I t took Jay a while to find her. The crowd was starting to thicken. Push against him. Some people just wanted to stare. Gossip and whisper. Damned inbred fools. They'd made his life miserable from the time he been a teenager. They probably wouldn’t stop .

He finally found her. Wrapped up in some damned Masterson's arms. The same one who'd been with her at the diner that day .

Next to her. Touching her .

Rage boiled. Jay wanted to explode, to rip the damned community center to shreds. Destroy them all for even looking at her in her green blouse and modest denim skirt. His Pip didn’t need to flash her assets to be beautiful, did she ?

Joel Masterson had taken four years of his life from him, this Masterson was not taking his future from him. Pip was his. There wasn't anything he wouldn't do to get her .

Masterson’s hands were all over her. Pip was letting him do it. Why was she letting him? Just how involved were they ?

Had she slept with him ?

A man like Masterson wouldn't be content with just kissing and petting for long. Not with a woman like Pip. No, Masterson wanted to screw Pip; Jay had no doubt about that .

Most of the men who’d watched her tonight probably had that same thought. Damn them all .

Pip was his .

Jay just stood in the corner and watched her for the longest time. That damned Masterson finally left her side, headed toward the men's room. Jay fantasized for a quick moment about slipping into the restroom behind the man and shoving a blade into the man's ribs. Teaching him a lesson once and for all .

Pip was his — his .

No damned Masterson was going to take her away .

He thought about asking her to dance himself. Then thought about it again; he'd scared her so badly that first night they’d met. He didn't want to frighten her even more. Especially in front of the whole damned town .

His daddy had made that clear, after that night. Had told him that Pip Tyler was just a young innocent girl, and he should have known better than to try what he had so publicly. Should've stuck to the more experienced bitches out there. Women closer to Jay’s own age. His daddy had said that all he had done was make trouble for his father. And scare that girl. Badly .

His daddy had had to go out to their place and threaten the sisters to keep them quiet, to keep Jay out of jail on an attempted rape charge, of all things. Said that he'd scared them right good. That they wouldn't talk. For anything .

His father could be damned terrifying when he wanted to be. Jay had the scars on his back to prove it. He could only imagine what it had been like for Pip to face him that night .

She had been so young, so small. Damn it. His father shouldn’t have done that to her. And he doubted his father had stopped that night. His daddy would have enjoyed having the Tyler sisters frightened of him. Would have got off on that power .

What else had his daddy done to Pip that Jay did not know about ?

No, he was better off waiting, planning just exactly how to get to her. Still, it had hurt him to watch her dance with that damned movie director everyone was fawning over, then take off down the hall with Masterson on her heels .

It hurt him .

She should be wrapped up in his arms, not some other man’s .

He’d waited in literal hell for four years to have the woman who was meant to be his. He’d survived by imagining how sweet their life together was going to be, how she’d smile just at him when he’d come in from working the ranch. How she’d hold his sons close some day. He’d even half imagined a redheaded daughter or two, just because women liked daughters. Little girls that looked like their mother would be just fine with him .

Jay was going to give that woman everything she could possibly want. Make her see that she didn’t need that family of hers, that she would have him . And even his daddy and brother Clint. If his father hadn’t terrified her so badly she didn’t want anything to do with her future father- in -law .

Which was a possibility. Jay remembered his father’s particular brand of terrorism well, after all .

No. It would probably be best if he took Pip back to the ranch he’d inherited from his mother’s father ten years ago. It was all his and his father had nothing to do with it. It wasn’t successful yet, but Jay was willing to make it be. It was a bit run down at the moment, but that would give him something to do while he planned how to get his girl. He’d make it a home .

For her .

It would be her home; she could decorate it exactly how she wanted. And he’d even get her a puppy to love. Anything that woman wanted, he’d get it .

Somehow. For her .

He would have her soon, he would just have to be patient .

In the meantime, he needed to plan on how he was going to get her away from those sisters of hers. Forever .

That was what he was going to have to do—he’d just take her to his place and keep her away from both of their families. Build a new family for the both of them. Just the two of them and their four or five children, forever .