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I chuckled. “I suppose that’s about the best thing I’ve got to pass the time.”
Grant scowled at his brother. “Get out to the barn.”
“Are you coming too?”
“Yes.” Grant turned back to me. “Don’t cause any trouble while I’m gone.”
“Me? Trouble? Never. I do intend to raid the kitchen for a snack. It takes a lot of food to keep up a body like this.” I flexed my arms, and Rogue gave me an appreciative smile.
“Try not to eat everything. We’d like to be able to have dinner.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
As I perused the shelves of the well-stocked pantry, my phone—the new one I’d been given on the journey here—rang. X, the man who’d hired Grant to run Paradise Ranch had put his number in, but the only other person who knew how to contact me was my Aunt Evangeline. The call was from her.
“Hello?”
“I told you to call me when you got settled.”
She had, but I’d been too caught up in coming up with ways to piss off my captors—or hosts or whatever the hell they were—to remember.
“I’m sorry, Aunt Van. I forgot.” There was no point in lying to her. She was scary good at knowing when anyone tried to deceive her. I’d told her plenty of times she should be doing the family’s interrogations, but of course, my father would never allow that. He was old school. As far as he believed, women didn’t get involved in the business. He was cheating himself out of a damn fine resource. Van was almost as good a shot as I was, and I was better than most special-ops snipers.
She snorted. “You would forget. Tell me they’re treating you well.”
My mind flashed to Rhys holding me at gunpoint. “They are. The house here is beautiful. You’d love it. Very luxurious.”
“Hmpf. They better be spending some of the money your father is paying on security, not just high thread count sheets.”
I’d slipped out to the barn easily enough, but I’d also seen the perimeter guards they had, and while Grant might be uptight as hell, he knew what he was doing. He’d earned X’s respect. That was good enough for me.
“They’ll take good care of me. Remember X is funding the operation, so there’s no reason to spare an expense.”
“That’s true enough. Too bad he’s got a man now. He’s loaded and so damn fun.”
“Aunt Van!”
“What? I mean, he’s not that much younger than me.”
I grinned. X had to be at least fifteen years younger than her—probably twenty—but I loved her spirit. She had always known how to make things fun and how to make me laugh, even when no one else cared to.
“X is really missing out. If only he’d met you first.”
“Too true, but then I hear he’s bossy, and you know how I feel about a man trying to tell me what to do.”
“I sure do.”
“How do you like being on a ranch?”
I huffed. “It’s hot as the lowest rung of hell down here.”
“I bet. It’s hot as balls here. I don’t want to imagine what it’s like there, though you do have all those gorgeous cowboys around you.”
I laughed. “That’s for damn sure. Grant and his brothers are something else, and I haven’t even met the whole crew yet.”
“Almost makes me want to come down and stay with you.”
“You’d have a lot more fun. All I’m allowed to do is sit around the damn house.”
