In part from the run we’d just completed, mostly from the mixture of the shift I’d recently finished and the encounter with Emma in the middle of the night.
Butler’s eyebrows were raised when I finally focused on him. “You serious, y’all actually ran here?”
Rowe gestured to me.
I lifted my hands a fraction from the table before letting them fall. “Needed it.”
Butler shoved menus at us. “Y’all planning on running home after eating your weight in pancakes?”
“Fuck no, you’re driving us home,” I said as I tossed the menu back.
“Usually make a man buy me a meal before I let him boss me around,” he murmured, his expression impassive.
Rowe coughed out a laugh as he lifted a glass of water and drained it.
“Does your wife know that?” I asked, putting a strong emphasis on the new title.
“I stole the line from her.” His mouth twisted in a wry grin as he opened the menu I’d thrown at him.
Not that he needed it, we didn’t even need to place our order anymore. He and I had been getting the same thing every week since the day I’d shown up in Colby three years before, needing to get away from my family and the bullshit that only built whenever we were together.
I’d driven from Florida without a direction in mind until I realized I was coming here. Or maybe I’d subconsciously always known. Maybe I’d needed to talk to the one guy who knew it all—who would understand.
I’d met Butler on my first day of training to be a SEAL.
We weren’t friends then—I didn’t really care to make any when they would’ve just been a distraction. Besides, people kept failing out of the school or leaving.
Butler wasn’t one of them.
After graduation, we were placed on the same Team. Not more than a year later, Rowe had been placed with us, and I’d ended up stuck with them for nearly six years and too many deployments and assignments to count.
That Team became my family, but Butler had been through it with me from the beginning. That’s a bond some people will never have or understand.
So, it shouldn’t have surprised me that my hands had steered my car in his direction when things had finally come to a head with my dad.
But after what was only supposed to be a couch to crash on and a conversation to vent, I hadn’t left. There had been something about the small town and the anonymity in a place where everyone knew everyone else that had called to me—begged me to stay.
The next day, Butler had come to me with news that the next city over was beginning a new law enforcement academy class soon.
We hadn’t taken more than a minute to decide. We’d started the process for registering that day. By the end of the week, I’d officially moved into Butler’s apartment and had done everything to become a South Carolina resident. Within the month, we were sitting in a classroom, and it’d been just like old times.
A year after that, Rowe had shown up much the same way I had—freshly discharged and breaking over his divorce, needing to lean on us.
Asshole hadn’t left either, and we’d started renting out the house we were still in just as Butler and his now-wife moved in together.
Just something about this town.
But after last night, I couldn’t help but wonder if an angry blonde was the true reason I’d been drawn here all along. The reason I’d stayed.
“Bad shift last night?”
I glanced up at Butler’s question and realized his menu was on the table, and he was looking at me expectantly.
“No. Just long.” Made longer by everything that happened between Emma and me.
Rowe snorted and then grunted when I elbowed him.
“How was the honeymoon?” I asked before Butler could start interrogating me.
Rowe tossed his unopened menu onto the pile on the table and then turned, looking at me with a shit-eating grin.
Butler’s eyes narrowed, his voice dull. “Fucking amazing, but you already know that because we talked about it this weekend.”
“Didn’t know talking about your honeymoon more than once was a bad thing,” I said dryly. “I’ll be sure to tell Jenn.”
“No, no, keep stalling,” Rowe said, all amusement. “It’s not at all obvious.”
“I’ll kill you,” I threatened softly as I swung a glare in his direction.
He blew a kiss at me.
Butler sat back against his side of the booth, eyes narrowed. “All right, something’s clearly up, and I can’t figure out why you’re trying to keep anything from me at all, especially this.”
I looked at Rowe in confusion and accusation, but he just held his hands up, revealing his innocence.
Other than what he’d seen from when Emma had come over the day before and what I’d revealed to him about our encounter late into the night, I hadn’t said a word about her to anyone since she’d come into my life like a ball of wrath. So I had no fucking clue what Butler was talking about. “This?”
He pushed his empty mug between his hands a few times and lifted his shoulders. “Going around the department that you and Hannah finally hooked up last week.”
Shit.
The bad thing about small towns . . . they were full of loose lips and eager ears.
Rowe kicked my knee. “The hell, where have I been?”
“Wait, finally?” I demanded.
Butler rolled his eyes and sent the mug sliding in my direction.
I caught it before it could slide off the table but didn’t back down. “What do you mean?”
“Everyone in town has been taking bets on when it would happen.”
“And I lost,” Rowe groaned, and Butler gave an agreeing grunt.
“The fuck,” I mumbled under my breath.
“Dude, it isn’t a secret that Hannah’s been after you for a year,” Butler went on. “There’s no way you didn’t know.”
“I didn’t,” I assured him.
“What? There’s even a pool in the department for it.”
My brows slowly lifted. “For Hannah and me, or my sex life in general?” Before he could answer, I took one of the rolled-up silverware sets and chucked it at him. “You’re an asshole if you went in on that. And you?” I said to Rowe before punching him in the shoulder.
