Chapter Five
L ate Saturday afternoon, Emily was home from her shift and pleased with the results she’d made with the designs of an additional building and a few fenced areas she intended to add to her small ranch.
With the carpenter already nearing completion of the current renovation to her outbuilding, Emily wanted to finalize her new plans. All week, she’d worked on them during her spare time, so today, she’d enlisted Lyndsey’s help to go over them to make sure she hadn’t left out anything for the new “barn cat” area for unadoptable feral cats. She intended to take in goats and perhaps even a donkey or two, so the barn would be perfect for the cats as well. Once they were neutered or spayed, they could live with the smaller livestock and chase mice.
Yeah, it was becoming clear in Emily’s mind that she didn’t want to just foster animals. No, she wanted to create a separate area to provide a small sanctuary for some of the unadoptable animals that came into Shadow Rock Rescue but never left.
Kade already had an area in place for permanent residents, including livestock. Emily wasn’t sure she wanted to get into the larger animals, but she did know her heart had always resided with rescue, and what was better than rescuing unadoptable animals that she rescued?
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing. So, she was going for it.
Kade, bless him, had already helped her get the paperwork and legalities started, now she just needed to nail her design, and have it printed to scale so she could submit it with permit applications.
“That should do it, Em,” Lyndsey said, pushing her chair back from the dining room table to stand and stretch her back. “I don’t think you’ve left anything out.”
She rose to her feet and eyed the plans from a different angle…as if she hadn’t done that several times already. “Me either. I hope.”
Lyndsey gathered the drawings and shoved them into the purple folder Emily had pushed aside. “These are good to print. No more reviewing. Drop them off at Stef’s shop. It’s on the way. If you leave now, you should still be able to catch her before she closes and make it to Tex Pub on time.”
Perfect.
Stefanie McCall was married to Mac, expecting a baby boy practically any day now, and one hell of a graphic artist. She owned a graphic arts/print shop in a small strip mall in town, right next to the ESI headquarters, which was just down the street from the pub where Emily and Lyndsey were meeting Isla and Christa. The women’s boyfriends were currently out of town, but due back later tonight.
An evening with good friends, good food, and a little line dancing was a great way to celebrate her big step forward.
She knew this, courtesy of Tracy. The woman had smilingly informed her yesterday that their male ESI volunteers would be unavailable until tomorrow, because they were providing security for a charity event in San Antonio. She glanced at the clock on the wall. That event had ended ten minutes ago, which meant the men wouldn’t arrive home for almost three hours.
She hadn’t asked Tracy for any of that information.
No, the woman seemed to think she’d want to know Holden’s whereabouts…or the reason behind his lack of appearance yesterday and today.
She wasn’t. Nope.
But somehow, between the time she’d started to show Holden around the shelter on Thursday, until the end of that crazy confrontation with Perez, Tracy had gotten it in her head that Emily was interested in Holden…and vice versa.
Which was ridiculous because she wasn’t. Nope.
An image of the gorgeous man smiling kindly at the tiny kitten on his broad shoulder flashed through Emily’s mind. Her pulse immediately tripped.
She had to work on that.
“Do I want to know what’s going through your mind right now?” Lyndsey asked, brow raised. “Because your expression kind of went from disgusted to enthralled.”
She snorted, mainly because her friend had nailed it.
“Never mind. I get it.” Lyndsey grinned, waving a hand at her. “Disgusted by a certain dog abuser and enthralled by the newest ESI agent.”
Again, Emily snorted, mainly because her friend was right.
Not that she’d admit it.
“You’re funny,” she said, her gaze flicking to her two rescue dogs currently snoring in their beds in the corner.
She’d adopted the abused and neglected pooches in Houston, one last year, the other last month. Thankfully, both had adapted to the move and new surroundings very well.
“I’m also right,” Lyndsey stated, regaining her attention.
Of course, her friend would point that out.
“And modest, too.” Emily snickered as she glanced down at her shorts. “I think tonight requires a comfy pair of jeans.”
“And killer dancing boots,” Lyndsey added, walking toward the door. “I’m going to run home and change then meet you there.”
She nodded, and as the door closed behind her friend, Emily rushed up the stairs that separated her dining room from her living room and led to four bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. She loved her old, two-story home, with its large front porch, but it had really been the seven acres and outbuilding that sold her on the place.
Perfect for fostering and now her future sanctuary.
The thought put a smile in her heart that transferred to her face, where it remained twenty-two minutes later as she left her sketches with Stef to transform into scalable blueprints. Her smile was still present as she entered Tex Pub and walked to a table where Lyndsey, Isla, and Christa were already seated near the bar.
Texas Republic was a local honky tonk that pulled in large crowds on the weekends, and this evening was no exception. People came from all over the county and several surrounding ones for the amazing food and live bands.
