Rule Breaker(34)

            Dane chuckled. “Perhaps it’s time little brother learns he can’t always have what he wants. Because it seems other interested parties are just as determined that it not be tagged.”

            Rule wisely refrained from commenting.

            As the Dragoon pulled from the parking area, the comm link to the vehicle’s communications beeped in summons. Flicking the control on the steering wheel, Rule answered it with a brief “Go.”

            “Commander, I have the vehicle in sight,” Mongrel, one of Dog’s Coyotes, reported with icy efficiency. “She picked up a tail just after pulling onto the main road. It’s riding black on a parallel course and staying close.”

            Riding black. Moving with all lights extinguished to avoid detection and most likely using one of the side roads that ran along the highway to keep sight of her.

            “Can you identify?” Rule questioned.

            “Not without being seen.”

            Rule grimaced, wishing he’d driven one of the faster, more maneuverable desert vehicles rather than the Dragoon.

            “Keep the shadow in sight if possible, but remain eyes on target until I arrive.”

            If Gypsy had picked up a tail, then he sure as hell didn’t want to give whoever was following her a chance to get to her before he could. Just in case it wasn’t friendly.

            ...

            Pulling the Jeep into the parking spot beside the stairs, Gypsy breathed out wearily before slapping the steering wheel in frustration when she saw her sister’s truck wasn’t back yet.

            Damn Kandy.

            She’d promised she was on her way home when Gypsy had spoken to her on the phone. That was the reason she had left so quickly rather than waiting to see just how terrified she would become if Rule actually tried to kiss her.

            Not that she would have let him kiss her in the bar, she assured herself. She couldn’t do that. Her reputation of refusing any man she met in a bar was golden. All it would take was one moment of weakness to undo years of work.

            And Rule was quickly becoming her weakness.

            He and Dane were steadily becoming known as “regulars” in the unofficial nightlife that existed around the reservation’s Arizona–New Mexico border with the Navajo Nation. It wasn’t as though they were strangers now.

            If they weren’t at whatever bar she pulled into when she pulled in, then they arrived within minutes of her taking the first sip of her drink. They had a few drinks, watching the younger Breeds and enforcers that Rule obviously seemed to feel so responsible for, and then they would leave and check out the next rowdy gathering.

            And all the while, Rule watched her, those thick lashes slightly narrowed, those neon blue eyes gleaming with interest.

            And arousal.

            And God, he made her hot.

            When the rhythmic ring tone identifying Kandy’s number had vibrated in her pocket, it had terrified her. Because at that moment she had wanted nothing more than to—

            “Are the sweets inside as nice as they are outside?”

            A squeak of surprise and Gypsy was whirling around, almost reaching for the knife she kept tucked in the holster inside her boot.

            Just almost, because she recognized his voice, knew who he was even before she turned. It just took a minute for her body to catch up.

            “You prick, you just scared a year off my life!” Slamming both hands into the steel hard muscles of his chest as she let that first flush of adrenaline tear through her, she accomplished little else than bruising her palms. “What the hell are you doing here, Breaker? Trying to give me a freakin’ heart attack?”