Page 4 of The Prey (The Hillers of Barratt County #6)

The man just wouldn’t stop.

Hudson had been watching her all morning.

He was driving her crazy. Every time she’d turn, his dark devil eyes would be trained right on her. Watching. Like…he was trying to figure her out or something. The man just wouldn’t stop watching her.

He was like a lion watching his prey. Just waiting to pounce and destroy. She’d seen him with that calculating look in his eyes so many times before. Just…never had it been turned in her direction.

After Anthony left with the four older kids, she cleaned up Madeline and Mari Lynn. Mari Lynn was ready for her nap. Gia rocked her in the chair by the window, her eyes on Maddie while the little menace bounced and sang along to Scraggle-Popps.

Hudson settled at the kitchen table after he’d cleaned it up quickly, his files spread before him. He was supposed to be working. He’d asked her to bring him those specific files yesterday.

But it was the little looks he was sending her way that disconcerted her.

The man was most definitely plotting something.

Gia had worked with him long enough to see that for herself.

She had to give it to him—he’d behaved himself very well with the kids around.

He hadn’t said one thing to her that he shouldn’t.

And he’d helped however she’d needed it.

Without her having to ask or tell him what to do.

They hadn’t argued even once—today. Or…since he’d found her rocking Ryan the night before.

He'd been looking at her differently ever since.

He was very good at the daddy thing. And the older brother thing with Hala. But…having him in her territory—she was ready for that man to go right back to where he belonged.

Fast.

Finally, Mari Lynn was asleep. Maddie had already climbed up onto the couch and looked like she was about to go out at any moment, too.

She had the blanket Gia had knit her when she was a baby—it went with Maddie everywhere—and her battered stuffed Milly Silly Scraggle-Popp doll.

It seemed like Scraggle-Popps were everywhere with the kids lately.

Nap time soon was inevitable. The girls would be out for about two hours, if Gia was lucky. That was about all the time Gia would have to get some things done.

George’s girls were rambunctious little monsters most of the time—and very much like their mother.

Gia absolutely adored them. She tried to spend as much time with her brothers’ children as she could.

She was thirty now. She did want kids of her own someday, but…

Trusting a man was her biggest battle. She didn’t know if she’d ever trust a man again—it had taken her two years to come to that realization alone.

She thought maybe she could with Ronnie’s brother.

She’d told Anthony yes, when he’d asked her on the porch to go with him to a function at the Barratt Hotel in Finley Creek next week.

For the hospital there. He’d been out of the area for years, just coming home in the last year. He didn’t know many women, he’d said.

Well, she didn’t fully believe that, but she trusted Anthony reasonably well. Anthony was genuinely one of the nicest men she wasn’t related to that she knew. He was probably the best man she could think of to get started dating again.

She couldn’t keep living so afraid.

That was exactly what she’d told Hala, too. She had to live up to her own advice, right?

Seeing Jason Clarke there in the courthouse had made that abundantly clear: She had given that asshole enough of her life after what he’d done to her two and a half years ago. She wasn’t going to give him any more of it.

“Heavy thoughts?”

Hudson’s question startled her. She jerked, then froze, hoping she hadn’t wakened the little girl in her arms. “Shh.”

“You have a strange look on your face right now,” he said, quietly. “Both the girls are out, Auntie Gia. Sit down with me. Let’s…talk.”

They were going to talk, all right. She was going to figure out just what the man was up to. Whatever game he was playing—he wasn’t going to get away with it.

She stood. It took only a half a moment to lay her niece on the couch nearby. She slipped the safety rails beneath the cushions next to both girls, and turned.

Hudson stood right there. Almost in her space.

“Come in the kitchen,” he said. Then his hand was on her waist, turning her. “Talk to me.”

Gia fought freezing. Men didn’t just put their hands on her.

Only her family touched her. That was the way she liked it.

She shot him a look and twisted away from that hand that scorched. “What about? I have some things I need to unpack in my suite.”

It wasn’t really a suite, just a bedroom, a sitting room, and a bathroom. And a balcony. They’d just always called their rooms suites, when they’d been young girls and being silly. Now…it was her sanctuary. The ranch was the one place in the world where she actually felt safe. Even a little.

