Renegade Hearts (Rebels of Sandland 1)

“You were too good, Em. I’m not gonna apologise.”

Shit, this was going downhill fast. I needed to put the brakes on this.

“Well, it’s lucky for me I had good friends and an awesome brother. It didn’t destroy my self-confidence… Much.”

“I’m an asshole, Em. I’ve never claimed to be anything else.”

“You are an asshole.”

“But I’m your asshole.” She tried to keep the stern look on her face, but I was winning her back round, I could tell.

“I could make things very difficult for you, you know.” She narrowed her eyes at me in a threat.

I loved that fire in her. She probably

could make things very difficult for me. I already had the worst case of blue-balls I’d ever known. My girl could do untold damage. I’d take it though, because it was her. “And I’ll love every minute of it,” I said, egging her on.

“Ugh. You frustrate the hell out of me sometimes.”

“But you love me.” Shit that fell out of my mouth before my brain could engage. “You love it,” I said, hoping to claw back some self-respect.

The wide eyes she’d given me at my first statement softened slightly and she grinned. “I’ll tolerate you. For now.”

“In my defence, Danny didn’t try to stop me. He was all for me warning them off. I think he liked that we all protected you.”

Nice swerve, Hardy. Let’s get off that four letter L word and back on track.

“I miss him.” She sighed, so I pulled her closer into me and kissed her cheek.

“I was with him, you know. That last night.”

She gasped and turned to face me. Her eyes back to saucers again.

“What happened?”

I took her hand and led her to a clearing where we could sit on the grass. I plonked my rucksack down and took out the blanket Dad had insisted I pack. Apparently, women don’t like sitting directly on the grass. Who knew?

Emily sat down, and I sat next to her, taking her hand in mine. I wanted to offer her some kind of comfort as I explained to her all about what’d happened. That, and I just couldn’t seem to keep my hands off her. I needed to keep touching her whenever she was near.

I told her about Danny only drinking Diet Coke. That he hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol and didn’t do drugs, ever. I also told her that someone else had picked Danny up. Danny wasn’t driving that night. Or at least, he wasn’t when he got into the car.

“That makes no sense.” She furrowed her brow as if the answers would come to her here in this park. “Danny was found in the driver’s seat. There wasn’t anybody else there. And the reports-”

“Did you see the reports?”

Bingo. We have a winner.

“No. But Dad said the coroner found all this… Stuff in his system.”

And I call bullshit.

“Your dad told you? You never saw any evidence yourself?”

“Why would my dad lie?”

Because he’s a self-serving asshole.

“I don’t know, Em. And I don’t want to upset you, but you need to see if you can find that coroner’s report, or a toxicology exam or something. I have a bad feeling about this.”