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Shep saw the way her words affected Nash. All the hardness left his expression, and Shep hadn’t seen that for a long time. Even Chase stared at Emma with a new sense of understanding about her. Shep smiled. Oh, yeah, now his brothers saw what he saw in Emma too. She had the power to warm souls.
“Thank you for that, Emma.” Shep pulled her in close for a kiss.
When she leaned away, she smiled and rose. “Honestly, though, as much as I wish I could help with all this, I think I’m the wrong woman here right now.”
Shep agreed with a nod, saying to Nash, “Will you go get Mom? Emma’s right—she needs to be in on this discussion too.”
“Yeah, I’ll go.” Nash rose, pushing his chair in gently now.
Emma took a step away from Shep, her hand trailing over his shoulder, and said to Nash, “Do you mind dropping me off at home on your way?”
Shep tightened his arm around her. “Nah, darlin’, you should be here too.”
She smiled down at him. “You’ve got stuff to discuss. I’ve got animals to feed. I’ll see you later.” She grasped his chin, gave him another quick kiss, then followed Nash outside.
When the door slammed shut, Chase turned to Shep. “You better marry her.”
Not sure how to reply, Shep simply nodded.
* * *
In no time, Emma found herself sitting next to Nash in his bright-blue truck while he drove up her driveway. She gripped the window, pressing her feet against the floor, hoping to hell he didn’t flip the truck. Nash apparently liked speed. In the sand ring, Bentley’s head shot up, and he galloped in the opposite direction. She nearly asked Nash to slow down when something caught her eye. First, a black Bentley was parked near her porch, and second, and most important, who was sitting on her porch dropped her heart into her stomach.
Jake.
Nash slowed the truck, pulling to a stop by her porch. Jake rose from the rocking chair he sat on, the same warm, brown eyes regarding her that she remembered so vividly in her memories.
“Do you know him?” Nash asked, cautiously watching Jake.
Emma was actually glad Nash was there and saw Jake, or she’d be inclined to think she had imagined him completely. “Yes, I know him.” Feeling cold and winded and everything in between, she opened the truck’s door, her fingers trembling. “Shep has a lot on his plate this morning,” she told Nash before getting out of the truck. “I know you’re going to tell him there is a man here, so tell him it’s Jake, and that I’m fine and I’ll call him later.”
Nash’s eyes narrowed. “Who’s Jake?”
“My ex-boyfriend from New York City.” She slid out of the truck and gave Nash a hard look. “Don’t worry him. Promise me.” The last thing she wanted to do was make things worse for Shep. He had enough to deal with.
“I’ll let him know,” Nash replied.
With a sigh, she shut the door and saw the fury in Nash’s eyes. Great.
Once Nash sped off, Emma turned, meeting Jake’s gaze. He looked so out of place there. His polo shirt and jeans were too pressed, his chiseled features too pretty, and his styled brown hair too perfect. And yet . . . he was completely familiar, like an old friend suddenly coming back to her. “Hi,” she said, not sure what to say.
Jake met her halfway down the porch, his eyes soft and welcoming. “Hi.”
A thousand questions rattled in her mind, but, of course, only one was the most important. “Why are you here?”
“To apologize for being the biggest asshole in history,” he said.
She regarded the familiar warmth in Jake’s eyes, and the history between them, feeling the weight of those words slam into her. Ten words had never held such strength before, sealing up cracks in her heart that he had put there. She sighed, moved up the stairs, and went inside the house. “How did you even know I was here?” Jake didn’t know Emma’s family. He also didn’t know any of her old friends. The realization only reminded her how distant and cold her old life had been.
Jake followed her in, shutting the door behind him. “I went to your condo.”
She leaned against the arm of the couch. “And?”
“And, I persuaded the security guard to let me in because I was concerned for your safety.”
Some security. Though even Emma knew how persuasive Jake could be. Emma assumed the security guard was likely the young brunette whom Jake had probably charmed.
“Once there,” he continued, taking a step toward her, “I saw that you had packed up and left quickly. So, I checked your email at work. You had a bank alert in your email that said you’d used your credit card in River Rock, Colorado. A quick Google search told me your grandmother lived here, and that’s how I got the address.”
