Page 45 of Tango (Hunt Brothers Search & Rescue #4)

Forty-five minutes.

That’s how long I’ve stood in this church parking lot, waiting for Emma to leave the diner. Riley joked that it’s because I’m jealous, but it’s not. Not entirely, anyway. I’d noticed the man who approached her as he lingered in the back of the church during service.

He wasn’t there for the Gospel, but rather the entire time, his gaze had been trained on Emma. At first, I brushed it off. She’s gorgeous, so the fact that she captured his attention doesn’t surprise me.

But when he’d beelined for her after service, something felt wrong.

Off.

So, here I wait. Watching. Making sure she leaves.

The stranger left a few minutes ago, and I snapped a couple of cell phone pictures for Tucker to run through facial ID. I know the man doesn’t live here, which makes him a potential threat—at least in my opinion.

Unknowns are unpredictable.

I like my life to be predictable.

She steps out onto the street like a ray of sunshine in her yellow and white striped church dress. After waving goodbye to Talia inside, Emma makes her way across the street, a smile on her face. But as she gets closer, I note the red-rimming her gorgeous eyes.

Eyes that are currently narrowed on me.

“What did he do to you?” I demand, already prepared to hunt him down and make him pay for causing her pain.

“Nothing.” Emma crosses her arms. “What do you want, Dylan?”

What am I supposed to say? That I was worried and wanted to make sure she was safe? Or that the idea of her sharing a meal with someone else makes my skin crawl? “I didn’t recognize him, and I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Emma’s glare turned molten. It’s something about her that always fascinated me.

Emma is the happiest person I’ve ever met, but her temper—slow to come by—is a force to be reckoned with.

“You don’t care whether or not I’m okay, Dylan.

So stop pretending otherwise.” She tries to walk past me to her car, but I remain where I am.

“I do care.”

“Why? Because you bring me anonymous flowers every year? You think that earns you the right to ask me about my life?”

How do I explain to her that I’m doing everything I can? That those flowers are the only way I can safely show her how much she means to me?

“I can’t keep doing this anymore, Dylan.”

“Doing what?”

“This.” She gestures between us. “Whatever this is, I’m done with it.”

“Nothing.” The moment the word leaves my lips, I wish I could take them back. “We’re just?—”

“Just what?” she demands, tears filling her eyes. “Go ahead, I would love to hear what you have to say about it. What are we? What am I to you?”

I swallow hard. You’re the only piece of joy I have left in my life, and I’m so afraid to taint it that I can only watch from a distance.

“Who is he?”

She gapes up at me, her broken-heart right there for the world to see. I did that. I’m more of a risk to her than anyone else, so why did I do this? Why did I linger around when I bring nothing but pain.

“He’s none of your business.”

“Emma.”

“No.” She glares up at me, standing closer than she’s been since I got back ten years ago.

So close that I can see each and every color variation in her gorgeous eyes.

“You don’t get to care anymore, Dylan. You threw that away when you decided I wasn’t allowed to be a part of your new life.

” She shoves past me and unlocks her car then shoves her purse inside before whirling on me again.

“You are going to leave me alone. Do you hear me? No more sneak flowers on my birthday, no more showing up when I’m working late.

You don’t want to be in my life? Then don’t be in my life!

” She’s yelling furiously now, so loud that people who are walking by the church pause to look.

The edges of my vision begin to cloud. “You’re making a scene.” I need her to stop yelling. I need to regain control of myself. Of my racing heart.

She seizes up, her already furious gaze darkening like the sky before a storm.

“Oh, I’m making a scene? Fine.” Emma rips the backdoor of her car open and pulls out a box containing what are now wilted flowers—and all ten vases I’ve brought for her over the years.

“Here’s your scene.” Furiously, she shoves them into my hands.

“Take these back. And don’t even think about pretending like they aren’t yours.

” Angry tears stream furiously down her cheeks.

“How dare you ruin this for me, Dylan Hunt. How dare you act like you care when we both know I’m nothing but a guilt project for you. ”

I toss the box to the side, not caring that the vases break, as my own temper flares. “A guilt project? What is that supposed to mean?”

