The subtle spice of her scent was like a balm to his senses. The coffee she placed next to him almost brought a groan from his chest.

"Thanks," he muttered, picking up the cup and lifting it to his lips.

He swore the first sip was ambrosia.

"You're welcome." Lowering herself to sit on the step below him, she turned sideways and smoothed the tea-length skirt of her sundress over her knees.

Four-inch heels graced her small feet, making them look even tinier while making her legs look a mile long.

"Ready to go home?" he asked, feeling the coffee sinking inside his senses.

He might be able to walk now.

"Everyone's still on the back porch discussin' politics or somethin'. Falcon said he'd be out in a bit though."

She clasped her hands together and propped them on her knees. Violet eyes stared back at him, those thick, black lashes making her eyes appear more mysterious and exotic when combined with the shadowed emotions he could glimpse behind them.

The long, thick waves and curls of her hair flowed down her back, almost to her waist. She'd pulled it back from the front of her face and secured it with a jeweled clip at the crown of her head.

Damn her.

She was so pretty he could barely believe it at times. Not gorgeous in the accepted sense of the word. Uniquely pretty, her features delicate and radiating with some soft inner glow that he couldn't put a name to or fully understand exactly what looking at her did to him.

Besides making him hard, that was.

"Waiting on an apology?" he asked curiously, noting she'd yet to mention the earlier confrontation.

No doubt she deserved an apology. She hadn't deserved her father's lecture or his deliberate bating. But, maybe, his own final comment hadn't exactly been fair to her.

"I've never known you to apologize to anyone," she finally answered, the subtle drawl of her voice resigned. "I'm not the one you need to apologize to anyway."

Oh, he knew that tone and he knew exactly who she was suggesting he needed to apologize to. And there simply wasn't a chance in hell. Like she said, he did not do apologies well at all.

"I have no reason to apologize to your father," he told her firmly. "As you said earlier, he started it."

The bastard had known Raeg and Falcon would be right behind her. Just as he'd known that chastising her over their desire for her, and her response to it, would not be acceptable.

Turning her head, she stared out along the front of the house. Pasture stretched out on one side of it, extending to the east and north of the house.

"That's my daddy, Raeg," she said without looking back at him again. "All my life he's loved me and done his absolute best for me. If he blinked one night, then that's between me and Daddy. But I will tell you, from the time we could walk, Daddy taught Aunjenue and me both how to defend ourselves if we had to. And that's what saved me from something worse than a beating." Her expression hardened, the gaze she turned on him resolute. "I don't care if you like him or not any more. I know you won't stay here once the danger Dragovich represents is over, so the situation between the two of you doesn't have to be fixed. From here on out, you can keep your distance from him with my blessing. And I will tell you what I just told Daddy. The next blow thrown by either of you, no matter the reason, and both of you will pay for it." She rose, stepped to the cement walk, and stared back at him with chilling regard. "Now. Finish your coffee. I have things to do at home. And I prefer to do them alone. I think you, Daddy, and Falcon need to do some serious thinking where I'm concerned though. Because at the moment, all of you are showing me just how little my feelings, my wishes, or my heart, matter to any of you." She paused, pain flashing in her eyes then. "But then, I don't think any of that has ever mattered to you anyway. Has it?"

She turned and walked away from him unhurriedly, the breeze playing through her hair and the thin material of her dress. She looked like a damned princess or something with her head held high, her shoulders straight, and that aristocratic little nose lifting with such disdain.

It just made him just want to fuck her even more.

And she terrified the hell out of him.

He couldn't stay, claiming her was out of the question. Once Dragovich was taken care of, it would be time for him and Falcon to leave, if they wanted to keep her safe.

Her safety mattered. It mattered more to him than his own.

But he'd realized in the last week that the thought of leaving her gave rise to other thoughts. What she would do, what her future would hold. And those thoughts just pissed him the hell off.

She'd probably end up marrying some dumbass who would give her weak-chinned babies or something. Not that he could imagine a child of Summer's ever being weak.

A child.

