Branded by a Callahan. Tina Leonard

nodded. “Stands to reason.”

      “Then we go find your uncle Wolf and tell him that enough is enough,” Ana said. “No doubt Dante will enjoy beating him to a pulp.”

      “Uh—” Dante blinked, considered how macho he needed to appear. “We actually don’t believe in beating our uncle to a pulp. Well, actually, we might, but Running Bear says no.”

      “Oh. So you’re using your wits instead of weapons. I admire that.” Ana turned around to look at him, and he felt himself appreciating for the thousandth time her sexy green eyes. Kind of an emerald tone, a bright forest green overlaid with honey, and he—

      “Dante,” Ashlyn said, interrupting his heated thoughts, and Ana turned back around. “When’s the last time you heard from Tighe?”

      “I don’t know.” He didn’t figure he’d thought much about his twin since he’d been in Ana’s radius. “We’re not joined at the hip.”

      “That’s news to me,” Ash said.

      “Old news,” Dante said. “Tighe’s like a cat. He’ll come home when he’s ready.”

      “But it’s not like him not to check in,” Ashlyn pressed, and Dante finally caught his sister’s underlying message.

      “You think something’s happened to him?”

      “We don’t know what to think. Tighe can be hardheaded, and with you not traveling with him to be the communicator—”

      He scowled at his sister’s reflection. “Tighe has a mouth that works perfectly fine. I wasn’t always the communicator.”

      “Yes, you were,” Ashlyn insisted. “It was always you who kept in touch with the family. We always called Tighe The Silent One. In fact, Galen calls him Silent-but-deadly, and he swears it’s because of his work in the military, but it’s still rude and I let him know it.”

      Dante could hear Ana giggling in the front seat. “So was I Not-silent-and-not-deadly?”

      “We just called you Oprah,” Ash said cheerfully. “We could always count on you to have something to talk about.”

      Well, wasn’t it just nice for his sister to air all his dirty laundry in front of the woman he was dying to impress? The woman who now knew that not only was he not a fighter, a tough guy, but he was considered a hen by his family? “Thanks, I think,” he said, and Ana and Ash dissolved in giggles.

      He wondered if Ana would rescind her offer to have his child now that his sister had so nicely illustrated the family’s views of him. Jace had certainly thrown himself at the nanny bodyguards, but they’d seemed to treat him as everybody’s favorite beta-male brother, fun and nonthreatening. “Yes, I’m going to share my new recipe for blackberry pie and drop-stitch knitting tips I got from Mrs. Adams with Aunt Fiona as soon as I get home.”

      “Oh, don’t get your feelings hurt, brother. We love you, you know,” Ash said.

      “I’m fine. I really got a recipe from Mrs. Adams, and she shared some knitting tips.” He smiled, not caring if he did sound too sweet to be a retired SEAL.

      Ana turned to look at him. “Her blackberry pie was excellent.”

      He nodded. “It sure was.”

      “How did you get clothes for me, and a great recipe and knitting tips out of her?” Ana asked, and he shrugged.

      “Dante’s a chatterer,” Ash chimed in. “He can talk the ears off a rabbit.”

      “I told you,” he said, ignoring his sister. “She liked me. I think she really wants me to come back and check out her daughter.”

      The smile slipped off Ana’s face. “I thought you were just bragging.”

      “No.” He shook his head. “She’s a really nice lady, too. I like older ladies. She reminded me of Aunt Fiona. You can learn a lot from sitting around listening to folks who have more than six decades on them.”

      “You certainly seemed to learn a lot about her daughter,” Ana said.

      “Not too much. She’s twenty-seven, can cook like a dream, has a goddess body, and Mrs. Adams swears she’s not exaggerating, and won a pageant of some kind. I can’t remember which one,” he said, thinking hard. Pageants weren’t something he’d had a whole lot of familiarity with. Ash wasn’t the type who’d ever enter a pageant. She probably wouldn’t score very well—too ornery.

      “Mrs. Adams was fishing for you to ask out her daughter while you were with me?” Ana demanded.

      He shrugged. “I told her you were my sister.”

      Ashlyn laughed out loud.

      Ana frowned. “I thought she said that you were to come back and meet her daughter if I ever kicked you to the curb.”

      “She didn’t really say that. I was just trying to get your goat.”

      “You’re getting my goat now,” Ana said, and he could hear Ashlyn snickering.

      There. That was better. The spotlight was off him. He liked it better when his little doll was worried about him going off with a pageant winner with a mother who made melt-in-your-mouth blackberry pie. “It probably is time to hunt up Uncle Wolf and explain to him that we don’t want to hear a peep out of him over the holidays,” he told Ashlyn. “Or we’ll bury him in a canyon with only a cactus to mark the spot.”

      “I thought you were a pacifist,” Ana said, and Ashlyn shook her head.

      “Be careful, Ana,” Ashlyn told her, “my brother is a spirit that moves on emotion.”

      “That’s right,” Dante said. “How far are we from Hell’s Colony, Ash?”

      “About thirty minutes. Why?”

      “Because we’re being followed. Don’t turn around. Don’t speed up.”

      “How do you know?” Ana asked.

      “I can see the truck we were tossed in. Look in your side mirror, Ana.”

      “He’s right, isn’t he?” Ashlyn said. “He’s always right. It’s like he has a freaky sixth and seventh sense combined.”

      “He is right,” Ana confirmed. “I hadn’t noticed.” She sounded depressed about her lax bodyguard skills.

      “What’s the plan, brother?” Ash asked.

      “You’re going to bypass the road to Hell’s Colony. We’ll head toward Rancho Diablo instead. How much gas do we have?”

      “Half a tank.”

      “Should be good enough to get us to the border.” He reached up to rub Ana’s shoulders. “Didn’t I say I’d take care of you?”

      “Yes,” Ana said, “but I should have seen it first.”

      He grinned. “You girls were too busy chatting to be looking out for such things as rogues and rascals.”

      “Here it comes,” Ash said, “the crowing of the man who wants applause.”

      Dante leaned back, completely satisfied that he was the hero once again, and not the hen. Well, sometimes the hen, but mostly the hero. “They’re following us,” he said, “because I left them a note with Mrs. Adams. I had a feeling they’d show up there.”

      “What are you talking about?” Ana demanded, turning to stare at him, outrage lighting up those fascinating peepers he loved to admire. “Why would you do that?”

      “I like to keep my enemy close,” Dante said. “Makes every day a bit more exciting.”

      Ana looked at Ash. “Has he always been insane?”

      “Yes,” Ash said, “certifiably.