Page 11

Another ranch hand Colton worked with moved up to the bar and said something to Meadow.

Again, she blew him off, flicking her fingers for him to go the way she’d shoo a bug.

Colton’s focus narrowed. The noise, the confusion, faded away, and he only saw Meadow, the guy who wanted to fuck her and the ranch hand obviously trying to get her away from him.

Gabby thrust her bottle into Colton’s hand. She went on tiptoe to speak into his ear. “I’m going to the ladies’ room!”

He nodded but didn’t shift his gaze away from Meadow. He knew all too well that things happened fast.

One minute you’re looking at your friend standing a few feet away, and the next he’s blown apart.

His gut wrenched.

Forest would not want that guy playing around with his sister.

Colton set the beer bottles he held on the closest table and started toward them just as the other ranch hand gave up trying. Colton caught him by the shoulder.

Turning, he saw Colton and relief passed over his craggy features.

“What’s going on?” Colton asked.

“Boss’s daughter is drunk. She shouldn’t be here. She refuses to let any of us drive her home.” He gave a shake of his head. “It’s above my paygrade.”

Colton started to say that she was a grown woman and could take care of herself. Then he heard Forest in his head again. How he used to talk about Meadow and how he made Colton promise to look after her.

Dammit.

He’d been avoiding the woman for a week. Now he would have to not only try to talk some sense into her but keep his hands off those supple curves she was so clearly offering up on a platter to the first taker hungry enough.

And being the most gorgeous woman in the bar—hell, in Eden from what he’d seen—it wouldn’t take much to lure in half the men here tonight.

She hung on the guy she was schmoozing, clinging to his shoulders. Her red fingernails bit into the black leather of the biker’s vest as she turned those sweet lips upward for his kiss.

Colton shoved his way through the crowd. In just a few steps, he reached her. Grabbing her by the arm, he dragged her off the biker.

“Hey, buddy! Get your own woman! This one’s mine.”

He leveled the man in a glare that had him shrinking back on his stool.

Meadow twisted and pulled, trying to free herself from Colton’s grip.

The biker held up his hands in surrender. “Fine. She’s yours.”

“Ugh! You weak asshole!” Meadow’s words were slurred but still infused with that bratty tone of voice that Colton heard every time she opened her mouth.

“You’re coming with me.” He dragged her through the clusters of people and out of the bar, her fighting him the whole way.

In the parking lot, she dug in her boot heels like an unruly child.

He stared down at her. Christ, did she have to smell like vanilla, cheap beer and arousal?

“Let go!”

“You can walk to my truck or I can throw you over my shoulder. You decide,” he bit off.

She wrenched away from him. In a fast clip, she took off walking, stumbled on a tiny pea-sized stone and almost fell flat on her face.

Colton gripped her by the arm and hauled her the rest of the way to the beat-up Dodge that had seen better days. Webb told him if he could get the truck running, he could drive it. He wasn’t so amused when Colton had the engine firing within an hour of tinkering with it.