Page 32 of Protected Hearts

“You both know I didn’t have time for that. I’m not sure how much water our marriage holds in a court of law either, but that’s not my concern right now. You know she has a laptop and a burner phone. Keep tabs when she’s on the network is all I’m suggesting. Okay?”

Without waiting for their agreement, he walked out, trying to stuff down his temper at how that brief, annoying meeting had gone.

Arguments with his siblings always put him in a bad mood. He and his siblings had been living on top of each other, tripping over each other, for years now. Only when he was in the military did he get a break, and then he was tripping over other guys in a new brotherhood.

Damn his little sister Willow too, tattling on him about the company card charges. Didn’t she have anything better to do? Lord knew she had enough hobbies to keep herself busy if she didn’t have enough work to do. Wait until he got her alone and gave her a piece of his mind.

Maybe he should take his own advice and go pet a horse to give himself a breather.

This mess with Shiloh was far from black and white. He needed her to learn to trust him so she’d cooperate with them and give her the space to do it. The way to do that was to hand over those electronics.

He believed the words he’d spoken to his brothers; that in the end, she wouldn’t fuck them over and lead danger straight to their door.

His instincts better not be wrong.

Chapter Eight

As soon as Shiloh opened the guest room door, her stomach gripped with hunger. Somebody was frying eggs and something that smelled warm and yeasty.

Though she was a guest in the Malones’ home, she wasn’t comfortable with just wandering into the kitchen to fix herself a plate, but her stomach clenched even harder, yelling that she’d missed dinner and slept all through the night.

She didn’t realize just how exhausted she was until she popped her eyes open to the sun beaming through the blinds in her room.

She’d also awakened with a few new pangs in her muscles where there normally were none.

Her cheeks heated at the memory of Oaks sliding inside her. Stretchingher. The man was impressive in size, but even if he wasn’t packing, he knewexactlywhat to do with it.

The house was quiet. There were no voices ringing through the spaces, no thump of cowboy boots on the floor, only the occasional sound of someone working in the kitchen.

When she approached the doorway, she braced herself to meet a new member of the family. But a very familiar set of wide shoulders greeted her. Without turning from the skillet he was manning, Oaks said, “’Bout time you woke up.” He swung to fix her in his steely gaze. “Sleep well?”

Feeling more than a little nervous about how to deal with the man she’d taken to her bed—very enthusiastically too—she padded into the room and made a beeline for the coffeemaker.

“You shouldn’t have let me sleep so long.”

“You looked so peaceful, I wasn’t about to wake you.”

He’d looked in on her? A small flare of warmth spread through her chest.

No, no, no. That reaction wasn’t for Oaks. Her body was simply reacting with excitement because of the coffee she was about to drink. That was it.

“Hope you brought your appetite this morning.”

She peered over his thick elbow at the skillet. A cast iron pan filled with scrambled eggs sat on one burner. As she looked on, he used a spatula to flip a pancake. Her stomach gave a loud gurgle in appreciation for pancakes while a partmuchlower appreciated the man cooking them.

“You have maple syrup?”

He gave her a narrow look. “No self-respecting ranch family in Wyoming doesn’t. Top cabinet.” He twitched his angular jaw toward the cupboard near her.

She set down her coffee mug and located the syrup, then carried it to the table. This situation was…odd. She didn’t feel as jittery as she expected to around Oaks. Maybe he was as good at putting people at ease as he was horses.

Maybe she was just starved for everyday human interaction after six months of isolation.

A moment later, he piled pancakes on a platter and switched off the gas on the range. He carried the food to the table and returned to the old wall oven. Seeing the muscled military man don a pair of bright red oven mitts and pull out a sheet of bacon sent new skitters of a different hunger through her body.

How could one romp with Oaks totally flip a switch in her body? After William, she was prepared to be alone for a very, very long time. The man he was—and what she’d become with him—turned her off big-time. She wasn’t looking for anybody to fill her bed.

Yet Oaks had changed all that with that dark look of hunger on his handsome face.

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