“You do?” The guy brushed past Wren, straight into Emery’s apartment, grumbling every second. “Then do you mind telling me what the hell that was about?”
“Wait here.” Wren ignored the question and closed the door, leaving his men as backup in the hallway. Once inside the apartment again, his position with his back to the door allowed him to watch Emery, to see the interaction. To get pissed off for no good reason.
“You’re back.” Emery wore a bright smile and she gave the man a big hug.
“That was quite a welcome,” he said, still bitching about the scene in the hallway. When he finally stepped back, he didn’t let go of Emery. Then he turned to Wren. “You are?”
Annoyed. But he still had the presence of mind to slip back into his fake persona. “Brian Jacobs.”
“This is Tyler Bern,” Emery said without letting go of the guy.
“The childhood friend.” Wren knew exactly who this guy was. He’d hung out with Tiffany and Emery. They’d been inseparable.
The detective’s notes suggested both girls had a crush on young Tyler and that Tyler had wanted to date Tiffany, but she said no, a fact that made him a suspect. Apparently the kid had a bit of an overactive ego back then and was the star of some team. Basically, not the type who took rejection well. The notes had actually said that.
And now he was touching Emery. It was all Wren could do to keep from punching the guy. The days of being moved to irrational anger should be behind him. Wren thought they were, but they seemed to flood through him now.
Tyler smiled as he looked at Emery. “You’ve been talking about me?”
“Sort of.” Emery dropped her arm from around Tyler’s back. “It’s hard to explain.”
The smiling, the ease between them—yeah, Wren couldn’t watch this. Didn’t want to. He did a quick look around for his jacket and grabbed it off the back of the family room chair. “I should go.”
She took a step in his general direction then stopped. “You don’t need to leave.”
“You have a friend here now.” Wren pulled his gaze away from her and looked at Tyler. “Someone tried to break into the house tonight.”
Tyler frowned. “So, those guys in the hallway are . . . ?”
“They’re with me.”
He snorted. “Nice friends you have.”
“Good night, Emery.” Wren nodded to her when he wanted to do much more. “Call if you need anything.”
He rarely said those words as anything more than a way to end a conversation with a work client. This time he meant them.
CHAPTER 13
Emery stared at the door as it closed behind Wren. Her emotions flipped around, nearly knocking her over. She didn’t know how to think about him.
Even as she stood there, listening to the mumble of his deep voice through the door as he talked to his men in the hallway, she rubbed her fingers together. Remembered the feel of the scruff around his cheek and the smooth flatness of his stomach.
One question kept flipping through her mind—why did she touch him? She’d slipped in close, ran her hands over him. Flirted. None of it fit with who she was or her initial response to him. But something about him lured her in. She found him compelling. Sensed that under the whiff of danger and all that brooding he was a decent man. And that didn’t even touch how hot he was. She’d always had a thing for blonds. Not anymore.
“I think I walked in on something,” Tyler said.
She’d almost forgotten about her friend and his poor timing. She plastered a smile on her face and turned around to face him. “No, it’s . . . actually, I don’t know what he is.”
She looked at Tyler, her first real crush. She loved him with all the intensity of a teen high on hormones. He sauntered around the school halls and hung out at his locker while the other kids practically lined up to talk to him. Everyone loved him.
Living only a few streets apart, they’d grown up running around the neighborhood together. They joked and had fun and as they grew up he fell for Tiffany. That broke Emery’s heart, but it had long healed. The exaggerated teen angst over him washed away when Tiffany disappeared. What mattered to Emery changed that day.
So many people had pointed to Tyler as a suspect. He’d been questioned until his parents balked and refused one more interview. He switched schools, first to a private one then to a boarding school in Connecticut. After that, they saw each other during vacations and wrote now and then. He moved away and moved on.
Truth was, in a way, she never forgave him for not mourning enough for Tiffany. That sucked and it wasn’t fair, but it was how she felt.
There was talk about him being embarrassed about Tiffany insisting they only be friends. They fought the day before someone took her. Still, Emery refused to believe the guy with the dimple, the one who kissed her—really kissed her in her garage for the first time ever—would hurt Tiffany.
Tyler walked around, scanning the room as he went. “That guy’s not really your usual type.”