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  He shot her a look, but didn’t say anything for a long moment. “I want you to run to the bunkhouse and grab a rifle. I will not move a single inch until you get back. But if I go down there, I’ll have to explain to get one out of someone. You can go and just get one. Remember some cartridges or bullets, though, please. Go, now.” He took her purse from her hands. “Quick, Alison.”

  Alison nodded and looked at him. “Don’t you dare move an inch.” She took off in a full run to the bunkhouse. Thankfully, no one was there. She grabbed a rifle and loaded it, grabbing extra bullets as she did so. She raced back to Joshua and was slightly out of breath. “Holy hell, I need to seriously work out some more,” she grumbled. Handing off the weapon, she looked up at him. “Be safe, Joshua. You have a woman out there to sweep off of her feet, you know.”

  He snorted as he took the rifle and checked it quickly. “You are just fine as you are, a little scrawny, but nothing some good home cooking wouldn’t fix.” He shot her a smirk and then turned serious. Moving in closer, he leaned in to look her in the eye. “I’m going to be just fine. As to the woman.” He shrugged. “She told me she wasn’t big on the sweeping, so I’ll just have to settle for winning her over with my charm.” He delivered a quick kiss to her lips before he was up the stairs of the porch and in the house a moment later.

  Alison put her fingers to her lips in shock. Suddenly, she began to work through everything that had happened and her eyes went wide. “Holy crap,” she whispered, and then raced up the steps toward him. “Me?” She knew that this wasn’t the time or the place, but she couldn’t think of anything but the kiss and his words. “Oh God, Mom is going to have a heart attack.” She looked at the devastation of their home. Tears rolled down her cheeks when she saw the family portrait of them all from ten years earlier, and she couldn’t control the sob. “Oh God.” Whoever it had been had destroyed the image, brutally ripping her father to shreds as well as her mom and brother. Oh God, this was not good. At all.

  “Alison,” he hissed out her name. “Damn it, Alison. You should be outside where it’s safe, not in here.” He looked around and shot her a sympathetic look. “Come on, I’m not leaving you down here alone. I want you right behind me the entire way. I want your hand on my back so I know where you are always, got it? I have to check the rest of the house.”

  “Or we could call the sheriff,” Alison retorted, and placed her hand on his back, gripping the back of his jeans so that she was holding tightly to him. “I’m not leaving you here alone to check out my home when this is a mess that I’ve brought upon my family.” She was close to him, the heat of him coming to her in waves. “Just please don’t get hurt. We have to talk and I would be very cross if you got hurt before we could do that.”

  “Deal, just stay close,” he said again. He hefted the rifle and started to move slowly. They worked their way through the main level before he began to go up the stairs. He had the rifle up at his shoulder as they moved with care. Reaching the top, he checked out the hall before nodding to her and leading on. All the bedrooms were in perfect condition except for hers.

  Alison was right on his heels when he stopped at her bedroom door. She looked into the room and gasped. “Oh God,” she whispered, and felt her stomach drop. “Please, Lord, tell me that’s not what I think?” Her panties and bras were strewn over her bed, and she noticed that they were the dirty ones from the hamper because she had worn the neon yellow ones the day before. There was also, well, semen, she was assuming, on her bed. At least there was something white and flaky against her dark blue silk comforter.

  Joshua put a hand out to stop her from going in further. “This we need to call the sheriff on, honey. There’s DNA here that could be used to find him. It’s either that or we call Rhys and show him this. This is outside of my sphere of knowledge. I’ll do whatever you want, but that’s my two nickels.”

  “I think we should call both,” she whispered in horror. “Rhys will be seriously pissed at me as it is, so maybe having the sheriff here will help alleviate some of that. I also need to call the Federal Officer that was assigned to my case since I filed the initial charges in Bali and then in San Fran.” She felt sick. “Why now? What in heaven’s name is this person thinking?”

  “I don’t know,” he said softly. Turning, he ushered her out of the room and pulled her into a one-armed hug. “Why don’t you call Rhys while I call the sheriff? Once we have them coming, you can give the other officer a shout and get him up to date on this. I’ll be right here with you, Alison. I’m not going anywhere, honey.”

