Page 101 of Honey Bee Hearts

My chest rises and falls rapidly, both from exhaustion and from anger. I’m full of it. “This is what you call talking?” I spit. “Tying me up like a cow?”

Gunnar has the decency to look sheepish as the side-by-side pulls up and the other three guys hop out.

“It you want to be treated like a cow, we can hogtie you instead,” Colt says with a grin. “In fact, I’d like to see that.”

I turn and glare at him.

“Relax,” Rhett says, stepping forward. “Things are tense, I get that, but?—”

“Says the man not currently tied up,” I growl. “This is fucking ridiculous. You’re holding me hostage!”

Rhett sighs. “Untie her.”

Gunnar hesitates but reaches forward and tugs the rope. It drops as if it hadn’t been tied very much at all. Immediately, I rub my wrists where the rope touched me, as if that’ll make me forget the feeling of it.

“You’re not a prisoner, Fable,” Rhett says, his expression open. “But we have a family to protect, one that I’d like to think you feel like you’re part of. Runnin’ off in the middle of the night to a neighboring ranch won’t exactly earn us any goodwill with ‘em.” He shakes his head. “Of all your plans, this was the stupidest one you could’ve thought up. Didn’t I tell you there are mountain lions out here?”

I scowl. “Running seemed a better option than getting murdered. As for the mountain lions. . . I didn’t think of them until we were already out here.”

“You think we’d really murder you?” Gunnar asks, his frown deep set.

“You? No,” I admit. My eyes trail over to Colt. “Others? Maybe.”

Colt grins. “I wouldn’t kill you, Annie Oakley. I’d just keep you.”

That should be fucking terrifying. That has red flag all over it. But for some reason. . . it’s also kind of endearing. Like damn, what the fuck is wrong with me?

“What is it with you?” I ask, glaring at him. “Why set this all up?”

I figured it out pretty quickly. Dolly is a retired drug dog. Of course she’d lead me to the cocaine. But that door had always been locked before and then suddenly it wasn’t, coincidently at the same time Colt asks me to watch Dolly. I don’t believe in accidents that slap you in the face with such obvious shit. Colt set me up. He wanted me to know what was in the barn. And now here we are.

He stalks forward, his eyes hard, but there’s a fierceness in his gaze, too, and something else. Something that looks a little bit like. . .

“Unlike these assholes,” he says. “I can admit I don’t want you to leave. No matter what.” He reaches up and pushes a strand of hair off my face. I don’t stop him. “Since I met you, you’re all I think about. I’m fucking smitten,” he groans. “This morning, I woke up so in love with you, I didn’t know what to do with my body. I don’t know how it happened. I just woke up one morning and you were the most important thing in the world.”

I blink. “What?”

“I left that door unlocked because I can’t think of you gettin’ on a plane and leavin’ me,” he growls. “If that makes me an asshole, then so be it, but I’ll be the first to demand you stay.” He pauses, his eyes on mine as he reaches up and cups my cheek. “I’ll also be the first to beg if need be.”

“I. . . I told you my history,” I whisper. “Drugs. . .I can’t do the drugs.”

“Your mother is only your mother until one of you forgets,” he growls. “Trust me. I know. Rhett explained our story. I made a mistake by giving him the contact details. We’ve been making mistakes since, but you,youare not a mistake. We’ll find our way around that. We’ll never endanger you. If you want to pretend you never saw what you did and live in blissful ignorance, we’ll make sure it stays that way. We’ve protected Callie all these years. We can do the same for you.”

I tilt my head, frowning. “That seems like a lot of trouble for a Florida Girl with PTSD and a penchant for making costumes.”

“It ain’t no trouble at all for a woman I love,” Colt declares, his chin tilting up.

Real or bullshit? A month and he loves me? That seems. . .

But my mind whispers that maybe it’s not so farfetched. Sometimes, we fall in love without meaning to, and even I can admit that I’m bordering on loving these four men, even this psycho in front of me. So why am I still hesitating?

I glance at the other three standing silently, their eyes on me. “What. . . what do y’all think about all this?”

When no one says anything, Colt turns and scowls at them. “Go on, fuckers. Unless you wanna lose her.”

My chest squeezes tight. Is that what I’m missing? Do I just need to hear from the others? And am I really considering this? Am I really trying to find a way to reason this and convince myself to stay?

“Of course I want you to stay,” Gunnar murmurs, his eyes on me.

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