Simply Love(16)

“That’s absurd.”

Milo lifted a shoulder. “Maybe so, but that’s the way it is. If I see you around my daughter, Mr. Taggart, you’d best be packin’ flowers in one hand and a passel of respect in the other. You understand me? It’s a wedding ring or nothin’ with that girl.”

That said, Milo Zerek ambled away into the darkness. Long after he disappeared, Luke could hear the muted clank and clatter of his light and lunch pail.

For a long while, he stood in the moon-swathed shadows, his gaze fixed on nothing. Courtship? He’d never danced attendance on a woman in his life, and he had no intention of starting now. As for Cassandra Zerek’s becoming a nun? That would happen over Luke’s dead body. He wanted that girl. Wanted her in a way he couldn’t define—a deep, insatiable yearning that made him feel almost desperate. Christ. He was so upset his hands were shaking.

Taking a deep breath, Luke chalked off his discussion with Milo as a bad move. But there was always more than one way to skin a cat. A man only had to find it. He would have Cassandra Zerek in his bed. It was a given.

What Luke Taggart wanted, Luke Taggart got.