Delores Fossen

“After the dream I had about you, I shouldn’t be within a mile of you,” he mumbled.
“I hope it was sexual.” Her eyes widened again when he looked at her. “I mean better sexual than your wanting to wring my neck.”
He leaned in, risked brushing a kiss on her cheek.
“There are a lot of things I want to do to you, but wringing your neck’s not on the list. Kissing it sounds like a good way to start the morning, though.”

But his usual heart of stone didn’t feel so stone-cold all of a sudden.

Because Mason hated the fear in Abbie’s voice. Hated even more the vulnerability he saw in her eyes. Oh, man. This was a damsel-in-distress reaction. He could face down a cold-blooded killer and not flinch. But a woman in pain was something he had a hard time stomaching.

Gage was focused on the situation, on getting them out of there, but he took a second to brush a kiss on her cheek. Then, he was all cowboy secret agent again.

He just kept staring at her, and when his gaze dropped to her stomach, Lynette thought she might panic. Mercy, was he suspicious that she might be pregnant? He couldn’t be, because this was a man who could definitely put one and one together and come up with the correct answer.

The brothers stood there, staring at each other, and it seemed to her as if they had an entire discussion without saying a word.

He would have to explain to his boss and his brothers why he hadn’t waited for backup after receiving that anonymous tip about Bree’s location. It probably wasn’t going to fly if he told them that he had a gut feeling that she was in danger. And he’d been right.

She had to make her heart understand what her brain and instincts already knew.

She was holding her baby. And it was breaking her into pieces. Until this moment she hadn’t realized she could love someone this much. Or hurt this much because she might lose her, even for only a day or two.

She opened her mouth to argue, but that kind of fight just wasn’t in her. Besides, there was a chance that Nate could be right.

(...) she didn't say it with a mean tone. It was the tone to go along with the dreamy look she'd had just seconds earlier. A tone that was like the start of a kiss.

(...) Joelle probably didn't hear him because more bullets came, and these smacked into the rocks. Man, they were loud, and that deafening noise didn't do much to steady Joelle's nerves.

He glanced at Chet. "The Justice Department can't tell us where she is because during her relocation processing, Maggie specifically said she didn't want contact with any of us."

Chet cursed again.

If Jake had been feeling charitable—he wasn't—he would have pointed out that Chet had warned Maggie that if she ever came back to Mustang Ridge, he'd kill her and the horse she rode in on. Hardly a welcome-mat greeting. And it was that threat that had no doubt caused Maggie to include the no-contact order.