by Lora Leigh
“La la la la la…” She covered her ears. “Stop this, Daddy.”
“Tell me that’s not what’s goin’ on in that house then,” he snapped.
“Oh my Lord…” she muttered, looking around desperately for a means of escape. She could feel shame curling through her, and she was certain she was going to hyperventilate.
“Summer, girl, I’m no fool,” he sighed. “I know you’ve had lovers.”
“Oh my God, Daddy … stop…” Scandalized, she couldn’t bear to hear anymore.
This simply was not done.
Her daddy did not talk about such things to her.
“Now, Summer…”
“No, Daddy. Does Momma discuss Caleb’s friendships with him? Oh my God, you know she never would.” Momma would die of embarrassment first.
“Friendships?” he glared at her. “Is that what you’re callin’ it now?”
She stomped her feet, the heel of her shoe cracking against the boards of the porch, to get his attention.
“Daddy, I am appalled at this.” She stared back at him in disbelief, her hands settling on her hot cheeks. This was too embarrassing.
“And you should be,” he agreed fiercely. “Those two scoundrels bringin’ their wild ways to your home and to your bed like that.”
“Daddy … please, I’m beggin you,” she cried out desperately. “Please stop sayin’ these things.”
Something akin to satisfaction and pure devilry sparked in his gaze as he stared back at her. Something that simply had her heart sinking.
“Summer…?” Raeg spoke behind her, and she knew then exactly why her daddy was so satisfied.
“Oh Lord,” she whispered, panic tightening her chest. “Where’s Momma? This is simply too much.”
Her daddy turned and looked to his side where Raeg and Falcon stood, his expression disgusted. “Boys, it’s rude to eavesdrop on a man’s conversation with his own daughter,” he informed them in his best drill sergeant voice. “Where’s your manners?”
She turned to Raeg and Falcon, staring at them, begging them silently even as she shook her head desperately. They could not let this conversation happen. They couldn’t.
Raeg crossed his arms over his chest, the black shirt, sleeves rolled back to his elbows, and eagle-colored eyes giving him a piratical air.
“Damn, Falcon, you were right about the rules in the South being different from those at home,” he sneered. “At least there we take up our disagreements with any ‘friends’ our sister has with the men themselves rather than with her.”
Momma … Summer wailed silently.
“The two of you are a disgrace,” her daddy snapped, glaring at them with disapproval. “Especially you.” He pointed at Raeg imperiously. “You’re damned disrespectful to boot. Summer’s not one of your city girls to be used like you think you can use her.”
Use her? She was going to be sick.
And it was so obvious her momma wasn’t going to help her out here.
“Summer, perhaps you should go inside and help your mother,” Falcon suggested gently, his expression as hard as his eyes. “We would speak to your father about this privately.”
Her eyes widened, her heart suddenly racing.
Falcon might have spoken gently, but his expression was savage, his gaze icy. He was furious. Completely furious. That was never a good thing.
“I will not—” she began to object.
“Now.” Raeg directed the full force of a gaze so demanding and fierce she stared back at him in shock.
“Go on, little girl,” her daddy drawled. “Go on back in the house with the women. I’ll just discuss this myself with these two.”
Little girl? Her daddy called her little girl?
No, he had not!
“Daddy, I won’t have this,” she informed him, pressing the fingers of one hand to her temple. She could feel that migraine coming for sure now. “Stop it this instant.”
His smile was slow, anticipatory.
“Now how do you think you can enforce that, little girl?” he drawled, that vein of satisfaction deepening in his tone.
She thought fast. It wasn’t the best plan. But maybe …
“I can do exactly what I should have done when I first got here,” she informed him furiously. “I’ll stay a night in town and tell everyone I meet my daddy disowned me and I’m moving back to DC. Dragovich’s men will definitely follow me then.”
She put her hands on her hips to keep from wringing them in pure approaching hysteria. Her daddy was up to something, she knew he was. She just wasn’t certain what or why. But what he was doing was simply not good for her peace of mind.
“The hell you will,” he snapped, frowning down at her.
“Daddy, you just don’t want to bet on that.” Her voice rose, her panic along with it.
“Little girl…”
“I have a name, Daddy!” she yelled. “You should know it. Momma let you choose it, and that name was not ‘little girl.’ I’ve not been a little girl for many years now.”
“Well now, a grown woman would understand the shenanigans these two are up to.” He waved toward Raeg and Falcon.
“That’s enough out of both of you.” Raeg was suddenly beside her, yelling at the two of them.
“He started it.” She stabbed her finger in her daddy’s direction furiously.
Oh, she was so mad at both of them now, the reason to her father’s behavior suddenly clear. “My personal business is just that. Mine. And he’s just set to provoke me because you’re so ugly with him.” She turned on Raeg, pushing his arm away as he reached for her. “Get the hell over it right now or you’re gonna be sleepin’ in Caleb’s barn instead of my home. You will not continue to cause all this trouble, Raeg.”
Raeg stared down at her incredulously. “You’re joking?”
“Raeg.” Falcon stepped onto the porch then. “We do not need Summer in this discussion. Let her go inside first—”
Raeg’s bark of laughter wasn’t a comfortable sound.
“She’s joking, isn’t she?” he snapped, his gaze filled with incredulity and anger. “Damn, Falcon, what good would letting her escape accomplish? All you want to do is kiss his ass anyway. You’re just as bad as she is to ask how high, when he says jump. I’ll be damned if I’ll do it too.”
