Page 126 of Wild Card

I head out to my truck, where I call Emmett, one of my most tried-and-true friends. The world knows him as Emmett Bush, suave, cocky, championship bull rider. But I know him as Emmett Brandt, sarcastic, complicated, longtime friend.

“Call Emmett,” I say, already backing out of my parking space. All my earlier worries are now buried by a crushing need to jump into action and do my part for our community.

The phone only rings twice before his voice spills through my truck speakers. Which, in his typical fashion, is to shit-talk.

“Why are you calling so late? Do you need me to sing you a bedtime song to help you sleep?”

“Cute, really cute, but I’m going to cut to the chase. We’ve got a bushfire burning on the back side of the mountain in Rose Hill.”

“Oh shit.” His tone turns serious.

“Yeah, and one of my best friends needs?—”

“What the fuck, Bash? I thought I was your best friend.”

“I saidone of, you big baby.” I can hear the low rumble of amusement from the other end of the line. “Anyway, if you’re done being a territorial little bitch, I’ll finish my story. One of my best friends runs a training operation, a ranch with thirty horses, and he’s currently under an evacuation alert. It’s not an order?—”

“Yeah, but if it turns into one, he won’t be able to get them all out,” Emmett grumbles before I can even finish. With a family farm of his own in an area prone to fires, he knows the risks and the issues West faces. “Does he have a place to take the horses?”

“He’s working on it,” I reply.

“I’d offer up our place, but a trailerful is going to take five hours.”

“Yeah,” I say with a sigh. “And unfortunately, his trailer only hauls six.”

“Shit. Well,” Emmett says, and I can hear his feet stomping and the jingle of his keys in the background. “I’ve got an eight-horse, and I can be there in four hours. Send me the address.”

“You just said five hours.”

“Oh, nah. That’s with a trailer full. Empty trailer, middle of the night, I’ll be fast.”

For a moment, I find myself smiling because that’s just the type of guy Emmett Brandt is. Kind of an asshole, but you don’t even need to ask for help before he’s promising to show up anyway—shaving an hour off his travel time, no less.

I swear to god I could call him in the middle of the night and tell him I need to bury a body. The only thing he’d reply with ison my way.

“You’re a lifesaver” is all I say to him before we hang up.

Then I’m speeding down the darkened road toward the office, praying things don’t take a turn for the worse.

CHAPTER FORTY

GWEN

Being out with Rosie, Skylar, and Tabitha is good for me because they are all in fabulous, lighthearted moods, and all I can think about is marching up to Bash and punching his stupid, stubborn face for being so hard on himself.

And in turn, on us. It breaks my heart to see him so down. I want so badly to fix it all for him. But I can’t—and that might be the hardest part of all.

I let out a beleaguered sigh and gaze across the bar, wondering if I should turn in and go curl up at home alone to lick my wounds in private.

Tabitha eyes me cautiously, no doubt picking up on my dour mood. But she doesn’t call me on it. Instead, she just tops up my wine with a knowing wink.

Between bouts of lively conversation, I retreat into my head. And I think about Bash. It kills me that he’s had to learn that people give up on him, that they walk away or use him as a stepping stone to the next best thing.

What’s worse is that he can’t see that heisthe best thing for me. The one and only.

I was on the cusp of telling him that I’m in love with him, but I held back because it wasn’t the right moment for it. I didn’twant to tell him in the middle of a disagreement. I wanted to tell him when he was looking at me like he loves me too, not like my mere existence pains him.

So now I’m sitting at the Rose Hill Reach with my three sweet friends, who can’t stop laughing over trivia while I stew over Sebastian fucking Rousseau—the man I love and also want to punch some sense into.