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“I don’t care what you say, Az Newcomb, it’s none of your business where I spend my time,” Mandy declared stubbornly, her eyes narrowing at the impossibly tall man glaring down at her. He’d only been home for a few hours, and her self-appointed protector was bossing her around again.

“You cannot go to a bar and leave with the first cowboy who offers to take you home, Mandy,” he gritted. “You have no idea what trouble you might be getting into.”

“I never said I was going to do that,” she protested hotly. “The virginity thing was just a frickin’ joke. Where’s your sense of humor?”

Mostly...maybe not.

“You might as well have,” Az insisted. His eyes, the color of turquoise stones, were glacial. His eyes were very different, and Mandy had always found them fascinating, but at the moment, she wanted to punch him in one of them and make it all black and shiny.

Besides, she had her private reasons for wanting to frequent The Lazy Saddle Saloon; she was searching for a special guy in her life. She didn’t know who she was looking for, but she was sure she would know him when she found him. Isn’t that how love is supposed to work? All that ‘ across a crowded room’ in the romance books must have a basis in reality somewhere. The Lazy Saddle Saloon seemed like a good place to meet a lot of people to choose from. It’s where all the singles in Whippoorwill County hung out.

Secretly, she was a tad bit worried about being the only virgin left in Whippoorwill County. But the virginity thing had just been a joke...mostly...except Az had taken it all wrong.

Now they were arguing in the stockroom of her grandmother’s store, Benson’s Market, and Mandy’s temper was quickly escalating. What had started as a ‘ catching up with each other’s life’ conversation, and a simple joke about frequenting the bar every weekend to find candidates with which to lose her virginity, had quickly deteriorated when Az suddenly went all bossy on her.

She hadn’t intended to do it...well...maybe she was a little serious, but he irritated her with his overprotective attitude. Shouldn’t he be over that by now?

“I have had it with your hovering over me and bossing me around,” Mandy snapped, her rebellious chin shooting high. She had no intention of allowing him to tell her what to do. She was so over that.

“I’m not hovering,” he denied, a bit of red creeping up his neck.

“Yes, you are, you might as well admit it,” she yelped. “I get that you felt sorry for me when my dad died when I was fourteen. And I guess that’s why you decided to be my big brother, but I’m all grown up now. I don’t need protecting anymore.”

“I said no, and I meant it.” Az’s strong, angular jaw was set in stone as he glared right back at her.

“You can’t tell me what to do, I’m old enough to make up my own mind now. I am not your responsibility, I never was. You just chose to make it so.”

She stared defiantly back at him, his commanding attitude suddenly giving her indigestion. He’d always been bossy, but there was a new maturity to his stance, a rigid, iron determination that he seemed to have grown into while he was away.

A funny curling sensation began in the pit of her stomach. She wondered if the spicy barbecue she had eaten at Tilley’s diner was giving her indigestion.

Deciding it didn’t matter, she spun on her booted heel and started to walk away. She had a delivery to make, and Az was only keeping her from working.

She’d spent two years chasing an associate’s business degree and planned on getting her bachelor's as well, eventually taking over her grandmother’s market. She wasn’t a little lost high school girl anymore; she could take care of herself. She was shocked when he grabbed her arm just above the elbow and swung her back around to face him.

“You have a bad habit of getting yourself into trouble, Mandy. Trying to seduce me when you were fourteen was bad enough, but now you’re bound to attract the wrong sort of person by going to the bar.”

“Thank you for that ungentlemanly reminder, Az, but it’s none of your business. I’ll do as I please, and I can date who I please. You have nothing to say about it.”

“You want to experiment, little girl?” he snapped, his arm muscles bulging in his red plaid shirt as he reached for her. “I’ll show you what you’re in for.”

Mandy stared wide-eyed at the sudden fire in his eyes, the determination of the dark head bending down towards her. She gasped as his mouth closed cruelly over hers, taking her lips in a fierce plunder. He put his lean, tanned hand in the curls that fell to her waist, holding her head still as he ravished her sweetness like the ruthless Aztec warrior she’d always imagined he resembled.

Az actually had Osage Indian in him. His mother loved and studied Indian cultures and was especially fascinated with the Aztec culture, hence his strange name, Aztecuani Newcomb. Tecuani in the Aztec language means jaguar or tiger. His mother lopped off the Az part of Aztec and added it to Tecuani to get the name. Supposedly, he got his eyes from his Swedish great-grandmother on his mother’s side. His height of 6’6” came from his great-grandfather’s Osage Indian DNA. As commonly happens with strange or difficult names to pronounce, Aztecuani was shortened to Az, much to his mother’s chagrin. Mandy had found it all fascinating when she was younger, but now? Now he was just a pest. A pest who was suddenly stirring feelings she’d never felt before.

