To Wear His Ring: Circle of Gold / Trophy Wives / Dakota Bride. Wendy Warren

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      A tiny laugh burst from her swollen lips, although the kiss had rattled her.

      “That’s better,” he said. His eyes narrowed. “How do you feel about my brother?”

      Her mind refused to function. “How do I what?”

      “Feel about John,” he persisted coolly. “When I asked you why you wanted this job, you said it was because John was a dish. I know you had a crush on him. How do you feel now?”

      She was at a loss to know what to say. “I like…him,” she blurted out. “He’s been kind to me.”

      “Kinder than I have, for damned sure,” he agreed at once. “And he believed you were innocent when I didn’t.”

      She frowned. “You explained why.”

      His hands tightened on her arms and his lips flattened. “He’s younger than I am, single and rich and easygoing,” he said harshly. “Maybe he’d be the best thing that ever happened to you.”

      Her eyes widened. “Thank you. I’ve always wanted a big, strong man to plan my future for me.”

      He let her go abruptly, angry. “You said it yourself. I’m a generation older than you with a ready-made family.”

      She couldn’t make heads or tails of what he was saying. Her mind was spinning as she looked up at him.

      “Maybe you’re what he needs, too,” he added coldly. “Someone young and optimistic and intelligent.”

      “Are you going to buy the ring, too?”

      He turned away. “That wasn’t funny.”

      “I don’t want to marry your brother. Thanks, anyway.”

      He kept walking.

      She ran after him. “That man Sims has got a gun,” she called. “Don’t you dare go out there and get shot!”

      He paused on the top step and looked back at her as if he had doubts about her sanity. “John’s going out with me as soon as he finishes his phone calls.”

      “Great!” she exclaimed angrily. “I can worry about both of you all night!”

      “Worry about my daughters,” he told her bluntly. “That’s your only responsibility here. You work for me, remember?”

      “I remember,” she replied irritably. “Do you?”

      “Stay in the house with the girls until I tell you otherwise. I don’t want any of you on the porch or in the yard until we settle this, one way or another.”

      He did think there was danger. She heard it in every word. “I won’t let anything happen to Bess and Jenny. I promise.”

      He glared at her. “Can you shoot?”

      She shook her head. “But I know how to dial 911.”

      “Okay. Keep one of the wireless phones handy, just in case.”

      She moved toward him another step, wrapping her arms tight around her body. “Have you got a cell phone?”

      He indicated the case on his belt. That was when she noticed an old Colt .45 strapped to his other hip, under the denim shirt he was wearing open over his black T-shirt.

      Her breath caught. Until that minute, when she saw the gun, it was a possibility. But guns were violent, chaotic, frightening. She bit her lower lip worriedly.

      “I’ll be late. Make sure you lock the doors before you go upstairs. John and I have keys.”

      “I will,” she promised. “You be careful.”

      He ignored the quiet command. He took one long, last look at her and went on down the steps to his pickup truck, which was parked nearby.

      She stood at the top of the steps until he drove away, staring after him worriedly. She wanted to call him back, to beg him to stay inside where he’d be safe from any retribution by that man Sims. But she couldn’t. He wasn’t the sort of man to run from trouble. It wouldn’t do any good to nag him. He was going to do what he needed to do, whether or not it pleased her.

      She got the girls ready for bed and tucked them in. She read them a Dr. Seuss book they hadn’t heard yet. When they grew drowsy, she pulled the covers over them and tiptoed to the door, pausing to flick off the light switch as she went out into the hall.

      She left the door cracked and went on down the hall to her own room. She got ready for bed and curled up on her pillows with a worn copy of Tacitus’ The Histories. “I wonder if you ever imagined that people in the future would still be reading words you wrote almost two thousand years ago,” she murmured as she thumbed through the well-read work. “And nothing really changes, does it, except the clothes and the everyday things. People are the same.”

      Her heart wasn’t in the book. She laid it aside and turned off the lights, thinking how it would have been two thousand years ago to watch her husband put on his armor and march off to a war in some foreign country behind one of the Roman generals. That made her think of Gil and she gnawed her lip as she lay in the darkness, waiting for some sound that would tell her he was still all right.

      It was two o’clock in the morning before she heard a pickup truck pull up at the bottom of the steps out front. She threw off the covers and ran to the window, peering out through the lacy curtain just in time to see Gil and John climb wearily out of the truck. John had a rifle with the breech open under one arm. He led the way into the house, with Gil following behind.

      At least, thank God, they were both still alive, she thought. She went back to bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. Relieved, she slept.

      She’d forgotten John’s invitation to the movies, but he hadn’t. And he looked odd, as if he was pondering something wicked, when he waited for her to come down the stairs with the girls.

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