, but . . . well, it was twelve years ago, and we can"t change what happened now."
Emerson nodded tentatively. "That"s true. The only thing we can do now is move forward."
"Forward sounds good to me."
Hunter"s heart kicked, each beat thumping against his ears. But they"d lost an awful lot of time to things not said. Bold or not, he"d be d.a.m.ned if he"d hold back now. "Do you remember the other day? When you asked if I"ve ever wondered what if?"
Emerson"s eyes darkened in the muted sunlight, but she didn"t lift her stare from his. "Yes."
"I might not have ever thought about leaving Millhaven, but I"ve definitely wondered what if. A lot."
"You have?"
"Mmhmm." Hunter knew the words were brash, but suddenly, he didn"t care. While his brain might be throwing caution flags up, down, and sideways, the deeper, more primal part of him remembered everything about her-how her chest fit perfectly against his, the way she managed to look so wicked and still so sweet when she came undone-and he added the slightest slow pressure to his grasp on her forearm, stroking her skin with his thumb. "I"m even wondering what if right now. Like what if"-he paused, but just long enough to fully face her on the bench, letting his opposite hand trail up the outside of her arm-"you let me get closer to you."
She leaned in, her pulse darting under the pad of his thumb. "Like this?"
Her denim-covered thigh slid against his as she eliminated even more of the s.p.a.ce between their bodies, and fuuuuuck, she was really good at the what if game.
"Yeah. Like that." Hunter"s fingers traveled higher, leaving the semi-safety of her shoulder for the bare skin where her collarbone met her neck. "So what if I touched you right"-he found the sweet, sensitive spot right below her earlobe that had always made her sigh-"here? Would you like it?"
"Yes." Emerson"s sigh had grown exponentially s.e.xier over time, and the soft, l.u.s.ty sound shot straight to his c.o.c.k, daring him to get even bolder.
"How about"-his forefinger slid over the slope of her cheekbone, desire spiking through his blood when he reached the tiny indent over her top lip and stroked-"here?"
"Hunter," she whispered, her breath hot on his hand, and just like that, he was done waiting. He"d wanted his mouth on hers for twelve G.o.dd.a.m.n years. He might be light-years away from playing it safe right now, but he didn"t even want to wait another twelve seconds.
He just wanted her.
Closing nearly all the distance between them, Hunter lowered his fingers, replacing them with his lips just a scant inch from hers. "And what if you let me kiss you?"
"That"s not going to happen."
Fingers of dread laddered up his spine, freezing him to a full stop. "It"s not?" Oh s.h.i.t, had he somehow misread her?
But rather than pulling away, Emerson leaned in farther, her mouth curving into a smile that could halt the earth on its axis. "No. Because I"m going to kiss you first."
She slanted her mouth up to his, turning the sliver of s.p.a.ce that had separated them to dust. The enticing scent of honeysuckle filled Hunter"s senses as he breathed her in past his surprise, and every last detail hit him with vivid clarity.
The softness of her lips, still shaped by her smile. The pressure of her fingers, tightening over his T-shirt where the cotton covered the waistband of his jeans. The husky sound in the back of her throat that said they were about to make up for lost time.
Oh h.e.l.l yes.
Hunter pressed forward to deepen the kiss. With a single glide of his tongue, he tested the seam at the juncture of Emerson"s lips, fighting back a groan when she opened for him and darted her tongue forward. He pushed into the heat of her mouth, searching and sweeping and taking, and she met every one of his movements with equal intensity.
"Jesus, Em," Hunter said, breaking from her lips to slide a kiss to the side of her jaw. How on earth could she taste so sinful and so sweet all at the same time? "You feel so d.a.m.n good."