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 meup 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.”
