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Prologue - Emmett
Everyone around me was in love, and I hated it.
All three of my sisters. Most of my friends. I even had buddies from the Army sending me wedding invitations in the mail, even though they knew I wouldn’t go.
I pretended I didn’t care. That it didn’t bother me that I was now a goddamneleventhwheel. But it was a constant thorn in my side, splintering deeper inside with each breath I took. How pathetic was that? Everyone was finding their forever person while I was stuck here alone, watching from the sidelines, because I was too scared of women.
Well, I wasn’t scaredofwomen, just…scared for them.
I didn’t trust myself. It’d been two years since I retired, and there were still nights I woke up in a cold sweat, my throat raw from screaming, my mind stuck in the sandbox. I’d heard too many horror stories of guys accidentally strangling their wives in their sleep or throwing their girlfriends against a wall because they touched their backs. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I hurt some poor girl, all because she took a chance on me.
So I didn’t let them.
But shit, I was lonely. I was thirty-one with nothing to show for it but a few medals and a fucked up head. By the time my parents were my age, they had four kids and ran a ranch. I felt like a failure for not being even remotely close to those things.
I’d tried everything under the sun besides therapy to fix myself. The idea of baring my soul to a stranger seemed about as pleasant as pulling teeth. But nothing has worked. So, when my sisters finally wore me down enough to start seeing their lifelong friend, Delilah, for equine therapy, I actually had a little hope.
That lasted a month.
After four sessions of doing shit with horses I did every day, nothing changed. She wanted me to do all this intimacy-building stuff. Shaking people’s hands. Hugging. Eye contact. I did things like that all the time and was still like this—closed off, testy, afraid to get too close. So I knew continuing wouldn’t help, and she wasn’t understanding the main thing I was struggling with. My problem was deeper and much more humiliating, which was why I never told her.
The problem was that I missed sex. I craved that closeness. Having the ultimate trust in another person, and having them trust me in return. I hadn’t felt it in three years—not while deployed, and then because I’d been too messed up. And over my dead fucking body was I going to tell a hellion like Delilah Chase something so vulnerable about myself.
I knew she’d throw it right back in my face the first chance she got, so I quit instead. And man, did she give me hell for it. We had it out in the alleyway of the Bull Pen on her birthday, of all days. I felt like shit for it, but she just keptpushing, and I snapped and said some things I didn’t mean.
Three weeks later, and she still wouldn’t speak to me. Even now, while I was helping put up shelves in her office at the ranch, she used the poor contractor as a messenger.
“Rick, can you tell Emmett that the right side is a quarter inch too high?”
I rolled my eyes. She probably didn’t even know what a quarter inch looked like. “We’re in the same room, Delilah,” I sighed, annoyed. “I can hear you just fine.”
“Rick, please tell Emmett to kiss my left ass cheek. The left one specifically.”
“For fuck’s sake,” I snapped under my breath, tossing the two-by-four to the ground with a smack. “Can you please be an adult for once and speak to me?”
She was leaning against her desk, gazing at her nails. Her hair was down today—long, reddish-orange waves that always reminded me of a wild bonfire. Fitting, because if there was any word to describe Delilah, it was wildfire.
Rick shifted nervously in the corner of the room, his eyes darting between us warily, not knowing what to do. My lips pressed into a thin line, and I tilted my head, gesturing toward the door.Save yourself. Here’s your escape from this nonsense.
Once he was gone, I went to her. Leaning against the desk beside her, I crossed my arms over my chest. “Look, I know you’re still pissed at me.” She snorted. “But you doing this immature, not speaking to me thing is getting old.”
She peered up at me through her lashes. “Why? You miss me?” Of course, she couldn’t take anything seriously.
I was the one snorting now. “Hardly.” She scowled, hazel eyes flashing. “I’m just trying to do my job here. But it’s kinda hard to help someone who won’t talk.”
I knew as soon as the words left my mouth, I’d fucked up.
She straightened off the desk, glaring at me, nostrils flared. “Are you fucking serious? You did not just say that to me!”
My gaze dropped to the floor, eyes closing. I didn’t like upsetting her, or anyone for that matter, but it always seemed like I was stepping in shit when it came to Delilah.
“I didn’t?—”
“I tried forweeksto get you to talk to me!” she yelled. My hands curled around the edge of her desk. “But you just stared at me like some brain-dead zombie with your monosyllabic responses and half-assed attempts at the exercises I gave you.”
Her words hit like a slap. Not because they offended me, but because they were true, and I hated it. I hated that I couldn’t open up. That I’d wasted both of our time. That I was too messed up to be a normal fucking man. I glared at her through my brows. Every word was laced with the disdain I felt. “Because they weren’t working.”