Thankfully, the girls were able to secure a table farthest from the band, where you could actually hear yourself talk.
“Hi, everyone,” she said, sitting down across from Lyndsey and next to Christa.
The latter worked as a tattoo artist for Mel and had an adorable little boy.
“Is Dillan at the Dalton’s?” she asked, even though Kade had already informed her that his boys were excited about Dillan’s visit this evening.
Christa nodded. “Yeah, no doubt eating tacos and building Lego superheroes with Kyle and James.”
“With Kade, too.” She smiled, knowing that had been his plan.
“And Kevin,” Lyndsey added.
Isla’s eyes widened. “Oh, boy. Now there’s a dynamic duo.”
They all laughed because they knew it was true. The Dalton cousins were every bit as dynamic as they were handsome.
Emily and Lyndsey had been too young to go to high school with them, but their photos and achievements had been plastered on the hall walls, along with their McCall buddies, Cole and Connor—Mac’s cousins. Those two men were every bit as gorgeous and famous around school as the Dalton boys.
Now, all four had grown into upstanding members of the community…and even more handsome.
“Hi, welcome to Texas Pub,” a pretty blonde said, standing at the end of the table, pad and pen in hand. “My name is Colby. I’ll be your server today. Can I start you off with some drinks?”
“Hi, Colby.” Lyndsey waved. “Are you new here?”
Come to think of it, Emily couldn’t recall seeing the woman before either.
The blonde smiled. “Yeah. Just moved here from Houston to help my aunt, who recently broke her leg.”
“Aww.” Isla smiled. “That’s nice of you.”
“I’m Emily,” she said, grinning up at the woman. “I recently moved here from Houston too. Well, back here. I’m originally from Harland County.”
“And I moved here last year,” Christa said. “I love it here. I’m sure you will too.”
Colby’s smile widened. “I know I will.”
They placed their drink orders, and since they already knew what they wanted to eat, including enough chips, salsa, and guacamole for the four of them, they gave Colby their food orders, then hit the dance floor.
After stomping their way through four songs, with chip and dip breaks in between, they settled back into their chairs just in time for their entrees to arrive.
Despite having demolished the appetizer, Emily noted she wasn’t the only one who’d worked up an appetite, because conversation lulled while they dug into their food.
“Okay, so were we all just famished?” Christa questioned with a wrinkle to her brow. “Or was the food just that good?”
Lyndsey snorted. “Both.”
Emily laughed along with the others, feeling more relaxed and happier than she had in days. She’d needed this outing, big time. This week had consisted of some great outcomes, and some tough cases. She’d lost a few rescues that had been too far gone before she even arrived at the scene. The runt of a litter of puppies she’d rescued from a storm drain had succumbed to injuries from a coyote attack.
Then there was Perez.
She sobered and shook her head, attempting to remove the jerk from polluting her mind. No way was she going to allow the guy to ruin her happy mood. She took a long sip of her iced tea to wash down the negative words that had tempted her lips.
“Emily, what’s wrong?” Isla frowned.
Lyndsey swore under her breath before leaning closer. “Hey, don’t let that dickwad get into your head.”
Isla’s chin lifted. “What dickwad?”
Emily snorted despite her distaste for the man. Hearing her sweet friend repeat Lyndsey’s colorful vocabulary was enough to return the smile to her face.
“He’s an animal abuser from Houston,” Lyndsey replied.
Isla’s brows rose. “Oh, the Perez guy. Sinjin told me about it. You need to be cautious. Has anything odd happened to you since he was here?”
She shook her head. Nothing, other than finding her screen door open when she got home yesterday, but that could’ve easily just been the wind. Her front door had been shut and locked. Definitely nothing to worry about.
“Yeah.” Christa nodded. “Hunter told me the guys had looked into his past and he’s been in and out of jail.”
Now Emily’s brows reached for the ceiling. “Why did they do that?”
“Because they were worried about you, of course,” Isla replied, as if it’d made perfect sense to have a bunch of former military guys in her corner.
Isla? Christa? Sure. They were in relationships with two of those guys. And Lyndsey, well she was married to the sheriff.
Emily was just a friend of the guys’ significant others.
“She’s right.” Christa nodded again, using her straw to play with the ice in her glass. “It’s what the ESI guys do.”
A smile tugged at Lyndsey’s mouth. “Especially if one of them is taken with you.”
“Exactly.” Isla grinned. “Sinjin told me he had to hold Holden back on Thursday to keep him from decking Perez when he called you a bitch.”
Her pulse leapt and warmth trickled into her chest at the thought of the incredibly handsome man willing to jump to her rescue. She exhaled and shook her head. There were several things wrong with that, like the fact she was too average to catch the eye of someone like him. Emily paid Abby, the local hair stylist, to add blonde streaks to her curly, brunette hair in order to break up all the boring brown she had going on between her eyes and hair.
