Sam died. But, in truth, what Gil had done to her was far worse. His kiss had been like a telepathic transmission to every possible level of herself. As he had taken her into his arms, capturing her against his tall, strong body, the scent of sweat and dust stinging her nostrils, she’d felt a man in such utter distress and sheer need of her alone. And her heart had opened fully to him, trusting him with herself. She had given. And he had taken.
End of story.
It hurt to breathe for a moment as Kai pushed herself to walk toward the ranch house. It was almost dinnertime. She needed to take a shower and change into some clean clothes beforehand. Unable to shake off that shield that surrounded her, Gil’s protectiveness, she made a noise in her throat, disgusted with herself. How her stupid, blind heart could react to his look of concern for her made her angry and confused.
* * *
GIL TRIED TO ignore that Kai wore a pale pink blouse and loose white trousers to dinner. Her hair had been recently washed, the gold strands gleaming among the burgundy beneath the light above the table. He heard people talking, some laughing, but none of it really registered. His heart ached so damned bad he didn’t know what to do to stop it. Maybe kiss her. Yeah, he wanted to kiss the hell out of Kai.
He covertly watched as she nibbled disinterestedly at the homemade lasagna Cass had made for them tonight. The scent of garlic and butter on the French bread complemented the meal. Her mouth was one of the most delicious parts of her body and Gil could feel his lower body stirring in memory. She had kissed him so passionately, giving her heart, her trust, to him without question. His brows drew down. Four years later he was seeing the results of how his life had screwed both of them over. Kai was more beautiful, more mature, than before. And she hated him.
From Gil’s perspective it was obvious Cat and Kai were going to become close friends. They smiled and laughed often as they chatted. Sandy was looking a bit better, he supposed, because Cass was like a harpy eagle getting her to eat protein, and the nutrition was working. Sandy’s dark hair was usually thin and hanging around her nape, but tonight it was pretty. He wondered if Cat had fixed her hair. Sandy was a beautiful woman and he secretly envied Cass because Gil knew the man was attracted to her. But Sandy seemed to be unaware. Or maybe she was ignoring Cass? Like Kai ignored him?
After dinner, the table cleared, Talon asked Gil, Kai and Cass to remain. Cat brought over fresh cups of coffee for everyone and then retired to the living room with Sandy to watch the news on television.
Talon brought over the notes Kai had made and laid them out in front of himself. He glanced across the table at her. “This is pretty remarkable, Kai. You’ve cut the repair bill in half on the tractor.”
Kai felt heat in her cheeks. “Thanks, Talon.”
Gil growled, “It might save us money, but I don’t like Kai being around the likes of Harper.”
Talon nodded. “Yeah, this isn’t the best of all worlds,” he agreed. Giving Kai a look of concern, he said, “Did Harper bother you while you were over at his place?”
“No. He introduced me to his repair boss, José, and I never saw him again.”
“I don’t like it,” Gil muttered, giving Talon a hard look.
Kai shook her head. “What is everyone talking over my head about?” She gave Talon a frustrated look.
Cass, who sat next to her, said, “Harper is a woman chaser, Kai. He’s got a seriously bad reputation in town.”
“He didn’t come on to me. He overheard me talking to Joe at the John Deere place.” Kai saw Gil give her a look of disbelief, but he kept his mouth shut, his large, callused hands clasped tightly on the table.
Talon moved his fingers through his short hair. He stared at the bill. “She’s saved us a helluva lot of money. And every penny counts.”
“Not at her expense, it doesn’t,” Gil growled in warning, looking each man in the eyes.
Kai’s skin ruffled beneath his growl. He sounded like a pissed-off grizzly. She refused to look at him, again feeling that intense sense of protection suddenly blanketing her. It almost felt as if he was staking or claiming her! Thinking she was imagining things, she said quietly, “Look, I’m twenty-nine years old. I can take care of myself. We need that machinery shop that Harper’s got. He said I could come back at any time if I wanted to rebuild something. He’d charge me a fair-market price.” She gave Talon a pleading look. “I only got two pieces of machinery fully vetted today. There’s eight more pieces of equipment out there. And I think you can tell from how much repair has to be done to bring that tractor and baler back to life we need what Harper is offering us. I think it was nice of him to do it.”
Talon frowned.
Cass moved uncomfortably around in the chair, his gaze moving to Gil.
Gil’s mouth flattened, his knuckles whitening as he looked at Talon, waiting for an answer.
Studying the list, Talon rubbed his brow as if he had a headache coming on. He studied Kai. “Okay, judging from what you saw and did today, do you think the other pieces of equipment need as much rebuilding?”
“I haven’t really done any kind of inspection to honestly answer that, Talon.” Kai opened her hands. “But just seeing these two, the amount of rust, the amount of metalwork and welding it will take to replace badly rusted areas, yes, I think it’s going to be a pretty good estimate of what’s to come.”
“And you work with metal?”
“Of course,” Kai said. “If we had to replace a fender or some metal skin that took a bullet hole in an Apache, it was up to us to fix it. I’m good at welding, Talon. I’m qualified in specialty metals. I can do all this for you. But I need a good machine shop to do it in. And Harper runs a clean place and he’s got all the latest equipment to make my job easy and fast.”
Talon glanced at Gil. “Is Harper the only game in town?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“And the next closest machine shop would be Idaho Falls, Idaho. That’s a six-hour round-trip and that doesn’t account for the time Kai would have to spend at a machine shop,” Talon said.
“I know for a fact what he charged us today is about one-third less than what a regular machine shop would charge us,” Kai pointed out.
“Cass?” Talon held up the paper toward him. “Have you seen this yet?”
“No,” he said, taking the papers and quickly parsing the numbers. His brows moved up. “Well,” he murmured, looking at Talon, “Kai is right—these numbers are lower than normal.”
“Because Harper wants something in return from you, Kai,” Gil ground out.
All heads turned toward him.
There was no mistaking Gil’s words or his barely closeted anger. Kai shook her head. “I think all of you are going overboard,” she stated flatly. “Harper did not accost me this afternoon. I worked with José. I never saw him again.” She saw Gil grit his teeth. The man was jealous as hell.
Cass sat there scribbling some numbers on the back of one of her notebook pages. “Boss? If we assume each piece of equipment is going to need this kind of do-over, then we’ll easily save one-half of what was going to be spent on those repairs. That’s a considerable sum when you look at the totals here.”
Kai couldn’t stand being near Gil anymore. He felt like a nuclear power engine that was about ready to explode. “Look, Talon, when you guys figure out what you want to do, let me know? I’m tired and I’m going to bed. Good night...”
* * *
GIL WATCHED KAI walk away, the soft sway of her hips reminding him starkly of far too much from their past. He swung his head toward Talon. “You cannot let her do this. You know Harper is into the sex-trafficking trade and drugs. There are two women he was dating and both are gone. Disappeared without a trace. Do