She was home.

It was half the size of her townhouse she’d left, but…the rest of the house, the safety, the feeling of home it represented, more than made up for that.

“Are you going to live here permanently?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead. My…lease was up.” No. She’d broken it early. It had taken a significant portion of cash to accomplish it—three months’ rent—but she’d managed.

She’d run. The instant she’d seen Jason, she’d started planning exactly how to do that.

“It’s a busy place. You sure you want to be here?”

“They are my family. There is no place else I’d really want to be.

” That was truer than anything she’d ever said before.

She had done some serious soul searching when she’d seen Jason again—she’d come to one real realization: Gia wanted her family.

There was nothing wrong with that. And the ranch was more than big enough for all of them to live there as long as needed.

“Why haven’t you married? I know you’ve dated.” He had that tone in his voice again—the one that said he was evaluating, calculating. It set her on edge, each and every time. Even more now.

“Why is that any of your business?” What was this, an interrogation? The man was bored, and she was right there. Trapped. Of course, he’d look to start something. She fought tensing by fussing with Maddie’s blanket, covering her niece gently. So precious.

“Because I watched you this morning. If I’ve ever seen any woman made to be surrounded by a million kids, I suspect I’m looking at her. I’m just wondering why you haven’t had half a dozen of your own by now.”

It was a loaded question. She wasn’t an idiot. And this man had baited her so many times before. Gia just sent him a look of challenge.

“Who says I even want kids? Not every woman does. Maybe I’m focusing on my career.” That had been what she’d told people after Jason.

“Do you?” he asked bluntly, his fingers toying with her hair.

Just like Anthony had that morning. It just…

felt different when Hudson was doing it.

“You’re already damned good at your career.

And you know it. Nothing says you can’t have both.

You’d be good at both. Your children would be lucky to have you as their mother, too. ”

Well, now the man who had called her the spawn of Satan’s own attorneys just last month really was up to something. Was that an actual compliment coming from him? And since when was he allowed in her personal space?

She batted his hand away from her hair. He was deliberately pushing her buttons, challenging her—on things that weren’t his business. And she knew it.

This was a game they had played before. Just…not on such a personal subject.

“Are you offering to be my baby-daddy or something, Mr. Hanan? In general, it takes two people and about twenty minutes, remember? I do have to say you make a pretty cute kid. You do have potential…I think.” She had to say it. Had to challenge him right back. Throw him off.

What she wanted from her future was never going to be his business.

His hand came up. She didn’t flinch, though she wanted to. He cupped her cheek. His thumb brushed her bottom lip.

His eyes darkened—with hunger. She wasn’t stupid.

She’d been looked at like that before.

Just not by him. Never by him.

“Maybe I am…”

She swallowed. Tried to think. “What? Seeing domesticated-Gia turns you on all of a sudden? You forget I’m a damned demon no sane man would want? Or what was it? A demon capable of sucking the soul right out of a room? Satan’s attorneys’ evil spawn?”

“You’re a demon, all right. One that every man would want. I think that might be part of my problem where you’ve been concerned. I think maybe I’ve missed a few things through the years…”

He leaned forward, and she knew he was going to kiss her. To just…kiss her. Probably so he could see what would happen.

The jerk.

He was going to kiss her. And change everything between them forever.

With the couch behind her, there was no way she was going to be able to get away.

Her heart sped up. She could smell the man surrounding her.

Her hands came up, and her fingers spread over the T-shirt he’d borrowed from one of her brothers.

Probably Gunn—it had a religious saying on it.

And was just a little too small. Hudson did dwarf other men sometimes. Her fingers…almost curled, clung.

“Giavonna…”

No man had said her name like that in a long, long time.

At least, not one that she wanted to, anyway.

She felt the heat of his breath on her lips. Her own mouth parted in response as her entire body tightened in a way it hadn’t in a long, long time.

Since before.

Just as the front door came open. Gia sprang back, almost tripping over the ottoman. She hurried away.

Grady had shown up just in time.