A deep laugh burst from Rowe and was echoed by Butler. “You know I did,” Butler said, “and it was just for Hannah. Man, how did you not know?”
Because I usually spent my days dodging attempts from girls like Courtney, and Hannah had never once given off any kind of vibe until recently.
Soft.
Subtle.
At the perfect and worst time.
Perfect, because I’d needed to get out all of my frustrations. I’d needed to get lost in someone for a little while because a girl had just appeared in Colby, twisting me up with her long legs and scorn-filled stares.
Worst, because that girl was rapidly consuming my thoughts and wants and needs, and she’d heard Hannah moaning . . . screaming.
We murmured thank-yous when the waitress set our plates down and filled the mugs up with coffee.
Before she’d even left, Butler dug into his food and said, “So, Hannah—”
“Fucking mistake.”
He paused with his fork halfway to his mouth, looking genuinely surprised and a little disappointed.
Rowe choked on the first bite. “Shit,” he said thickly as he reached for his mug.
“What? Why?” Butler asked. “She’s—okay, yeah, she’s been hung up on you about as bad as every other girl in this town, but she isn’t crazy. She doesn’t build shrines to you like Courtney or some of the other girls in town. And we all think she’d be good for you.”
“Who is all?”
He shoved the fork in his mouth and spoke around the food. “Jenn, Rowe, me, the town . . . you know, not including the ones obsessed with having your babies.”
“People really like her,” Rowe added, but his stare was tentative. The amusement
that always burst from him had vanished because he’d seen just how badly I’d been wrecked by one encounter with Emma.
“Jesus, this was really a thing?”
Butler gave me a look as if to say, once again, that he couldn’t figure out how I hadn’t known. “Dude. Yeah. And no was about it . . . it is a thing.”
“I didn’t know until recently that there was something on her side, and I didn’t think it was really anything. For me? There’s nothing. I—fuck.” I dragged a hand through my hair and shifted lower in the booth. “I feel like a dick for saying this, but she was just . . . there. I don’t even remember why she came over. Any other night, I would’ve turned her away.”
He sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Ouch.”
“I know . . . I know.”
Rowe elbowed me, not bothering to be subtle in any way, and I forced out a relenting sigh.
“Lala sent a girl to my house with dinner that night. She heard Hannah. And this girl? Butler, she’s . . . goddamn.”
His eyes widened at my hushed confession, but he hurried to hold up his fork. “Lala’s been on the Reed-and-Hannah train for about as long as the rest of us. Why would she send another girl to your house?”
“It’s her granddaughter. Apparently, she has two of them.”
Butler’s head slanted as if he wasn’t sure he’d heard me correctly and his eyes unfocused. When they finally snapped back to the present, his brow was pinched in concentration and denial, stare shifting between Rowe and me before he asked, “Emma?”
I leaned over the table toward him. “You know her?”
“Emma’s here,” he said in a soft tone, trying to confirm. “With Lala and Nora.”
“Yes.”
“Her mom back too?”
I tensed instinctively at the question . . . at the thought.
We all knew about Nora’s mom. About the possibility she could show up at any time—how bad it would be if she did. We just hadn’t known about anything else, including Emma. At least, I hadn’t thought anyone else knew about her.
“No. How do you know Emma?”
“Yikes,” Rowe mumbled when Butler took too long to answer. But Butler just gave a single jerk of his head, disregarding the implication.
Butler’s piercing gaze searched mine for a few moments longer before he lowered his shaking head and started stabbing at his plate with his fork. “Don’t go getting caught up with her.” The subdued warning was twisted with a hint of sadness as if he was afraid to speak about her too loudly. “She won’t be here long.”
“No. No, fuck that. You can’t just say some bullshit like that without explaining why.”
“Hey! Fancy seeing three of my favorite boys here.”
I jolted back at the teasing voice, as if we’d been caught talking about something we weren’t supposed to, and looked into the warm eyes of Butler’s sister . . . and her husband.
Asshole.
“Jesus, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more beautiful pregnant woman,” I said smoothly, earning an eye roll from Leah, and elbowed Rowe when he and Butler remained silent.
“I have to agree,” Rowe added, voice hushed. Gentle almost. Completely ignoring the stone-cold glare Leah’s husband sent Rowe’s way before his attention returned to his phone.
Butler didn’t say anything. Just stayed hunched over his plate, stabbing at the food.
Leah rubbed her swollen stomach, her cheeks tinged pink. “Y’all are sweet,” she said softly. “I woke up craving the waffles from here this morning, so I begged Jarrod to bring me.”
“Literally,” he muttered irritably, then huffed out a sigh. “Can we go? I need to get to the office and I still have to drop you off.”
“You can go,” Rowe ground out. “Some of us know how to drive and be kind to women.”
“Is she your wife?” Jarrod shot back, stare snapping to Rowe for a few seconds before falling to the screen of his phone again.
Leah just smiled the way she always did, seemingly unfazed by Jarrod. She reached out to run her hand through Butler’s hair adoringly as if she were the older one and not the other way around. “You okay?”
