I’d wanted to rip his heavily tattooed arms off and beat him within an inch of his life with them when he pulled open the door looking understandably irritated at my early morning visit. He’d seemed far too comfortable in Dixie’s home and there was no stopping the flood of jealously and the flickering flames of rage that raced through my blood when he looked at me like I was the interloper. I’d held myself back because I didn’t want to hurt her and I didn’t want to hurt myself, but seeing someone else in the place that I knew was rightfully mine made all my good intentions burn like acid deep inside my gut. Whenever I tried to do the right thing it somehow managed to go horribly wrong.

Dixie had good timing. She’d put the fires of jealousy out and started a different kind of burn under my skin by doing nothing more than standing there looking rumpled and endlessly cute. Her hair was always kind of wild and unkempt, but straight from bed it looked like it had taken on a life of its own and was looking towards world domination. Her soft brown eyes were even darker than normal when filled with leftover sleepiness and her dusting of freckles stood out even more since she wasn’t wearing any makeup. If she looked that rumpled and messy after a night alone in bed I couldn’t keep my mind off of wondering what she would look like after hours of hungry hands and an eager mouth having their fill of her soft skin and sweet smile. It was a struggle to keep my eyes off the bare expanse of leg peeking out from the bottom of her ridiculous T-shirt because I could tell the other guy had his eyes on me and he didn’t like the way my eyes were on her at all. He was protective … and he should be. None of the thoughts I had while trying not to blatantly check her out would make him very happy.

The relief that she wasn’t hooking up with a guy who wasn’t me was short-lived as I scrambled to get everything needed for the two of us to hit the road together. I wasn’t sure what the weather was going to be like, so that meant I needed to stock up on a little bit of everything to make the long ride down south. It was almost twenty hours, most of it through the plains of Kansas and tips of Missouri and Arkansas. That meant the conditions were going to be varied across the board weather-wise and it was up to me to make sure my passenger had everything she needed to make the ride as comfortable as possible. Now that she’d agreed to ride with me I wanted to make sure there was no reason for her to back out. I’d never been on the Harley for that long of a ride either, but I figured after years of riding around in tanks and other armored vehicles and flying in and out of hot spots in cargo planes that my ass was well beyond up for the job.

Rome actually gave me a helmet he had sitting in his office that was small enough to fit Dixie. He told me it was his soon-to-be wife’s, but she hardly ever used it now that they had two kids under the age of five. The free hours they had to ride together were few and far between and with winter on the horizon he was looking at parking his bike for the next several months anyway. I took the helmet gladly but the conversation that had come before it about why I needed to borrow the headgear in the first place had come begrudgingly.

Rome knew a little about my history. It was impossible to keep from him considering he was my CO for most of my military days. When news came from home, good or bad, it was always filtered through him first. As expected he listened to me lay out my laundry list of sins without saying a word and when I was done all he did was nod, tell me I would be missed around the bar, let me know I would always have a place in Denver and a sympathetic ear if I needed to talk, and agreed with me that it was well past time I got my ass back to Mississippi. Just like I knew he would, he told me that family was everything and if I was the kind of man he knew me to be I would go do right by mine.

It wasn’t until I told him that I was asking Dixie to go with me that his demeanor changed. His dark brows snapped down, the scar that bisected his eyebrow pulled tight, and made him look like a man very capable of making me regret any bad decision I may make where the bubbly redhead was concerned. I’d been to war with Rome Archer, so I knew exactly what he was capable of and I knew things wouldn’t end well for me if I misstepped with someone he considered part of his family.

“You send that girl back here with a broken heart and we’re going to have issues, Church.” Those issues would very likely end up with me in the hospital waiting on broken bones to heal.

“I don’t plan on hearts being involved in any way, shape, or form, boss man. I need a favor and she’s the only one that can do it for me. We’re friends.” We weren’t really but be were something close to that and I knew there was no way Dixie’s affable and eager-to-please personality would let her tell me no. I needed her and she had this way about her that made it known if you were someone she cared about, someone that mattered to her, there was no way she could abide letting you down. She was also a chronic fixer and had an openly bleeding heart, so I was also aware of the fact that when I explained there was a rift that needed mending back home her desire to meddle and tinker with the lives of those she loved would automatically kick in. It worked for me, though I had serious doubts that any of this would work for her.

Rome shook his head at me and a knowing grin played around his mouth. I hated it when he looked at me like he knew something that was bound to knock me on my ass when I figured out whatever it was for myself.

“It’s cute that you think you can actually have a battle plan with it comes to your heart, soldier. You go ahead and let me know how well that works out for you.” He pointed a finger at me and lowered his voice. “You take care of my girl like she’s one of your men out there in the firefight. You watch her six and I guarantee that she’ll watch yours. You mark my word that this is going to be the biggest battle you’ve ever fought and you’ll never have been so happy to lose when you finally surrender.”