“That’s my daddy,” Summer protested, staring back at him in shock. “You cannot be so rude to him in his own home.”
“I can’t be rude to him?” Furious, mocking amusement filled his face. “Summer, he all but called you a whore to your face—”
Before the last word left his mouth, her daddy moved. His arm flashed past her face, the solid, powerful whack sounding before she could even follow the move and swing around to Raeg …
… who went down.
Backward.
Sprawled out on his back, eyes closed.
Lights out.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, staring down at Raeg, then at Falcon’s incredulous expression. “Oh my God … Daddy?” She turned to her father in disbelief. “What have you done?”
He snorted at the question as she gripped his arm desperately.
“Taught him a manner or two I hope,” he informed her, satisfaction filling his expression as well as his voice. “He’ll live.” He grinned down at her. “Your momma surely has breakfast on the table by now, sweetheart,” he declared jovially. “Ya’ll come in. He’ll rest just fine there for a minute.” He gave Falcon a firm look. “Come on, son, don’t baby him now, you’ll undo all my fine work here if you do. Get in the house with Summer.” He urged her toward the door. “Go on now. Get.”
And in she went, she assured herself, simply because she was in shock. But that didn’t explain why Falcon gave his brother a long, thoughtful look before following her.
This was not going to be good.
Still in shock, she looked up at Falcon, met his laughing gaze, and knew it was going to be bad. Really, really bad.
“He’ll leave
,” she whispered.
Falcon bent his head to hers. “I’ll call Lucien Connor if he leaves. That will bring him back quickly, I promise.”
She could only shake her head and let him lead her to the table where her family as well as Caleb’s foreman and several ranch hands waited patiently, amusement filling all their faces. Bowe and Brody were choking on their laughter.
This was so horrible. It was simply horrible.
Her momma waited in her seat opposite her daddy’s, her expression serene, as Summer stared back at her desperately.
This just wasn’t good at all …
* * *
He’d be damned if he was going to let that old bastard run him off. And he damned sure wasn’t going to be shamed from Summer’s side.
Thankfully though, he didn’t come to in time for breakfast. Hell, he still hadn’t figured out what half of what he was eating, actually was. Or how to eat it.
Sitting on the porch steps, Raeg worked his jaw gingerly. The bastard damned sure packed a punch. Then again, the former Delta Force commander had been known for his punches.
Still battling the gremlins playing bury-the-axe in his brain, Raeg tensed further at the sound of the front door opening.
The subtle spice of her scent was like a balm to his senses. The coffee she placed next to him almost brought a groan from his chest.
“Thanks,” he muttered, picking up the cup and lifting it to his lips.
He swore the first sip was ambrosia.
“You’re welcome.” Lowering herself to sit on the step below him, she turned sideways and smoothed the tea-length skirt of her sundress over her knees.
Four-inch heels graced her small feet, making them look even tinier while making her legs look a mile long.
“Ready to go home?” he asked, feeling the coffee sinking inside his senses.
He might be able to walk now.
“Everyone’s still on the back porch discussin’ politics or somethin’. Falcon said he’d be out in a bit though.”
She clasped her hands together and propped them on her knees. Violet eyes stared back at him, those thick, black lashes making her eyes appear more mysterious and exotic when combined with the shadowed emotions he could glimpse behind them.
The long, thick waves and curls of her hair flowed down her back, almost to her waist. She’d pulled it back from the front of her face and secured it with a jeweled clip at the crown of her head.
Damn her.
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.
The electrical charge that shot t
hrough her had her shaking, gasping for breath as it began overloading her system.
This was fucked up. It shouldn’t be happening. It was the middle of the day for God’s sake on a farm filled with employees and former tough badasses who were still badass, only smarter.
The middle of the day? How the hell had they gotten into her house in the middle of the day without being seen?
Darkness edged at her mind, the sound of voices filled with panic, two male voices, though there were no accents, Russian or otherwise. She had expected Russian accents. After all, their boss was Russian and he didn’t care much for outsiders even on a good day.
Hard male hands gripped her around the waist, lifting her as she fought the sickening crash of her system and the darkness swirling at the edges of her mind.
The voltage was a little high. Higher than she’d been trained to endure and overcome. The body could only endure so much though. She might like to think she was bullet proof and weather resistant, but reality was another matter.
She couldn’t fight it when she felt the world tilt drunkenly and wondered if she’d throw up. They were shaking her around like a mixed drink on a Saturday night and if they weren’t careful, Momma’s breakfast was going to make an appearance none of them wanted.
That darkness was moving closer too.
God, if she passed out, she wouldn’t have a hope in hell of escaping. They’d have her trussed up like a Christmas turkey before she ever woke.
Where was help?
Surely someone heard the gunshot.
Surely someone knew something was wrong …
* * *
The sound of the gunshot, distant though it was, had Raeg jerking to his feet. Before he could sprint for the line of trees, the front door flew open and Summer’s father came running from the house, a compact assault rifle gripped in his hands.
He jumped from the porch to the walkway, never breaking stride, and ran for the tree line even as Raeg was moving.
Raeg was only distantly aware of Cal running next to him. As he jerked his weapon from the holster at his back, his only thought was reaching Summer.
Violet eyes and masses of long black hair. Smart-ass attitude. Far too much courage filling a too-delicate, too-fragile package that drove him crazy on a good day.