  “Thank you, I don’t know what I did to have you in my corner, but I’m very happy to have you here with me now.” She pulled her cell phone out of her back pocket. Turning it on, she was shocked by the number of messages, and then jumped when it rang from an unknown caller. “Joshua?” She looked at the phone as if it were a snake come to life.

  He pulled it from her fingers and answered. “Hello?” he said, and frowned. “Hello?” Tipping his head, he shrugged and hung up. “Call him now. Tell Rhys about that last call. I could hear heavy breathing, so it was likely your stalker looking to get something more.”

  “Wonderful.” Alison quickly dialed Rhys’s number and thankfully, he answered her. Quickly, she told him what was happening, and after he yelled at her for five minutes, she knew he was on his way back home. She was shaking when she ended the call with her brother and looked to Josh. “Is the sheriff on his way?”

  “Yup, he’s apparently rushing right out. So is his deputy, who is, from the sounds of things, ready to comfort you however he needs to.” She saw him roll his eyes as he walked to her. “He did say we should wait outside. Apparently, he wants to do a sweep of the house. I figured that was okay and didn’t tell him we’d already been in here. He sort of missed all the pertinent points I was giving him information wise. So, let’s go outside.”

  “Okay, sounds good.” She slipped her hand back into his and looked up at him. “Please don’t let me be alone with his deputy. Markus Busby has been hitting on me since elementary school and I seriously am tired of telling him no. I don’t think that he understands that word, honestly. He doesn’t push it, but he is relentless.”

  “I’ll break his fucking face if he touches you,” Joshua muttered as they exited the house. He led her away from the house and to one of the picnic tables in the main yard. Sitting with a leg on each side of the seat, he tugged her down to sit in front of him. Tugging his hat from her head, he tossed it onto the table before wrapping his arms around her waist. “While we wait, shall we chat?”

  “Yes, we should.” She moved in closer to him and wrapped her arms around his waist after turning slightly to the side. “So what do you want to talk about?” She kept her cheek against his chest, listening to his heart and enjoying the heat of the man that she had always had a serious, heart-beating thing for.

  “How about the fact that I’ve been in love with you since the first time I saw you? Or maybe the fact that I’m pretty damn sure that you have similar feelings for me? Perhaps the fact that we have these feelings, and yet every time I’ve gotten close, you dance out of range. What the fuck is with that, Alison?”

  Alison looked up at Joshua in shock. “I didn’t know that you had felt that way about me. I honest to goodness didn’t.” She watched him. “I do share your feelings. I always have. Since the moment I was three years old and you took that daisy necklace that I made for you. I just, God, I was just so afraid that you would push me away. I always believed you just thought I was another one of your sisters.”

  He gave a snort that sounded disbelieving. “Hardly, Alison. Trust me, I have never once thought of you as a sister. You’ve always fascinated me. Then came the first day you appeared in a swimsuit. I couldn’t get out of the water while you were around for fear you’d see what you did to me. It’s also why I tried to never swim with you after that,” he admitted, wrinkling his nose up.

  “That’s why.” She had never even thought o
f that. At all. “I hear sirens, but I really think that you should kiss me, Josh. If only for a second in time, I need that. With my world falling apart around me, you are the only person I am able to turn and cling to. So kiss me?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said softly. Lowering his head, he brushed his lips to hers gently. Slowly, oh so slowly, he deepened the kiss until the sound of her heart racing drowned out the approaching sirens. He held her face with a gentle hand as he devoured her mouth.

  She knew that the sheriff and deputy had arrived from the sound of car doors, but he continued to kiss her and she kissed him right back. When they pulled back, she licked her lips. “No more running, Joshua. No more hiding either. I do. Love you, that is. I have for forever and now that we have that out on the table, we will work everything else out, right?”

  “Absolutely,” he said quietly. “I think that your brother may kick my ass, though. Given the look he’s shooting my way, you may want to kiss me again since I will either be in traction, or dead very shortly.”

