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She was so pretty he could barely believe it at times. Not gorgeous in the accepted sense of the word. Uniquely pretty, her features delicate and radiating with some soft inner glow that he couldn’t put a name to or fully understand exactly what looking at her did to him.
Besides making him hard, that was.
“Waiting on an apology?” he asked curiously, noting she’d yet to mention the earlier confrontation.
No doubt she deserved an apology. She hadn’t deserved her father’s lecture or his deliberate bating. But, maybe, his own final comment hadn’t exactly been fair to her.
“I’ve never known you to apologize to anyone,” she finally answered, the subtle drawl of her voice resigned. “I’m not the one you need to apologize to anyway.”
Oh, he knew that tone and he knew exactly who she was suggesting he needed to apologize to. And there simply wasn’t a chance in hell. Like she said, he did not do apologies well at all.
“I have no reason to apologize to your father,” he told her firmly. “As you said earlier, he started it.”
The bastard had known Raeg and Falcon would be right behind her. Just as he’d known that chastising her over their desire for her, and her response to it, would not be acceptable.
Turning her head, she stared out along the front of the house. Pasture stretched out on one side of it, extending to the east and north of the house.
“That’s my daddy, Raeg,” she said without looking back at him again. “All my life he’s loved me and done his absolute best for me. If he blinked one night, then that’s between me and Daddy. But I will tell you, from the time we could walk, Daddy taught Aunjenue and me both how to defend ourselves if we had to. And that’s what saved me from something worse than a beating.” Her expression hardened, the gaze she turned on him resolute. “I don’t care if you like him or not any more. I know you won’t stay here once the danger Dragovich represents is over, so the situation between the two of you doesn’t have to be fixed. From here on out, you can keep your distance from him with my blessing. And I will tell you what I just told Daddy. The next blow thrown by either of you, no matter the reason, and both of you will pay for it.” She rose, stepped to the cement walk, and stared back at him with chilling regard. “Now. Finish your coffee. I have things to do at home. And I prefer to do them alone. I think you, Daddy, and Falcon need to do some serious thinking where I’m concerned though. Because at the moment, all of you are showing me just how little my feelings, my wishes, or my heart, matter to any of you.” She paused, pain flashing in her eyes then. “But then, I don’t think any of that has ever mattered to you anyway. Has it?”
She turned and walked away from him unhurriedly, the breeze playing through her hair and the thin material of her dress. She looked like a damned princess or something with her head held high, her shoulders straight, and that aristocratic little nose lifting with such disdain.
It just made him just want to fuck her even more.
And she terrified the hell out of him.
He couldn’t stay, claiming her was out of the question. Once Dragovich was taken care of, it would be time for him and Falcon to leave, if they wanted to keep her safe.
Her safety mattered. It mattered more to him than his own.
But he’d realized in the last week that the thought of leaving her gave rise to other thoughts. What she would do, what her future would hold. And those thoughts just pissed him the hell off.
She’d probably end up marrying some dumbass who would give her weak-chinned babies or something. Not that he could imagine a child of Summer’s ever being weak.
A child.
He rubbed at his bruised jaw gingerly. God help him, he’d have to kill the son of a bitch who gave her a baby, who marked her heart and her mind to that extent. The thought of it was so damned infuriating that he shot a glare in the direction she’d taken toward the house.
The thought of making amends with her father just made his pride cringe though.
Yeah, he had quite a bit of thinking to do.
Chapter
NINE
Summer knew the moment she stepped into the house that something wasn’t right. It was her home, her personal space in the most intimate sense of the word.
And something, someone, had invaded it.
She could feel the danger in the air, the sense of dark malevolence waiting for her. Her eyes went around the room slowly, finally landing on a shadow that shouldn’t be spreading out next to the doorway leading into the kitchen-dining area across from the living area.
It took every ounce of control to keep her hand out of the pocket of her dress, away from the little .22-caliber mini-pistol she kept there. Just in case, she didn’t want an intruder to know she was armed before she could actually use the weapon.
Within seconds, she knew standing and fighting wasn’t going to be an option as another shadow shifted at the doorway to her side that led into the formal dining room.
She swung around quickly, intending to run for the still-open front door even as she shoved her hand into the pocket, her fingers curling around the tiny gun, her finger sliding against the trigger. Before she could pull it free, the sudden, agonizing burn that latched onto her shoulder blades and dug deep inside her nerve endings taking her to her knees.
By luck, chance, or training—she couldn’t be certain which—her finger tightened on the trigger as she toppled to the floor, the sound of the weapon’s discharge shattering the stillness of the house.
