Page 18 of Protected Hearts

“Her name is Curiosity.”

Shiloh made a humming sound and gently let her fingertips graze Curiosity’s neck. She stroked the mare in a single long pass…then did it again.

The sun beamed down on them, changing the blonde in her hair to gold and the darker strands to red. He sensed the tension flowing out of her.

“We didn’t get off to a good start,” he began.

She continued to stroke the horse, slender fingers stretching over the coat that he knew was warm from the sun.

“You don’t know anything about me,” he went on.

“What is it that I should know?” She turned his comment around like an interrogator would. She could have training in that skill…or she could just be wary as hell of everyone around her.

“I was in the military for years. Special ops. And I had a way with people, which made me a negotiator many times.”

“What did you negotiate?”

“Hostage transfers, mostly. It wasn’t out of character for me to speak Russian or to think on the fly.”

When she lifted her eyes to him, he noted how dark her lashes were. “Okay, I wasn’t wrong about you. I thought you were military. It’s why I picked you out on the street.”

He nodded. “You’ve never been safer than you are here on the Black Heart Ranch. Everyone here was in the military.”

She looked around at the barn, the house, the building beyond that housed the vets who were here to gain the peace and coping skills they needed to go on with their lives.

“Is this some sort of military compound?”

“No. It’s where vets come to heal.”

“Oh…”

“We offer a program on the ranch. Actually…” He kicked at a tuft of grass sprouting up by the fence post that the horses hadn’t nibbled yet, “I founded it.”

Again her gaze lifted to his, softer now. It made him wonder if she’d bite his lip as hard if he kissed her…or maybe not at all.

“They’re here to heal from the damage done by years of service. But if it comes to protecting you—defendingyou—more than my family members and I would take up arms.”

She swallowed hard, her delicate throat working. “I need access to a computer again. It’s possible that someone followed us to that airstrip. I can start covering our tracks.”

Nowhe was getting the information he needed. He was good at reading between the lines. She was starting to trust him enough to ask for something, even as he guessed those people weren’t finished with her, and she knew how to hide.

But whoever came after her would be signing their own death sentence. Here on the Black Heart, they protected their own.

In name, Shiloh wasn’t a Malone, but she was under his protection. Nobody screwed with him.

Chapter Five

The room that Oaks led Shiloh to was small and sparse in its furnishings, but it offered the same rustic quaintness of the rest of the house. She skimmed her gaze over the queen-sized bed, stacked with plump pillows and a deep green comforter that made her yawn just seeing it.

After the whirlwind pace of her day, and all the emotions it brought with it, she wanted nothing more than to crawl under those covers and shut out the world.

But she had work to do. Covering their flight out of New York would take a little skill. Even private flights left trails.

Oaks walked over to the bed and set the laptop he was carrying on the mattress. Then he turned to her. “You should know there’s heavy security on everything here.”

He was telling her in very few words that she was under surveillance. She got it. After all, he didn’t know her and he’d found her in a houseful of Russians.

Meeting his gaze, she tipped her jaw upward. “You trusted me enough to rescue me from that place but now you’re suspicious?”

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