Page 92 of Objection to Love

“My good looks and quick wit.” Noah smiled winningly.

Garrett shook his head, but the joke lightened his mood a bit. “I was even thinking of sticking around after this job.”

Will lowered his gun too, emptying the chamber of the remaining rounds. “For her?”

“Yeah. For her.”

Noah stuck a fist in his jacket pocket. “That’s a bad hand.”

Garrett nodded. The worst hand he’d been dealt in a long time. Maybe since his dad had died… which really said a lot about how much he liked Em.

Who was he kidding? He’d been falling in love with her. Had been making plans for the future, even if he hadn’t fully realized it yet.

His eyes started to feel hot, and he shook his head. “Enough about that. Want to have a little competition? Worst marksman buys dinner?”

“Only if we give Will some sort of handicap,” Noah muttered.

Will grinned, then grabbed Garrett’s shoulder consolingly as he passed to go swap guns.

Noah watched him before turning to Garrett. “Her loss, man. Seriously.”

That was nice and all. But, unfortunately, Garrett didn’t agree.

Chapter 33

Em

Wasitweirdtolook through her curtains before leaving?

It was. Definitely.

Em pushed aside the curtains one last time. If she was already weird, it didn’t hurt to double-check that Garrett’s truck was gone. Which, now that she thought about it, was weird in itself. It wasn’t even seven, and he had left.

The curtains dropped back into place, and Em shrugged. She wasn’t going to question her good luck in avoiding Garrett today. She was pretty sure if he had been out swinging on his porch swing, she would have jumped the small space between their houses and begged him to take her back. And there was no way she could do that.

After grabbing her briefcase, she made it to her car without incident. The drive to Woodcastle was similarly uneventful. When she walked into the courthouse, the judicial assistant greeted her as usual, and she found her way to the courtroom where she started to set up for the day.

The trial concluded without a hitch. She didn’t get her desired first-degree murder charge, but they did get the manslaughter charge without any trouble. Her team gave everyone congratulatory handshakes, and she shared professional nods with the defense team before leaving. Likely, her coworkers would go out to celebrate, and they probably wouldn’t invite her.

Essentially, everything was normal.

Why was that disappointing?

The sun was still fairly high in the sky when Em left the courthouse. With the trial finished, there was no pressing work for her to do, so she planned to just head home. She checked her phone’s clock. 2:33. It might be a record for how early she’d left work. She should text Garrett—he’d be so proud. And then he’d probably get off early too so—

Nope.

Em groaned, tilting her head up to the sun but not feeling any of its warmth. Garrett would do none of those things because Em wouldn’t text him.

Because they’d broken up.

Somehow, she reached her car without realizing it. But she didn’t get in. She didn’t even pull her keys out. Instead, she stared angrily at her sedan. It wasn’t fair that she was still thinking of him—she’d ended things between them to better focus on her family and her work. But right now she wasn’t focusing on either.

Frustrated, she kicked her car’s tire.

Which, of course, reminded her of when she’d first met Garrett after he saved her from a flat tire.

“Uggghhh!”

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