Colton Cowboy Protector. Beth Cornelison

up?”

      The truth was Jack typically had Seth up before dawn to help with ranching chores, but he had a perverse notion to let his son sleep in tomorrow. “Pretty early, usually.”

      “Tell you what,” Brett said, then took a bite of biscuit and continued with his mouth full, “I’ll pick you up on my way to the pens and help you get Pooh saddled up.”

      “Thanks, Uncle Brett!”

      Jack shot his younger brother a frown that said Die! Brett answered with an innocent and bemused look. Clearly, Jack was alone in his mission to keep his ex-wife’s scheming family away from Seth.

      Fine. If his family was going to pave the way for Tracy to spend time with Seth, then he’d make himself available to monitor her interactions with his son. He wasn’t about to let a pretty face and sweet smile fool him. His son was his first priority, and he’d protect his boy from anyone who tried to threaten his happiness or the life Jack had with Seth.

      After dinner ended and the family moved to the family room to enjoy a glass of wine or a cold beer, Jack pulled Tracy aside for a private word. Even in the shadows of the small alcove where they stood, her pale blue eyes held a bright gleam of innocence that contradicted the motives he suspected were behind her visit to the ranch. Jack found that incongruity almost as annoying as his body’s reaction to her bright, penetrating gaze.

      He allowed his hand to linger on her soft skin, telling himself his grasp on her arm was to keep her as his captive audience until he’d said his piece. But a small voice in his head argued that he enjoyed touching her, standing close to her and seeing her eyes widen with anticipation when he hovered over her a bit too much.

      “Is something the matter?” she asked.

      “We just need to establish some boundaries, get some facts straight if you want to spend any time around my son.” He drilled her with a hard look, hoping to assert an air of authority, but holding her gaze sent a shaft of desire to his belly. Damn but she was delicate and beautiful. Captivating in a way that spoke to everything male in him.

      “What sort of boundaries?”

      “For starters...” He clenched his back teeth, desperately shoving the distracting thoughts down so he could deal with the threat she posed. Like the Trojan horse, she might seem desirable on the outside, but what lurked inside held the real danger. “You’re not to spend any time alone with Seth. I have to supervise any activity you do with him.”

      She rolled her eyes, expressing her opinion of his dictate.

      “I’m serious. If I get word of you going behind my back and seeing Seth on the sly, I’ll personally escort you off this ranch and have a restraining order filed within the day.”

      Her brow puckered indignantly. “A restraining order? Don’t you think that’s a bit excessive? I’ve told you I have no intention of harming Seth in any way.”

      “And I’ve said the truth of that remains to be seen. There are more than a few ways you could hurt him.”

      She huffed in exasperation and tried to leave. Jack blocked her, hating the tingle that shot through him when his chest and hips collided with hers. She took a step back and trembled visibly, her gaze now downcast. “Do you mind? I’d like to pass.”

      “We’re not done.”

      Her shoulders drooped, and she seemed to struggle for the fortitude to meet his eyes again.

      “I told Seth his mother died shortly after he was born.”

      Her shoulders snapped back and fire leaped to her eyes. “So you said earlier today. But that’s—”

      “That’s the story you need to stick to. Telling him anything else will only hurt him. It will lead to questions about where she’s been, why she left, why—”

      “Why you lied to him?” Tracy interjected, her expression self-righteous.

      Jack stiffened, his hands fisting at his sides. “I was trying to protect him. I thought it would be easier on him to think his mother died than to know she’d abandoned him. That she willfully walked away from her husband and child and didn’t look back.”

      “What are you talking about? Laura tried to have a relationship with her son!” Tracy pressed her mouth into a taut line of disgust. “She tried to reach out to him, but you prevented her attempts to come back for visits. You wouldn’t let him come see her, either.”

      “She made her choice. When she left, she was dead to us.”

      “Dead to you, maybe, but you had no right to keep Seth from her!”

      Anger pulsed through Jack’s blood and pounded at his temples. “I had every right! I’m his father!”

      “And she was his mother!”

      “Not after she threw him away. She signed full custody over to me when she left, in exchange for a tidy settlement. Maybe you can’t buy love, but she certainly got paid well when she abandoned Seth.”

      Tracy looked away, her expression wounded.

      “She didn’t tell you that, did she? How she accepted a payout in exchange for her promise not to interfere with Seth or try to make any claim to him later in his life. She sold her right to my son, his inheritance and this ranch.” He paused, then nudged Tracy’s collarbone with his index finger. “And by extension, any right you or the rest of your family might have.”

      “I’m not after money. I just want to have a relationship with Seth. Why can’t you believe that?”

      The quiver of emotion in her voice chipped at the wall he’d erected. He could almost believe she meant what she said. Except...

      “I make a habit of not believing known liars.”

      She stiffened in umbrage and grated, “I’m not a liar.”

      “Oh? What really happened to your husband? Is he even dead? Because you did, in fact, lie earlier. Either at dinner or in the stable.” She blanched, and Jack gave her a smug grin. “Yeah. I caught it. You told me this afternoon your husband was killed in prison, stabbed by another inmate.”

      Tracy’s doll-like features crumpled, and she looked as if she might be ill. “He was. But I couldn’t very well say that at dinner with Seth listening.”

      Jack folded his arms over his chest. “I see. So you plan to base this relationship you want with my son on lies? Can you see why I don’t trust you?”

      Her shoulders drew back defiantly, causing her small breasts to jut toward him. “I was trying to protect him from the ugliness of the truth! He’s too young to hear about such things as prison murders and shanks made from a sharpened toothbrush.”

      “And when he first asked about his mother, he was too young to know about a mother who could walk away from her family for purely selfish reasons.”

      Tracy opened her mouth, clearly planning to defend her cousin.

      “Don’t even start,” Jack said, stopping her by pressing a finger to her lips.

      Tracy jolted as if his touch had caused a static shock, drawing a sharp breath and flinching.

      Too late, he realized the mistake of his move. He, too, felt a crackle of something electric that briefly sidetracked his thoughts and caused a tremble deep in his marrow.

      Their gazes clashed for a moment, and he withdrew his hand, rubbing his thumb over the spot in his finger that still tingled.

      From the next room he heard Seth’s youthful laugh as Brett roughhoused with his nephew, and Jack recalled the point he’d been making. “I was there, not you. I was the one she divorced, the one she argued her case to, the one left cleaning up in her wake. I was the one who paid her settlement and stayed up nights with a colicky baby after she walked out. I have every right to determine what my son knows about Laura and