Page 78 of Rescued Hearts

Honor looked between the pair, picking up the thrum of concern within their gazes.

The man they called Dutch had attended Honor’s jewelry-making session. She hadn’t spoken to him much, but she did notice how his stare seemed to cling to Willow’s every move.

The woman crossed the room in long strides. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“We could use a smaller pair of hands to move the calf’s forelegs so it can be birthed.”

Willow was already hustling to the doorway. She paused to toss a look at Honor.

“Go,” Honor urged her. “I’m fine.”

She gave her a single nod, her plump lips set in a thin line.

In a blink, Willow was gone. But Dutch lingered. In a low voice, he addressed Colt. “I heard what happened to the sister.”

Honor’s stomach clenched.

“If this gets ugly, I’ve got rifles and I’ve still got my nerve. You just say the word. If you need backup, I’m in. And so are a few of the others on the Black Heart.”

A pang of emotion pierced her heart as she realized she didn’t just have Gray now, and his family too, but she had somehow gained the support of men who barely knew her, and didn’t know her sister at all.

This was what true family was about.

Dutch swung to give Honor a dip of his head. She felt her eyes swim with fresh tears. Then the man was gone too, on Willow’s trail, to pull that calf.

When Gray and his brothers returned to the kitchen, silence crashed over them again.

Then Colt gave a low chuckle. “I knew we kept Dutch around for a reason. And to think the man didn’t speak a word up until a few months ago.”

Honor sat up straighter in surprise. Gray saw her reaction and rested a hand on her spine, another anchor in this tempest. She touched her phone on the table next to her tea in order to check the time.

When she saw that only forty minutes had passed since she last spoke to Sully, an exasperated sigh gusted out of her.

Carson spread his hands on the table and leaned forward, making eye contact with his brothers and finally Honor. “Let’s go over the plan.”

While her heart juddered around in her chest like a jackhammer, the security team went over the plan. Everyone was assigned their role.

Everyone was prepared.

Gray checked the time. As if setting off a chain reaction, Colt looked at the wall clock, Oaks’s gaze flicked to his watch and Carson touched his phone to bring up the time again.

Fifty-one minutes had now passed. Not nearly enough time, and yet the prospect of what was to come filled Honor with cold dread.

Cups of half-drunk tea and coffee and empty plastic bottles littered the table along with a few sandwich crumbs on an empty plate.

She gripped her fingers so tightly together that her knuckles whitened. She could almost feel every second throbbing by.

Then Gray glanced at his phone for the last time.

He caught the lock of hair that tumbled across her cheek and stroked his fingers down the length in the way he was so fond of doing. “It’s time, Honor. Text him.”

When she picked up her phone, her hands didn’t shake.

“Let’s get my sister back.” Her thumbs moved over the screen in a text to the bastard who wasn’t going to steal another second of happiness from her sister, from the Malones…or from her.

* * * * *

Honor knew what Gray was going to say even before he turned to her. The determined set of his jaw and intense expression in his stormy gray eyes told herexactlywhat he was thinking.

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