Chapter 4

4

Gene had been pulled away to a small conference room in the hospital to be questioned by Major Crimes.

Chantal was going to be fine. She’d missed too many meals and was dehydrated, and her insulin levels had dropped dangerously low, but Gene had gotten her to help in time. Chad had never been more grateful for anything in his life than he was now. Gene had had the tar beaten out of him, but he had somehow managed to get them to the highway near the W-Deane Ranch.

Travis Worthington-Deane and his wife had seen Gene walking along that highway, carrying a semi-conscious Chantal in his arms. Travis’s wife was a doctor. She’d helped Chantal. Chad would owe the Deanes for life for what they’d done for his sister out there.

If Chad ever got his hands on those assholes who hurt his baby sister—and there had been two men, brothers, from what Gene had been able to piece together—he was going to kill them himself.

Hippocratic oath or not.

Had Gene not been with her, Chantal wouldn’t have been able to make it to the highway alone. Everyone was well aware of that.

Chad finally got his chance to go in with his sister after Dr. Fisher stepped out of Chantal’s room.

He slipped into the hospital room. Only to stop short when he saw the woman curled up in the big recliner next to the hospital bed. Sound asleep and looking like a kid, tear streaks on her delicate face. There was one Genesis Hiller. Like she wasn’t about to go anywhere.

But… she wasn’t a kid now. Having her pressed against him hours ago had made that extremely clear. Seeing how she’d handled taking care of everyone had shown him the woman she actually was now.

Now that the fear and worry were over, he could think about other things.

Intriguing things. Things he hadn’t realized before. Things he could use to distract himself from the fear he’d felt over the long hours while they waited, useless to help.

Genesis was the perfect place to start.

Genesis was a full-grown woman now. He’d always thought of her as being just a girl. Young. Innocent. Like Chantal. Needing her five older brothers to swoop in and rescue her from the darkness of life like they had when Genesis had been a kid.

Even more than the others, Genesis was the sensitive one. The one who had needed protecting.

The one they all wanted to protect. Even him. When she wasn’t breathing fire at him, anyway.

He did the math quickly. Her sister Giavonna was older. She was six months or so older than Chantal. Then two years later came this one. Genesis had to be twenty-seven or twenty-eight now. Close to thirty. All grown up and tempting.

She really had grown up when he hadn’t been paying attention.

Just like his sister had.

He turned to his sister while that thought sank in. His sister looked defenseless in the hospital bed. But beautiful. She had one of the sweetest souls of anyone he had ever known.

Someone had deliberately hurt Chantal. He would never forgive that. Or understand it.

They’d considered doing a sexual assault kit until Gene had told him it was unnecessary. Gene had been watching her the entire time, thankfully. Waiting for the right moment to rescue her, as safely for both of them as possible.

No one had touched her, hurt her, that way. Gene had sworn to it.

They’d just left her to die instead.

Genesis shifted in the recliner, the blanket falling to the floor. Chad picked it up, tucked it around his closest friend’s baby sister carefully. He tilted her head to one side slightly, to be more comfortable. He slipped the plastic-framed glasses off her face and placed them on the nearby table.

He let his hand linger on the ponytail.

Genesis had the softest hair he had ever touched. Easily as soft as those angora rabbits Chantal loved so much.

This was a woman a man would love to touch. Wouldn’t be able to get enough of her, either. A man could just ouch her for a lifetime and never tire of it. Of her.

Hell.

He had never realized that before.