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As quickly as it had begun, it was over. His head lifted, eyes narrowed, he stared back at her intently.
“In public,” he snarled. “Now let’s go, you’re going to the hospital. ”
He swung her up in his arms before she could protest and amid the surprised gazes of customers, Jonesy, and Rogue was certain she glimpsed a Mackay or two, he carried her to the pickup he had used the night before. His personal vehicle. The one he had taken her in.
He swung the door open, then pushed her inside, one hand at her rear as he pressed her along the bench seat.
“Buckle up,” he bit out angrily, his voice rough.
“I’m not going to the damned hospital. You try to make me and I promise you’ll regret it. ” She buckled up before turning to him and eating him with her eyes. “You damned tattletale. I’m not going anywhere with you. ”
“Tattletale?” He twisted the key in the ignition and reversed out of the parking lot with a squeal of tires. “Since when am I a damned tattletale?”
“Since you calledDaddy on me,” she sneered. “Oh really, Zeke, did you think that worrying my father would save your ass? Like hell. I’m going to kick your ass. ”
She was enraged, furious, and the object of every frustration she had ever had was sitting in the truck beside her.
“And why the hell am I in your truck?” Her hand slapped the dashboard furiously as she turned and stared back at him.
“Because evidently it’s where you damned well belong,” he yelled back at her, his voice rough. “For God’s sake, Rogue, why couldn’t you just go back to Boston?”
That stopped her. Rogue narrowed her eyes on him, taking in the way his hands were clenched on the steering wheel, the hard set of his lips, the gleam of anger in his gaze when he glanced back at her. She could feel the blood thundering through her veins now, excitement and arousal pounding in her nerve endings.
“Why is it so damned important to you that I go back to Boston?” she argued. “Come on, Zeke, I have nothing to do with Joe and Jaime’s death. Why the hell do you want me in Boston so bad unless it’s because you can’t keep that frozen heart of yours in cold storage as long as I’m here?”
His jaw tensed and his foot became heavier on the gas as they sped, she assumed, to his farm.
Zeke pressed his lips tightly together and reined in the anger pulsing through him. All he could see flashing through his mind was Rogue, shaking in Jonesy’s grip, her head bouncing on her shoulders as her bartender shook the shit out of her.
There were bruises on her arms from the bastard’s fingers, there were bruises on her face, courtesy of a fist he had heard about while he was cuffing Jonesy. One of those bastards had hit her, not once, but twice. There was a dark area close to her temple; her cheek was beginning to swell.
“It wasn’t my heart I was worried about protecting,” he ground out between his teeth.
“Did it ever enter that stubborn little brain of yours that maybe I was trying to protect you?”
Silence continued to fill the cab of the truck as Zeke took the turn that led back to his farm. Hell, he should have rushed her to the emergency room, not to his farm, despite her objections.
“I don’t need your protection. ” Her voice shook and he could hear the pain that resonated inside it. “I don’t need anything from you, Zeke. I’m sick of your hot and cold attitude, and I’m really damned sick of only seeing you whenever you need to fuck. ”
He shot her a furious glare. Only when he needed to fuck? He made more rounds of that damned bar and the Mackay restaurant a day than he did any other business. He waited for her, watched for her, and damn her, all he did was think about her, and she thought he was just there for the sex?
“I didn’t need to fuck tonight,” he stated with an edge of disgust. “I was more concerned with getting you away from that damned bar crowd before you ended up with your head bashed in. For God’s sake, Rogue, you waded into a bar fight between two men more than twice your size. ”
“For God’s sake, Zeke,” she drawled mockingly. “It just so happens it wasmy bar . ” She screamed the last two words at him. “You had no right to pull me out of there, and you sure as hell had no right to handcuff Jonesy. ”
“He’s lucky I didn’t kill him. ” Rage nearly consumed him at the remembered sight of Jonesy shaking her like a rag doll. “That’s the second time that bastard thought he could manhandle you. ”
“And it’s the second time that you jumped to the wrong conclusion,” she accused him.
“I think you do it deliberately. ”
Zeke wiped his hand down his face before clenching the steering wheel in a death grip.
Just a few more minutes, he told himself. He’d be at the farm, when he should be taking her to the hospital, in the house, and then he could turn her over his knee and paddle her ass for daring to allow herself to be in such a situation.
Damned stubborn woman. She refused medical care but wouldn’t care a damned bit to jump into the middle of another fucking bar-room brawl.
“I don’t just jump to the wrong conclusions,” he said carefully, attempting to throttle his anger. “And Jonesy won’t get away with this, Rogue. I’ll have my own little talk with him. ”