He rubbed at his bruised jaw gingerly. God help him, he'd have to kill the son of a bitch who gave her a baby, who marked her heart and her mind to that extent. The thought of it was so damned infuriating that he shot a glare in the direction she'd taken toward the house.

The thought of making amends with her father just made his pride cringe though.

Yeah, he had quite a bit of thinking to do.

Chapter.

NINE.

Summer knew the moment she stepped into the house that something wasn't right. It was her home, her personal space in the most intimate sense of the word.

And something, someone, had invaded it.

She could feel the danger in the air, the sense of dark malevolence waiting for her. Her eyes went around the room slowly, finally landing on a shadow that shouldn't be spreading out next to the doorway leading into the kitchen-dining area across from the living area.

It took every ounce of control to keep her hand out of the pocket of her dress, away from the little .22-caliber mini-pistol she kept there. Just in case, she didn't want an intruder to know she was armed before she could actually use the weapon.

Within seconds, she knew standing and fighting wasn't going to be an option as another shadow shifted at the doorway to her side that led into the formal dining room.

She swung around quickly, intending to run for the still-open front door even as she shoved her hand into the pocket, her fingers curling around the tiny gun, her finger sliding against the trigger. Before she could pull it free, the sudden, agonizing burn that latched onto her shoulder blades and dug deep inside her nerve endings taking her to her knees.

By luck, chance, or training-she couldn't be certain which-her finger tightened on the trigger as she toppled to the floor, the sound of the weapon's discharge shattering the stillness of the house.

The electrical charge that shot through her had her shaking, gasping for breath as it began overloading her system.

This was fucked up. It shouldn't be happening. It was the middle of the day for God's sake on a farm filled with employees and former tough badasses who were still badass, only smarter.

The middle of the day? How the hell had they gotten into her house in the middle of the day without being seen?

Darkness edged at her mind, the sound of voices filled with panic, two male voices, though there were no accents, Russian or otherwise. She had expected Russian accents. After all, their boss was Russian and he didn't care much for outsiders even on a good day.

Hard male hands gripped her around the waist, lifting her as she fought the sickening crash of her system and the darkness swirling at the edges of her mind.

The voltage was a little high. Higher than she'd been trained to endure and overcome. The body could only endure so much though. She might like to think she was bullet proof and weather resistant, but reality was another matter.

She couldn't fight it when she felt the world tilt drunkenly and wondered if she'd throw up. They were shaking her around like a mixed drink on a Saturday night and if they weren't careful, Momma's breakfast was going to make an appearance none of them wanted.

That darkness was moving closer too.

God, if she passed out, she wouldn't have a hope in hell of escaping. They'd have her trussed up like a Christmas turkey before she ever woke.

Where was help?

Surely someone heard the gunshot.

Surely someone knew something was wrong ...

The sound of the gunshot, distant though it was, had Raeg jerking to his feet. Before he could sprint for the line of trees, the front door flew open and Summer's father came running from the house, a compact assault rifle gripped in his hands.

He jumped from the porch to the walkway, never breaking stride, and ran for the tree line even as Raeg was moving.

Raeg was only distantly aware of Cal running next to him. As he jerked his weapon from the holster at his back, his only thought was reaching Summer.

Violet eyes and masses of long black hair. Smart-ass attitude. Far too much courage filling a too-delicate, too-fragile package that drove him crazy on a good day.

As he raced for the house he could see Falcon and Summer's brothers running silently from the back of the house and hitting the tree line just as he did.

Raeg paused only long enough to check the front yard and porch before he tensed to sprint the rest of the distance to the front door. Just as he began to move, Cal grabbed his shoulder, jerking him back before he could push past the thick fall of weeping branches he was looking through.

"Sniper. Right there." The older man pointed out the barest shadow within the marsh on the south side of the house.

Falcon and Summer's brothers hadn't run for the back of the house either.

"Leasa has overwatch, give her and the boys a sec to get eyes on anyone waiting to pick us off. I'm going to say we have two shooters," Cal told him softly. "There will be two inside. It would take two of them to get the upper hand on Summer. That was her twenty-two that went off. Nothing since. They've managed to incapacitate her."

