A smirk that lifted one corner of his mouth crossed his face. It made my breath catch and my knees go weak. The man shouldn’t be allowed to look that good when his personality was so unpleasant. It wasn’t fair. He rubbed me the wrong way, but against my will I kind of enjoyed the fact he was rubbing me at all. I liked the friction and the way it made my blood warm.

“Just making sure nothing happens to the pretty girls from the city. That would be bad for business.” He lifted a dark eyebrow at me and the smirk turned into a full-fledged grin. “It’s always the ones who think they can take care of themselves that end up needing the most help along the way. Come inside and get settled. I’ll head down and grab your friend so she doesn’t have to walk up here by herself in the dark.”

I was reeling from the fact that he had called me pretty more than once. I would typically discount it as nonsense. I was his client and our rocky interactions thus far probably made him nervous that I was going to tear him and his business apart on TripAdvisor and any other travel site that brought him customers. However, he didn’t strike me as the type to waste words and Lane had already told me the Warner boys only said things they meant because words had weight when everyone could hear what you were saying. The compliment did something to my insides that I was too nervous to examine. I didn’t have room for butterflies. All that space was supposed to be filled up with rock solid resolve so that I never ended up in a situation like I’d been in with Chris again. Regardless, I felt a flutter and it made me panic so I did what I always did when I was challenged and tested . . . I tried to run.

I took another step up onto the porch and opened my mouth to tell him I was starving but the sound ended on a gasp as I was almost knocked backwards as Sutton came flying around his brother at breakneck speed. He grunted as we both wobbled unsteadily, and he wrapped his hard hands around my upper arms to keep me upright. Like I was a piece of furniture he had accidently tripped over, he forcibly moved me to the side and looked over his shoulder at his older brother who was now glowering at him in obvious warning.

Sutton swore under his breath and looked away from his brother. “Daye just called me. I have to go pick her up.”

My attention snapped between the two of them as Cy angrily bit out, “You can’t keep running every time Alexa drops the ball, Sutton. You have responsibilities here.”

I flinched for Sutton—and yelped a little because the hands he still had wrapped around my arms tightened enough that he was hurting me.

“I have responsibilities there, too, Cy. One that isn’t going to go away for at least another thirteen years. Daye is my goddamn daughter and it isn’t her fault her mother is a fucking lunatic. She needs me and I’m going. It won’t kill you to get off your ass and do some work that isn’t stapled together.” The hard hands released me, and suddenly he was behind me, which put me, once again, face to face with a decidedly furious Cyrus Warner. His gaze skipped over me, making sure I stayed on my feet, and then it went over my head to where I could clearly hear his brother stomping down the steps behind me.

“I told you not to let any woman lead you around by your dick. One would think you and Lane would have learned from my mistakes.” I gulped audibly, even though he wasn’t talking to me, it felt like a warning. One that was directed right at me.

Sutton took his hat off and smacked it against his leg while he shoved his other hand through his hair. It was a pretty bronze color and not at all as dark as the man looming in front of me. “I’m not living your life, Cy, and I’m not living Dad’s. I’ll make my own mistakes, and so will Lane. We aren’t all cut from the same cloth, no matter how badly you want us to be. Now I’ve got to go get my kid. She’s scared and crying because her mom is a worthless drunk who passed out in front of her for the second time this week. She’s hungry, alone, and she needs her dad. You can head out with Lane in the morning. When I have Daye back here and settled in with Brynn, I’ll ride out and relieve you. It’s only a couple of days.”

There was a tense stare-down that happened over the top of my head. It lasted until I saw Cy’s broad chest move with a deep sigh. He didn’t sound any happier when he relented. “Fine. If you need help, call me.”

There was a grunt from the younger man and then Sutton was gone, leaving me on the receiving end of that formidable glower.

“Sorry about that. That’s a conversation we should have saved for another time. Sutton can be a hothead and forgets family business doesn’t have any place in our actual business. Are you okay? He bumped into you pretty hard when he went flying out of here.”

I wasn’t expecting that kind of concern from him, so it threw me for a minute and I absently lifted my hand to one of my biceps that was without a doubt going to have a bruise on it in the morning. I was fair skinned, so it didn’t take much to leave a mark. “It’s fine. He was obviously upset.” I was trying to play nice just like I told Em I would, but my response seemed to make the imposing man before me even angrier.

He swore under his breath and pushed off the door so that he was standing directly in front of me. “He’s bleeding from self-inflicted wounds. He put a baby in the wrong girl and he’s been paying for that mistake for five years. That doesn’t give him the right to be careless with our guests. You could have been really injured if he hadn’t had quick enough reflexes to keep you from falling.”

I flinched at the total lack of sympathy in his tone and cocked my head to the side as I considered him. “So your niece is only five and she’s alone with her mother, who is passed out, which means she is probably terrified and undoubtedly upset.”