“You know exactly what it means. Poor little Emma had her heart broken. Poor little Emma still needs big, strong Dylan Hunt to look out for her.” She rams her finger into my chest, and my heart hammers.

My breathing grows ragged, and tunnel vision takes over.

All while she’s still yelling at me.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t see anything but anger.

Red.

Fury.

“Hey! What is going on here?” Bradyn. His voice grounds me, but it’s not enough.

Emma is still yelling.

“I don’t need or want you around me, Dylan. You got that? Keep your distance, and stay out of my life!” Her door slams.

“Dylan.”

“I can’t—I can’t breathe.” I try to suck in a breath, but it’s strained as though I’m trying to breathe through the hollow part of a pen.

“Come on.”

“Don’t touch me. Please. I just need a minute.” The voices are loud in my head—the yelling. The anger.

“I’m not going to,” Bradyn says. “But we need to get you in my truck, okay?”

“Yeah.”

Bradyn lifts the box, so I follow him over toward his truck. By the time he’s set the box in the bed of his truck, my heart rate has slowed and my breathing has regulated. Something my older brother realizes as we both climb inside.

“What happened?” he asks.

“She poked me.” I touch my chest where her finger hit. Even through my shirt, I can feel the puckered scar beneath. A scar that exists because I had a dagger driven into my chest so slowly I could feel it tear through each muscle fiber.

“What was the fight about?”

“Some guy was talking to her,” he says. “I waited around to make sure she was okay. She’s right, though. I lost the right to care a long time ago.”

“You didn’t lose the right to care,” Bradyn corrects. “But you did lose your ability to be a part of her life when you closed the door on her.”

None of my brothers pull punches. I don’t, either. It’s just not how we were raised. But right now, I wish that Braydn would let me have this one. At least, until my breathing regulates.

“What’s with the box?”

“Gifts.”

“From you?”

I nod. “I’d leave flowers on her porch every year for her birthday.”

“Awww, so that was you. Riley owes me fifty bucks.”

I glare at him as he puts his truck into Drive. “You bet on me?”

“Yeah. Riley overheard her, quite a few years ago, thanking you, and you denying it. So, we made a wager.”

“On whether or not I was taking her flowers.”

“Yeah. None of us could catch you in the act. So, kudos there, brother.”

As we hit Main Street, we fall into silence. All I can see is her furious expression. Pink cheeks, wide eyes—she’d been hurt. Was that really all because of me?

I can’t keep living in this messed-up nightmare of what my life used to be. But I don’t know how to make it stop.

How do I get off this twisted rollercoaster?

“Why were you back in town?”

“Mom said you asked to linger behind. I figured you’d need a ride home, so I came into town looking for you.”

“Yeah, I guess that was good foresight.”

“I thought so. Call it brotherly intuition.”

“It’s good you got there when you did. There’s no telling—” I trail off, not even wanting to think about what could have happened had he not shown up. Would I have completely lost myself to the past? Would I have fought back? Hurt her?

“You wouldn’t have done anything to Emma, Dylan.”

“In those moments, I’m not me anymore.”

“You wouldn’t have hurt her,” he repeats. “When I got there, you were doing everything you could to put distance between the two of you. Which means you were rational enough—even in the panic—that you knew who she was.”

“It was on the way out,” I tell him.

He’s quiet for a moment.

“I need to keep Delta with me. I got comfortable and left him at home.” He can sense when I start to lose myself, and so far, he’s one of the only things that grounds me in the present. Even my brothers struggle to bring me back from the brink.

More than once, I’ve attacked them in the middle of an episode.

Which is something Emma will never understand. It’s not that I don’t want to be a part of her life. Honestly, it’s the exact opposite.

Emma is everything to me. Whatever tattered remnants of my heart remain will belong to her until they put me six feet under. Maybe even after that.

She’s the air that I breathe.

The sun in my sky.

But that time in captivity changed me.

It made me a monster.

Someone unworthy of even breathing the same air she does.

No matter how badly it hurts, I know that she deserves a lot better than half a man.

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