Chapter 16

16

His hand stung, but he’d get over it. Chad listened to the other men ribbing him for the careless accident with good humor. He truly hadn’t been paying attention. And that was his own fault.

“You were thinking about a woman, weren’t you?” Guthrie slapped him on the shoulder and snickered after bandaging the injury. “So, who is she?”

“None of your business.” That was exactly what he had been doing, but he wasn’t about to tell the men with him exactly who he had been thinking about. It had gotten late, the sun was going down, and he had gotten careless thinking about Genny Hiller. Again.

Hiller brothers could get a bit ornery when a guy expressed interest in one of their younger sisters. He’d seen them kick a man’s ass before. Granted, that had been when a man had cornered Giavonna after a date she’d decided to leave early.

One call to George from Chad had brought all five brothers running. Chad had gone along to be the voice of reason.

Giavonna had been all of twenty at the time. She’d called Chantal to come and pick her up—from inside a local bar. Where she had walked for help.

A bar had been the safer option than her date.

Chad had been there and had overheard what was going on—and there was no way he was letting his nineteen-year-old sister ride to the rescue.

He’d called George, who lived in town and had been closest, and ordered George to get to Giavonna’s side. It hadn’t taken much of an order; George had been halfway there before they’d even disconnected.

Then Chad and the Hiller brothers had gone to take care of the problem themselves.

They’d found the guy trying to break into the little apartment Giavonna had rented in Barrattville. So he could wait for her to find her way home. Her brothers had taken care of the situation long before the police could. Chad had heard later the man had moved to Houston shortly after.

Ran, tail between his legs, back to mommy and daddy, was more like it.

No one messed with the Hiller girls, after all. Chad would have to keep that in mind.

“I was just a little distracted.”

“No kidding,” a dry female voice said from behind him. Chad turned. There his little sister was.

The bastards who had abducted her were in jail now, awaiting bond. Chantal and their parents had been allowed to come back home two days ago. “Hey, I thought you had gone to bed early?”

It was only nine-fifteen, and she’d disappeared a few hours ago.

She shot a look toward him and the men surrounding him. “Hardly. I’m going out. I’ve been cooped up for days.”

She had a bag slung over her shoulder, and her shoes were on. Chantal spent ninety-nine percent of her time in the house barefoot. “Where are you going?”

He didn’t like the idea of her out there this late. He knew he was being too overprotective, but he had almost lost his baby sister. He didn’t take that lightly. Hiding her away in his castle and building a moat around it was high on his list of priorities. Just… right after he nabbed his own queen first.

Chantal could keep Genny company in the tower. That would work out just fine in Chad’s opinion.

Somehow he suspected neither Chantal nor Genny would agree.

She looked at the Hillers. “I’m hoping to grab a ride with you guys back to your ranch. Genny has put out a red alert. She needs girl reinforcements tonight after an evening gone horribly wrong. I’m spending the night there.”

Gene straightened at that. “You are?”

Chantal shot him a pointed look and nodded. “With Genny and my friends.”

“You can ride with me,” Chad said. “I was going to drop Guthrie off on my way. The other three came in Gene’s truck.”

“That works for me. Let’s go. Genny says she needs me.” A look of concern crossed Chantal’s face. “She sounded upset.”

That was all it took for Chad. He would drop his sister off, go inside for a few minutes, and see exactly what was happening with the woman he wanted. She’d been avoiding him for two days.

It was driving him insane. The woman was doing it on purpose.

How could a man hunt the woman he wanted if his prey kept outsmarting him?