The corner of my mouth almost moved because Otis had absolutely kept receipts for bags of nails and could have produced them faster than most men could find their truck keys. She knew him. More than that, she understood him, which narrowed the answer about her identity seconds before the blond bastard handed it to me.
“Come on, Jacqueline,” he practically whined, irritation cracking through the reasonable act. “You weren’t here enough to pretend you know every damn thing the old man did.”
Jacqueline.
Jack.
The answer stood in front of me with Otis’s shotgun braced against her shoulder and enough curves to ruin a disciplined man’s day. Judge had known. That son of a bitch had read the will, sat in my office, and let me talk about Otis’s grandson while choosing every pronoun like he was laying a legal trap for his own entertainment. I’d deal with him later, after I handled the men currently threatening the woman my body, brain, and every inconvenient instinct had claimed in under a minute.
Jacqueline’s eyes narrowed, anger pushing through the fear until the blush across her cheekbones deepened. “I know he never mentioned you, and I know that loader doesn’t belong to any of you. The sheriff can sort out the rest when he gets here.”
The man closest to her glanced at the blond one, then started forward with both palms showing, pretending to soothe while his weight shifted onto the balls of his feet. He was big enough to be used to women backing down, and stupid enough to mistake soft for helpless.
His right shoulder angled toward the shotgun. “You don’t want to point that thing at anybody, sweetheart. Give it to me before you hurt yourself.”
Jacqueline drew a tight breath through her nose and centered the barrel on his chest. Her lower lip trembled oncebefore she pressed it firm, and that tiny effort to hold herself steady made the violence in me go very quiet.
“I know how to use it.”
“I’m sure you think you do.”
He took another step, and I walked down the slope without hurrying, my boots striking hard ground with enough weight to pull every gaze toward me. The blond man’s face drained when he saw my cut. The one in the cap turned and found Ghost emerging from the shade. The bastard advancing on Jacqueline glanced over his shoulder, measured the distance between us, and decided he still had time to take the gun.
“Take one more step toward her, and I’ll break you,” I warned.
Recognition flickered across his face. So did fear. Then desperation shoved both aside, and he lunged for the barrel.
I reached him before his hand touched the shotgun, caught his right wrist, and drove my other palm beneath his elbow. The joint gave with a sharp crack when I rotated through his center and forced it the wrong direction, his scream cutting through the yard as I turned his body away from Jacqueline and swept his leg. He hit the dirt face-first, and I planted one boot between his shoulder blades before he could roll.
Hawkeye moved at the same time, striking the blond man beneath the jaw and pinning him against the loader’s rubber track with one arm twisted behind his back. Ghost slipped under a wild punch from the man in the cap, buried a short strike into his ribs, and put him on the concrete hard enough that dust jumped beneath him. Three threats down, controlled, breathing, and no longer close enough to reach her.
“Stay the fuck down.” I eased pressure off before I broke something I hadn’t intended to yet, then stepped over him and put myself between Jacqueline and every man on the ground. “You reach for her again, the other arm is next.”
She still held the shotgun, but the barrel had dipped several inches. Her hands were white around the stock, her chest lifting in quick, shallow breaths, and the end of her braid trembled against her hip even though her chin stayed up. So fucking brave. Scared out of her mind and still standing like Otis himself had planted her there.
I hooked two fingers beneath her chin and tipped her face up before she could keep staring at the man in the dirt. Her gaze snapped to mine, blue eyes wide and bright, fear still there but already giving ground to something else when my thumb settled near the soft curve beneath her lower lip.
“You hurt?”
“No,” she whispered, swallowing against my fingers. “I’m okay.”
3
STRYKER
My gaze dropped to her white-knuckled grip before returning to her face. “Give me the shotgun, baby.”
Her pupils widened, the dark centers eating into the blue while the blush spread down her throat beneath the neckline of her shirt, making me want to follow it with my mouth until I discovered exactly how far that pretty color traveled. She adjusted the gun without arguing, keeping her finger straight, and I took the weight from her hands before turning the muzzle down and clearing the chamber, then slid the worn leather over my shoulder.
“Open your hands,” I urged, reaching for them before she could remember she was trying to look steadier than she felt.
She glanced down like she’d forgotten they existed. Her fingers were still curled into stiff claws from gripping the shotgun, crescent-shaped marks pressed into both palms where her nails had bitten deep. I took her hands, flattened them over mine, and rubbed my thumbs firmly across the cramped muscles until the tension started to ease, watching the way her attention fixed on the contrast between my scarred knuckles andher smaller hands. They were delicate but not fragile, callused in places.
I turned one hand over to check the skin near the base of her thumb. “You did everything right.”
Her expression shifted, the last of the stubborn determination wavering beneath something raw enough to make my grip tighten. “I was scared.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, closing one hand around both of hers while the other slid to her nape. “You did it anyway. That’s courage.”