  “He wouldn’t dare,” Alison whispered, and leaned in, kissing him very lightly and without the tongue. She pulled back and looked up at him. “More later? For now ,we have to deal with my messed up life.” Which had her sighing. “God, I don’t know what I did to bring this on, but I really hope that it’s sorted out soon.” In the meantime, she was holding onto Joshua for all he was worth.

  “You didn’t do a damn thing, Alison. Stop thinking like that. This is not your fault, none of it. The only one responsible is the sick fuck who thinks to screw around with you.” He gave her a squeeze and dropped his Stetson back on her head. “Much more later. Go and talk your brother down off the murderous rage he appears to be in while I head off deputy feel good over there.”

  “Thank you for taking him,” she grumbled, and then rose to her feet. After squeezing Joshua’s hand, she walked toward her brother. “Rhys,” she said, and lifted a hand to him, hugging him when he pulled her into his embrace, but not missing the fact that he was still glaring daggers at Joshua. “I have finally pulled my head from the sand, so please stop glaring at him? We need to talk about what’s going on here, please.”

  He hugged her tight and grunted at her words.

  Chapter Four

  Six hours later, too many questions, and having to tell her brother everything—twice, she was finally alone with Joshua again. He was holding her gently as Rhys went through the house from top to bottom. “I’m guessing he isn’t going to kill me today then?” Josh asked her quietly as her brother came out of the house. He wasn’t glaring any more, but he still didn’t seem happy to see her in Joshua’s arms.

  “No, he’s not going to, today.” She rubbed her cheek to his chest and closed her eyes, enjoying being held by him and breathing in his scent. “Have you always smelled this wonderful? I mean, you smell fantastic, and I never believed that you could smell better, but you seemingly do.”

  His chuckle vibrated through her body slowly. “Thanks, I think. I have no idea what I smell like, so if you like it, I guess that’s okay. We should go and talk to your mom. She’s not going to be able to stay here tonight. Rhys wouldn’t allow it and I’m not happy with it either, so I think she should stay at our place.”

  “I think so too.” She sighed and nodded. “Where am I staying? I guess I should call and get a hotel for the night.” She didn’t want to put anyone out, not when it was her issue. “Crap, this is a hot mess. I never dreamed that this would get so intense, so crappy. I never believed that it would escalate like this.”

  “Honey, you’re not staying in a hotel. You are coming home with me. You will stay with me at the ranch. If necessary, you can have your own room, but, really, I’d prefer you stay in my room. I’ll leave the choice up to you, but you are definitely not going to any hotel, ever.”

  “I would much rather stay with you in your room. I want to be close to you. I wasn’t so sure how you would feel about that, which is why I didn’t say it earlier. Now that I’ve told you how I feel and I know how you feel, I want to explore absolutely everything with you.”

  “I love you, Alison. Of course I’d want you to stay with me. You should have just asked, honey. Besides, I’m a sucker for you. You could have asked for the moon and I’d have figured out a way to make it happen. Maybe.” He pressed a kiss to her nose and sighed. “You’d better break it to big brother that you’re coming to play house at my place. If I do it, I will end up dead.”

  “I think that I will wait and tell him next year maybe. Or perhaps the year after, or maybe when we are old and gray?” she asked hopefully. She didn’t let go of Joshua. Instead, she turned to face her brother and held onto Josh’s hand. “I know we can’t stay here,” she began. “Mom is already at Josh’s and I can pack a bag for the both of us and we can both stay there. My SUV needs to be checked out as well. If you can, make sure that the sheriff does what he needs to do and does it right? I’m sure that tomorrow he’s going to be even more pissed off because the Feds should be here by that time.”

  “I’ll check the truck,” Rhys said. He stopped, braced his legs apart, and folded his arms over his chest. He had his eyes on Joshua as he talked to her. “I will be asking Mama just where you slept while at the Carvers, Ali. I’d better damn well hear it was on the opposite end of the house from him.”