Their hats fell to the ground as the brims clashed, and he pulled her in closer to his whipcord body. His other arm wrapped around her slender waist like an iron clamp. He smelled good, like horses, hay, and something tangy.

Mandy whimpered in protest and tried to snap her head from side to side, but she couldn’t escape the punishing mouth that held hers captive. She pushed ineffectually at the broad shoulders until her traitorous arms finally began a journey of their own volition up and around his powerful neck. His hard length against her soft body was intoxicating.

When her exploring fingers slid into the fine, dark hair at the nape of his neck and her bones melted into his hard abs, his ravaging kiss changed to something even more devastating. Desire stronger than she’d ever felt before careened along her veins like quicksilver as she tentatively returned his exploration, her tongue sliding along the inside seam of his lips.

Nothing but Az existed in that moment, and she found herself returning his ardor as hot, sweet pleasure encompassed her entire body. She fit into him like a glove, like they were made for each other. Her pert breasts hardened where they thrust against his hard chest.

She’d often wondered what it might be like to kiss Az, but he was just a friend, her self-appointed protector since high school. At one time, she’d been infatuated with him, but the first time he’d turned her over his knee and swatted her, the rose-colored glasses had broken. In her mind, he was a bossy bully from that time on.

When Az finally broke off their kiss and stood back to stare at her, she gasped and panted for breath, her world suddenly turned upside down. Trembling all over, she stared wide-eyed up at him.

How could this be?

Az wasn’t supposed to have this effect on her. She put her shaking fingers to her swollen lips, touching them in wonder, feeling the heat he had left upon them.

“Mandy, I’m sorry. I...I’m just sorry,” he rasped hoarsely, running his fingers through his coal-black hair and stepping back to break their connection.

“Sorry for what?” Mandy’s voice was a whisper as she tried to collect her senses and rearrange them in the box they didn’t fit in anymore. “Sorry you kissed me? Sorry we’re just friends? What?”

Somehow, everything had changed with just one kiss. One brief moment in time now dictated that there was no going back. No man’s kiss had ever had this effect on her before. Confused, she awaited his answer.

“I’m sorry I was so rough with you.” His glittering gaze never left her face. “I must have shocked you, and I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Mandy sensed his withdrawal. He was attempting to restore the big brother door solidly back into place, but it was too late now. Like the horse escaped from the barn, desire was running rampant through her bloodstream, and from the looks of the bulge in his pants, it was in his as well.

The damage was done—knowledge gained.

So many things suddenly fell into place. Was Az the one she’d been searching for all this time? Was he the reason no other man seemed good enough? Or attractive enough? Or whatever, enough? Something was always missing.

Suddenly, she wanted him to kiss her again to test that theory. Maybe declare their friendship null and void and become lovers instead. The big crush that was supposed to die when she was fourteen had been faking it all along and was now resurrecting with righteous fury.

Her mind raced, searching for answers, but there weren’t any. Suddenly, her common sense decided to wise up.

What the crap was she thinking?

She couldn’t be attracted to Az Newcomb; they were just friends. Sort of. Ironically, though, he’d just moved into the number one slot of competitors to give her virginity to.

Not funny!

“Shut up,” she snapped abruptly. “Just shut up. Don’t tell me you’re sorry, I don’t want sorry.” She reached up and grabbed him around the neck, pressing her slender body against his hard length. “Tell me you wanted to kiss me.”

Az only hesitated for a second. “Come here,” he growled, taking her mouth once again. Silence reigned as they breathlessly explored each other, neither one hearing the approach of solid footsteps.

“Ahem.”

Startled apart, they looked around to see the stern features of Mrs. Collier staring at them, her white bun on the back of her head jiggling slightly as the foot in the worn penny loafer tapped insidiously against the hardwood floor.

“This is not the place for such goings on. Land sakes, Amanda Merriweather, what would your mother say?”

Faded blue eyes fastened on Az from the granny glasses perched on the end of the aristocratic, hooked nose. “And you, Az Newcomb. What are you doing accosting my granddaughter in the stock room of my market? Don’t you have anything better to do?” The twinkle in her faded blue eyes belied the censorious tones in her voice.

Mandy knew darn well that her grandmother couldn’t wait to pass on her and Az’s discretion as soon as she could get to her phone. Grams had always had a soft spot for Az Newcomb, and had hinted on more than one occasion that Mandy could do a lot worse in her choice of a man.

