Christ.

He cared about her.

Genuinely.

Not expecting that, Deck had no response to it.

“I’ll ask one favor,” Feldman said, and Deck had a response to that.

“You’ll get no favors.”

“I have a feeling you’ll give this one to me.”

Deck held his eyes and ordered, “Spit it out.”

“I’ll need your contact details so I can get in touch with you should she attempt to contact me.”

“She won’t do that,” Deck returned firmly.

Feldman shook his head, a ghost of a smile on his lips. But it was no ghost, the pain lurking in his eyes.

“She hasn’t given herself completely to you. When she does, you’ll see.”

“Man, I’m not in the mood to play word games,” Deck bit out, not liking any of this shit and wanting it to be done so he could be on the road to get back to Emme.

“Sweet to the core, that’s Emme. She’ll worry about me, Mr. Decker, and eventually she’ll try to contact me.”

“I see you’ve seen the error of your ways and know what this is, so it gives me no pleasure to tell you, when she had her breakthrough, it was not pretty. She is currently under mild sedation in her bed at her home with her mother and father watching over her. It took a lot of talkin’ to stop her father from comin’ with me or comin’ on his own. You lucked out this visit is from me. Emme’s already spoken to a counselor and she’s committed to doin’ that until what’s twisted in her head gets straightened out. When that happens, she’ll know not to contact you.”

“She will.”

“She absolutely will not.”

“Do you know, Mr. Decker, the only thing that can hold back goodness and light?”

What was up with this f**king guy?

“Again, in no mood,” Deck clipped.

“Darkness,” Feldman answered his own question. “And, since Emme shared you’re highly intelligent, I know I don’t have to tell you that darkness drowns out light. But when that light is freed, when so much has been stored for so long, nothing can dim that beam.” He paused to suck in a breath before he finished, “That beam is Emme. When she was twelve, I did something that drowned that beam. If I’m assuming correctly, seeing as you’re visiting me, that beam has been freed. And because Emme is Emme and she carries that light, she’ll contact me.”

Already creeped way the f**k out by this guy, he was concerned about his girl. Now he was more concerned because she spent time with his whackjob. Not to mention, not wanting to be there at all, what the man said made Deck more of all of that.

So he moved to shut it down by asking, “Are we done?”

“Make her happy.”

That meant they were done, thank Christ.

“Already planned on doin’ that,” Deck muttered, turned, walked two steps then turned back. “I’ll get you my email address. She contacts you, you don’t open your door, answer the phone or reply to an email. You email me.”

Feldman nodded.

Deck walked to his truck.

Then he wasted no time getting home to Emme.

* * *

One day later…

“Okay, so, nervous breakdown… check,” Emme said, and Deck’s eyes went from his book to her at the opposite end of the couch.

She was slouched down, feet in his lap, head to the armrest. But her hand was up, palm facing herself like she was holding a notepad, other hand holding an imaginary pen and her eyes were on him.

“So, now that I’ve done that, what do you suggest I add to my bucket list?” she asked.

“You ever f**ked on a beach?” he asked back.

Her eyes fired but her lips said, “Uh… no.”

“Add that.”

She turned her eyes to her palm and faked scribbling on it, mumbling. “That sounds a lot more fun than a nervous breakdown.”

Deck smiled, tossed his book on the coffee table, leaned into her and hauled her to him. Stretching out full on the couch under her, Emme instantly settled full out on him.

Buford, lying on the floor beside the couch, lifted his head.

He inspected their new position, approved and settled back down on a groan.

“Um… honey,” Emme called, and he looked from his dog to her. “As you know, my parents are in town on the supposed errand of picking up a bucket of chicken. As the nearest chicken joint is in Chantelle, this will take a while. But as they’re multi-tasking and using this,” she arched her back so she could lift her hands out of his chest to do air quotation marks, “errand to make clandestine phone calls to my siblings in order to give them status reports on the state of my sanity, that said sanity being in question, they’ll be back soon. So, to sum up, you can’t make love to me on my couch.”

This was a shame.

It was also true. All of it.

And last, it made it even more clear something he’d been noticing since Emme and the doctor agreed she could go off the sedative.

Harvey Feldman was right.

He’d drowned out Emme’s light.

Now it was beaming so bright, he was blinded.

“You’re right,” he replied. “So we’ll just make out.”

“Making out with you tends to lead to other things.”

He grinned and asked, “How do you know? We’ve never made out.”

“This is how I know, honey. Because it’s always led to other things.”

Deck burst out laughing.

In the middle of it, he felt Emme’s mouth touch his so it faded to a chuckle.

When he caught her eyes, they were shining.

He stopped chuckling and his blood began to burn.

“I’ve always wanted to do that while you were laughing,” she whispered. “Always.”

Fuck. He wanted to make love to her.

He hadn’t had her in over a week.

He needed her now.

“You need to stop bein’ sweet or I’m barring the door against your parents. They can have chicken. I’ll be havin’ you.”

He watched her eyes fire again as her body melted on his and her hand slid up his chest to his neck.

“I think Dad would break down the door. He’s a little…” she paused, “in my space right now, and I need to give him that.”

That was the damned truth.

“Yeah,” Deck reluctantly agreed.

“But, even though I’ve slept more in the last two days than any healthy body needs, I’m suddenly feeling really tired so I figure I’ll have to go to bed early. And I don’t think they’ll mind if you didn’t keep them company.”

“This sounds like a plan,” he murmured.

“I love you, Jacob,” she declared suddenly, and his arms around her gave a squeeze.

“I know you do, baby.”

“Thank you for not giving up on me.”

Fuck, but Feldman was right. That beam was blinding.

He rolled so he was on top and her arms adjusted so they circled him. He lifted his hand and brushed the bangs off her forehead.

Then he caught her eyes. “You up for talkin’ about something?”

“Considering I’m entering intense psychotherapy tomorrow, I hope so,” she teased.

“Baby, I’m serious.”

The light of humor faded from her eyes. He missed it but he’d work at getting it back. But now they had shit to go over.

“I’m up for talking about anything, honey,” she told him.

“Right,” he said quietly. “When shit went down, what got us there was me comin’ down on you.”

“Jacob—”

“Let me finish, Emmanuelle.”

She closed her mouth.

He kept going.

“I was pissed. Out of my mind with worry. I got the call you’d visited him and I had to wait for you to get back. That didn’t make me in a better mood. I lost it and the results were f**kin’ great but the path to those results was a little shaky.”

He’d told her, due to his concerns, he’d had Feldman’s house watched and his phones monitored. He had not, however, had his emails checked, which was how they always communicated.

Emme had not been angry. Then again, when Deck had shared this, she’d been mostly sedated.

However, she didn’t get angry at the reminder now either.

Instead, she replied, “Things happen for a reason.”

“And those things would have happened without me losin’ my mind on you. No excuse, but you deserve an explanation.”

After he said that, she said nothing so he kept going.

“I had no idea where your head was at. You kept disconnecting and I also had no idea how to stop you from doin’ that. I had six days of not bein’ with you except for maybe twenty minutes, that whole twenty minutes we were up in each other’s shit. I knew something was wrong. I knew it was dark. I knew it had to have something to do with what happened to you when you were a kid. But I had no clue how to guide you where you could share, and I knew when you did, I was powerless to right what was wrong with you. I didn’t have those skills. I didn’t like that. Any of it. So I lost it.”