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“You didn’t think we were attracted to each other?”
“It’s just that no one’s been able to tell about the two of you,” Hunter said. “For a lot of years.”
“Well, there was nothing going on. Then there was. As soon as there was, things became pretty clear.”
“Naturally.”
It was Tag who said that, as if that sort of thing was just logical. Everybody else nodded along.
“So what I’m thinking in terms of expanding the ranch,” Gus said, and Lachlan just fell into listening as Gus spun out his plans for where to take the equine therapy program over the next couple of years. He should have known that Gus wouldn’t be satisfied with what he’d already built. And it was going to cause drama, because the Sullivans were fighting for their share of expansion money.
But hey, it was Gus’s fight. If he wanted to be in it, well, he was married to a Sullivan sister. So he could go right ahead and pick that fight if he felt like it.
“The girls are attracting attention,” Brody commented.
Lachlan looked over his shoulder and he saw a pack of men walk in with boots that were too clean, belt buckles that were too shiny and eyebrows that were far too groomed.
City Slickers.
Looking to pick up on horse girls. No doubt. His hackles rose.
There was one man chatting up Alaina, and all Gus did was roll his eyes. Elizabeth was determinedly ignoring a man to her left, and there was a man who reached out and touched Charity on the arm.
Before Lachlan could make a decision, he had launched out of his chair. He watched Charity draw away from the guy, and the guy take another step toward her. “No, thank you,” Charity said.
“Come on, kitten. You’re not going to get a better offer than this all night.”
Lachlan walked up to the other man and looked down at him. “Beg to differ, son.”
The guy was probably older than Lachlan, but he was a few inches shorter. So there.
“Are you serious, man? There’s a lot of women in here.”
“But only one of them’s my wife. Mypregnantwife. Notice the wedding rings. You made a miscalculation.”
“Hey, man,” the guy said. “I don’t want any trouble.”
“You walked in here looking for trouble. She told you no, and you kept moving in on her. And you better give me one good reason why I shouldn’t cave your face in.”
“I’m not picking a fight with you, dude.”
Lachlan reached out and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. “My guy,” Lachlan said. “Call me dude one more time and I will make it physically impossible for you to enunciate the word.”
Rage was pouring through him. Blinding and hot. He had never wanted to be violent quite so badly as he did in this moment.
What would’ve happened if he wasn’t here? Would the guy have kept pushing? Was he the kind of guy who would put something in her drink? The kind of guy who reacted badly when a woman told him no? Lachlan wanted to destroy him. Utterly. Completely.
Lachlan wanted blood.
“Fine, she’s not that hot anyway.”
And that justdid it.Lachlan punched him. Right in the face. Which brought every other guy in the group right on top of them. He heard Gus sigh. “Well, damn.”
Then, all the McCloud boys were out on the dance floor. Doing a whole different kind of tango with the city assholes who had shown up.
Sheena hurled a beer bottle at the wall behind them, hollering at them to take the fight the hell out of her bar and you could still hear Taylor Swift telling them all toshake it offfrom the jukebox. It was a melee, and the city boys were outmatched. There was one more of them than there was of the McClouds. But Gus was a whole freight train in human form, and the rest of them weren’t slouches. “I ought to call the cops,” the one guy said, holding his face.
“Go ahead. This is a small town. The cops are my kin.”
