Page 10 of Alien Mine

“Be still my little heart.”

Rachel rolled her eyes. “You already have a man, Yasmin.”

“Not like him.”

And a good thing, too. The women of Rabun County probably couldn’t handle another Dyuvad running around, letalone three. “She’s not serious.”

“Says you,” Yasmin muttered. “So, Dyuvad. Where are you from?”

He dropped onto the bench beside Rachel, exactly far enough away to satisfy propriety. “A long way from here, though my home region shares much in common with this one.”

“And what do you do there?”

“Yasmin,” Rachel warned.

Dyuvad casually reached into the cooler and snagged a bottle of water. His gaze turned shrewd as he sipped it, and for a while, Rachel thought he wasn’t going to answer.

He set the bottle down on the table in front of him and twisted the cap on. “Many things, Lady Yasmin. My father is a farmer and a leader of men, my mother a former soldier. I have trained with both of them, although I am neither a farmer nor a soldier.”

“So you’re a…” Yasmin’s gaze drifted away from Dyuvad and her high forehead knit into a scowl. “Uh-oh.”

Rachel swiveled around in her seat and spotted the six young men strutting down the path from the highway to the beach. They were all Hispanic, all in their late teens and early twenties, and at least one was a member of Juan’s old gang, based out of the Gainesville area. Crap. What were they doing at Lake Burton when Lake Lanier was so much closer to them?

She hissed in a breath and turned right back around. “Let’s hope they don’t recognize us or the girls.”

Dyuvad leaned close and lowered his voice. “What is it about these men that bothers you, Lady Rachel?”

“It’s a long story.” A really, really long one, and she wasn’t about to spill it in public when so many eyes and ears were on her handsome renter. “I’m just gonna go fetch the girls real quick. They need a rest anyway.”

“I will accompany you.”

“No, I got it.”

The young men walked by right at that moment. One nodded at Rachel, then grinned at Yasmin, and though it wasfriendly enough, Rachel didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him. She’d learned a lot of hard lessons during her marriage to Juan, the primary one being that a snake’s bite always hurt, no matter how pretty its stripes.

As soon as the men were past, she whispered, “We’re going home.”

Dyuvad stood and rested a firm hand on her shoulder. “I will fetch Fate and the girls. Stay here with Lady Yasmin.”

“I can—”

He cut midnight blue eyes at her. “Do as I say, woman.”

He was gone before she could sputter out a response. Good thing, too, as her fear at spotting those young men was quickly replaced by a burning anger. How dare he speak to her like that, and him a near stranger? Why, she oughta tear a stripe into him, and she might, just as soon as she got her girls home safe and sound.

Yasmin blinked wide eyes at her. Rachel rounded on her, already mad enough to spit. “Don’t even, Yasmin. Just don’t say it.”

“I was just going to point out that for a godlike being, he’s a wee bit domineering.”

Some of the starch left her spine, and Rachel laughed. “What would I do without you?”

“Live a lonely, boring life. Can I say it now?”

“Oh, go ahead.”

“That was sexy as sin, the way he went all alpha soldier on you.”

Maybe just a little. Enough to siphon off the last of Rachel’s mad, anyway. She sighed and stood. Easy come, easy go. Her temper had always been like that. “Help me pack up. We can bring out the water hose and the kiddy pool. If you bat your eyelashes at Fate, he might be persuaded to grill some burgers for us later.”

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