  “Well you don’t have to ask her because I will tell you now where I will be. I will be sleeping with Joshua. I love him, Rhys, and he loves me. You’re not going to stop us from being together, just like nothing would have stopped you from being with Gwen. So suck on it, big brother.” She let Joshua go and moved to hug Rhys. “He’s the one. He always has been, but I think I needed him to lay it out clear and plain for me.”

  Her brother grunted, but hugged her back. “He hurts you and there will never be a body found,” he said. She knew it was more for Joshua than her. The burden of the older brother to threaten those that thought to mess around with his baby sister.

  She pulled back and looked up at Rhys. “Don’t worry, Rhys, I seriously doubt that will happen. He loves me and he wouldn’t hurt me anymore than you would Gwen, so get over yourself.” She pulled back and kissed his cheek after he leaned down. She moved back to Joshua’s side and slipped her hand into his. “Now, let me go pack a bag and then we can go home?”

  Nodding, he followed along with her into the house. When they were out of sight of Rhys, he let out a breath. “Holy shit, your brother is seriously scary,” he said under his breath. “Let’s get your stuff and then the hell out of here. You know he’s out there contemplating all the places to bury a body. Which, on either of our properties, is a hell of a lot of places.” He looked at her and sighed. “All right, maybe he’s not. But I would be in his place, so maybe I’m projecting a little.”

  Alison laughed and shook her head. “Well, I know that you aren’t going to hurt me and I’m not going to hurt you. I care too much for you. This will be okay, you and I, right?” She began to pack a bag for her mother and then looked at him. “I hate to ask this of you, but I don’t want to go back into my bedroom. Will you just grab me some panties and bras? They are in packages in my dresser, and please don’t judge me for my OCD tendencies when it comes to that.” She couldn’t help but place her bras and panties in matching sets. She usually added socks to the little baggies as well. She was weird and knew it. “And then some jeans from my closet? I will just adopt your shirts if you are good with it?”

  “You can adopt anything of mine you want. I will get your stuff.” Dropping a kiss to her lips, he left her in her mother’s room to go to hers. She could hear him rummaging around and the occasional comment from him. She couldn’t make out what he was actually saying, but she was definitely wondering.

  When he walked out with a bag, she smiled. “Thank you.” She didn’t think she would ever be able to walk back into her bedroom. Something profound had been stolen from her. Her sense of security had been taken, and she didn’t think she would ever get that bac
k. “I hate being afraid, and now I’m terrified of my childhood home and even my car. I don’t feel safe anywhere,” she whispered.

  Dropping the bag, Joshua moved to her and pulled her into his arms. “I hope that isn’t fully the truth, honey. I want and desperately need you to feel safe with me.” He rocked her back and forth gently, a hand rubbing over her back. “Let’s get out of here. We still have to tell your mom what happened to her house. Somehow, I think that will be harder than dealing with your brother.”

  “No kidding.” She hugged him back and looked up at him. “I do feel safe with you. I don’t feel safe here or alone in my vehicle, but you do make me feel protected.” She moved to his side, holding his hand tightly, never letting go of that connection. “Let’s go tell both of our mothers what’s happening, and then break it to them that we will be sharing your room for the next however long you will keep me,” she teased him.

  “How’s forever sound?” He lifted her hand to press a kiss to her fingers. Once he released them, he grabbed up both bags and led her out of the house.

  The ride to the Carver Ranch wasn’t that long. Especially when you could go the back roads and slip through the fence lines. Sooner than she’d have liked, they were pulling up in front of the house. The pad outside of the door was full of cars, stating there were a lot of people inside the house.

  When they got out, a gaggle of female laughter came from the house. Joshua didn’t look happy to have to go inside. “We could slip through the back and take the back stairs. They’ll never know we’re here,” he said in a hopeful tone.

  “As much as that appeals to me, you know that we can’t. You know as well as I do that if they haven’t already heard about my stalker, they have heard about the kiss that you laid upon me back at the ranch. Which, by the way, I really hope that you chose to do again and again, but that means that we have to go in and face them.”