The trill of a whip-poor-will sounded through the trees.

"That's Caleb," his father reported softly. "He has eyes on the second shooter." A second call sounded from somewhere behind them. "That's Leasa. She has the one to the south. Now, we get sight on those inside, or give them enough time to come to us."

"Or kill her," Raeg growled.

"Naw, that Russian wants her alive," Cal said coolly. "She busted his pride. The only way he can get it back, is to bust hers. They'll try to take her alive. If they can't, then he's going to want to kill her himself, face-to-face."

They stood there, watching the house carefully, for what seemed like hours but couldn't possibly have been that long.

Finally, the front door eased open an inch or so.

"They're just checkin'," Cal whispered. "Just want to know if anyone's out here. They'll go out the back when they don't see anyone. That's what we want. They'll head for the marsh or the swamp itself. Probably poled in on an airboat. That would be the only way to get her out of here fast. They're not dumb enough to go out the front door."

"And they weren't intelligent enough to stay the hell away from here," Raeg stated.

"No, they sure as hell weren't," Summer's father agreed. "Now get ready, they'll move soon. When they go, they'll try to be wily. Let's see how fast we can outsmart them."

Moving quick and silent, Cal led the way to a spot along the line of trees where they could see the back door.

And the old son of a bitch was right. No more than seconds later the back door opened. Two black-garbed figures and one unconscious Summer bouncing on a shoulder, were quickly out the back door.

Just as quickly, as they cleared the porch and began running, four shots were fired. The two runners went down immediately. Not even a heartbeat later, movement within the marsh and just within the shadowed depths of the swamp revealed the two snipers falling out of shelters, lifeless.

"Summer." Raeg whispered her name, darted from cover and, using the various yard ornaments placed in a sheltered line to the back porch, made his way quickly to where she laid silently beneath the heat of the late morning sun.

Reaching the back porch he sprinted for the silent form of the woman he feared was going to be the death of him. He was already on the verge of a stroke. The fact that she wasn't moving terrified him.

"Cover, cover!" Cal yelled behind him just as a volley of gunfire began spatting around them.

Raeg threw himself over Summer, aware of Falcon sliding in front of them and Cal right beside him, firing into the swamp.

From the second floor of the main house, a rifle fired in half a dozen slower bursts before the sound of an airboat could be heard racing from the area.

At the sound of the airboat Raeg picked her up in his arms and ran for the house as Falcon and Cal covered him.

She felt boneless, almost lifeless. Breathing though, he'd made certain of that first thing. But Summer had not just passed out. She wasn't the passing-out type, and he knew it.

"Momma and Aunjenue are coming through the front!" Caleb yelled. "Lay her on the couch. Bowe's calling Doc."

Falcon had the back door open, allowing Raeg to rush inside with her. Crossing the kitchen and breakfast area into the large living room, he laid her on the couch gently, aware of the others rushing in behind him.

She was paper white.

Pulse was strong.

No obvious head trauma or bullet wounds.

"Move, Raeg, let me in there." Summer's mother pushed at his shoulder firmly. "Let me see her."

Raeg moved away from her slowly and allowed her mother to begin checking her, feeling as though he'd been holding his breath far too long.

Behind the couch, Falcon, Summer's father, and her brothers stood silently. Raeg looked his brother over quickly, making certain he was unharmed. Falcon's pale blue gaze was icy, his expression savage, as he watched Summer's mother check her for wounds.

"They used an electrical charge," Leasa snapped as she lifted one shoulder and revealed the raw burn mark hidden by the strap of her dress.

Raeg eased Summer to her side, revealing the second wound the electrical prongs had made. Easing her back, Raeg watched as her mother brushed Summer's long, tangled hair away from her face, her lips trembling for the barest moment.

"We were almost too late," she whispered tearfully, looking up at her husband as he stood next to Falcon. "Almost too late, Cal."

"Almost doesn't count," he answered, his own voice hoarse, his eyes damp. "Remember that. It doesn't count."