“Why are you shaking your head?” Isla frowned. “It’s true. Sinjin was there, too, remember?”
Oh, she remembered everything about that evening, especially—she sighed and shook her head again—especially things she shouldn’t remember. Like how the green had mixed with the brown in Holden’s mesmerizing eyes and how his gaze had warmed her insides right down to her toes.
“I wasn’t denying it,” she finally said.
Christa sat back in her chair. “Then why were you shaking your head?”
“Because I think it was interpreted wrong.” She shrugged. “Kade, Holden, and Sinjin had all been behind me, backing me up should Perez get out of hand. But he didn’t. And I had handled it myself.”
She was a rescuer, not a rescue. But she wasn’t stupid. Emily knew Perez had backed off because of the triple threat that had no doubt, created a wall of impenetrable muscle behind her.
A smile twitched her lips. “Between the testosterone that pulsated behind me and the sound of the siren rushing toward me, Perez couldn’t get out of there fast enough.”
“Let’s just hope he doesn’t come back,” Isla said, reaching for her drink.
Christa set a hand on Emily’s arm. “I know what it’s like to be a target and think I could handle it on my own. I was wrong and it nearly cost me my son. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can manage on your own, okay?”
She nodded. “I won’t. But I am honestly okay. That was just a one-time thing. Perez isn’t bothering me.”
It was beyond Emily what she could do or say to make her friends believe her.
Lyndsey leaned forward. “Not yet.”
Comments like that didn’t help.
She lifted her chin. “Or maybe not at all.”
“Okay,” Isla said, stirring her cocktail. “Perhaps we should change the subject. So, any guesses as to when Stef will go into labor?”
Lyndsey shook her head. “That’s out of my wheelhouse. When is her actual due date?”
“This coming Friday,” Christa answered. “Dillan was born the night before his due date.”
Isla nodded. “Yeah, other than those scheduled for a C-section, the mom doesn’t seem to have much say in the matter.”
“Which is unfortunate for Stef,” she said. “I just saw her before I got here, and the poor woman was in the back of her shop with her feet up because her ankles were swelling.”
Sympathy wrinkled Christa’s forehead. “I remember that stage. It was like my ankles had completely disappeared, allowing my leg to butt up against my foot.”
Lyndsey snorted. “Nice visual.”
“You’re welcome.” Christa chuckled.
Concern straightened Isla’s shoulders. “You did say ankles, as in both, right?”
“Yeah, both,” she told her friend who appeared to slip into nursing mode.
“Okay.” Isla visibly relaxed. “I’m glad Stef had her feet up. Were they elevated above her heart, though?”
She nodded. “Yeah, she was flat on her back on the couch with some pillows under her back and calves.”
“Perfect.” Isla smiled. “So, do we think she’ll hit her due date?”
Emily shrugged. “Don’t firstborns sometimes come later? I was the third child, and my mother said even though the third usually comes sooner, I waited a week and came out on my own terms.”
Lyndsey snickered. “That, I’d believe.”
If the woman had been sitting next to her instead of across from her, Emily would’ve elbowed her in the ribs, but since that wasn’t an option, she stuck her tongue out at her.
“Ah, only my wife could extract that type of reaction,” Gabe said, approaching their table in his uniform.
She knew from Lyndsey that he was on duty until later.
A warm smile spread across her friend’s face and softened her gaze. “Hi, hon.” Lyndsey lifted her face to receive a quick kiss before the sheriff procured a chair from a nearby table that wasn’t using it and set it next to his wife. “And you know I’m capable of extracting many reactions.”
Gabe sat down and grinned at Lyndsey. “Right back at you.”
“So, maybe we three should catch the next dance,” Isla said, nodding toward the crowded dance floor.
The married couple laughed.
“No, that’s not necessary,” Gabe said. “I’m not staying long. I have to get back to the station. I just came in for a quick bite to eat.”
“Well, maybe you’d like some privacy all the same,” Christa said, making to stand.
“That’s sweet of you but not necessary,” Lyndsey said, nodding toward the door. “Since your men just walked in.”
Emily set her hand on the table, about to push her seat back when Lyndsey shook her head.
“Your man’s here too.”
My man?
She rolled her eyes at her friend. “I don’t have a man.”
Mischief twinkled in Isla’s gaze. “Does Holden know that?”
She turned to find Holden walking through the bar with Hunter and Sinjin. Just about all the single women—and some who weren’t—fastened their gazes on the testosterone triple threat headed their way.
None of the guys paid any mind to the female attention, including Holden. His gorgeous hazel gaze wore the same warm, determined expression his buddies bestowed on their women, and Emily’s heart skipped a beat as she realized his attention was directed at her.