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His eyes met hers, and the corners of his lips tipped into an encouraging smile at he nodded at something Ray said.
“Dawg’s different with you, Crista,” Kelly said then. “Calmer. Not as prone to stand distant and apart from the others. He was doing that before you returned. Slowly drawing away from Rowdy. It was breaking Rowdy’s heart. ”
As she watched Dawg, she could understand why he would have been drawing away. Rowdy had a father who loved him, a family, and a woman to fill his heart. Dawg understood what he was lacking in his own life, just as Crista had always known what was lacking in hers.
“Rowdy was loved,” Crista murmured then. “He had something Dawg knew he needed as well. ”
Kelly glanced at Dawg, then back to Crista as she nodded slowly.
“The change didn’t come after he blackmailed you. It came with your return. Dawg knew what he was missing, and he thought he’d never find it. When you came back, the part of him that knew how to love reawakened, Crista. Don’t doubt that. And don’t doubt for one minute that he would give his soul to protect you. ”
As she would give hers. No. She amended that. She no longer had a soul separate from Dawg’s.
It was melded with his and had been for over eight years.
“Let’s get more plates and get them fed,” Crista said then, calculating the amount of food sitting on the table and how far it would go. It should just stretch.
“Good idea. Food usually settles Rowdy’s bloodthirsty instincts. ” Kelly sighed. “He’s ready to help Ray kill Johnny. ”
He wasn’t the only one.
As they gathered around the table, Crista continued to watch the three men, drawing in impressions and letting the final pieces of the puzzle that represented Dawg fall into place.
His bond with Rowdy and Ray extended to Kelly, but there was no lust, no hint of desire, when he looked at the other woman. Crista saw friendship, affection, but nothing more. As she watched, she realized that one of her greatest fears had been that of seeing Dawg stare at Kelly with arousal.
She knew the games he had played in the past with his cousins and found it hard to believe they could step away from it so easily. Even for love.
But it appeared that at least Dawg and Rowdy had done just that. Crista wasn’t uncomfortable when Rowdy looked at her; she saw no interest other than the casual interest that would have been expected.
Dawg teased Kelly, laughed with her, but he didn’t desire her.
Watching the interplay made her realize exactly what she had missed in the years she had been away, but they weren’t years she would regret. She had matured, grown up, learned something of herself and of the world around her. Enough to know where home was and who her heart belonged to.
Dawg belonged to her. She felt it, where she had feared it before. Just as she belonged to him.
“What do you think, Crista?” Dawg’s voice drew her back from her thoughts and had her staring back at him. She blinked and refocused to see the heat stirring in his light green eyes and the heavy interest in his expression as he watched her.
“About what?” she asked.
“About taking tomorrow morning to head into town for some fresh baked goods. After all, as fa
r as Johnny knows, none of us know what the hell he’s up to. How do you feel about shaking him up a little bit?”
She stared at the three men and one woman watching her expectantly and felt shock rise inside her.
“I think you’ve lost your minds,” she retorted in disbelief. “Don’t you think that once he realizes I never left Somerset that he’s going to get suspicious? That he’ll figure out that you’re onto him?”
The smile Dawg gave her was frankly terrifying. It was filled with expectation, anticipation, and a gleam of dangerous determination.
“That, fancy-face, is exactly what we’re counting on. ”
TWENTY
“I don’t like it!” Crista exclaimed again, hours later, after the houseboat had cleared out and she followed Dawg upstairs, where he carefully pulled a panel from the bedroom wall and displayed more weapons than she wanted to think about.
Lord, the man was an armory by himself.
“It’s perfectly safe, sweetheart. ” He was using that conciliatory tone that he had used downstairs.