“Accosting, Grams?” Mandy rolled her eyes and sighed. “Isn’t that a little old-fashioned?

***

A Z FLUSHED AND STEPPED back, releasing Mandy. “I...I beg your pardon, ma’am. I was just...just...” Words failed him at that moment. What was he supposed to say? He had been caught red-handed, or with his britches down as his gramps had been fond of saying. Any excuse he could give would be miserably lame.

“I’ll catch up to you later, Mandy,” he said finally, picking up their hats from the floor and handing her the yellow straw one. He jammed the black hat down on his head, stalked out the screen door into the back alley, and jumped inside his dusty jeep without opening the door. With his height, it was easier to keep the top down and just hike his leg over the side. Since the summers were hot and muggy, he liked to drive his jeep and let the wind cool him off.

“Too bad you can’t burn rubber on gravel,” he muttered after starting the engine and stomping the gas pedal to the floorboard.

He drove automatically, his thoughts on the sweet shape of Mandy’s rear in the tight jean shorts, and the rounded breasts that had been visible beneath the molded white tank top that hugged her upper body. The cowboy hat sitting on dangling curls of long blonde hair made her look sexy as all get out.

Thinking of the plush pink of her lips drew a groan up his throat. Something in his gut twisted at the thought of that lovely mouth and sweet body beneath anyone but him. He sighed as his thoughts drifted.

Losing his father to liver cancer had been a huge blow to him. So, when her father had died in that fatal car accident, he’d become very protective of Mandy, knowing what it was like not to have a dad anymore. She’d only been fourteen, and his protectiveness had caused her to have a crush on him. Until he’d smacked her butt for being a brat when she attempted to practice her girlish charms on him. From then on, she’d been angry and resented him for interfering in her life.

He hadn’t wanted her practicing her charms on any other male either.

His job had been to protect her, and he took it seriously. Through the years, he’d convinced himself he only wanted to be friends, until somewhere along the way, being her friend had become the last thing on his mind. Unfortunately for him, Mandy hadn’t changed the way he had.

Until now.

Did that toe-curling kiss they’d just shared mean she had changed her mind? And if it did, their relationship just became even more complicated by the fact that he had nothing to offer her at this stage in his life. Another reason he’d kept her at little sister status even after high school. ?

When she’d defied him and turned her back on him today, it had been the last straw, and he couldn’t help his reaction. No way was she going to go to the Saddle alone and pick up dates. It was just too dangerous. Had it been a joke? Or was she still a virgin, and her intent was real?

He frowned at the road in front of him. Back in town for just a few hours, and she was already turning him inside out. The girl was trouble with a capital T. What was he supposed to do with her?

A few minutes later, he came to a screeching halt in front of the sheriff’s department and climbed out of the dusty jeep. He was met by the cool air conditioning when he stepped inside the building and swiped the sweat off his brow by ducking his forehead into the shoulder of his plaid cotton shirt.

He liked to wear his shirts open with just an undershirt beneath. That way, he could take off the outer layer, if need be, especially at this time of year when the cooler weather was trying to keep out the heat and humidity common to a Memorial Day weekend.

“Morning, Az,” Emily Butler chirped.

Az nodded in response. Nothing changed much in the small town of Mockingbird Hollow, the county seat of Whippoorwill County, Missouri. Emily had been Evan Dorney’s secretary for as long as he could remember. Nodding to the attractive, middle-aged soccer mom, he traversed the narrow hallway to the sheriff’s office, opened it with a scowl, and eased his long frame inside.

“Howdy do to you too,” Sheriff Dorney greeted him good-naturedly, grinning at the scowl on Az’s face. “What’s got a burr under your saddle this afternoon?”

“Nothing, I’ll handle it.”

“Wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with Mandy Merriweather, would it?”

Az snorted. “Maybe—but I’m not telling you if it is.” He lifted an eyebrow at his tormentor.

Sheriff Dorney chuckled. “You’re a durned fool, boy. You should have already tied the knot with that filly by this time. You’ve been hankering after her for years, since you were both youngins’, I reckon.”

“She’s just a friend, that’s all.”

“That’s how it’s supposed to start.” Brown eyes twinkled under his bushy blond eyebrows. “Then you get married—a step you seem to have missed somewhere along the line.”

“I don’t want to get married.” Az slouched his long frame in the hard-backed chair and crossed his left ankle over his right knee. “Besides, even if I did, I have six more months of schooling. I can’t get married right now; I don’t have time for that nonsense.”