He finally glanced up, all his shock replaced with a genuine smile when he looked at her. “Always. Waiting for my namesake to be born.”
Leah let out a soft laugh and patted his head. “Nice try.”
“I’ll be in the car,” Jarrod said, already walking away.
“Just such a nice guy,” I said dryly.
“Be kind.” Leah swatted at me, her stare dancing across the table in Rowe’s direction as she turned to go. “You boys have fun.”
“Her husband’s a dick,” Rowe mumbled as soon as she was out of earshot.
We said something to that effect every time we saw him.
Butler grunted in agreement. “What my sister sees in him . . . then again, apparently he’s a god or a saint or something. He’s the son my dad always wanted anyway.”
“Come on, man.”
“You know it’s true.” He dropped his fork onto his plate and sat back against the booth. “Dad bought the house next to theirs for Leah and that piece of shit and raves to everyone about how proud he is of Jarrod and their company. When I came home? ‘Ah. Looks like my son has decided to actually do something with his life.’ Like serving our country for eight years had been an embarrassment to him.”
“You being a cop is still kind of an embarrassment to him.” It was said in a soft tease, but he and I both knew it was true.
Butler shrugged. “Exactly.”
“He isn’t much better than Jarrod. How you turned out normal, I’ll never know.”
The corner of his mouth tipped up in a smirk. “My mom,” he said at the same time Rowe and I said, “Your mom.”
Leah was an exact replica of her.
Warm. Loving. Always letting things roll off her shoulders as if she couldn’t be bothered by stress or asshole husbands.
“To disappointing our parents,” Rowe said, holding out his mug.
Butler scoffed in mock annoyance, but we held ours up and then drank to it because it was fucking true.
“I always forget you grew up next to Lala,” I said once my mug was on the table again.
Butler’s expression immediately fell. He knew where I was going, what I was bringing us back to.
His head started shaking, a slow, barely noticeable movement.
“No one has ever mentioned anyone other than Nora and her mom,” I said when he didn’t speak. “Lala hadn’t ever mentioned Emma. So, you knowing Emma’s name . . . your reaction to her being here . . .”
“You have your pick of women, Ryan. Literally. If you don’t want Hannah, that’s fine. But since you’ve been here, you haven’t wanted anyone. Emma should not be the one who changes that.”
I was sure there was a part of Emma that agreed with Butler. I was also positive every time she stopped shoving her past between us, she was right there with me . . . trapped in that energy that swirled around us and pulled us closer.
Craving a connection she’d never experienced before.
Somehow already falling.
I wanted to ask Butler why, but I had a feeling he wouldn’t answer the question. But in the chance he did, I wasn’t sure he should be the one to tell me.
“Just tell me how you know her,” I softly begged instead. “Tell me why you reacted that way.”
“I don’t know her,” he said after a while and blew out a harsh sigh. “I only ever saw glimpses of her over the years, usually when she and her mom were leaving. But I always knew when they were back in town because there’d be screaming from all three of them. Accusing, pleading . . . it never stopped until they left.”
Rowe stayed uncharacteristically quiet as we listened.
As I tried to put pieces together.
“And they didn’t stay long?” I guessed from his earlier statement.
Butler shook his head. “A day . . . if that. My mom knew hers, so she told us some stu
ff about her. Said Joslin Wade was the kind of person that, when she left here, people wanted to forget about her—Lala included. So, if Emma’s anything like her, stay far away.”
I stared at my food for a few moments before launching into everything that had happened since Thursday night.
From the moment I’d first seen her, horrified and disgusted, to last night on Lala’s porch, a breath from crossing that unseen line between us.
When I finished, Butler let out a low whistle. “I don’t know, Ryan. Maybe you should take a hint and back off.”
She did more than drop hints.
She threw grenades.
But I’d tried backing off, and I’d ended up right back in front of her. That invisible tether drawing us closer the more distance we put between us.
“I don’t think I can,” I said honestly.
From Butler’s expression, he expected my answer and was disappointed by it. “Lala might have something to say about it.”
“Pretty sure she’s pushing for it to happen.”
“Or maybe she’s expecting Emma to be here for all the old reasons, so she wants you around to stop her from stealing her shit and disappearing.”
Shock and bemusement bled from me. “She looks like money and dresses like she just stepped out of a business district. I don’t think she’s here to steal from Lala.”
“You said she freaked when she found out you were a cop.” He lifted a hand as if he’d just connected every dot for me.
“She didn’t look worried that I’d catch her doing something, she was fucking disgusted. She looked at me like she hated cops. Hated me.” A frustrated laugh escaped me. “I don’t have the information you do, I get that. But is it so hard to accept that Emma might not be anything like her mom? Were we not just talking about you and your dad?”
He’d been ready to argue his side but sagged in defeat at my last question.
“What about you?” I asked Rowe, who’d been sitting there, hunched over his half-eaten food and playing with his fork, ever since I’d started explaining the past few days.
After a while, he let out a sigh and met my stare. “I see what she does to you,” he finally said, head moving subtly. “And what you’re saying, I want that for you—I do. But this has disaster written all over it, and y’all haven’t even begun.”
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