Love Inspired February 2016, Box Set 1 of 2 by Deb Kastner

Author:Deb Kastner
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781459295957
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2016-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

Gunner was steamed. Brooke Calder had pulled the wool over his eyes, and he’d let her. He, of all people, should know not to let a pretty face hijack his good sense, and that made him as angry at himself as he was at Brooke. Still, this wasn’t the place to make a scene.

He mentally counted to ten, eyeing her while pushing a breath out of his lungs and unclenching his fist. “Yes.”

“Is there someplace a little quieter we can talk?”

“If I remember right,” Gran offered, “there’s a little parlor down the hall. It’s a half hour before we sit down for dinner. You two can go talk in there.”

Gunner looked at his grandmother. “You’re not coming?”

Gran planted her cane resolutely on the plush carpeting. “I don’t need convincing.” With that, she walked away toward a nearby knot of people as if nothing at all had dampened her evening.

Well, his evening was sopping wet. A washout if ever there was one. He stuffed his hands back into his pockets, torn between wanting to walk right out of the place and wanting to know just how Brooke Calder was going to explain herself.

“Well?” she said, nodding in the direction Gran had pointed.

“Ten minutes. That’s all.”

Brooke didn’t flinch at his ultimatum. “Ten it is.” She began walking toward the parlor. Gunner followed, barking orders to himself to keep his eyes off the way her dress glimmered in the hallway lamplight. He didn’t know what that shimmery fabric was, but it ought to be illegal. That woman was a whopping load of frustration and fascination that just wouldn’t go away.

He pulled open the parlor door for her, pleased to find a small, private sitting room just as Gran remembered. As the latch clicked behind them, Gunner cursed how his pulse registered the privacy, hiking up a rebellious notch at the prospect of being alone with this beautiful, infuriating woman.

She turned to him, determination lighting up her eyes. At this moment, angry as she was, her calm control showed her to be stronger than he’d ever given her credit for. It was the first time he considered the possibility that she was not the pawn of Jace Markham he’d thought her to be.

“You’re right,” she began, a new command in her voice. “DelTex is very supportive of me getting to know you and Adele. I have been asked to do anything I think might help open up a conversation. But that does not include weaseling—” her eyes glinted as she used his choice of verbs “—my way into you good graces.

“My job is to understand both sides so communication can happen. You want to keep the creek. DelTex needs to use that creek. Both sides are right.”

Gunner leaned against a credenza, crossing his arms over his chest. He’d vowed to give her a full five minutes of silence before he responded to whatever she had to say—enough rope to hang herself, Dad would have said—so he merely nodded.

“But you have my

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