He stared at the older man, daring him to refute his statement, which he was sure he would. Sheriff Dorney was never afraid to let anyone know his opinion.

“Oh hell, where there’s a will, there’s a way, son. You’re going to keep playing that little fish until she slips off the hook if you aren’t careful.” His sharp eyes, undimmed by the relentless passage of the years, studied Az with a mocking gleam.

Az grinned. “You know what they say, plenty more fish in the sea.”

“But only one for me,” came the swift retort. “You’ve been carrying a candle for that little girl for years, admit it.”

“Maybe,” Az agreed, still feeling restless and irritated with Mandy. “Then again, maybe not. I don’t know for sure.” He studied the sheriff in return. He was a big man, nearing fifty and tough as an ox. His brown hair was the color of cocoa with a few white streaks in it, and in the mustache that adorned his upper lip. Az liked and respected him, despite their barbed repartee.

The sheriff leaned back in his chair, the wheels creaking slightly as they moved backward a bit, and folded his hands across his taut stomach.

“Well, son, while you’re trying to figure it out, someone else may come along and take her out from under your nose. She’s been frequenting The Lazy Saddle more and more lately. And I know for a fact that Sam Pickering has his eye on her.” He twiddled his thumbs and grinned like a wolf. “Besides, there are plenty of men sniffing around her, always have been. She just hasn’t been ready before now.”

“What do you know about it?” Az growled, jealousy instantly flaring in his gut. “And who the devil is Sam Pickering?”

“Sam Pickering works for Genetico,” he replied. “I always know what goes on here in Mockingbird Hollow. That is...until lately.”

“Until lately?” Az perked up; a mystery always caught his interest.

The sheriff stroked his mustache. “It’s the weirdest thing. We’ve got some rustling going on, and some of the ranchers are getting hot under the collar. The problem is that none of the cattle are showing up anywhere. Doesn’t look like they are being sold off for meat either. So, I’m not sure what is going on except there’s been some talk about Genetico.”

“The lab on the outskirts of town?”

“Since we only have one, yeah, that’s the one.” The sheriff’s eyes twinkled.

“Smartass,” As replied. “So, what kind of talk?”

“People are conjuring up all sorts of crazy ideas about genetic testing and all that science fiction type mumbo jumbo.” He picked up his coffee cup and took a drink. “I think they’ve been watching too many horror movies, myself.”

Az leaned forward; his interest piqued. “That sounds right up my alley. I think I’ll do some investigating.”

The sheriff choked on his coffee and sputtered, “Now hold on there. You need to leave that to me, son. You’re still in school. It’s not that I don’t trust you; you’ve got good instincts, but I don’t want anyone getting hurt on my watch.”

“You know me better than that,” Az replied with a snort. “Besides, if I’m working with you for the summer, that makes me an employee...at least for now. And I have no intention of doing anything stupid.”

“Well, now that’s true,” admitted the sheriff grudgingly. “Except when it comes to women.” He shot Az a gleaming side eye. “Your brain’s a bit addled in that department.”

Az just eyed him with a disgusted grunt, refusing to be baited. “It’s summer break, and this rustling business is just the project I need to concentrate on.”

“Rustling is dangerous business; you sure you want to get involved?”

Az nodded. “I don’t think we’ve lost any yet at the Golden G. I’ll have to check with Hugh and Aaron, though.”

The Golden G was the Newcomb ranch just outside Mockingbird Hollow. Az’s great-grandfather and his immigrant wife from Sweden had built it in the late 1800s. His great-grandfather had been half Osage Indian. He had adopted the ways of his white mother’s family and had taken the Newcomb name. His great-grandmother’s name had been Golda, and the ranch was named after her. The Golden G.

Az hadn’t done the genealogy research, but his mother had. She was in her element when researching different cultures. The Osage Indians were reputed to be beautiful people, not only tall, but physically handsome, and had lived in southern Missouri. During a time in history when most men were under 6 feet, the fierce Osage warriors often grew as tall as 6’7”. They were feared by many of the other tribes.

The sheriff stood up. “Alright, you can poke around with me, but you need to let me do the talking.” He reached for a folder on top of the filing cabinet behind him. “In the meantime, you can look over this file. This is all the complaints and information I’ve collected so far.” He walked around and handed the file to Az. “You read. I’ll drive.”

“Where are we headed?” Az asked, taking the folder and following Evan out to his police truck.

“Genetico.”

Genetico—that was where this Sam Pickering worked.